汉语国际教育硕士：英语阅读理解练习(第4篇)
新东方在线小编给大家提供汉语国际教育硕士英语阅读理解5篇，希望通过做题，大家能够提高阅读的速度，掌握做阅读理解的技巧。下面请看第4篇练习。Americans today don't place avery high value on intellect. Our heroes are
athletes, entertainers, andentrepreneurs, not scholars. Even our schools are
where we send our children toget a practical education—not to pursue knowledge
for the sake of knowledge. Symptoms ofpervasive anti-intellectualism in our
schools aren't difficultto find。
“Schools havealways been in a society where practical is more important
than intellectual,”sayseducation writer Diane Ravitch. “Schools could be a
counterbalance。” Ravitch's latestbock, Left Back: A Century of Failed School
Reforms, traces the roots ofanti-intellectualism in our schools, concluding they
are anything but acounterbalance to the American distaste for intellectual
pursuits。
But they could and should be. Encouraging kids to reject the lifeof the
mind leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and control. Without theability to
think critically, to defend their ideas and understand the ideas ofothers, they
cannot fully participate in our democracy. Continuing along thispath, says
writer Earl Shorris,“We will become a second-rate country. We will have a less
civilsociety。”
“Intellect isresented as a form of power or privilege,”writes historian
andprofessor Richard Hofstadter in Anti-Intellectualism in American Life,
aPulitzer Prize winning book on the roots of anti-intellectualism in USpolitics,
religion, and education. From the beginning of our history, saysHofstadter, our
democratic and populist urges have driven us to reject anythingthat smells of
elitism. Practicality, common sense, and native intelligencehave been considered
more noble qualities than anything you could learn from abook。
Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalist philosophersthought
schooling and rigorous book learning put unnatural restraints onchildren: “We
are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for 10 or 15years and come
out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing。”Mark
Twain'sHuckleberry Finn exemplified American anti-intellectualism. Its hero
avoidsbeing civilized—going to school and learning to read—so he can preservehis
innate goodness。
Intellect, according to Hofstadter, is different from nativeintelligence, 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. Hofstadtersays our
country's educational system is in the grips of people who “joyfully
andmilitantly proclaim their hostility to intellect and their eagerness
toidentify with children who show the least intellectual promise。”
1. What do American parents expect their children to acquire inschool?
The habit of thinking independently。
Profound knowledge of the world。
Practical abilities for future career。
The confidence in intellectual pursuits。
2. We can learn from the text that Americans have a history of
undervaluing intellect。
favoring intellectualism。
supporting school reform。
suppressing native intelligence。
3. The views of Ravish and Emerson on schooling are
identical.
similar.
complementary.
opposite。
4. Emerson, according to the text, is probably
a pioneer of education reform.
an opponent of intellectualism。
a scholar in favor of intellect.
an advocate of regular schooling。
5. What does the author think of intellect?
It is second to intelligence.
It evolves from common sense。
It is to be pursued.
It underlies power。
量变引起质变，实践得出真知。希望考生朋友们通过做题，通过积累，最终实现自我的提升，完成量到质的转变，加油!
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