A woman repeated a bit of gossip (流言) about a neighbor. Within a few days the whole neighborhood knew the story. The neighbor was deeply hurt. Later the woman learned that it was completely untrue. She was very sorry and went to a wise old man to find out what she could do to repair the harm.
“Go to the market,” he said, “and buy a chicken, and have it killed, then on your way home, pick its feathers(毛) and drop them one by one along the road.” Although surprised by this advice, the woman did what she was told.
The next day the wise man said, “Now, go and collect all those feathers you dropped yesterday and bring them back to me.”
The woman followed the same road, but she was so discouraged when she found the wind had blown all the feathers away. After looking for hours, she returned with only three in her hand.
“You see,” said the old man, “it’s easy to drop them, but it’s impossible to get them back. So it is with gossip. It doesn’t take much to spread（散布） a gossip, but once you do, you can never completely undo（弥补） the wrong.”
小题1:Why did the woman feel sorry?A．She didn’t know the story.B．She hurt her neighbor deeply.C．She was hurt deeply.D．She was told an untrue story.小题2:The underlined word “discouraged” might mean.A．surprisedB．excitedC．upsetD．pleased小题3:Which of the following statements is true?A．The gossip didn’t hurt anyone at all.B．The wise man is not kind enough.C．All the feathers had been blown away..D．The woman was given a lesson.小题4:What the wise man said has nearly the same meaning as the Chinese phrase “_________”.A．覆水难收B．无中生有C．欲速不达D．得道多助