2015年9月公共英语三级考试考前强化练习题（5）

　　Text 3

　　A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as rule, to have it retold in identically the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as sacred texts. It is always much better to tell a story than read it out of a book, and, if a parent can produce what, in the actual circumstances of the time and the individual child, is an improvement on the printed text, so much the better.

　　A charge made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or arousing his sadistic impulses. To prove the latter, one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often guilty of cruelty than those who had not. Aggressive, destructive, sadistic impulses every child has and, on the whole, their symbolic verbal discharge seems to be rather a safety valve than an incitement to overt action. As to fears, there are, I think, wellauthenticated cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy stories. Often, however, this arises from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.

　　There are also people who object to fairy stories on the grounds that they are not objectively true, that giants, witches, twoheaded dragons, magic carpets, etc., do not exist; and that, instead of indulging his fantasies in fairy tales, the child should be taught how to adapt to reality by studying history and mechanics. I find such people, I must confess, so unsympathetic and peculiar that I do not know how to argue with them. If their case were sound, the world should be full of madmen attempting to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a broomstick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their enchanted girl friend.

　　No fairy story ever claimed to be a description of the external world and no sane child had ever believed that it was.

　　56. In the writer's opinion, a fairy tale .

　　[A] cannot be read to children without variation because they find no pleasure in it

　　[B] is no longer needed in developing children's power of memory

　　[C] must be made easy so that children can read it on their own

　　[D] will be more effective if it is adapted by parents

　　57. According to the passage, some people who are openly against fairy tales argue that .

　　[A] fairy tales are harmful to children in that they show the primitive cruelty in children

　　[B] fairy tales are harmful to children unless they have been adapted by their parent

　　[C] fairy tales increase a tendency to sadism in children

　　[D] children who have read fairy stories pay little attention to the study of history and mechanics

　　58. In the writer's opinion to rid children of fears, fairy stories should be.

　　[A] told only once

　　[B] repeated many times

　　[C] told in a realistic setting

　　[D] presented vividly

　　59. In the writer's opinion, fairy stories .

　　[A] have a very bad effect on children

　　[B] have advantages in cultivating children's imagniativity

　　[C] help children to come to terms with fears

　　[D] harm children greatly

　　60. According to the passage, which of the following statement is not true about fairy stories?

　　[A]Fairy tales may beneficially direct children's aggressive, destructive and sadistic impulses.

　　[B] Children can often be greatly terrified when the fairy story is heard for the first time.

　　[C] If children indulged his fantasies in fairy tales instead of being taught how to adapt to reality by studying history and mechanics the world should be full of madman.

　　[D] Fairy tales are no more than stories about imaginary figures with magical powers which has nothing to do with external world.

　　答案：

　　56. [D]答案可从第一段第二句中推出。“produce what, in the actual circumstances of the time and the individual child, is an improvement on the printed text”指的就是对童话加以改编。

　　57. [C]文中第二段第一句中的“arousing his sadistic impulses”即是答案所在，这里指的就是“唤起暴虐的欲望”。

　　58. [B]在第二段倒数第一、二句中作者解释了孩子们恐惧的原因，并讲述了消除这种恐惧的方法，即“by repetition”。

　　59. [C]答案也在第二段倒数第一句中，作者说多次重复一个故事会把恐惧的痛苦变为面对恐惧并战胜它的一种快乐。所以C中的帮助孩子接受恐惧最为合适。

　　60. [C]A项的内容不是作者的观点，而是作者在末段要批判的观点。而且作者对童话是持肯定态度的，A项内容显然是一种否定态度，因而是错误的。故答案为C。