硕士英语期末考试课文填空复习范围 (上)

1.Knowledge outside the day’s work is regarded by most men as a gewgaw. Still we are constantly in reaction against our ignorance. We rouse ourselves at intervals and speculate. We revel in speculations about anything at all —about life after death or about such questions as that which is said to have puzzled Aristotle, “Why sneezing from noon to midnight was good, but from night to noon unlucky?” One of the greatest joys known to man is to take such a flight into ignorance in search of the knowledge. The great pleasure of ignorance is, after all, the pleasure of asking questions. The man who has lost this pleasure or exchanged it for the pleasure of dogma, which is the pleasure of answering, is already beginning to stiffen. One envies so inquisitive a man as Jewell, who sat down to the study of physiology in his sixties. Most of us have lost the sense of our ignorance long before that age. We even become vain of our squirrel’s hoard of knowledge and regard increasing age itself as a school of omniscience. We forget that Socrates was famed for wisdom not because he was omniscient but because he realized at the age of seventy that he still knew nothing. (unit1)2. The second advantage of most paid work and of some unpaid work is that it gives chances of success and opportunities for ambition. In most work success is measured by income and while our society continues, this is inevitable. It is only where the best work is concerned that this measure ceases to be the natural one to apply. The desire that men feel to increase their income is quite as much a desire for success as for extra comforts that a higher income can procure. However dull work may be, it becomes bearable if it is a means of building up a reputation, whether in the world at large or only in on e’s own circle. Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run, and for most men this comes chiefly through their work. In this respect those women whose lives are occupied with housework are much less fortunate than men, or than women who work outside the home. The domesticated wife does not receive wages, has no means of bettering herself, is taken for granted by her husband (who sees practically nothing of what she does), and is valued by him not for her housework but for quite other qualities.(unit3)3. The struggle to survive in marriage requires adaptability, flexibility, genuine love and kindness, and an imagination strong enough to feel what the other is feeling. Many marriages fall apart because either partner cannot imagine what the other wants or cannot communicate what he or she needs or feels. Anger builds until it erupts into a volcanic burst that buries the marriage in ash.It is not hard to see, therefore, how essential communication is for a good marriage. A man and a woman must be able to tell each other how they feel and why they feel the way they do; otherwise they will impose on each other roles and actions that lead to further unhappiness. In some cases, the communication patterns of childhood—of not talking, of talking too much, of not listening, of distrust and anger, of withdrawal—spill into the marriage and prevent a healthy exchange of thoughts and feelings. The answer is to set upnew patterns of communication and intimacy. (unit6)4.Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in memories，in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One’s thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things about which there is something to be done. This is not always easy; one’s own past is a gradually increasing weight. It is easy to think to oneself that one’s emotions used to be more vivid than they are, and one’s mind more keen. If this is true it should be forgotten, and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true.The other thing to be avoided is clinging to youth in the hope of sucking vigor from its vitality. When your children are grown up they want to live their own lives, and if you continue to be as interested in them as you were when they were young, you are likely to become a burden to them, unless they are unusually callous. I do not mean that one should be without interest in them, but one’s interest should be contemplative and, if possible, philanthropic, but not unduly emotional. Animals become indifferent to their young as soon as their young can look after themselves, but human beings, owing to the length of infancy, find this difficult. (unit7)5.Aside from being unconstitutional, using censorship to counter indecency and other troubling “speech” fundamentally misinterprets the nature of cyberspace. Cyberspace isn’t a frontier where wicked people can grab unsuspecting children, nor is it a giant television system that can beam offensive messages at unwilling viewers. In this kind of real estate, users have to choose where they visit, what they see, what they do. It’s optional, and it’s much easier to bypass a place on the Net than it is to avoid walking past an unsavory block of stores on the way to your local 7-11.Put plainly, cyberspace is a voluntary destination—in reality, many destinations. You don’t just get “onto the Net”; you have to go someplace in particular. That means that people can choose where to go and what to see. Yes, community standards should be enforced, but those standards set by cyberspace communities themselves, not by the courts or by politicians in Washington. What we need isn’t government control over all these electronic communities: We need self-rule. (unit8)。