Directions： Read the following text
carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese．Write your
translation clearly on ANSWER SHEET 2．
Nineteenth-century humorist Artemus Ward once warned the readers：“It ain’t what
you don’t know that hurts you；it’s what you know that just ain’t so．”
61) There’s good advice in that warning to some of television’s most
fussy critics，who are certain that every significant change in American social
and political life can be traced，more or less directly，to the extensive
influence of TV． This is an understandable attitude．For one
thing，television is the most visible，ubiquitous device to have entered our lives
in the last forty years．62)It is a medium in almost every American home，it is
on in the average household some seven hours a day，and it is accessible by every
kind of citizen from the most desperate of the poor to the wealthiest and most
powerful among us．If so pervasive a medium has come into our society in the
last four decades and if our society has changed in drastic ways in that same
time，why not assume that TV is the reason why American life looks so
different？ Well，as any philosopher can tell you，one good reason
for skepticism is that you can’t make assumptions about causes． They even have
an impressive Latin phrase for that fallacy：post hoe，ergo proper hoc．For
instance，if I do a rain dance at 5 P．M．and it rains at 6 P．M．，did my dance bring
down the rains？Probably not．63) But it’s that kind of thinking，in my
view，that characterizes much of the argument about how television influences our
values． It’s perfectly clear，of course，that TV does
influence some kinds of behavior．For example，back in 1954，Disneyland launched a
series of episodes on the life of Davy Crockett，the legendary Tennessee
frontiersman．A song based on that series swept the hit parade，and by that summer
every kid in America was wearing a coonskin cap． 64) The
same phenomenon has happened whenever a character on a prime-time television
show suddenly stimulates a strong response in the country． Countless women
tried to capture the Farrah Fawcett look a decade ago when“Charlie’s
Angels”first took flight．In the mid-1980s，every single bar in the land was
packed with young men in expensive white sports jackets and T-shirts，trying to
emulate the macho looks of“Miami Vice”’s Don Johnson． 65)
These fashions clearly show television’s ability to influence matters that do
not matter very much．Yet，when we turn to genuinely important things，television’s
impact becomes a lot less clear．