Fear and its companion pain are two of the most useful things that men and animals possess, if they are properly used. If fire did not hurt when it burnt, children would play it until their hands were burnt away. Similarly, if pain existed but fear did not, a child would burn itself again and again, because fear would not warn it to keep away from the fire that had burn it before. A really fearless soldier—and some do exist—is not a good soldier because he is soon killed; and a dead soldier is of no use to his army. Fear and pain are therefore two guards without which men and animals might soon die out. In our first sentence we suggested that fear ought to be properly used. If, for example, you never go out of your house because of the danger of being knocked down and killed in the street by a car, you are letting fear rule you too much. Even in your house you are not absolutely safe: an airplane may crash on your house, or ants may eat away some of the beams in your roof so that the latter falls on you, or you may get cancer! The important thing is not to let fear rule you, but instead to use fear as your servant and guide. Fear will warn you of dangers; then you have to decide what action to take. In many cases, you can take quick and successful action to avoid the danger. For example, you see a car coming straight towards you; fear warns you, you jump out of the way, and all is well. In some cases, however, you decide that there is nothing that you can do to avoid the danger. For example, you cannot prevent an airplane crashing onto your house. In this case, fear has given you its warning; you have examined it and decided on your course, of action, so fear of this particular danger is no longer of any use to you, and you have to try to overcome it. A really fearless soldier______.
A. is of little use to the army
B. is without equal
C. is nothing but a dead soldier
D. easily gets killed in a battle
Many people believe the glare from snow causes snow blindness. Yet, dark glasses or not they find themselves suffering from headaches and watering eyes, and even snow-blindness, when exposed to several hours of "snow light". The United States Army has now determined that the glare from snow does not cause snow-blindness in troops in a snow-covered country. Rather, a man’’s eyes frequently find nothing to focus on in a broad expanse of a snow-covered area. So his gaze continually shifts and jumps back and forth over the entire landscape in search of something to look at. Finding nothing, hour after hour, the eyes never stop searching and the eyeballs become sore and the eye muscle aches. Nature balances this annoyance by producing more and more liquid which covers the eyeballs. The liquid covers the eyeballs in increasing quantity until vision blurs. And the result is total, even though temporary, snow-blindness. Experiments led the Army to a simple method of overcoming this problem. Scouts ahead of a main body of troops are trained to shake snow from evergreen bushes, creating a dotted line as they cross completely snow-covered landscape. Even the scouts themselves throw lightweight, dark-colored objects ahead on which they too can focus. The men following can then see something. Their gaze is arrested. Their eyes focus on a bush and having found something to see, stop searching through the snow-blanketed landscape. By focusing their attention on one object at a time, the man can cross the snow without becoming hopelessly snow-blind or lost. In this way the problem of crossing a solid white area is overcome. The first paragraph is mainly concerned with ______.
A. snow glare and snow-blindness
B. the whiteness from snow
C. headaches, watering eyes and snow-blindness
D. the need for dark glasses
Besides information on the troubles with child-bearing, Planned Grandparenthood also offers guidance on ____________to children targeted by their parents to reproduce.
Questions 11 to 18 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
A. Wait for about three minutes.
B. Try dialing the number again.
Call again some time later.
D. Make an appointment with Dr. Chen.