My husband and son took a New York-to-Milwaukee flight that was supposed to leave Friday at 11:29 am. The flight boarded after 4 pm and didn’t leave the gate until 4:40, and half an hour later the pilot announced it would be another hour until takeoff. At that point a Jewish family, worried about violating the Sabbath （安息日）, asked to get off. Going back to the gate cost the plane its place in line for takeoff, and the flight was eventually cancelled. Was the airline right to grant that request?
M. W, Norwalk, CONN.
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Situations like that can bring out the worst in people. But despite the increasing resentment（怨恨） of a plane full of people, the pilot tried to do the right thing. He went out of his way to satisfy one family’s urgent need. He should not have done so.
Passengers bought tickets in the belief that the airline’s primary goal was to get them to their destination as close to the schedule as possible. Once they got on the plane and the doors are locked, it’s not correct to announce that the rules have changed and that a personal (as opposed to medical) emergency —no matter how urgent — might take precedence（优先）.
That would be just as true if turning back to the gate had merely cost a few minutes rather than doomed the flight entirely, since on a plane, even a slight delay can spread outward, from the people in the cabin to those meeting them to the passengers waiting to board the plane for the next leg of its journey and so on. It would also be true if the personal emergency were not religious — if someone suddenly realized she’d made a professional mistake that might cost her millions, and she had to race back to the office to fix it.
If a religious practice does nothing to harm others, then airlines should make a reasonable effort to accommodate it. Though that family has every right to observe the Sabbath, it has no right to enlist an airplane full of captive bystanders to help them do so. By boarding a flight on a Friday afternoon, the family knowingly risked running into trouble. The risk was theirs alone to bear.
小题1:M. W. wrote the letter to ask whether ______.
A．Any religious passenger has the right to ask the pilot to take off
B．The airline has the right to cancel the flight without any reason
C．A flight should meet any passenger’s need despite others’ benefit
D．A plane which has left the gate should give up taking off小题2:What do we know from the reply letter?
A．The pilot did the right thing in spite of the fierce resentment.
B．The plane should turn back if anyone aboard is seriously ill.
C．Anybody who has boarded has no chance to get off the plane.
D．Any flight shouldn’t change its schedule no matter what has happened.小题3:What does the underlined part in Paragraph 4 mean?
A．Turning back to the gate usually takes a plane quite a long time.
B．Nobody should take precedence to require the plane to turn back to the gate.
C．Even if it had taken a few minutes it was not right to turn back to the gate.
D．It was OK if turning back to the gate hadn’t caused the flight to be cancelled.小题4:The author of the reply letter thinks that _________.
A．It’s right for the plane to turn back to the gate to save a passenger’s treasure
B．The Jewish family should give up observing the Sabbath after boarding
C．The biggest problem of turning back is to bring trouble to the pilot
D．The Jewish family had better avoid boarding on Friday afternoon
小题1:C
小题2:B
小题3:C
小题4:D
题目分析：本文两封信，在一封信中提出了一个问题，因为某一个家庭的私事，而耽误大家的航班，并且取消了航班这种做法正确吗？在第二封信中明确给出了答案，即使有人生病了飞机也不该返回，the Jewish family一家最好避免在周五下午出行。
小题1:细节理解题。根据But despite the increasing resentment（怨恨） of a plane full of people, the pilot tried to do the right thing. He went out of his way to satisfy one family’s urgent need. He should not have done so.不应只为满足私欲而不顾其他的人了，故选C。
小题2:细节理解题。根据That would be just as true if turning back to the gate had merely cost a few minutes rather than doomed the flight entirely,，如果有人生病了飞机应该返回，故选B。
小题3:细节理解题。根据即使只需几分钟的时间再返回门口那里也是不对的，故选C。
小题4:细节理解题。根据By boarding a flight on a Friday afternoon, the family knowingly risked running into trouble. The risk was theirs alone to bear.故选D。
点评：细节题为阅读考题的重头戏，所占比例很高，相对而言较简单，因为这类题虽然要求理解准确，但基本上限于字面意义的理解，范围也限于局部，因此是我们可望得高分的部分。细节题绝大部分体现“中心思想是解”这一原理。本文都是细节理解题，在文中比较容易找到答案。