考研英語閱讀理解命題思路透析和真題揭秘(32)

1998年Passage 3 

Science has long had an uneasy relationship with other aspects of culture. Think of Gallileo's 17th century trial for his rebelling belief before the Catholic Church or poet William Blake's harsh remarks against the mechanistic worldview of Isaac Newton. The schism between science and the humanities has, if anything, deepened in this century.

Until recently, the scientific community was so powerful that it could afford to ignore its critics - but no longer. As funding for science has declined, scientists have attacked "antiscience" in several books, notably Higher Superstition, by Paul R.Gross, a biologist at the University of Verginia, and Norman Levitt, a mathematician at Rutgers University; and The Demon Haunted World, by Car Sagan of Cornell University.

Defenders of science have also voiced their concerns at meetings such as "The Flight from Science and Reason," held in New York City in 1995, and "Science in the Age of (Mis)information," which assembled last June near Buffalo.

Antiscience clearly means different things to different people. Gross and Levitt find fault primarily with sociologists, philosophers and other academics who have questioned science's objectivity. Sagan is more concerned with those who believe in ghosts, creationism and other phenomena that contradict the scientific worldview.

A survey of news stories in 1996 reveals that the antiscience tag has been attached to many other groups as well, from authorities who advocated the elimination of the last remaining stocks of smallpox virus to Republicans who advocated decreased funding for basic research.

Few would dispute that the term applies to the Unabomber, those manifesto, published in 1995, scorns science and longs for return to a pretechnological utopia. But surely that does not mean environmentalists concerned about uncontrolled industrial growth are antiscience, as an essay in US News & World Report last May seemed to suggest.

The environmentalists, inevitably, respond to such critics. The true enemies of science, argues Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University, a pioneer of environmental studies, are those who question the evidence supporting global warming, the depletion of the ozone layer and other consequences of industrial growth.

Indeed, some observers fear that the antiscience epithet is in danger of becoming meaningless. "The term ‘a(chǎn)ntiscience' can lump together too many, quite different things," notes Harvard University philosopher Gerald Holton in his 1993 work Science and Anti Science. "They have in common only one thing that they tend to annoy or threaten those who regard themselves as more enlightened."

61. Which of the following is true according to the passage?
[A] Environmentalists were blamed for antiscience in an essay.
[B] Politicians are not subject to the labeling of antiscience.
[C] The "more enlightened" tend to tag others as antiscience
[D] Tagging environmentalists as "antiscience" is justifiable

[答案] A

[解題思路]

本題可以采用排除法。首先，文章第五段指出"A survey of news stories in 1996 reveals that the antiscience tag has been attached to many other groups as well, from authorities who advocated the elimination of the last remaining stocks of smallpox virus to Republicans who advocated decreased funding for basic research"（1996年對新聞報道的調(diào)查表明，反科學的標簽也貼在了許多其他群體上，從提倡消滅所有現(xiàn)存的天花病毒的官員到鼓吹削減基礎研究基金的共和黨人），而B選項的表述與這句話是矛盾的，因此B是錯誤選項。C選項與文章最后一句話"They have in common only one thing that they tend to annoy or threaten those who regard themselves as more enlightened"（它們惟一的共同點就是會激怒或威脅那些自以為比別人更高明的人），C選項與該表述不一致。文章第六段最后一句話指出"But surely that does not mean environmentalists concerned about uncontrolled industrial growth are antiscience, as an essay in US News & World Report last May seemed to suggest"（當然，這并不意味著，對不加控制的工業(yè)發(fā)展表示擔憂的環(huán)境主義者也是反科學的，而去年5月份刊登在《美國新聞和世界報導》的一篇文章似乎有此暗示），D選項與這個句子的意思正好相反，也可以排除。而A選項則正好符合第六段最后一句話的內(nèi)容，是正確選項。

[題目譯文]

下列哪一項符合文意？
[A] 環(huán)保主義者們在一篇文章中被指責為反科學。
[B] 很難給政治家們貼上反科學的標簽。
[C] "那些更有學識的人"更會給別人貼上反科學的標簽。
[D] 給環(huán)保主義者貼上反科學的標簽是有道理的。

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