曹老师你好！
这是新定义3-33课，有一些疑问请教你：
Wehave all experienced days when everything goes wrong. A day may begin wellenough, but suddenly everything seems to get out of control. What invariablyhappens is that a great number of things choose to go wrong at precisely thesame moment.
Itis as if a single unimportant event set up a chain of reactions.
1)这个It is asif... 是什么句型？只见过It looks as if等句型。还有我感觉这里的It是指代的前面的一句话，可是又有人说这里的It是虚指没意义？
Letus suppose that you are preparing a meal and keeping an eye on the baby at thesame time.
2)为何是a meal, thebaby ? 为何一个是不定冠词，一个是定冠词呢？非常奇怪。
Thetelephone rings and this marks the prelude to an unforeseen series ofcatastrophes. While you are on the phone, the baby pulls the tablecloth off thetable, smashing half your best crockery and cutting himself in the process. Youhang up hurriedly and attend to baby, crockery, etc. Meanwhile, the meal getsburnt.
3)前面假设一个场景，然后忽然下面所有些动词都用了“一般目前时”描述，这是为何呢？下一段叙述了过去发生的事情，用了一般过去时可以理解。还有为何是attend tobaby？没the吗？
Asif this were not enough to reduce you to tears, your husband arrives,unexpectedly bringing three guests to dinner.
4)为何As if可以坐落于句首直接引导句子？As if前为何没主句呢？
Thingscan go wrong on a big scale, as a number of people recently discovered inParramatta, a suburb of Sydney. During the rush hour one evening two carscollided and both drivers began to argue. The woman immediately behind the twocars happened to be a learner. She suddenly got into a panic and sTOPped hercar. This made the driver following her brake hard. His wife was sitting besidehim holding a large cake. As she was thrown forward, the cake went rightthrough the windscreen and landed on the road. Seeing a cake flying through theair, a lorry driver who was drawing up alongside the car, pulled up all of asudden. The lorry was loaded with empty beer bottles and hundreds of them slidoff the back of the vehicle and on to the road. This led to yet another angryargument. Meanwhile, the traffic piled up behind. It took the police nearly anhour to get the traffic on the move again. In the meantime, the lorry driverhad to sweep up hundreds of broken bottles. only two stray dogs benefited fromall this confusion, for they greedily devoured what was left of the cake. Itwas just one of those days!
5)what was left of the cake = the thing that was left of the cake = the thing that of the cake was left: that of 如何理解呢？It是指代前面刚刚发生的不顺心的事，those 是指平时发生过的不少不顺心的所有事情，it是其中之一？
麻烦曹老师帮助剖析，谢谢！
1 It is as if... 和 It looks as if... 结构相同，都是as if从句作表语，不一样的是一个系词为looks，一个系词为is。it不是人称代词，而是虚指代词。直接翻译为就仿佛...。
2 1日三餐都叫meal，作者举例不限于具体早餐还是午餐或晚餐，所以用a meal 指三餐中的某一餐。你做饭的时候同时还要照看婴儿，这个婴儿就是唯一需要用同时照看的那个婴儿，自然是特指的。这有哪些难理解呢？你要发挥你的想象力。
3 后面的一系列事件都是发生在你正在做饭（饭没做完）同时还在照看孩子的过程中，所以做饭和照看孩子用进行体，表示此动作没有结束。后面都是发生并结束的完整事件或状况，所以用一般体。attend to后面的名词省略了定冠词。
4 as if从句在主句之前予以强调，后面就是主句。
5 what was left of the cake 告诉过你了，what引导名词性关系分句，不要每次都分解为the thing which，一次二次之后就不必这么做了。of the cake修饰left，一块构成过去分词短语作表语。剩下的没吃完的蛋糕。