The ________ of the scientific attitude is that the human mind can succeed in understanding the universe.
A) essence B) texture C) content D) threshold
Directions: There are 20 blanks in the following passage. For each blank there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should choose the one that best fits into the passage. Then mark the corresponding answer on ANSWER SHEET.
The kids who grew up on “Star Trek” can’t find ___36___ way around Earth. Americans can___37___direct to England, but only half can find it on a map of Europe. They can fly almost___ 38___in the United States for a few hundred dollars, but they put New York State in 37 placed on both coasts. When they look for the United States__39___ , they spot it in China, Australia, Brazil, the Soviet Union, India and Botswana. For people who are supposed to be leaders of the__40 __world, Americans are___41 ___ dumb, according to a survey conducted for the National Geographic Society. In many school systems, geography has been mixed with history___42___melted down into social studies. Social studies has been processed into “teacher resource packages” and___43___of good writing, excitement, color and any ideas that aren’t simplistic, too__44___and too deadening to hold students’ attention.
In the last few years, evidence of America’s educational__45___has prompted hundreds of studies, generated baskets___46___legislation and moved parents into advocacy groups. But there’s little to show that the trend has been___47___. No matter___48___you try, you can’t make it seem funny that many Americans say pandas come from Panama, the Summer Olympic Games were held in Vietnam or___49___ Iraq, and Columbus was trying to get to Europe when he bumped into___ 50___.
Hurricanes are killer winds, and their ________ power lies in the physical damage they can do.
A) cumulative B) destructive C) turbulent D) prevalent
Taking charge of yourself involves putting to rest some very prevalent myths. At the top of the list is the notion that intelligence is measured by your ability to solve complex problems; to read, write and compute at certain levels; and to resolve abstract equations quickly. This vision of intelligence asserts formal education and bookish excellence as the true measures of self fulfillment. It encourages a kind of intellectual prejudice that has brought with it some discouraging results. We have come to believe that someone who has more educational merit badges, who is very good at some form of school discipline is “intelligent.” Yet mental hospitals are filled with patients who have all of the properly lettered certificates. A truer indicator of intelligence is an effective, happy life lived each day and each present moment of every day.
If you are happy, if you live each moment for everything it’s worth, then you are an intelligent person. Problem solving is a useful help to your happiness, but if you know that given your inability to resolve a particular concern you can still choose happiness for yourself, or at a minimum refuse to choose unhappiness, then you are intelligent. You are intelligent because you have the ultimate weapon against the big N.B.D.—Nervous Break Down.
“Intelligent people do not have N.B.D.’s because they are in charge of themselves. They know how to choose happiness over depression, because they know how to deal with the problems of their lives.
You can begin to think of yourself as truly intelligent on the basis of how you choose to feel in the face of trying circumstances. The life struggles are pretty much the same for each of us. Every one who is involved with other human beings in any social context has similar difficulties. Disagreements, conflicts and compromises are a part of what it means to be human. Similarly, money, growing old, sickness, deaths, natural disasters and accidents are all events which present problems to virtually all human beings. But some people are able to make it, to avoid immobilizing depression and unhappiness despite such occurrences, while others collapse or have an N.B.D. Those who recognize problems as a human condition and don’t measure happiness by an absence of problems are the most intelligent kind of humans we know; also, the most rare.
