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We have known for a long time that the organization of any particular society is influenced by the definition of the sexes and the distinction drawn between them. But we have realized only recently that the identity of each sex is not so easy to pin down, and that definitions evolve in accordance with different types of culture known to us, that is, scientific discoveries and ideological revolutions. Our nature is not considered as immutable, either socially or biologically. As we approach the beginning of the 21st century, the substantial progress made in biology and genetics is radically challenging the roles, responsibilities and specific characteristics attributed to each sex, and yet, scarcely twenty years ago, these were thought to be "beyond dispute". We can safely say, with a few minor exceptions, that the definition of the sexes and their respective functions remained unchanged in the West from the beginning of the 19th century to the 1960s. The role distinction, raised in some cases to the status of uncompromising dualism on a strongly hierarchical model, lasted throughout this period, appealing for its justification to nature, religion and customs alleged to have existed since the dawn of time. The woman bore children and took care of the home. The man set out to conquer the world and was responsible for the survival of his family, by satisfying their needs in peacetime and going to war when necessary. The entire world order rested on the divergence of the sexes. Any overlapping or confusion between the roles was seen as a threat to the time-honored order of things. It was felt to be against nature, a deviation from the norm. Sex roles were determined according to the "place" appropriate to each. Women"s place was, first and foremost, in the home. The outside world, i.e. workshops, factories and business firms, belonged to men. This sex-based division of the world (private and public) gave rise to a strict dichotomy between the attitudes, which conferred on each its special identity. The woman, sequestered at home, "cared, nurtured and conserved". To do this, she had no need to be daring, ambitious, tough or competitive. The man, on the other hand, competing with his fellow men, was caught up every day in the struggle for survival, and hence developed those characteristics which were thought natural in a man. Today, many women go out" to work, and their reasons for doing so have changed considerably. Besides the traditional financial incentives, we find ambition and personal fulfillment motivating those in the most favorable circumstances, and the wish to have a social life and to get out of their domestic isolation influencing others. Above all, for all women, work is invariably connected with the desire for independence.Notes:immutable 不可改变的dualism 双重论divergence 分歧,偏离overlapping 部分巧合、一致time-honored 由来已久的dichotomy 一分为二,对立sequester 使隔离be caught up in 被缠住于:He is caught up in the trivia (琐事) of everyday thingsunduly 过渡地,不恰当地 According to the fourth paragraph, the author seems to think that

A. female passivity is natural.
B. men and women are physically identical.
C. men are born competitive and aggressive.
D. some different sex identity is acquired.

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Picture-taking is a technique both for reflecting the objective world and for expressing the singular self. Photographs depict objective realities that already exist, though only the camera can disclose them. And they depict an individual photographer"s temperament, discovering itself through the camera"s cropping of reality. That is, photography has two directly opposite ideals, in the first, photography is about the world and the photographer is a mere observer who counts for little; but in the second, photography is the instrument of fearlessness, questing subjectivity and the photographer is all. These conflicting ideals arise from uneasiness on the part of both photographers and viewers of photographs toward the aggressive component in "taking" a picture. Accordingly, the ideal of a photographer as observer is attracting because it implicitly denies that picturetaking is an aggressive act. The issue, of course, is not so clear-cut. What photographers do cannot be characterized as simply predatory or as simply, and essentially, benevolent. As a consequence, one ideal of picture-taking or the other is always being rediscovered and championed. An important result of the coexistence of these two ideals is a recurrent ambivalence toward photography"s means. Whatever are the claims that photography might make to be a form of personal expression just like painting, its originality is closely linked to the power of a machine. The steady growth of these powers has made possible the extraordinary informativeness and imaginative formal beauty of many photographs, like Harold Edgerton"s high-speed photographs of a bullet hitting its target or of the swirls and eddies of a tennis stroke. But as cameras become more sophisticated, more automated, some photographers are tempted to disarm themselves or to suggest that they are not really armed, preferring to submit themselves to the limit imposed by pre-modern camera technology because a cruder, less high-powered machine is thought to give more interesting or emotive results, to leave more room for creative accident. For example, it has been virtually a point of honor for many photographers, including Walker Evans and Cartier Bresson, to refuse to use modern equipment. These photographers have come to doubt the value of the camera as an instrument of "fast seeing". Cartier Bresson, in fact, claims that the modern camera may see too fast. This ambivalence toward photographic means determines trends in taste. The cult of the future (of faster and faster seeing) alternates over time with the wish to return to a purer past when images had a handmade quality. This longing for some primitive state of the photographic enterprise is currently widespread and underlies the present-day enthusiasm for daguerreotypes and the work of forgotten nineteenth-century provincial photographers. Photographers and viewers of photographs, it seems, need periodically to resist their own knowingness.Notes:crop vt. 播种,修剪(树木)收割count for little 无关紧要predatory 掠夺成性的champion n. 冠军;vt.支持benevolent 好心肠的ambivalence 矛盾心理make (+不定式) 似乎要: He makes to begin.(他似乎要开始了)swirls and eddies 漩涡cult 狂热崇拜daguerreotypes (初期的)银板照相法 According to paragraph 2, the interest among photographers in each of the photography"s two ideals can be described as

A. steadily growing.
B. cyclically recurring.
C. continuously altering.
D. spontaneously occurring.

We have known for a long time that the organization of any particular society is influenced by the definition of the sexes and the distinction drawn between them. But we have realized only recently that the identity of each sex is not so easy to pin down, and that definitions evolve in accordance with different types of culture known to us, that is, scientific discoveries and ideological revolutions. Our nature is not considered as immutable, either socially or biologically. As we approach the beginning of the 21st century, the substantial progress made in biology and genetics is radically challenging the roles, responsibilities and specific characteristics attributed to each sex, and yet, scarcely twenty years ago, these were thought to be "beyond dispute". We can safely say, with a few minor exceptions, that the definition of the sexes and their respective functions remained unchanged in the West from the beginning of the 19th century to the 1960s. The role distinction, raised in some cases to the status of uncompromising dualism on a strongly hierarchical model, lasted throughout this period, appealing for its justification to nature, religion and customs alleged to have existed since the dawn of time. The woman bore children and took care of the home. The man set out to conquer the world and was responsible for the survival of his family, by satisfying their needs in peacetime and going to war when necessary. The entire world order rested on the divergence of the sexes. Any overlapping or confusion between the roles was seen as a threat to the time-honored order of things. It was felt to be against nature, a deviation from the norm. Sex roles were determined according to the "place" appropriate to each. Women"s place was, first and foremost, in the home. The outside world, i.e. workshops, factories and business firms, belonged to men. This sex-based division of the world (private and public) gave rise to a strict dichotomy between the attitudes, which conferred on each its special identity. The woman, sequestered at home, "cared, nurtured and conserved". To do this, she had no need to be daring, ambitious, tough or competitive. The man, on the other hand, competing with his fellow men, was caught up every day in the struggle for survival, and hence developed those characteristics which were thought natural in a man. Today, many women go out" to work, and their reasons for doing so have changed considerably. Besides the traditional financial incentives, we find ambition and personal fulfillment motivating those in the most favorable circumstances, and the wish to have a social life and to get out of their domestic isolation influencing others. Above all, for all women, work is invariably connected with the desire for independence.Notes:immutable 不可改变的dualism 双重论divergence 分歧,偏离overlapping 部分巧合、一致time-honored 由来已久的dichotomy 一分为二,对立sequester 使隔离be caught up in 被缠住于:He is caught up in the trivia (琐事) of everyday thingsunduly 过渡地,不恰当地 According to the author, which of the following is the most important reason for women to go to work

A. Wish to claim their rights and freedom.
B. Ambition and self-fulfillment.
C. Financial incentives.
Desire for a social life.

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Greg Focker, played by Ben Stiller, represents a generation of American kids (1)_____ in the 1980s on the philosophy that any achievement, however slight, (2)_____ a ribbon. (3)_____ replaced punishment; criticism became a dirty word. In Texas, teachers were advised to (4)_____ using red ink, the colour of (5)_____. In California, a task force was set up to (6)_____ the concept of self worth into the education system. Swathing youngsters in a (7)_____ shield of self-esteem, went the philosophy, would protect them from the nasty things in life, such as bad school grades, underage sex, drug abuse, dead-end jobs and criminality. (8)_____ that the ninth-place ribbons are in danger of strangling the (9)_____ children they were Supposed to help. America"s (10)_____ with self-esteem—like all developments in psychology, it gradually (11)_____ its way to Britain—has turned children who were (12)_____ with (13)_____ into adults who (14)_____ at even the mildest brickbats. Many believe that the feel-good culture has risen at the (15)_____ of traditional education, an opinion espoused in a new book, Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can"t Read, Write, or Add, by the conservative commentator Charles Sykes. Not only that, but the foundations (16)_____ which the self-esteem industry is built are being (17)_____ as decidedly shaky. Roy Baumeister, professor of psychology at Florida State University and once a self-esteem enthusiast, is now (18)_____ a revision of the populist orthodoxy. "After all these years, I"m sorry to say, my recommendation is this: forget about self-esteem and (19)_____ more on self-control and self-discipline," he wrote recently. "Recent work suggests this would be good for the individual and good for society—and might even be able to (20)_____ some of those promises that self-esteem once made but could not keep."

Apprehension
B. Plausibility
C. Approval
D. Resentment

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