My first visit to Angkor Wat(吴哥窟) was in 1980. The country had been at war for many years and the temple was deserted and falling to pieces. Plants were growing out of the roofs, and trees were growing in the courtyards.
Today, the temple is the scene of a busy repair program. A team of 15 Indian experts are organizing a workforce of 400 Cambodians, most of them women, who are cleaning, repairing and rebuilding parts of this temple.
As I walked through the courtyards, I noticed the Cambodian women devote hours to cleaning carefully a tiny area of stone. Boards are laid down to protect the precious painted stones while the repair work is going on. There are very few machines and little heavy equipment. Workers carry building materials in buckets at the end of long poles. Piles of stones lie in a corner of the courtyard, waiting to be replaced.
The work of cleaning the stones is watched over by three Indian chemists. It is a very slow task. First they clean the stones with brushes using buckets of a weak chemical. Then gaps between the stones are filled in. Finally another material is painted onto the stones which will protect them from water forever.
Work starts every day at 7 a. m. and goes on until late afternoon six days a week, with a break at midday.
Evening is the best time to visit the temple, after the tour groups have left. As the sun sinks lower, shadows spread across the courtyard. After sunset, the sky turns pink. The grey stone towers take on a golden color before turning pink. Nowhere else in the world can there be such a quiet, beautiful place.
小题1:This passage mainly tells ________.
A．the poor look of the temple Angkor Wat in 1980
B．the history of the temple Angkor Wat
C．the repair work being done to the temple Angkor Wat
D．the difficulty in the repair work小题2:According to the author, which of the following plays the LEAST important role in the repair work?
A．The women workers.
B．The Indian workers
C．Machines
D．Skilled workers小题3:The underlined sentence “the temple was deserted” possibly means that _______.
A．there was no one in the temple and it was in a poor state
B．the temple was built on desert and nobody noticed it
C．the temple was very old with a long history
D．the temple was repaired by the Cambodians, most of whom women小题4:To clean the stone, how many steps should be followed?
A．Two
B．Three
C．Four
D．Five小题5:Which work needs a lot of time to do?
A．To get rid of certain types of plants.
B．To carry the building materials.
C．To replace the stones.
D．To clean the stones.
