In every British town, large and small, you will find shops that sell second-hand goods. Sometimes such shops deal mostly in furniture, sometimes in books, sometimes in ornaments and household goods, sometimes even in clothes.
The furniture may often be “antique”, and it may well have changed hands many times. It may also be very valuable, although the most valuable piece will usually go to the London salerooms, where one piece might well be sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds. As you look around these shops and see the polished wood of chests and tables, you cannot help thinking of those long-dead hands which polished that wood, of those now-closed eyes which once looked at these pieces with love.
The books, too, may be antique and very precious; some may be rare first printings. Often when someone dies or has to move house, his books may all be sold, so that sometimes you may find whole libraries in one shop. On the border between England and Wales, there is a town which has become a huge bookshop as well.Even the cinema and castle have been taken over, and now books have replaced sheep as the town’s main trsde.
There are also much more humble shops, sometimes simply called “junk shops”, where you can buy small household pieces very cheaply. Sometimes the profits from these shops go to charity. Even these pieces, though, can make you feel sad; you think of those people who once treasured them, but who have moved on, to another country or to death.
Although the British do not worship their ancestors, they do treasure the past and the things of the past. This is true of houses as well. These days no one knocks them down; they are restored until they are often better than new. In Britain, people do not buy something just because it is new. Old things are treasured for their proven worth; new things have to prove themselves before they are accepted.
小题1:Books found in second-hand book shops may _____.
A．be copies of the earliest printing
B．be on sale for the first time
C．never be worth very much
D．never be rare小题2:Second-hand goods sometimes fill you with sadness because_____.
A．they are too expensive for average buyers
B．they remind you of the original owner
C．they are now neglected
D．they are sold for charity小题3:Which of the following word can best take the place of the word “antique” in the second paragraph?
A．invention
B．possession
C．material
D．relic小题4:According to the passage, the British people_____.
A．do not respect old things because they are not fashionable
B．like to build new houses simply because it is fashionable to do so
C．like to buy new things because they are fashionable
D．do not like to buy things simply because they are fashionable
