I had an experience once which taught me something about the ways people made a bad situation worse by blaming themselves. One January, I officiated(主持) at two funerals for two elderly women. Both died a natural death. At the first home, the son of the deceased(已故) woman said, “If only I had sent my mother to Florida and gotten her out of this cold and snow, she would be alive today. It’s my fault that she died.” At the second home, the son said, “If only I had not insisted her going to Florida, she would be alive today. That long airplane ride was more than she could take. It is my fault.”
When things don’t turn out as we would like them to, we tend to assume that had we done things differently, the story would have had a happier ending. Any time there is a death, the survivors will feel guilty. Because the course of action they took turned out bad, they believe that the opposite course, for example, keeping mother at home, would have turned out better. After all, how could it have turned out any worse?
There seem to be elements involved in our readiness to feel guilty. The first lies in our belief that the world makes sense——there is a reason for everything that happens.
The second is the thought that we are the cause of what happens, especially the bad things that happen. The roots of this feeling may lie in our childhood. A baby comes to think that the world exists to meet his needs, and that he makes everything happen in it. He wakes up in the morning and calls the rest of the world to its tasks. He cries, and someone comes to attend to him. When he is hungry, people feed him, and when he is wet, people change him. Very often, we do not completely abandon that childish thought that our wishes cause things to happen.
小题1: What is true about the two deceased elderly women?
A．They died from accidents.
B．They both died of old age.
C．They died due to lack of care by family members.
D．They weren’t accustomed to the change in life.小题2: People feel guilty for the death of their loved ones because______.
A．they cannot find a better way to express their sorrow
B．they don’t know that natural course of events
C．they believe that it is their fault
D．they don’t know things often turn out in the opposite direction小题3:People have believed since early childhood that .
A． everybody is at their command
B． life and death is an unsolved mystery
C． every story should have a happy ending
D． their wishes are the cause of everything that happens小题4: What is the main idea of this passage?
A． Two sons blamed themselves for their mother's death.
B． Things don't always go well as we expect.
C． Two factors account for guilty sense.
D．Baby's wishes lead everything to happen.
小题1:B
小题2:C
小题3:D
小题4:C
本文介绍了人们经常把一些不好的事情发生的原因归结在自己身上，并分析这样的想法的两个原因：第一个是这个世界的每一件事情的发生都是有道理的；第二就是童年的经历让我们认为自己就是一切事情发生的根源。
小题1:B
【试题解析】推理题。根据第一段2,3行One January, I officiated(主持) at two funerals for two elderly women. Both died a natural death.可知这两位老人都是自然死亡的，也就是说她们都是年纪很大了以后自然去世的。故B正确。
小题2:C
【试题解析】细节题。根据第一段最后3行If only I had sent my mother to Florida and gotten her out of this cold and snow, she would be alive today. It’s my fault that she died.” 和“If only I had not insisted her going to Florida, she would be alive today. That long airplane ride was more than she could take. It is my fault.”可知这两位儿子都认为母亲的去世是因为自己的过失导致的。故C正确。
小题3:D
【试题解析】推理题。根据第4段1,2行The second is the thought that we are the cause of what happens, especially the bad things that happen. The roots of this feeling may lie in our childhood.
可知他们都认为自己是不好的事情发生的原因，而这样的想法的根源在我们的童年。我们童年的很多行为导致我们认为自己是事情发生的原因。在本段接下来进行了详细的解释。故D正确。
小题4:C
【试题解析】主旨大意题。本文介绍了人们经常把一些不好的事情发生的原因归结在自己身上，并分析这样的想法的两个原因：第一个是这个世界的每一件事情的发生都是有道理的；第二就是童年的经历让我们认为自己就是一切事情发生的根源。故C正确。
【长难句解析】
I had an experience once which taught me something about the ways people made a bad situation worse by blaming themselves.
【翻译】我曾经有过一次经历，这次经历告诉我一些人们责备自己让情况更糟糕的方式。
【分析】本句中有一个定语从句which taught me something about the ways people made a bad situation worse by blaming themselves. 关系代词which指代先行词在句中做主语。其中有一个特殊结构the ways people made a bad situation worse by blaming themselves，当前面的名词是the way，后面的句子结构又很完整的时候，可以使用“that/in which/不填”来连接。