1999年Passage 5

Science, in practice, depends far less on the experiments it prepares than on the preparedness of the minds of the men who watch the experiments. Sir Isaac Newton supposedly discovered gravity through the fall of an apple. Apples had been falling in many places for centuries and thousands of people had seen them fall. But Newton for years had been curious about the cause of the orbital motion of the moon and planets. What kept them in place? Why didn't they fall out of the sky? The fact that the apple fell down toward the earth and not up into the tree answered the question he had been asking himself about those lager fruits of the heavens, the moon and the planets.

How many men would have considered the possibility of an apple falling up into the tree? Newton did because he was not trying to predict anything. He was just wondering. His mind was ready for the unpredictable. Unpredictability is part of the essential nature of research. If you don't have unpredictable things, you don't have research. Scientists tend to forget this when writing their cut and dried reports for the technical journals, but history is filled with examples of it.

In talking to some scientists, particularly younger ones, you might gather the impression that they find the "scientific method" a substitute for imaginative thought. I've attended research conferences where a scientist has been asked what he thinks about the advisability of continuing a certain experiment. The scientist has frowned, looked at the graphs, and said "the data are still inconclusive." "We know that," the men from the budget office have said, "but what do you think? Is it worthwhile going on? What do you think we might expect?" The scientist has been shocked at having even been asked to speculate.

What this amounts to, of course, is that the scientist has become the victim of his own writings. He has put forward unquestioned claims so consistently that he not only believes them himself, but has convinced industrial and business management that they are true. If experiments are planned and carried out according to plan as faithfully as the reports in the science journals indicate, then it is perfectly logical for management to expect research to produce results measurable in dollars and cents. It is entirely reasonable for auditors to believe that scientists who know exactly where they are going and how they will get there should not be distracted by the necessity of keeping one eye on the cash register while the other eye is on the microscope. Nor, if regularity and conformity to a standard pattern are as desirable to the scientist as the writing of his papers would appear to reflect , is management to be blamed for discriminating against the "odd balls among researchers in favor of more conventional thinkers who "work well with the team. "

67. The author wants to prove with the example of Isaac Newton that __
[A] inquiring minds are more important than scientific experiments
[B] science advances when fruitful researches are conducted
[C] scientists seldom forget the essential nature of research
[D] unpredictability weighs less than prediction in scientific research

[答案] A

[解題思路]

關于牛頓的例子所要證明的論點在文章的開頭第一句話"Science, in practice, depends far less on the experiments it prepares than on the preparedness of the minds of the men who watch the experiments"（ 在實踐中，科學的進步依賴于做實驗，但更依賴于實驗的觀察者有所準備的頭腦），這句話強調了科學最重要的是要看觀察實驗的人是否在思想上做好了準備，顯然A是符合這個意思的正確答案，其中選項中的"inquiring minds"對應于原文的"the preparedness of the minds"。

[題目譯文]

作者用艾薩克·牛頓的例子表明             。
[A] 愛動腦筋比科學實驗更加重要
[B] 只有進行富有成由的研究科學才能進步
[C] 科學家很少忘記研究的重要本質
[D] 在科學研究中，不可預測性不如預測重要

68. The author asserts that scientists __
[A] shouldn't replace "scientific method" with imaginative thought
[B] shouldn't neglect to speculate on unpredictable things
[C] should write more concise reports for technical journals
[D] should be confident about their research findings

[答案] B

[解題思路]

本題對應的內容在文章的第二段和第三段。文章第二段第四、五句話指出"His mind was ready for the unpredictable. Unpredictability is part of the essential nature of research"（他的頭腦在隨時準備思考不可預測的事。不可預測性是科學研究不可或缺的一個重要特征），而第三段最后一句話則進一步批評說"The scientist has been shocked at having even been asked to speculate"（這位科學家感到很震驚，他沒有想到人們會讓他做出預測），因此作者認為研究要想出成果，科學家必須大膽推測，并要接受那些無法預測的東西。B選項符合上述的觀點。

[題目譯文]

作者認為科學家             。
[A] 不應該用創造性思維來代替"科學方法"
[B] 不應該忽視對于不可預測事物的推測
[C] 應該為技術雜志撰寫更加簡潔的報告
[D] 應該對他們的研究成果充滿信心

69. It seems that some young scientists__
[A] have a keen interest in prediction
[B] often speculate on the future
[C] think highly of creative thinking
[D] stick to "scientific method"

[答案] D

[解題思路]

文章第三段開頭指出"In talking to some scientists, particularly younger ones, you might gather the impression that they find the "scientific method" a substitute for imaginative thought"（在和一些科學家，特別是青年科學家交談時，你可能會產生這樣一種印象：他們認為用所謂的"科學方法"可以代替創造性思維），后面的例子也進一步說明了他們不會推測，只是堅持用傳統的方法，因此D選項符合題意。而其余三個選項的表述都與原文相反。

[題目譯文]

看起來一些青年科學家們            。
[A] 對預測有著濃厚的興趣
[B] 經常對未來做出推測
[C] 對創造性思維非常重視
[D] 只執著于"科學方法"

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