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TEXT E In sixteenth-century Italy and eighteenth-century France, waning prosperity and increasing social unrest led the ruling families to try to preserve their superiority by withdrawing from the lower and middle classes behind barriers of etiquette. In a prosperous community, on the other hand, polite society soon adsorbs the newly rich, and in England there has never been any shortage of books on etiquette for teaching them the manners appropriate to their new way of life. Every code of etiquette has contained three elements: basic moral duties; practical rules which promote efficiency; and artificial, optional graces such as formal compliments to, say, women on their beauty or superiors on their generosity and importance. In the first category are considerations for the weak and respect for age. Among the ancient Egyptians the young always stood in the presence of older people. Among the Mponguwe of Tanzaia, the young men bow as they pass the huts of the eiders. In England, until about a century ago, young children did not sit in their parents’ presence without asking permission. Practical rules are helpful in such ordinary occurrences of social life as making proper introductions at parties or other functions so that people can be brought to know each other. Before the invention of the fork, etiquette directed that the fingers should be kept as clean as possible; before the handkerchief came into common use, etiquette suggested that after spitting, a person should rub the spit inconspicuously underfoot. Extremely refined behavior, however, cultivated as an art of gracious living, has been characteristic only of societies with wealth and leisure, which admitted women as the social equals of men. After the fall of Rome, the first European society to regulate behavior in private life in accordance with a complicated code of etiquette was twelfth-century Province, in France. Provinces had become wealthy. The lords had returned to their castle from the crusades, and there the ideals of chivalry grew up, which emphasized the virtue and gentleness of women and demanded that a knight should profess a pure and dedicated love to a lady who would be his inspiration, and to whom he would dedicate his valiant deeds, though he would never come physically close to her. This was the introduction of the concept of romantic love, which was to influence literature for many hundreds of years and which still lives on in a debased form in simple popular songs and cheap novels today. In Renaissance Italy too, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a wealthy and leisured society developed an extremely complex code of manners, but the rules of behavior of fashionable society had little influence on the daily life of the lower classes. Indeed many of the rules, such as how to enter a banquet room, or how to use a sword or handkerchief for ceremonial purposes, were irrelevant to the way of life of the average working man, who spent most of his life outdoors or in his own poor hut and most probably did not have a handkerchief, certainly not a sword, to his name. Yet the essential basis of all good manners does not vary. Consideration for the old and weak and the avoidance of banning or giving unnecessary offence to others is a feature of all societies everywhere and at all levels from the highest to the lowest. According to the writer which of the following is put of chivalry A knight should ______.

A. inspire his lady to perform valiant deeds
B. perform deeds which would inspire romantic songs
C. express his love for his lady from a distance
D. regard his lady as strong and independent

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Why did Annan meet the seven top pharmaceutical companies

A. He urged them to provide more medications for these countries.
B. He urged them to reduce the production of the medications.
C. He urged them to lower the prices of the medications.
D. He urged them to produce more effective medications.

不符合法定程序的辞退没有法律效力。( )

A. 对
B. 错

What was most important, according to Kofi Annan

A. Getting the WHO work.
B. Looking at the figures and statistics and the devastation.
C. Getting the leaders speaking up.
Discussing the issue with the WHO and the UNAIDS.

TEXT D One of the most interesting paradoxes in America today is that Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, is now engaged in a serious debate about what a university should be, and whether it is measuring up. Like the Roman Catholic church and other ancient institutions, it is asking-still in private rather than in public whether its past assumptions about faculty, authority, admission, courses of study, are really relevant to the problems of the 1990’ s. Should Harvard--or any other university--be an intellectual sanctuary, apart from the political and social revolution of the age, or should it be a laboratory for experimentation with these political and social revolutions; or even an engine of the revolution This is what is being discussed privately in the big clapboard houses of faculty members around the Harvard Yard. Walter Lip Mann, a distinguished Harvard graduate, defined the issue several years ago. "If the universities axe to do their work." he said," they must be independent and they must be disinterested... They are places to which men can turn for judgments which are unbiased by partisanship and special interest. Obviously, the moment the universities fall under political control, or under the control of private interest, or the moment they themselves take a hand in politics and the leadership of government, their value as independent and disinterested sources of judgment is impaired ..." This is part of the argument that is going on at Harvard today. Another part is the argument of the militant and even many moderate students: that a university is the keeper of our ideals and morals, and should not be "disinterested" but activist in bringing the nation’ s ideals and actions together. Harvard’ s men of today seem more trebled and less sure about personal, political and academic purpose than they did at the beginning. They are not even clear about how they should debate and resolve their problems but they are struggling with privately, and how they come out is bound to influence American university and political life in the 1990’ s. It can be inferred from the passage that in life’ s goal people of Harvard are becoming ______.

A. less sure about it
B. more sure about it
C. less interested in it
D. more hopeful of it

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