单项选择题

To avoid the various foolish opinions to which mankind is liable, no superhuman genius is required. A few simple rules will keep you, not from all errors, but from silly errors. 　　If the matter is one that can be settled by observation, make the observation yourself. Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted. He did not do so because he thought he knew. Thinking that you know when in fact you don’’t is a fatal mistake, to which we are all liable. 　　Many matters, however, are less easily brought to the test of experience. If, like most of mankind, you have strong convictions on many such matters, there are ways in which you can make yourself aware of your own prejudice. If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you subconsciously are aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. If someone maintains that two and two are five, or that Iceland is on the equator, you feel pity rather than anger, unless you know so little of arithmetic or geography that his opinion shakes your own contrary conviction. The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence justifies. 　　For those who have enough psychological imagination, it is a good plan to imagine an argument with a person having a different opinion. This has one advantage, and only one, ascompared with actual conversation with opponents; this one advantage is that the method is not subject to the same limitations of time and space. Mahatma Gandhi (圣雄甘地) considered it unfortunate to have railways and steamboats and machinery; he would have liked to undo the whole of the industrial revolution. You may never have an opportunity of actually meeting anyone who holds this opinion, because in Western countries most people take the advantage of modern technology for granted. But if you want to make sure that you are right in agreeing with the prevailing opinion, you will find it a good plan to test the arguments that occur to you by considering what Gandhi might have said in refutation of them. I have sometimes been led actually to change my mind as a result of this kind of imaginary dialogue. Furthermore, I have frequently found myself growing more agreeable through realizing the possible reasonableness of a hypothetical opponent. The example of Aristotle is used to indicate that

A．observation hinders people from any mistakes.
B．great men advance false arguments occasionally.
C．primitive apparatuses hamper precise observation.
D．realistic investigations are vital to sound judgments.

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单项选择题

The author agitates reforms chiefly in the

A． old subject-matter to follow technological advances.
B．stiff teaching materials and teaching methods.
C．prescribed textbooks and unchanging systems.
D．general consent about multipurpose texbooks.

填空题

At the start of the 20th century, immigrant labor and innovation helped turn the U. S. into a powerful manufacturing nation. Today, foreign-born engineers jam the corridors of Silicon Valley,helping America’’s information-technology boom. And as the 21st century dawns, yet another wave of immigrants will once again help transform the economy.46)During the next decade, excepting a change in government policy, nearly a million immigrants are expected to arrive in the U. S. every year,most of whom,both legal and illegal,will continue to come from Latin America and Southeast Asia, but every foreign land will be represented.As domestic birthrates stagnate, only foreign-born worker will keep the labor pool growing. By 2006, in fact, immigrants will account for half of all new U. S. workers; over the next 30 years, their share will rise to 60%.47) Even at current levels of immigration, according to the Labor Dept. the number of people available to work will increase by a mere 0.8% per year between 1996 and 2006-half the rate of the previous decade. Without immigrants, according to a new study, the U. S. workforce would actually begin to shrink by 2015.48) It’’s not all about sheer numbers, of course:To lift productivity and spur growth, immigrants must provide creativity, entrepreneurial energy, or simple initiative that America couldn’’t find otherwise. If all you did was bring in people who are exactly the same as those we have here, there would be no economic benefit, says Rand Corp. economist James P. Smith, You’’d just have more people. Just as crucial, the array of education and skills immigrants bring could fit neatly with the supply of jobs over the next decade. According to Linda Levine at the Congressional Research Service,60% of the jobs created through 2005 will require some post-secondary education. But, she adds, low-skill jobs will still represent about half of total employment. 49) Yet immigrants also are 50% more likely than Americans to have a graduate degree, and an unbelievable 23% of U. S. residents holding PhDs in science and engineering are foreign-born, according to the National Science Foundation.Indeed, foreign-born workers have shown an extraordinary ability to assimilate and flourish. Certainly, some less skilled workers will remain at the bottom economic rung all their lives. 50) Yet others will catch up quickly, and within a decade of their arrival, the well-educated will go from making barely half that of native-born Americans in comparable work to nearly 90%, according to a recent study.That, of course, will raise immigrants’’ living standards. More important, it will help drive innovation and entrepreneurship,key engines of the 21st Century Economy.