2018年6月大学英语六级听力常考时文：The Facts

英语自学网

　　1.What was the journalist asked to write an article about? ... in a new
African republic?
        　　2.Why did the editor refuse to publish the article again? The number of
steps and ... are not exact.
        　　3.What was published at last, according to the passage? The ... written by
the journalist.
        　　4.Why couldn't the journalist reply the telegrams soon? Because he had been
... and sent to prison.
        　　Editors of newspapers and magazines often go to extremes to provide their
readers with unimportant facts and statistics. Last year a journalist had been
instructed by a well-known magazine to write an article on the president's
palace in a new African republic. When the article arrived, the editor read the
first sentence and then refused to publish it. The article began: 'Hundreds of
steps lead to the high wall which surrounds the president's palace.' The editor
at once sent the journalist a telegram instructing him to find out the exact
number of steps and the height of the wall.The journalist immediately set out to
obtain these important facts, but he took a long time to send them. Meanwhile,
the editor was getting impatient, for the magazine would soon go to press. He
sent the journalist two more faxes, but received no reply. He sent yet another
fax informing the journalist that if he did not reply soon he would be fired.
When the journalist again failed to reply, the editor reluctantly published the
article as it had originally been written. A week later, the editor at last
received a telegram from the journalist. Not only had the poor man been
arrested, but he had been sent to prison as well. However, he had at last been
allowed to send a fax in which he informed the editor that he had been arrested
while counting the 1,084 steps leading to the fifteen-foot wall which surrounded
the president's palace.