小樽商科大学過去問｜２０１７年第１問 問題
小樽商科大学 過去問 ２０１７年 第１問 問題
第１問 Read the text and write QUESTIONS in English for the answers below. (30点)
Many people decide to rebuild or redecorate their homes at some point and sometimes the job takes longer than expected. Very rarely, however, does it take as long as one house in the United States. The Winchester house, owned by Sarah Winchester in San Jose, California, was rebuilt 24 hours a day for over 38 years!
The remarkable story of the Winchester house began in 1862 when Sarah Pardee of Boston married William Winchester, the heir to the Winchester fortune. William was the son of Oliver Winchester, who owned the rights to the Winchester rifle; one of the most popular weapons of the time.
In 1866, Sarah and William had a daughter, Annie, who died from a disease as a baby. Sarah was overcome with grief at the death of her child and took many years to recover. Then, tragedy struck Sarah again when William died of a disease in 1881. Although she inherited $20 million in savings and an income of a thousand dollars a day, Sarah was again overcome with grief and, on the advice of a friend, visited a fortune-teller. The fortune-teller told her that her bad luck was being caused by the ghosts of all the people who had been killed by the Winchester rifle. The fortune-teller also told her to sell her home and “head toward the setting sun.” Sarah Winchester took the fortune-teller’s advice and moved west to California, where she found the perfect house for her.
The original house was a six-room farmhouse. As soon as she arrived, Sarah started taking the fortune-teller’s second piece of advice. She was told to never stop building her house. Using the money her husband had left her, she employed over 20 builders who worked night and day on the house. Every morning, Sarah would meet the foreman of the builders and give him hand-drawn building plans for the day. This went on until Sarah’s death in 1921.
Today, the house has over 160 rooms, 13 bedrooms, 47 fireplaces, 40 staircases, and three elevators. Guests at the house can look out over the land around the Winchester house from any of the house’s 10,000 windows. It is also easy for guests to get lost in the house. There are also, by some estimates, 2,000 doors if you include all the closets in the Winchester house and doors behind which guests can find nothing but walls! Dozens of secret halls and trap doors are also built into the house. The reason why Sarah Winchester made all these changes isn’t entirely known. Many people think it was to confuse the many ghosts who are said to haunt the house. Winchester Mystery House is now a major tourist attraction and brings in thousands of visitors a year.
foreman: a worker who supervises and directs other workers
staircase: a set of stairs and its surrounding walls or structure
Answers:
(1) For more than 38 years.
(2) By the ghosts of the people who had been killed by the Winchester rifle.
(3) Because she took a fortune-teller’s advice to “head toward the setting sun.”
(4) To continuously build the house.
(5) In order to confuse the many ghosts.
