2021年上半年大学英语四级美文阅读
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【篇一】2021年上半年大学英语四级美文阅读
Culture is the sum total of all the traditions, customs, beliefs,and ways of life of a given group of human beings.In this sense, every group has a culture,however savage, underdeveloped, or uncivilized it may seem to us.To the professional anthropologist,there is no intrinsic superiority of one culture over another,just as to the professional linguist there is no intrinsic rank among languages.
People once thought of the languages of backward groups as savage,underdeveloped forms of speech,consisting largely of grunts and groans.While it is possible that language in general began as a series of grunts and groans,it is a fact established,by the study of “backward” languages that no spoken tongue answers that desc ription today.Most languages of uncivilized groups are,by our most severe standards, extremely complex, delicate,and ingenious pieces of machinery for the transfer of ideas.
They fall behind our Western languages not in their sound patterns or gra妹妹atical structures,which usually are fully adequate for all language needs,but only in their vocabularies,which reflect the objects and activities known to their speakers.Even in this department,however, two things are to be noted:All languages seem to possess the machinery for vocabulary expansion either by putting together words already in existence or by borrowing them from other languages and adapting them to their own system.
The objects and activities requiring names and distinctions in “backward” languages,while different from ours, are often surprisingly numerous and complicated.A Western language is distinguishes merely between two degrees of remoteness (“this” and “that”);some languages of the American Indians distinguish between what is close to the speaker,or to the person addressed, or removed from both,or out of sight, or in the past, or in the future.This study of language, in turn,casts a new light upon the claim of the anthropologists that all cultures are to be viewed independently,and without ideas of rank.
【篇二】2021年上半年大学英语四级美文阅读
Humility is the best policy for technological forecasters.If you doubt that, remember those confident predictions of 30 years ago about the coming arrival of the “paperless office.”The arrival of computers everywhere in the workplace would,we were assured, soon make paper a thing of the past.Bill Gates vision of a computer on every desk has been more or less realized.Yet most of the folks working at those desks are knee-deep in paper.Research suggests our increasing use of paper is due to the introduction of the very digital technology that was supposed to wipe it out.
The case studies on email in the workplace, for example,show that it can lead to a 40 percent increase in paper consumption —and this doesn’t take into account the amount of paper used to print information from the Internet.There’s a wonderful irony here, because the personal computer —not to mention the laser printer —was invented in a lab set up by a copier company which was worried by all the talk of paperless offices.Our attachment to paper is truly amazing.
An astonishing proportion of email users, for example, prints off their messages and stores them all in filing cabinets.To the technological rationalist this behavior seems irrational.Why store email messages in paper files,which take up valuable real estate and are effectively unsearchable,when you can keep them on a hard disk and effortlessly look through them for keywords and phrases?The answer, of course, is it is the rationalists who are irrational.If people love paper, there must be a reason for it.And there is.
It is highly portable, infinitely flexible and embodies very high-resolution display technology,which consumes no battery power.And it doesn’t have to be turned on before you can read it.
【篇三】2021年上半年大学英语四级美文阅读
Today our life and work rarely feel light, pleasant or healing.Instead, the whole experience of being alive begins to melt into one enormous obligation.It becomes the standard greeting everywhere:“I am so busy.”We say this to one another with no small degree of pride.The busier we are, the more important we seem to ourselves and,we imagine, to others.
To be unavailable to our friends and family,to be unable to find time for the sunset,to whiz through our obligations without time for a single mindful breath —this has become the model of a successful life.Because we do not rest, we lose our way.We lose the nourishment that gives us help.We miss the quiet that gives us wisdom.Poisoned by the belief that good things come only through tireless effort,we never truly rest.This is not the world we dreamed of when we were young.
How did we get so terribly rushed in a world saturated with work and responsibility,yet somehow bereft of joy and delight?We have forgotten the Sabbath.Sabbath is the time to enjoy and celebrate what is beautiful and good —time to light candles, sing songs, worship, tell stories,bless our children and loved ones, give thanks, share meals, nap, and walk.It is time to be nourished and refreshed as we let our work,our chores and our important projects lie fallow,trusting that there are larger forces at work taking care of the world when we are at rest.
Sabbath is more than the absence of work.Many of us, in our desperate drive to be successful and care for our many responsibilities feel terrible guilt when we take time to rest.But the Sabbath has proven its wisdom over the ages.Many of us still recall when, not long ago,shops and offices were closed on Sundays.Those quiet Sunday afternoons are embedded in our cultural memory.