大英四下期末阅读与词汇复习范围.docVIP

Unit 5 Passage 1 Silence is unnatural to man. He begins life with a cry and ends it in stillness. In the interval he does all he can to make a noise in the world, and there are few things of which he stands in more fear than of the absence of noise. Even his conversation is in great measure a desperate attempt to prevent a dreadful (可怕的) silence. He knows that ninety-nine percent of human conversation means no more than the buzzing (发出嗡嗡声) of a fly, but he longs to join the buzz and to prove that he is a man and not a waxwork figure. The object of conversation is not, for the most part, to communicate ideas. It is to keep up the buzzing sound. There are, it must be admitted, different qualities of buzz: there is even a buzz that is as exasperating (使人恼怒的) as the continuous ping (砰声) of a mosquito. But at a dinner party one would rather be a mosquito than a mute (哑巴). Most buzzing, fortunately, is agreeable to the ear, and some of it is agreeable even to the mind. He would be a foolish man, however, who waited until he had a wise thought to take part in the buzzing with his neighbors. Those who despise (看不起) the weather as a conversational opening seem to me to be ignorant of the reason why human beings wish to talk. Very few human beings join in a conversation in the hope of learning anything new. Some of them are content if they are merely allowed to go on making a noise into other people’s ears, though they have nothing to tell them except that they have seen two or three new plays or that they have had food in a Swiss hotel. At the end of an evening during which they have said nothing at immense length, they are proud of themselves on their success as conversationalists. 21. The significance of man’s speaking ability is that ________. A. it proves his existence as a man B. it raises his position as a man C. it makes him enjoy meaningful conversations D. it gets him out of trouble 22. The statement that “ninety-nine percent of human conversation means no more tha