...whose courage and honesty are set against the brutal ways of modern society, and who in this 14 lose hope and faith.
答案：(C) confrontation
in this confrontation（在這場對抗中）呼應前文 set against the brutal ways of modern society（與現代社會的殘酷方式對抗），表示這些人物在與社會的對抗中逐漸失去希望與信念；limitation／classification／modification 均不符合此處語意。
四個選項都是 -tion 結尾的抽象名詞，長得很像同一類東西；這一句又長，讀到 in this ______ 的時候前面那一大串已經模糊了，只好憑感覺挑一個。答對率四成七。
句首那個 this 就是入口，這是指標勾環：this 加上一個名詞是回指，用一個比較概括的名詞把前面剛講過的內容收攏起來再指一次（Halliday 與 Hasan「Cohesion in English」談的指稱銜接）。所以先回頭問：this 指的是前面哪一件事？同一句的前半寫著 whose courage and honesty are set against the brutal ways of modern society（他們的勇氣與正直與現代社會的殘酷相對抗）。那件事用一個名詞收攏起來，就是一場對抗——confrontation。再看構詞就更穩：confront 是動詞「面對、正面對抗」，加上 -ation 變成名詞，與前半句的 set against 是同一件事換個說法，屬同義勾環。兩條連結指向同一個答案時，就可以放心填。這一招與同一年段考過的 This 加名詞是同一條線，差別只在指的距離：本題的 this 指的是同一句的前半，105 年第 20 題的 This 指的是前一句，近的遠的都要會找。
limitation（限制）在這一句裡找不到對應的東西，把人物寫成「在這種限制中失去希望」，前半句講的卻是對抗不是受限。classification（分類）與 modification（修改）更明顯，前半句既沒有在分類，也沒有人在修改什麼，回頭讀一次 this 指向的內容就全部出局。三個選項的共同問題是：只看空格附近的 lose hope and faith 也許都塞得進去，但沒有一個接得住 this 指向的那件事。
be set against（與……相對抗）、confrontation（對抗、衝突）、confront（面對、正面對抗）、lose faith（失去信念）、at times（有時）、portray（描繪、刻畫）
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was an American author and journalist. His writing style, characterized by simplicity and understatement, influenced modern fiction, as 11 his life of adventure.
Hemingway started his career as a journalist at 17. In the 1920s, he was sent to Europe as a newspaper correspondent to 12 such events as the Greek Revolution. During this period, he produced his early important works, including The Sun Also Rises. Among his later works, the most outstanding is The Old Man and the Sea (1952), which became perhaps his most famous book, finally winning him the Pulitzer Prize he had long been 13 .
Hemingway liked to portray soldiers, hunters, bullfighters—tough, at times primitive people whose courage and honesty are set against the brutal ways of modern society, and who in this 14 lose hope and faith. His straightforward prose is particularly effective in his short stories, some of 15 are collected in Men Without Women (1927). In 1954, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died in Idaho in 1961.