2004年Text 4

Americans today don‘t place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are athletes, entertainers, and entrepreneurs, not scholars. Even our schools are where we send our children to get a practical education--not to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Symptoms of pervasive anti-intellectualism in our schools aren't difficult to find.

"Schools have always been in a society where practical is more important than intellectual," says education writer Diane Ravitch. "Schools could be a counterbalance." Razitch‘s latest bock, Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms, traces the roots of anti-intellectualism in our schools, concluding they are anything but a counterbalance to the American distaste for intellectual pursuits.

But they could and should be. Encouraging kids to reject the life of the mind leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and control. Without the ability to think critically, to defend their ideas and understand the ideas of others, they cannot fully participate in our democracy. Continuing along this path, says writer Earl Shorris, "We will become a second-rate country. We will have a less civil society."

"Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege," writes historian and professor Richard Hofstadter in Anti-Intellectualism in American life, a Pulitzer Prize winning book on the roots of anti-intellectualism in US politics, religion, and education. From the beginning of our history, says Hofstadter, our democratic and populist urges have driven us to reject anything that smells of elitism. Practicality, common sense, and native intelligence have been considered more noble qualities than anything you could learn from a book.

Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalist philosophers thought schooling and rigorous book learning put unnatural restraints on children: "We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for 10 or 15 years and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing." Mark Twain‘s Huckleberry Finn exemplified American anti-intellectualism. Its hero avoids being civilized--going to school and learning to read--so he can preserve his innate goodness.

Intellect, according to Hofstadter, is different from native intelligence, 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. Hofstadter says our country‘s educational system is in the grips of people who "joyfully and militantly proclaim their hostility to intellect and their eagerness to identify with children who show the least intellectual promise."

58. The views of Ravish and Emerson on schooling are            .
[A] identical　　　　　
[B] similar
[C] complementary　　
[D] opposite

[答案] D

[解题思路]

本文要求比较拉维奇和爱默生对于教育的各自观点，对应文章信息分别在第二段和第五段。从第二段中可以看出，拉维奇重在批判当前学校教育中的anti-intellectualism，因此反过来说他认为学校教育应该强调智力。而第五段的第一句指出，"Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalist philosophers thought schooling and rigorous book learning put unnatural restraints on children"（爱默生和其他一些超自然主义哲学家认为学校教育和高强度的书本学习会使孩子受到不自然的限制），这说明爱默生反对学校教育，即反对智力，认为那样反而会限制孩子的发展。可见两人的观点是截然相反的，因此正确答案为D。

[题目译文]

在学校教育的问题上，拉维奇和爱默生的观点是            。
[A]相同的
[B]相似的
[C]互补的
[D]相反的

60. What does the author think of intellect?
[A]It is second to intelligence.
[B]It evolves from common sense.
[C]It is to be pursued.
[D]It underlies power.

[答案] C

[解题思路]

通读全文，可以发现作者从头到尾的口气都是赞成智力的，比如最后一段第一句就指出"School remains a place where intellect is mistrusted"（目前学校里知识仍遭到怀疑）。现实是intellect被人们mistrust，实际上作者认为我们应该去追求这种品质，因而正确答案为C。A选项的错误在于作者认为intellect比intelligence更重要，这在第六段对两者的描述中有所体现。至于B、D选项在原文并没有涉及，也可排除。

[题目译文]

作者对知识的想法是怎样的？
[A]它没有智力重要
[B]它由常识演变而来
[C]它应该被人们所追求
[D]它是力量的基础