拓展与应用：

　　When I was about 15, we had our first serious campout(野营). By “serious” I mean we actually brought food to cook-not food to open.

　　I was a pretty normal kid growing up-I loved to camp. My only problem was I watched too many Rambo movies(兰博影片), so a small gaggle of Rambonites and myself went out on the weekend to “rough it”. (Twinkies and Vienna sausages are bare essentials, I swear.) Actually we didn't usually set out to rough it; it's just that we always forgot most of our equipment, and no one wanted to go all the way back home just to retrieve(重新获得) the salad forks. We learned the hard way how to compensate(补偿) for essential items that were left in the closet. Most of the time our ideas wouldn't work, but every once in a while the stars would align just right and something actually succeeded. Here are some of those ideas that kept us young survivalists happy campers. We thought of everything; steaks, potatoes, spices, etc., enough for a couple of well-rounded meals. We forgot the pans.

　　  Clean water was the hardest part to accomplish. First we tried to filter the water using a sock filled with charcoal. Since we only brought one pair of socks each, the pair on our feet, the idea didn't go over too well. Our second ingenious idea was to carve a bowl in which we could put water to boil and somehow not catch on fire. After we broke two or three of our “survival” knives and our bowls still resembled a tree, we decided that our oak dining set wasn't going to happen. Finally someone recalled it's possible to boil water in a paper cup, and I realize now the guts it took to say that because I know I wouldn't want to be at the receiving end of the looks we gave him. We went though many pieces of paper and a myriad of designs (my buddy Bryon can make one fancy paper swan!) before we finally hit on one that worked. It turned out to look like a small casserole dish. We built it by taking the paper and folding it like we were gift-wrapping half a package. A small lip around the top of the “dish” kept the triangle flaps in place. The heat from the fire put condensation on the outside of the paper to keep it from burning.

　　 After that small victory we thought cooking the steaks would be a simple task. Our idea was to cook them like marshmallows. After sacrificing(牺牲) a couple of perfectly good steaks to the fire-gods (because the end of our sticks burned off), we realized the error of our ways. Luckily some parts of Missouri have clay for soil and we happened to be in one of those areas. So we took forked branches and made a twig latticework over the Y. All we did was pack the fork with clay, hold it over the fire for a hit, and we had ourselves custom Earthenware.

　　The potatoes were even easier after we discovered the power of clay. We packed clay around those 'taters and tossed them to the side of the fire ring. After about 30 to 45 minutes (depends on the size of the potato and the size of the fire), we cracked those puppies open and had ourselves a pretty good meat-and-potatoes meal…that we had to eat with our hands, of course.

　　Another camping mishap(灾祸) happened about two years later, and if you think we learned our lesson on being prepared, then you are sadly mistaken. On this incident we forgot an…umm, very important hygiene tissue(卫生纸). And, as much as we would have liked to be “roughing it,” we just happened to schedule our trip the same time as a big poison ivy convention. Once again notebook paper saved our behinds (no pun intended). We found that if we took a couple of pieces, folded them flat and put them between our flattened(平的) hands, we could rub(磨擦) our hands together and it broke down the stiffness of the notebook paper to an almost tissue-like substance. You just had to remember to plan ahead about 5 minutes.

　　On one small hunting excursion(远足) as a much older and wiser person, I went with my cousin to northern Missouri. We were so excited to go that we forget all fire-making equipment. (Unfortunately, unprepared ness is genetic.) So we were out in the middle of nowhere, in a cabin, in the middle of November. Our only savior is that we drove. The cigarette lighter was out of the question. My cousin had just bought a new GPS unit so we tossed that easy fire-builder. Our first thought, of course, was to use the gas from the truck. We both decided however, that we looked better with eyebrows, so we canned that idea. (plus, I think we were almost out of fuel). After a couple of minutes we came across an idea. We put jumper cables on the battery, then we quickly and lightly tapped the other ends together to produce sparks over a small pile of twigs and fuzz-sticks. It's important not to hold the two terminals together long because they will weld themselves together. And, if you don't get them apart, your battery will explode. I know this isn't the best way to treat your battery, but if you're in serious need of a fire, then you do what you must to stay warm. The damage to the battery from arcing is minimal and the battery will still work fine.

Questions:　　

1．According to the author what they should do to get clean water?　　

2．How do they cook potatoes during the camp?

　

　

　 I needed to buy a digital camera, one that was simply good at taking good snaps（快照）, maybe occasionally for magazines. Being the cautious type, I fancied a reliable brand. So I went on the net, spent 15 minutes reading product reviews on good websites, wrote down the names of three top recommendations and headed for my nearest big friendly camera store. There in the cupboard was one of the cameras on my list. And it was on special offer. Oh joy. I pointed at it and asked an assistant, “Can I have one of those?” He looked perturbed（不安）. “Do you want to try it first?” he said. It didn’t quite sound like a question. “Do I need to?” I replied. “There’s nothing wrong with it?” This made him look a bit insulted and I started to feel bad. ‘‘No, no. But you should try. it,’’ he said encouragingly. “Compare it with the others.”

　 I looked across at the others：shelves of similar cameras placed along the wall, offering a wide range of slightly different prices and discounts, with each company selling a range of models based around the same basic box. With so many models to choose from, it seemed that I would have to spend hours weighing X against Y, always trying to take Z and possibly H into account at the same time. But when I had finished, I would still have only the same two certainties that I had entered the store with：first, soon after I carried my new camera out of the shop, it would be worth half what I paid for it; and second, my wonderful camera would very quickly be replaced by a new model.

　 But something in the human soul whispers that you can beat these traps by making the right choice, the clever choice, the wise choice. In the end, I agreed to try the model I had chosen. The assistant seemed a sincere man. So I let him take out my chosen camera from the cupboard, show how it took excellent pictures of my fellow shoppers…and when he started to introduce the special features, I interrupted to ask whether I needed to buy a carry-case and a memory card as well.

　 Why do we think that new options（选择）still offer us anything new? Perhaps it is because they offer an opportunity to avoid facing the fact that our real choices in this culture are far more limited than we would like to imagine.

68. The shop assistant insisted that the writer should　　 .

　A. try the camera to see if there was anything wrong with it

　B. compare the camera he had chosen with the others

　C. get more information about different companies

　 D. trust him and stop asking questions

69. What does the writer mean by “it would be worth half what I paid for it”（Paragraph2）？

　 A. He should get a 50％discount.

　 B. The price of the camera was unreasonably high.

　C. The quality of the camera was not good.

　D. The camera would soon fall in value.

70. It can be inferred from the passage that in the writer’s opinion.

　A. people waste too much money on cameras

　 B. cameras have become an important part of our daily life

　 C. we don’t actually need so many choices when buying a product

　 D. famous companies care more about profit than quality