ACT试题(三)
Reading
The Reading section of the ACT test measures your comprehension skills by providing a passage from which you should be able to read, then find explicitly stated details, infer from text, draw conclusions, and make comparisons and generalizations. Roughly 25% of the passages come from each of these subject areas: Social Studies, Natural Sciences, Literature, and Humanities.
Most of the reading questions refer to a single passage, but the ACT test has introduced “paired passages,” for which you will need to refer to two separate short paragraphs on the same topic to answer questions. During the Reading section of the ACT test, you have 35 minutes to answer 40 questions. You need to read passages thoroughly, but quickly, attempting to gain the most meaning while wasting no time. This would be a good thing to practice during your preparation.
This passage was written by the essayist and lecturer, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
ESSAY II Self-Reliance
I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instil is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,—— and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is, that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.
What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text, in the face and behaviour of children, babes, and even brutes! That divided and rebel mind, that distrust of a sentiment because our arithmetic has computed the strength and means opposed to our purpose, these have not. Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we look in their faces, we are disconcerted. Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries. Bashful or bold, then, he will know how to make us seniors very unnecessary.
The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the healthy attitude of human nature. A boy is in the parlour what the pit is in the playhouse; independent, irresponsible, looking out from his corner on such people and facts as pass by, he tries and sentences them on their merits, in the swift, summary way of boys, as good, bad, interesting, silly, eloquent, troublesome. He cumbers himself never about consequences, about interests: he gives an independent, genuine verdict. You must court him: he does not court you. But the man is, as it were, clapped into jail by his consciousness. As soon as he has once acted or spoken with eclat, he is a committed person, watched by the sympathy or the hatred of hundreds, whose affections must now enter into his account. There is no Lethe for this. Ah, that he could pass again into his neutrality! Who can thus avoid all pledges, and having observed, observe again from the same unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted innocence, must always be formidable. He would utter opinions on all passing affairs, which being seen to be not private, but necessary, would sink like darts into the ear of men, and put them in fear.
一、 What is one of the primary themes found in this excerpt of Emerson’s essay?
1.Societal conformity
2.Trusting oneself
3.Faith in others
4.The importance of education
二、 What does Emerson urge his audience to do in the first paragraph?
1. To believe in the wisdom of others and follow the leadership of great men
2. To focus on educating oneself in the face of opposition
3. To believe in yourself and to speak your convictions aloud
4. To become a man or woman of the world, investigating the thoughts and ideas of others
三、 What is the meaning of the word “unaffrighted” as it is used in the final paragraph in the passage?
1. unhindered, nonchalant
2. disobedient, rebellious
3. unafraid, brave
4. uninterested, detached
四、 What, does Emerson argue, is the function of intuition?
1.Intuition separates mankind from other animals.
2.Intuition is a gift given to the wise, and should be used to educate those who are less learned.
3.Intuition is the means by which men and women judge one another.
4.Intuition serves as one’s moral center.
五、 What is the core purpose of the essay’s first paragraph or introduction?
1.To posit the notion that mankind must learn to listen to self before listening to others
2.To introduce the idea of following great leaders to the audience
3.To provide exposition of Emerson as an author qualified to compose this essay
4.To identify the inspiration for Emerson’s essay
六、 Which of the following statements would Emerson likely agree with?
1.Time not spent in the company of others is wasted.
2.A day gone by without a serious discussion is a day lost.
3.Harmony may only be achieved through the melding of minds.
4.Peace cannot be achieved without extensive self-observation and inward thought.
七、 What is the overall tone of the passage?
1. Weary, resigned
2. Frantic, urgent
3.Hopeful, musing
4. Persuasive, manipulative
八、 What is Emerson’s attitude toward children and youth?
1. Emerson commends youth for their honesty, but encouraged adults to practice greater tact in their everyday doings.
2. Emerson regards children with fondness, but acknowledges the importance of moving past childish fancy.
3. He considers children to be fiendish in their behavior, and youth more so.
4. He regards the innocence and guilelessness of youth with respect and envy.
九、 How does the title “Self-Reliance” relate to the passage?
1. “Self-Reliance” serves as the thesis for this piece.
2. “Self-Reliance” serves as the antithesis to the piece.
3. “Self-Reliance” is the name of the work that inspired Emerson’s essay.
4. “Self-Reliance” refers to Emerson’s experiences in his early childhood.
十、 What is the meaning of this excerpt, found at the base of the first paragraph?
1. You should always strive to have the first word in an argument.
2. Originality is a concept long ago abandoned, and cannot be reclaimed.
3. Those around you will inevitably speak shameful words.
4. Waiting to speak one’s opinion until another has spoken the same opinion will result in a feeling of shame or disconnection from that opinion.