新思维英语阅读自测题Reading plus IV B卷

1、新思维英语阅读 (四 自测题 B 卷Reading OneDiffering Attitudes about the Human BodyAdapted from “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner, 1946,from Reading sociology, Pine Forge Press, 1995. Reprinted bypermission of the American Anthropology Association.Anthropologists have become so familiar with the di

2、versity of ways in which different societies behave in similar situations that they are not apt to be surprised by even the most exotic customs. There is one social group, however, which has been described as carrying out such highly unusual rituals, that in fact some anthropologists describe it as

3、an example of the extremes to which human behavior can go. This group of people is known as the Nacirema. They are a North American group living in the central United States. Little is known of their origin, although tradition states that they came from the east. According to Nacirema mythology, the

4、ir nation was originated by a culture hero, Notgnihsaw, who is known for his physical and spiritual strength.Nacirema culture is characterized by a highly developed market economy that has evolved in a rich natural habitat. While much of the peoples time is devoted to economic pursuits, a large part

5、 of the fruits of these labors and a considerable portion of the day are spent in ritual activity. The focus of this activity is the human body , the appearance and health of which loom as a dominant concern in the ethos of the people. And while such a concern is certainly not unusual, their attitud

6、e toward the human body, their philosophy on health, and ritual maintenance of the human body differ radically from the norm.First of all, the fundamental view they take of the body is quite the opposite. In most societies, people are encouraged to have a positive self-image from childhood we are so

7、cialized with the idea that our bodies should be our pride and that we should make an effort to enhance our physical attributes through exercise, good eating habits and, in some cases, cosmetic applications. The Nacirema people, on the other hand, are socialized to reject their bodies at a very earl

8、y age they have acquired an ingrained negative self-image of themselves. They believe the human body is basically ugly and its natural tendency is to debility and disease. They are convinced that mans only hope to avert these characteristics is through the use of the powerful influences of ritual an

9、d ceremony. And by tradition, every household has one or more shrines devoted to this purpose. The more powerful individuals in the society have several shrines in their houses and, in fact, the opulence of a house is often referred to in terms of the number of such ritual centers it possesses. Whil

10、e each family has at least one such shrine, the rituals associated with it are not family ceremonies, but are private and secret.Perhaps the greatest distinction that one can make between the Nacirema people and the general population is the rather masochistic tendencies the Nacirema take in caring

11、for their body.Take the example of oral hygiene. The practice of oral hygiene, followed by the norm in society, is to brush and floss daily, to keep the teeth clean and free of plaque,and to avoid foul-smelling breath. Most people go to the dentist on a regular basis to check for cavities and to ens

12、ure good oral hygiene. The Nacirema, on the other hand, have a daily mouth-rite, which they believe not only prevents their teeth from falling out, their jaw from shrinking, and their gums from bleeding, but also strengthens their moral character. This daily ritual consists of inserting a small bund

13、le of hog hairs into the mouth, along with certain magical powders, and then moving the bundle in a highly formalized series of gestures. Unlike the Western visit to the dentist to have teeth cleaned and cavities filled, the Nacirema seek out a “holy -mouth-man” once or twice a year to have holes dr

14、illed into their teeth. These practitioners have an impressive set of paraphernalia, consisting of a variety of augers, probes, and prods. They use these objects to enlarge any holes that decay may have created in the teeth. Magical materials are then put into these holes. If there are no naturally

15、occurring holes in the teeth, large sections of one or more teeth are gouged out so that the supern atural substance can be applied. In the clients view, the purpose of these procedures is to arrest decay and to draw friends. The extremely sacred and traditional character of the rite is evident in t

16、he fact that the natives return to the holy-mouth men year after year, despite the fact that their teeth continue to decay.Another example is the ritual idiosyncrasy the Nacirema people have for the treatment of their faces. As a distinctive part of the daily body ritual performed by the men of the

17、Nacirema people, they scrap and lacerate the surface of the face with a sharp instrument. Although it could be compared to the practice of shaving, the method is much more painful, and can result in major scrapes and gashes that never really heal as the rite is performed on a daily basis. Special wo

18、mens rites are performed only four times during each lunar month, but what they lack in frequency is made up in barbarity. As part of this ceremony, women bake their heads in small ovens for about an hour. Both these rituals are done to rid the person of impurities and to ensure that no one person d

19、evelops any striking features that set them apart from each other. Their ritual practices and ideology are in direct contrast to the basic belief and daily routines people generally accept. In what we might call normal face care, people generally cleanse, moisturize and often pamper with creams and

20、gels. The ultimate goal is to cultivate beauty, to stand out in a crowd, a very different concept to what the Nacirema people have.Their ceremonial rituals for treating the sick are also quite different. A sick person would normally confer with a doctor, and if the prognosis was serious enough, they

21、 would be admitted to a hospital where they would be given support and treated for their illness. In most cases they would leave the hospital after having convalesced, feeling relieved and satisfied with their treatment.When one becomes truly sick, the only way to be cured is to go to the community

22、temple of latipso. Upon settling in on an assigned hard bed, a group of vestal maidens take over, strip the person of all his or her clothes, and carry out the daily regimes of bathing and toileting, gathering the feces into a sacred vessel for examination by the medicine men of the temple. All this

23、 is done in a very public way, which often deeply traumatizes the patient. Suddenly, their secret ritual, which in normal circumstances is performed privately in front of their shrine each day, hasbecome a very public act. The fact that these temple ceremonies may not cure, and may even kill the pat

24、ient, in no way decreases the peoples faith in the medicine men. Some even proclaim outright that “the temple is where you go to die,” but despite this fact, the sick still have faith.The review of the ritual life of the Nacirema people has certainly highlighted how their philosophy of the body and

25、daily habits contrast with that of most other peoples. It is hard to understand why they have developed this concept of the body, and how they have managed to exist under such conditions. Even so, our lack of understanding has not diminished theirs. (Word count=1,238Now read the following statements

26、 and decide whether they are true (T or false (F. Do not refer back to the reading. Allow two minutes to complete this exercise.1. There is a lot of written information about the Nacirema people.2. The Nacirema people have a very different attitude towards the body compared to most other people.3. T

27、he Nacirema families never discuss the intimate details of their daily body rituals.4. Shrines are used by the Nacirema people to pray for their dead ancestor.5. The “holy -mouth-man” is like a dentist.Reading TwoMother Teresas Simple Lessons“Mother Teresas Simple Lessons” by Paul Hendrickson, in Wa

28、shington Post, September, 1997. Reprinted by permission of Washington Post.All week the world has heard the word “humanitarian.” Its been connected to a ravishingly beautiful woman who died too young and too terribly. But Friday, the word “humanitarian” took a deeper slice at our psyches. A wrinkly,

29、 bent, 150-cm, 87-year-old, globally admired holy woman died in Calcutta. Her name was Mother Teresa. She died of heart ailments and malaria and simple old age.Mother Teresa:As with Princess Diana, though not for the same reasons, her name came to have an amazing and mythic quality. You could say it

30、 in practically any corner of the earth and people knew instantly whom you meant. It was a name that stood overwhelmingly for good works. It was a name that came to be so much larger than the name itself.She was an enduring symbol of the idea of selflessness in a society that seems to be in a crazed

31、 sprint to self-obsession. Just having here there, in our world and in our imagination, was a kind of stay against the demons of pettiness, pride, all kinds of casual cruelty. She showed us that we could be our better selves. That sounds almost quaint, certainly not cool, though it happens to be tru

32、e.Mother Teresa, uncanonised “saint of the Indian gutters.” Mother Teresa, huma nkinds wizened little Catholic missionary nun, the one in the coarse white habit and blue-bordered head-dress who wished only to go about helping the poor and thedestitute little by little.Say the name, her name, and you

33、 see the prayer-tipped hands. She is bowing, holding beads, grinning. Is it the grin of the serenely knowing? As open as she was, there was always a distance.Perhaps one of the things that make her so difficult to comprehend in a secular world is that she was always and ever an old-fashioned Catholi

34、c. Meaning that she understood, as it says in the Bible, that the poor we shall always have with us. The poor can redeem us. The poor can show us the way. The poor can make us blessed. The answer to solving the problem of the poor, Mother Teresa seems to have known instinctively, is not to storm the

35、 gates of the bourgeoisie. Rather, just to bear witness. To be among the poor. To serve them and face their suffering with faith. Mother Teresa: Heathens knew that name. Infidels knew it. Popes and kings and bishops and presidents knew it and wanted to be in her company. And yes, cynics by the carlo

36、ads knew the name all those who never wished to believe in the first place that one small nun could have been all the things she was.Debunking the myth of goodness always has its uses, one of the chief uses being that you dont have to look at yourself, your own failings, quite as closely. So there w

37、ere those who wished to tear her down. And yet one is tempted to say that, long after the last cynic and nay-sayer is dust, Mother Teresa, like Albert Schweitzer, will continue to epitomize the sort of person who casts off the world and goes to work amid the needy.As there was in Schweitzer, the phy

38、sician who went to Africa, there was in Mother Teresa the alchemy of good works, great longevity and certain exotic qualities that seemed to stoke the legend. Schweitzer was an Alsatian medical missionary, a theologian and a musician. Mother Teresa, born in Macedonia, in 1910 of Albanian parents, be

39、gan her missionary work in India, and from India that work spread world-wide.The mystery of how exactly she did it well let historians of the next century tell us that. She thought her vocation as nun was going to center itself as a teacher of upper-class young women. The call of the poor was too gr

40、eat.She was not a perfect person, and there is no inclination here to say otherwise. One senses from afar that she probably did have her eye just a tad too much on her own legacy. One senses from afar that perhaps she did understand the great journalistic PR machine just a little too cannily for a p

41、erson in religious life. And yet one is tempted to say thats okay. If anything, her attempt to control her image, her relish to be around the famous and powerful, merely speaks of her human frailty. But think of all those thousands (millions? who might not have had their bellies fed or thirst quench

42、ed or brows dampened with cool cloths, if no Mother Teresa of Calcutta had ever existed.With her humanness and frailty, she founded a religious order called the Missionaries of Charity. Beginning with a single convent not quite five decades ago, she ended up with hundreds of religious centers and co

43、nvents on six continents. She also founded a vast organization of lay-people dedicated to her work and philosophies.She won the Nobel Peace Prize. She won so many prizes it would be useless to try to name them all here. She was in bad health for about the last decade and a half. But she still tried

44、to travel world-wide to visit her various sisters and convents. About a year ago she was asked by an interviewer for the Ladies Home Journal, of all secular places if she thought much about death. “I see much of it,” she answered. “When my time comes, I will just take a bed in the house in Kalighat

45、and wait for the end. ” (Word count=913Complete the TASK MAP analysis below by choosing the most appropriate answer.1. Thesis. What is the thesis of this essay?a. Although Mother Teresa has been regarded as a hero, she actually had many weak points.b. Although Mother Teresa and Princess Diana appear

46、 different, they are actually quite similar.c. Despite some human weak points, Mother Teresa deserves to be remembered as a world humanitarian hero.d. It is difficult to judge world figures so we need to wait for the historians of the next century to do so.2. Authority. What do we know about the aut

47、hors authority to write this profile?a. Hendrickson knew many of Mother Teresas close friends.b. This article was originally published in the well-regarded newspaper, The Washington Post.c. Hendrickson himself worked for Mother Teresa.d. Hendrickson interviewed Mother Teresa about her ideas of death

48、.3. Start. How does Hendrickson start the essay?a. With an anecdoteb. With a provocative comparisonc. With a statement of his thesisd. With a question implying a criticism4. Kind of Material. What kind of material does Hendrickson use to write the essay?a. Mother Teresas diariesb. Anecdotes, biograp

49、hical information and interviews taken from other sourcesc. Personal interviewsd. Personal Experience5. Mode. What mode does Hendrickson use to develop his thesis?a. Narrative account, chronologically organizedb. Cause and effectc. Narrative, description, and comparison and contrastd. problem and so

50、lutionReading ThreeE-Commerce Catches OnCompiled from “The E-Tail Revolution” by Jim Erickson, Asiaweek,March 19, 1999.Statistics taken from “Shopping. com” by Steven Levy, Time, December 7, 1998. Reprinted by permission of Asiaweek.From all reports, there are more and more people headed for the Mal

51、l these days. They cruise the different shops, browse through the aisles, and shop for everything from books to bathing suits. Nothing unusual you might say, except for the fact these shoppers are doing it without ever leaving the comfort of their homes. As it turns out, the Mall theyre going to is

52、online, a virtual shopping center in cyberspace, and the choices these e-shoppers have is growing day by day. The willingness of consumers to take the purchasing plunge among the aisles of e-commerce has been growing worldwide, but the largest sector of e-aisles of e-shoppers is concentrated in Nort

53、h America, where it first began. In the U.S. alone, almost 17million people bought at least one Christmas gift from a World Wide Web site in 1998, up from 10 million in 1997 and 5 million in 1996. Online shopping sites are growing like a raging fire in the United States and Canada, bringing an array

54、 of shopping items that can dazzle the e-sh oppers eye, and e -Malls are racking up e-sales at break-neck speed. It is predicted e-commerce will grow to hundreds of billions of dollars by 2002 in the US and Canada. There are close to 90 million users in the US alone now and predictions are for more

55、than 150 million by 2003.The number of e-merchants is also expected to increase from 175,000 in 1998 to more than 400,000 by the end of 2003, according to Internet market research firm keenan Vision. Sales to 1998 consumers and businesses purchasing goods and services over the Internet topped $50 bi

56、llion on items as varied as cars, drugs, books, sports memorabilia, clothing, consumer electronics, music, real estate and even life insurance. In 2003, some experts predict, the amount spent will exceed $ 1 trillion. But while e-shoppers have taken to e-commerce like a duck to water in North Americ

57、a, in Asia the e-Mall is still trying to find solid footing. The proportion of the population that uses the Internet is far, at the moment, from a critical mass. Not counting Japan, Asia has only about 13 million potential cybershoppers, far short of the estimated 70 million in the US. Although Inte

58、rnet growth rates in Asia are among the highest in the world, Asians outside Japan still account for only about 8% of the total wired population. Even the wealthy enclaves of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan, Where Net use is comparable to that in the West, consumers are resistant. “I wouldnt be both

59、ered,” says 28-year-old Nick Lim, a Hong Kong ed executive. “I can just hop down from home to the streets to get everything I need.” Besides, he believes, “giving sensitive information such as your credit card number to some unknown people in unknown places is hardly a secure act.” Others share Lims concern. For Tokyo resident Hideaki Nakajima, 25, “It feels kind of strange dealing with a faceless shop.” Going to a department store “is sim