2004年Text 4

Americans today don‘t place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are athletes, entertainers, and entrepreneurs, not scholars. Even our schools are where we send our children to get a practical education--not to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Symptoms of pervasive anti-intellectualism in our schools aren't difficult to find.

"Schools have always been in a society where practical is more important than intellectual," says education writer Diane Ravitch. "Schools could be a counterbalance." Razitch‘s latest bock, Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms, traces the roots of anti-intellectualism in our schools, concluding they are anything but a counterbalance to the American distaste for intellectual pursuits.

But they could and should be. Encouraging kids to reject the life of the mind leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and control. Without the ability to think critically, to defend their ideas and understand the ideas of others, they cannot fully participate in our democracy. Continuing along this path, says writer Earl Shorris, "We will become a second-rate country. We will have a less civil society."

"Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege," writes historian and professor Richard Hofstadter in Anti-Intellectualism in American life, a Pulitzer Prize winning book on the roots of anti-intellectualism in US politics, religion, and education. From the beginning of our history, says Hofstadter, our democratic and populist urges have driven us to reject anything that smells of elitism. Practicality, common sense, and native intelligence have been considered more noble qualities than anything you could learn from a book.

Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalist philosophers thought schooling and rigorous book learning put unnatural restraints on children: "We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for 10 or 15 years and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing." Mark Twain‘s Huckleberry Finn exemplified American anti-intellectualism. Its hero avoids being civilized--going to school and learning to read--so he can preserve his innate goodness.

Intellect, according to Hofstadter, is different from native intelligence, a quality we reluctantly admire. Intellect is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of the mind. Intelligence seeks to grasp, manipulate, re-order, and adjust, while intellect examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes, criticizes and imagines.

School remains a place where intellect is mistrusted. Hofstadter says our country‘s educational system is in the grips of people who "joyfully and militantly proclaim their hostility to intellect and their eagerness to identify with children who show the least intellectual promise."

58. The views of Ravish and Emerson on schooling are            .
[A] identical　　　　　
[B] similar
[C] complementary　　
[D] opposite

[答案] D

[解題思路]

本文要求比較拉維奇和愛默生對于教育的各自觀點，對應文章信息分別在第二段和第五段。從第二段中可以看出，拉維奇重在批判當前學校教育中的anti-intellectualism，因此反過來說他認為學校教育應該強調智力。而第五段的第一句指出，"Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalist philosophers thought schooling and rigorous book learning put unnatural restraints on children"（愛默生和其他一些超自然主義哲學家認為學校教育和高強度的書本學習會使孩子受到不自然的限制），這說明愛默生反對學校教育，即反對智力，認為那樣反而會限制孩子的發展。可見兩人的觀點是截然相反的，因此正確答案為D。

[題目譯文]

在學校教育的問題上，拉維奇和愛默生的觀點是            。
[A]相同的
[B]相似的
[C]互補的
[D]相反的

60. What does the author think of intellect?
[A]It is second to intelligence.
[B]It evolves from common sense.
[C]It is to be pursued.
[D]It underlies power.

[答案] C

[解題思路]

通讀全文，可以發現作者從頭到尾的口氣都是贊成智力的，比如最后一段第一句就指出"School remains a place where intellect is mistrusted"（目前學校里知識仍遭到懷疑）。現實是intellect被人們mistrust，實際上作者認為我們應該去追求這種品質，因而正確答案為C。A選項的錯誤在于作者認為intellect比intelligence更重要，這在第六段對兩者的描述中有所體現。至于B、D選項在原文并沒有涉及，也可排除。

[題目譯文]

作者對知識的想法是怎樣的？
[A]它沒有智力重要
[B]它由常識演變而來
[C]它應該被人們所追求
[D]它是力量的基礎