第4章
A) Lawyers.
B) Farmers.
C) Clerks.
D) Shop assistants.
Passage Three
Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage.
On June 17, 1744, the officials from Maryland and Virginia held a talk with the
Indians of the Six Nations. The Indians were invited to send boys to William and Mary
College. In a letter the next day the refused the offer as follows:
We know that you have a high opinion of the kind of learning taught in your
colleges, and that the costs of living of our young men, while with you, would be very
expensive to you. We are convinced that you mean to do us good by your proposal; and
we thank you heartily. But you must know that different nations have different ways of
looking at things, and you will therefore not be offended if your ideas of this kind of
education happen not t be the same as yours. We have had some experience of it. Several
of our young people were formerly brought up at the colleges of the northern provinces:
they were taught all your sciences; but, when they came back to us, they were bad
runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods… they were totally good for
nothing.
We are, however, not the less obliged by your kind offer, though we refuse to accept
it; and, to show our grateful sense of it, if the gentlemen of Virginia will send up a dozen
of their sons, we will take care of their education, teach them in all we know, and make
men of them.
31. The passage is about ________.
A) the talk between the Indians and the officials
B) the colleges of northern provinces
C) the educational values of the Indians
D) the problems of the Americans in the mid-eighteenth century
32. The Indians’ chief purpose in writing the letter seems to be to ________.
A) politely refuse a friendly offer
B) express their opinion on equal treatment
C) show their pride
D) describe Indian customs
33. According to the letter, the Indians believed that ________.
A) it would be better for their boys to receive some schooling
B) they were being insulted by the offer
C) they knew more about science than the officials
D) they had a better way of educating young men
34. Different from the officials’ view of education, the Indians though ________.
A) young women should also be educated
B) they had different goals of education
C) they taught different branches of science
D) they should teach the sons of the officials first
35. The tone of the letter as a whole is best described as ________.
A) angry
B) pleasant
C) polite
D) inquiring
Passage Four
Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage.
In what now seems like the prehistoric times of computer history, the earth’s postwar
era, there was quite a wide-spread concern that computers would take over the world
from man one day. Already today, less than forty years later, as computers are relieving us
of more and more of the routine tasks in business and in our personal lives, we are faced
with a less dramatic but also less foreseen problem. People tend to be over-trusting of
computers and are reluctant to challenge their authority. Indeed, they behave as if they
were hardly aware that wrong buttons may be pushed, or that a computer may simply
malfunction (失误).
Obviously, there would be no point in investing in a computer if you had to check all
its answers, but people should also rely on their own internal computers and check the
machine when they have the feeling that something has gone wrong.
Questioning and routine double-checks must continue to be as much a part of good
business as they were in pre-computer days. Maybe each computer should come with the
warning: for all the help this computer may provide, it should not be seen as a substitute
for fundamental thinking and reasoning skills.
36. What is the main purpose of this passage?