Gentleness has been considered a ______ trait.A.boyishB.delicateC.feminineD.male
Gentleness has been considered a ______ trait.
A.boyish
B.delicate
C.feminine
D.male
Gentleness has been considered a ______ trait.
A.boyish
B.delicate
C.feminine
D.male
Part A
Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)
In sixteenth-century Italy and eighteenth-century France, waning prosperity and increasing social unrest led the ruling families to try to preserve their superiority by withdrawing from the lower and middle classes behind barriers of etiquette. In a prosperous community, on the other hand, polite society soon absorbs the newly rich, and in England there has never been any shortage of books on etiquette for teaching them the manners appropriate to their new way of life.
Every code of etiquette has contained three elements= basic moral duties; practical rules which promote efficiency; and artificial, optional graces such as formal compliments to, say, women on their beauty or superiors on their generosity and importance.
In the first category are consideration for weak and respect for age. Among the ancient Egyptians the young always stood in the presence of older people. Among the Mponguwe of Tanzania, the young men bow as they pass the huts of the elders. In England, until about a century ago, young children did not sit in their parents' presence without asking permission.
Practical rules are helpful in such ordinary occurrences of social life as making proper introductions at parties of other functions so that people can be brought to know each other. Before the invention of the fork, etiquette directed that the fingers should be kept as clean as possible, before the handkerchief came into common use, etiquette suggested that after spitting, a person should rub the spit inconspicuously underfoot.
Extremely refined behavior, however, cultivated as an art of gracious living, has been characteristic only of societies with wealth and leisure, which admitted women as the social equals of men. After the fall of Rome, the first European society to regulate behavior. in private lift in accordance with a complicated code of etiquette was twelfth-century Provence, in France.
Provence had become wealthy. The loads had returned to their castles from the crusades, and there the ideals of chivalry grew up, which emphasized the virtue and gentleness of women and demanded that a knight should profess a pure and dedicated love to a lady who would be his valiant deeds, though he would never come physically close to her. This was the introduction of the concept of romantic love, which was to influence literature for many hundreds of years and which still lives on in a debased form. in simple popular songs and cheap novels today.
In sixteenth-century Italy and eighteenth-century France, the ruling families
A.tried to destroy the lower and middle classes using etiquette.
B.discriminated against the lower class using etiquette.
C.tried to teach etiquette to the lower and middle classes.
D.put the middle and working classes into fenced enclosures.
Every code of etiquette has contained three elements, basic moral duties, practical rules which promote efficiency, and artificial, optional graces such as formal compliments to, say, women on their beauty or superiors on their generosity and importance.
In the first category are considerations for the weak and respect for age. Among the ancient Egyptians the young always stood in the presence of older people. Among the Mponguwe of Tanzania, the young men bow as they pass the huts of the elders. In England, until about a century ago, young children did not sit in their parents' presence without asking permission.
Practical rules are helpful in such ordinary occurrences of social life as making proper introductions at parties or other functions so that people can be brought to know each other. Before the invention of the fork, etiquette directed that the fingers should be kept as clean as possible; before the handkerchief came into common use, etiquette suggested that after spitting, a person should rub the spit inconspicuously underfoot.
Extremely refined behaviour, however, cultivated as an art of gracious living, has been characteristic only of societies with wealth and leisure, which admitted women as the social equals of men. After the fall of Rome, the first European society to regulate behaviour in private life in accordance with a complicated code of etiquette was twelfth century Provence, in France.
Provence had become wealthy. The lords had returned to their castle from the crusades, and there the ideals of chivalry grew up, which emphasized the virtue and gentleness of women and demanded that a knight should profess a pure and dedicated love to a lady who would be his inspiration, and to whom he would dedicate his valiant deeds, though he would never come physically close to her. This was the introduction of the concept of romantic love, which was to influence literature for many hundreds of years and which still lives on in a debased form. in simple popular songs and cheap novels today.
In Renaissance Italy too, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a wealthy and leisured society developed an extremely complex code of manners, but the rules of behaviour of fashionable society had little influence on the daily life of the lower classes. Indeed many of the rules, such as how to enter a banquet room, or how to use a sword or handkerchief for ceremonial purposes, were irrelevant to the way of life of the average working man, who spent most of his life outdoors or in his own poor hut and most probably did not have a handkerchief, certainly not a sword, to his name.
Yet the essential basis of all good manners does not vary. Consideration for the old and weak and the avoidance of harming or giving unnecessary offence to others is a feature of all societies everywhere and at all levels from the highest to the lowest.
One characteristic of the rich classes of a declining society is their tendency to
A.take in the recently wealthy.
B.retreat within themselves.
C.produce publications on manners.
D.change the laws of etiquette.
Every code of etiquette has contained three elements: basic moral duties; practical roles which promote efficiency; and artificial, optional graces such as formal compliments to, Say, women on their beauty or superiors on their generosity and importance.
In the first category are considerations for the weak and respect for age. Among the ancient Egyptians the young always stood in the presence of older people. Among the Mponguwe of Tanzaia, the young men bow as they pass the huts of the elders. In England, until about a century ago, young children did not sit in their parents' presence without asking permission.
Practical rules are helpful in such ordinary occurrences of social life as making proper introductions at parties or other functions so that people can be brought to know each other. Before the invention of the fork, etiquette directed that the fingers should be kept as clean as possible; before the handkerchief came into common use, etiquette suggested that after spitting, a person should rub the spit inconspicuously underfoot.
Extremely refined behavior, however, cultivated as an art of gracious living, has been characteristic only of societies with wealth and leisure, which admitted women as the social equals of men. After the fall of Rome, the first European society to regulate behavior. in private life in accordance with a complicated code of etiquette was twelfth-century Province, in France. Provinces had become wealthy. The lords had returned to their castle from the crusades, and there the ideals of chivalry grew up, which emphasized the virtue and gentleness of women and demanded that a knight should profess a pure and dedicated love to a lady who would be his inspiration, and to whom he would dedicate his valiant deeds, though he would never come physically close to her. This was the introduction of the concept of romantic love, which was to influence literature for many hundreds of years and which still lives on in a debased form. in simple popular songs and cheap novels today.
In Renaissance Italy too, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a wealthy and leisured society developed an extremely complex code of manners, but the rules of behavior. of fashionable society had little influence on the dally life of the lower classes. Indeed many of the rules, such as how to enter a banquet room, or how to use a sword or handkerchief for ceremonial purposes, were irrelevant to the way of life of the average working man, who spent most of his life outdoors or in his own poor hut and most probably did not have a handkerchief, certainly not a sword, to his name. Yet the essential basis of all good manners does not vary. Consideration for the old and weak and the avoidance of banning or giving unnecessary offence to others is a feature of all societies everywhere and at all levels from the highest to the lowest.
One characteristic of the rich classes of a declining society is their tendency to______
A.take in the recently wealthy
B.retreat within themselves
C.produce publications on manners
D.change the laws of etiquette
Etiquette
1 In sixteenth-century Italy and eighteenth-century France, waning prosperity and increasing social unrest led the ruling families to try to preserve their superiority by withdrawing from the lower and middle classes behind barriers of etiquette. In a prosperous community, on the other hand, polite society soon absorbs the newly rich and in England there has never been any shortage of books on etiquette for teaching them the manners appropriate to their new way of life.
2 Every code of etiquette has contained three elements; basic moral duties; practical rules which promote efficiency; and artificial, optional graces such as formal compliments to, say, women on their beauty or superiors on their generosity and importance.
3 In the first category are considerations for the weak and respect for age. Among the ancient Egyptians the young always stood in the presence of older people. Among the Mponguwe of Tanzania, the young men bow as they pass the huts of the elders. In England,until about a century ago, young children did not sit in their parents' presence without asking permission.
4 Practical rules are helpful in such ordinary occurrences of social life as making proper introductions at parties or other functions so that people can be brought to know each other. Before the invention of the fork, etiquette directed that the fingers should be kept as clean as
possible; before the handkerchief came into common use, etiquette suggested that after spitting, a person should rub the spit inconspicuously underfoot.
5 Extremely refined behavior, however, cultivated as an art of gracious living, has been characteristic only of societies with wealth and leisure, which admitted women as the social equals of men. After the fall of Rome, the first European society to regulate behavior. in private life in accordance with a complicated code of etiquette was twelfth-century Province, in France.
6 Province had become wealthy. The lords had returned to their castle from the crusades, and there the ideals of chivalry grew up, which emphasized the virtue and gentleness of women and demanded that a knight should profess a pure and dedicated love to a lady who would be his inspiration, and to whom he would dedicate his valiant deeds,though he would never come physically close to her. This was the introduction of the concept of romantic love, which was to influence literature for many hundreds of years and which still lives on in a debased form. in simple popular songs and cheap novels today.
7 In renaissance Italy too, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a wealthy and leisured society developed an extremely complex code of manners, but the rules of behavior. of fashionable society had little influence on the daily life of the lower classes. Indeed many of the rules, such as how to enter a banquet room, or how to use a sword or handkerchief for ceremonial purposes, were irrelevant to the way of life of the average working man, who spent most of his life outdoors or in his own poor hut and most probably did not have a handkerchief, certainly not a sword, to his name.
8 Yet the essential basis of all good manners does not vary. Consideration for the old and weak and the avoidance of harming or giving unnecessary offence to others is a feature of all societies everywhere and at all levels from the highest to the lowest.
One characteristic of the rich classes of a declining society is their tendency to
A.take in the recently wealthy.
B.retreat within themselves.
C.produce publications on manners.
D.change the laws of etiquette
Such stories set us thinking, wondering what we should do under similar circumstances. What events, what experiences, what associations should we crowd into those last hours as mortal beings, what regrets?
Sometimes I have thought it would be an excellent role to live each day as if we should die tomorrow. Such an attitude would emphasize sharply the values of life. We should live each day with gentleness, vigor and a keenness of appreciation which are often lost when time stretches before us in the constant panorama of more days and months and years to come. There are those, of course, who would adopt the Epicurean motto of "Eat, drink, and be merry". But most people would be chastened by the certainty of impending death.
In stories the doomed hero is usually saved at the last minute by some stroke of fortune, but almost always his sense of values is changed. He becomes more appreciative of the meaning of life and its permanent spiritual values. It has often been noted that those who live, or have lived, in the shadow of death bring a mellow sweetness to everything they do.
Most of us, however, take life for granted. We know that one day we must die, but usually we picture that day as far in the future. When we are in buoyant health, death is all but unimaginable. We seldom think of it. The days stretch out in an endless vista. So we go about our petty tasks, hardly aware of our listless attitude toward life.
Why is the author talking about those examples in paragraph 1?
A.To prove that life is full of twist and turns.
B.To raise a question to us, regarding the author's topic.
C.To persuade us not to do anything illegal.
D.To highlight the importance of health.
To you, more than perhaps to any other country, has Nature been generous in furnishing material for art workers to work in. You have marble quarries where the stone is more beautiful in color than any Greeks ever had for their beautiful work, and yet day after day I am confronted with the great building of some stupid man who has used the beautiful material as if it were not precious almost beyond speech. Marble should not be used save by noble workmen. There is nothing which gave me a greater sense of barrenness in traveling through the country than the entire absence of wood carving on your houses. Wood carving is the simplest of the decorative arts. In Switzerland the little barefooted boy beautifies the porch of his father's house with examples of skill in this direction. Why should not American boys do a great deal more and better than Swiss boys?
There is nothing to my mind more coarse in conception and more vulgar in execution than modern jewellery. This is something that can easily be corrected. Something better should be made out of the beautiful gold which is stored up in your mountain hollows and strewn along your river beds. When I was at Leadville and reflected that all the shining silver that I saw coming from the mines would be made into ugly dollars, it made me sad. It should be made into something more permanent. The golden gates at Florence are as beautiful today as when Michelangelo saw them.
We should see more of the workman than we do. We should not be content to have the salesman stand between us--the salesman who knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it. And watching the workman will teach that most important lesson--the nobility of all rational workmanship.
Art would create a new brotherhood among men by furnishing a universal language. Under its beneficent influences war might pass away. Thinking this, what place can I ascribe to art in our education? If children grow up among all fair and lovely things, they will grow to love beauty and detest ugliness before they know the reason why. If you go into a house where everything is coarse, you find things chipped and broken and unsightly. Nobody exercises any care. If everything is dainty and delicate, gentleness and refinement of manner are unconsciously acquired. When I was in San Francisco I used to visit the Chinese Quarter frequently. There I used to watch a great hulking Chinese workman at his task of digging, and used to see him every day drink his tea from a little cup as delicate in texture as the petal of a flower, whereas in all the grand hotels of the land, where thousands of dollars have been lavished on great gilt mirrors and gaudy columns, I have been given my coffee or my chocolate in cups an inch and a quarter thick. I think I have deserved something nicer.
We can infer from the passage that sculptors can find subjects for their work out of all the following EXCEPT______.
A.men loading or unloading a stately ship
B.women drawing water from the well
C.idle saunterers walking in the street
D.cattle-drivers with their lasso lifted
SECTION B PASSAGES
Directions: In this section, you will hear several passages. Listen to the passages carefully and then answer the questions that follow.
听力原文: Bertrand Russell wrote a short and sweet essay called "Three Passions I Have Lived For." Here are Russell's three: The longing for love; the search for knowledge; and what he called "the unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. "Of these three, the first two require no external reminders. One seeks love because love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness; one seeks knowledge to understand the human heart. It is the third passion, the unbearable sympathy for the suffering of others that seems to call for frequent updating. So the world accommodates, with glimpses of that unbearable sympathy in Africa, where among the spasms of slaughter and disease, volunteers labour to keep that tortured continent alive; or in Iraq, where, between the pictures of invasions and explosions, a soldier occasionally is spotted lifting a child to safety. Or within our own borders, where those without homes or food are attended by those who refuse to let them go under. That constitutes the "unbearable" part, passion undercut by the powerlessness. Of course, reason and gentleness are politics by other means as well, but they require a different sort of passion. Russell's ideas of passion were straightforward and in the right place, which made his life worth living.
What has the RSPCA called on the Government to do?
A.Strengthen laws against animal cruelty.
B.Keep records of animal neglect.
C.Send inspectors to look after animals.
D.Punish those owners who maltreat dogs.
NONCHALANT: CONCERN::
A.hasty : negligence
B.droll: whim
C.truculent : gentleness
D.gruff: artlessness
E.dismal : resolution
为了保护您的账号安全,请在“简答题”公众号进行验证,点击“官网服务”-“账号验证”后输入验证码“”完成验证,验证成功后方可继续查看答案!