The concept of culture has been defined many times, and although no definition has achieved universal acceptance, most of the definitions include three central ideas: that culture is pasd n from generation to generation, that a culture reprents a ready-made prescription for living and for making day-to-day decisions, and, finally, that the components of a culture are accepted by tho in the culture as good, and true, and not to be questioned. The eminent anthropologist George Murdock has listed venty-three items that characterize every known culture, past and prent. The list begins with Age-grading and Athletic sports, runs to Weaning and Weather Control, and includes on the way such items as Calendar, Firemaking, Property Rights, and Toolmaking. I would submit that even the most extreme advocate of a culture of poverty viewpoint would 标音readily acknowledge that, with respect to almost all of the items, every American, beyond the first generation immigrant, regardless of race or class, is a member of a common culture. We all share pretty much the
same sports. Maybe poor kids don''t know how to play polo, and rich kids don''t spend time with stickball, but we all know baball, and football, and basketball. Despite some misguided efforts to rai minor dialects to the status of parate tongues, we all, in fact, share the same language. There may be differences in diction and usage, but it would be ridiculous to say that all Americans don''t speak English. We have the calendar, the law, and large numbers of other cultural items in common. It may well be true that on a few of the venty-three items there are minor variations between class, but the kinds of things are really slight variations on a common theme. There are other items that show variability, not in relation to class, but in relation to religion and ethnic background-funeral customs and co oking, for example. But if there is one place in America where the melting pot is a reality, it is on the kitchen stove; in the cour of one month, half the readers of this ntence have probably eaten pizza, hot pastrami, a
nd chow mein. Specific differences that might be identified a signs of parate cultural identity are relatively insignificant within the general unity of American life; they are cultural commas and micolons in the paragraphs and pages of American life.
01. According to the author''s definition of culture, ____ .
A. a culture should be accepted and maintained universally
B. a culture should be free from falhood and evils
C. the items of a culture should be taken for granted by people
D. the items of a culture should be accepted by well-educated people
02. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?
A. Baball, football and basketball are popular sports in America.
B. Pizza, hot pastrami, and chow mein are popular diet in America.
C. There is no variation in using the American calendar.
D. There is no variation in using the American language.
03. It can be inferred that all the following will most probably酷炫图片 be included in the venty-three items except ____.
A. heir and heritage
B. childrearing practices
C. dream patterns
D. table manners
04. By saying that ""they are cultural commas and "" the author means that commas and micolons ____.
A. can be interpreted as subculture of American life
B. can be identified as various ways of American life
C. stand for work and rest in American life
D. are preferred in writing the stories concerning American life
05. The author''s main purpo in writing this passage is to ____.
A. prove that different people have different definitions of culture
B. inform that variations exist as far as a culture is concerned
C. indicate that culture is cloly connected with social clas s
D. show that the idea that the poor constitute a parate culture is an absurdity
Questions 06-10 are bad on the following passage:
It is 3A.M. Everything on the university campus ems ghostlike in the quiet, misty darkness - everything except the computer center. Here, twenty students rumpled and bleary-eyed, sit transfixed at their consoles, tapping away on the terminal keys. With eyes glued to the video screen, they tap on for hours. For the rest of the world, it might be the middle of the night, but here time does not exist. This is a world unto itlf. The young computer ""hackers"" are pursuing a kind of compulsion, a drive so consuming it overshadows nearly every other part of their lives and forms the focal point of their existence. They are compulsive computer programmers. Some of the students have bee
n at the console for thirty hours or more without a break for meals or sleep. Some have fallen asleep on sofas and lounge chairs in the computer center, trying to catch a few winks but loathe to get too far away from their beloved machines.
Most of the students don''t have to be at the computer非主流歌 center in the middle of the night. They aren''t working on assignments. They are there becau they want to be - they are irresistibly drawn there.
And they are not alone. There are hackers at computer centers all across the country. In their extreme form, they focus on nothing el. They flunk out of school and lo contact with friends; they might have difficulty finding jobs, choosing instead to wander from one computer center to another. They may even forgo personal hygiene.
""I remember one hacker. We literally had to carry him off his chair to feed him and put him to sleep. We really feared for his health,"" says a computer science professor at MIT.
Computer science teachers are now more aware of the implications of this hacker phenomenon and are on the lookout for potential hackers an d cas of computer addiction that are already vere. They know that the ca of the hackers is not just the story of one person''s relationship with a machine. It is the story of a society''s relationship to the so-called thinking machines, which are becoming almost ubiquitous.
06. We can learn from the passage that tho at the computer center in the middle of the night are ____.
A. students working on a program
B. students using computers to amu themlves
C. hard-working computer science majors
D. students deeply fascinated by the computer
07. Which of the following is NOT true of tho young computer ""hackers""?
A. Most of them are top students majoring in computer programming.
B. For them, computer programming is the sole purpo for their life.
C. They can stay with the computer at the center for nearly three days on end.
D. Their ""love"" for the computer is so deep that they want to be near their machines even when they sleep.
08. It can be reasonably inferred from the passage that ____.
A. the ""hacker"" phenomenon exists only at university computer centers
B. university computer centers are open to almost everyone
C. university computer centers are expecting outstanding programmers out of the ""hackers""
D. the ""hacker"" phenomenon is partly attributable to the deficiency of the computer centers
09. The author''s attitude towards the ""hacker"" phenomenon can be described as ____.
A. affirmative
B. contemptuous
C. anxious
D. disgusted
10. Which of the following may be a most appropriate title for the passage?
A. The Charm of Computer Science
B. A New Type of Electronic Toys
C. Compulsive Computer Programmers
D. Computer Addicts
Questions 11-15 are bad on the following passage:
Every profession or trade, every art, and every science has its technical vocabulary. Different occupations, however, differ widely in the character of th eir special vocabularies.怀孕胃痛怎么办 In trades and handicrafts, and other vocations, like farming and fishery, that have occupied great numbers of men from remote times, the technical vocabulary, is very old. It consists largely of native words, or of borrowed words that have worked themlves into the very fibre of our language. Hence, though highly technical in many particulars, the vocabularies are more familiar in sound, and more generally understood, than most other technicalities. The special dialects of law, medicine, divinity, and philosophy have also, in their older strata, become pretty familiar to cultivated persons and have contributed much to the 钟楼鼓楼popular vocabulary. Yet every vocation still posss a large body of technical terms that remain esntially foreign, even to educated speech. And the proportion has been much incread in the last fifty years, particularly in the various departments
of natural and political science and in the mechanic arts. Here new terms are coined with the greatest freedom, and abandoned with indifference when they have rved their turn. Most of the new coinages are confined to special discussions, and ldom get into general literature or conversation. Yet no profession is nowadays, as all professions once were, a clo guild. The lawyer, the physician, the man of science, the divine, associated freely with his fellow-creatures, and does not meet them in a merely professional way. Furthermore, what 世界上最贵的房车is called ""popular science"" makes everybody acquainted with modern views and recent discoveries. Any important experiment, though made in a remote or provincial laboratory, is at once reported in the newspapers, and everybody is soon talking about it - as in the ca of the Roentgen rays and wireless telegraphy. Thus our common speech is always taking up new technical terms and making them commonplace.
11. Special words ud in technical discussion ____.
A. never last long
B. are considered artificial language弥月之喜请柬 speech
C. should be confined to scientific fields
D. may become part of common speech
12. It is true that ____.
A. an educated person would be expected to know most technical terms
B. everyone is interested in scientific findings
C. the average man often us in his own vocabulary what was once technical language not meant for him
D. various professions and occupations often interchange their dialects and jargons
13. In recent years, there has been a marked increa in the number of technical terms in the terminology of
A. farming
B. sports
C. government
D. fishery
14. The writer of the article was, no doubt ____.
A. a linguist
B. an essayist
C. a scientist
D. an attorney
15. The author''s main purpo in the passage is to ____.
A. describe a phenomenon
B. be entertaining
C. argue a写夏天的古诗 belief
D. propo a solution
