A
A cowboy named Bud was looking after his herd in a mountain in Alberta when suddenly a BMW moved forward towards him. The driver, a young man in a suit, sunglasses and a tie, leaned (靠着) out of the window and asked the cowboy, “If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves (小牛) you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?”
Bud looked at the man, then looked at his herd and calmly answered, “Sure, why not?”
The man parked his car, took out his computer and surfed a NASA (美国航空及太空总署) page, where he called up a GPS (全球定位系统) satellite to get an exact fix on his location. Within seconds, the young man received an email on his cellphone. Finally, he printed out a full-color, 150-page report on his hitech HP printer, turned to the cowboy and said, “You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.”
“That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,” said Bud. He watched the young man select one of the animals and looked on him with amusement as the young man put it into his car.
Then Bud said, “Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?”
The young man thought for a second and said, “Okay, why not?”
“You’re a government official,” said Bud.
“Wow! That’s correct,” said the man, “but how did you guess that?”
“No guessing required,” answered the cowboy. “You showed up here even though nobody called you; you wanted to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me; and you don’t know a thing about how working people make a living — or about cows. This is a herd of sheep ... now give me back my dog.”
1. The young man asked Bud for a calf because _____.
A. he really liked raising a calf
B. he just wanted to show off
C. he preferred helping the poor
D. he guessed the number of calves
2. Which of the following is TRUE about Bud according to the text?
A. Bud gave a good lesson to the young man.
B. Bud gave his calf to the young man at last.
C. Bud had to look after his herd because of his hard living.
D. Bud admired the young man for his wealth very much.
3. The underlined sentence in the last paragraph implies that _____.
A. Bud wanted to drive the young man away
B. Bud got a dog as a prize for his correct guess
C. the young man learned how to tell dogs from sheep
D. the young man thinking himself smart was foolish in fact
