As kids, my friends and I spent a lot of time out in the woods. “The woods” was our part-time address, destination, purpose, and excuse. If I went to a friend’s house and found him not at home, his mother might say, “Oh, he’s out in the woods, ” with a tone of airy acceptance. It’s similar to the tone people sometimes use nowadays to tell me that someone I’m looking for is on the golf course or at the gym, or even “away from his desk.” For us ten-year-olds, “being out in the woods” was just an excuse to do whatever we feel like for a while.
We sometimes told ourselves that what we were doing in the woods was exploring. Exploring was a more popular idea back then than it is today. History seemed to be mostly about explorers. Our explorations, though, seemed to have less system than the historic kind: something usually came up along the way. Say we stayed in the woods, throwing rocks, shooting frogs, picking blackberries, digging in what we were briefly persuaded was an Italian burial mound.
Often we got “lost” and had to climb a tree to find out where we were. If you read a story in which someone does that successfully, be skeptical: the topmost branches are usually too skinny to hold weight, and we could never climb high enough to see anything except other trees. There were four or five trees that we visited regularly----tall beeches, easy to climb and comfortable to sit in.
It was in a tree, too, that our days of fooling around in the woods came to an end. By then some of us has reached seventh grade and had begun the rough ride of adolescence. In March, the month when we usually took to the woods again after winter, two friends and I set out to go exploring. We climbed a tree, and all of a sudden it occurred to all three of us at the same time that we’re really rather big to be up in a tree. Soon there would be the spring dances on Friday evenings in the high school cafeteria.
ADB
答案解析：
1. The author and his fiends were often out in the woods to _______.
A. spend their free time
B. play gold and other sports
C. avoid doing their schoolwork
D. keep away from their parents
解析：A正确
作者和他的朋友们经常去树林里做什么？
“The woods” was our part-time address, destination, purpose, and excuse.从这句可以看出树林是孩子们空闲时候爱去的地方
2. What can we infer from Paragraph 2?
A. The activities in the woods were well planned.
B. Human history is not the result of exploration.
C. Exploration should be a systematic activity.
D. The author explored in the woods aimlessly.
解析：D正确
我们从第二段可以推断出什么？
History seemed to be mostly about explorers. Our explorations, though, seemed to have less system than the historic kind……根据这两句可排除选项。
3. The underlined word “skeptical” in Paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ______.
A. calm
B. doubtful
C. serious
D. optimistic
解析：B正确
第三段划线的单词最接近哪个意思？
这个单词一般都学过，不过也可以从文中推测大意。
If you read a story in which someone does that successfully, be skeptical以及后面接的内容可以看出故事和事实是相反的。这就让人们怀疑故事的真实度，不可尽信。
参考译文：
孩童时，我和朋友们很多时间是在树林里度过的。“树林”是我们空闲时间的根据地，目的地，目标和借口。如果我去了一个朋友家，发现他不在家，他妈妈可能会用轻松而又宽容的语气说：“哦，他去树林里玩了。” 这种语气就像现在有人告诉我，我要找的人去打高尔夫球了或是去健身了，甚至“离开办公桌了。”对于10岁的我们来说，“到树林去”只不过是做一会我们喜欢的事情的借口。
我们偶尔对自己说，我们在树林里是在探险。那个时候探险这个词可比现在要流行。历史上似乎多半是在记录探险者的事迹。我们的探险活动相比于历史上有名的探险看起来要缺乏系统性：时常突然、随性地找些事做。像是在树林里扔石头，射击青蛙，摘黑莓，挖掘我们相信是意大利古墓的地方。
我们经常玩的忘乎所以，迷失了方向，只好爬到树上找位置。如果你看过有故事说有人那样做能成功地找到方向，那你可要抱着怀疑的态度：最顶端的树枝一般都太细无法承载重量，我们总是没法爬到足够高的地方，能看到的只有树。我们是四、五棵树的常客——这些高高的山毛榉易于攀爬，坐在上面舒服极了。
我们在树林里闲逛的时光也是在一棵树上结束的。当时，我们当中的一些人升上了七年级，进入了跌跌撞撞的青春期。我和另外两个朋友通常会在冬天过后的三月再次聚到树林里探险。我们要爬上一棵树，突然，我们三个同时发现我们已经重到不能待在一棵树上了。不久之后的周五傍晚在高中的食堂里将举行春季舞会。
词汇及短语：
woods: 森林
destination: 目的地, 终点
tone: 语气
airy: 通风的；轻快的;优美的
blackberry：黑莓
burial mound：古坟
topmost：最顶层，最高，最上面
skinny: 极瘦的, 皮包骨的
beech: 山毛榉
adolescence: 青春期(一般指成年以前由13至15的发育期)
dance: 舞会
cafeteria: (常设在商店、工厂、学校中的)自助餐厅或食堂
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