中科院考博英语模拟试卷（附答案）

　　Passage 3

　　A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as a rule, to have it retold in identically the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as sacred texts. It is always much better to tell a story than read it out of a book, and, if a parent can produce what, in the actual circumstances of the time and the individual child, is an improvement on the printed text, so much the better.

　　A charge made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or arousing his sadistic impulse. To prove the latter, one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often guilty of cruelty than those who had not. Aggressive, destructive, sadistic impulses every child has and, on the whole, their symbolic verbal discharge seem to be rather a safety valve than an incitement to overt action. As to fears, there are, I think, well-authenticated cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy story. Often, however, this arises from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.

　　There are also people who object to fairy stories on the grounds that they are not objectively true, that giants, witches, two-headed dragons, magic carpets, etc., do not exist; and that, instead of indulging his fantasies in fairy tales, the child should be taught how to adapt to reality by studying history and mechanics. I find such people, I must confess, so unsympathetic and peculiar that I do not know how to argue with them. If their case were sound, the world should be full of madmen attempting to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a broomstick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their enchanted girl-friend.

　　No fairy story ever claimed to be a description of the external world and no sane child has ever believed that it was.

　　46. According to the author, the best way to retell a story to a child is to ______________.

　　A. tell it in a creative way

　　B. take from it what the child likes

　　C. add to it whatever at hand

　　D. read it out of the story book.

　　47. In the second paragraph, which statement best expresses the author’s attitude towards fairy stories?

　　A. He sees in them the worst of human nature.

　　B. He dislikes everything about them.

　　C. He regards them as more of a benefit than harms.

　　D. He is expectant of the experimental results.

　　48. According to the author, fairy stories are most likely to ____________.

　　A. make children aggressive the whole life

　　B. incite destructiveness in children

　　C. function as a safety valve for children

　　D. add children’s enjoyment of cruelty to others

　　49. If the child has heard some horror story for more than once, according to the author, he would probably be ______________.

　　A. scared to death

　　B. taking it and even enjoying it

　　C. suffering more the pain of fear

　　D. dangerously terrified

　　50. The author’s mention of broomsticks and telephones is meant to emphasize that ___________.

　　A. old fairy stories keep updating themselves to cater for modern needs

　　B. fairy stories have claimed many lives of victims

　　C. fairy stories have thrown our world into chaos

　　D. fairy stories are after all fairy stories

　　Passage 4

　　There has been a lot of hand-wringing over the death of Elizabeth Steinberg. Without blaming anyone in particular, neighbors, friends, social workers, the police and newspaper editors have struggled to define the community’s responsibility to Elizabeth and to other battered children. As the collective soul-searching continues, there is a pervading sense that the system failed her.

　　The fact is, in New York State the system couldn’t have saved her. It is almost impossible to protect a child from violent parents, especially if they are white, middle-class, well-educated and represented by counsel.

　　Why does the state permit violence against children? There are a number of reasons. First, parental privilege is a rationalization. In the past, the law was giving its approval to the biblical injunction against sparing the rod.

　　Second, while everyone agrees that the state must act to remove children from their homes when there is danger of serious physical or emotional harm, many child advocates believe that state intervention in the absence of serious injury is more harmful than helpful.

　　Third, courts and legislatures tread carefully when their actions intrude or threaten to intrude on a relationship protected by the Constitution. In 1923, the Supreme Court recognized the “liberty of parent and guardian to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control.” More recently, in 1977, it upheld the teacher’s privilege to use corporal punishment against schoolchildren. Read together, these decisions give the constitutional imprimatur to parental use of physical force.

　　Under the best conditions, small children depend utterly on their parents for survival. Under the worst, their dependency dooms them. While it is questionable whether anyone or anything could have saved Elizabeth Steinberg, it is plain that the law provided no protection.

　　To the contrary, by justifying the use of physical force against children as an acceptable method of education and control, the law lent a measure of plausibility and legitimacy to her parents’ conduct.

　　More than 80 years ago, in the teeth of parental resistance and Supreme Court doctrine, the New York State Legislature acted to eliminate child labor law. Now, the state must act to eliminate child abuse by banning corporal punishment. To break the cycle of violence, nothing less will answer. If there is a lesson to be drawn from the death of Elizabeth Steinberg, it is this: spare the rod and spare the child.

　　51. The New York State law seems to provide least protection of a child from violent parents of ____________.

　　A. a family on welfare

　　B. a poor uneducated family

　　C. an educated black family

　　D. a middle-class white family

　　52. “Sparing the rod” (in boldface) means ____________.

　　A. spoiling children

　　B. punishing children

　　C. not caring about children

　　D. not beating children

　　53. Corporal punishment against schoolchildren is _____________.

　　A. taken as illegal in the New York State

　　B. considered being in the teacher’s province

　　C. officially approved by law

　　D. disapproved by school teachers

　　54. From the article we can infer that Elizabeth Steinberg is probably the victim of ____________.

　　A. teachers’ corporal punishment

　　B. misjudgment of the court

　　C. parents’ ill-treatment

　　D. street violence

　　55. The writer of this article thinks that banning corporal punishment will in the long run _____________.

　　A. prevent violence of adults

　　B. save more children

　　C. protect children from ill-treatment

　　D. better the system

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