阅读理解

Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. For each of them there are four choices marked A., B., C. and D. You should decide on the best choice.


Passage 1

A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as a 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 to read it out of a book and, if a parent can produce 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. 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 story. Often, however, this arises from the child having been told the story on only one occasion. 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 girlfriend.

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

单选题 The author considers that a fairy story is more effective when it is _____.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】文章第一段第二句： “讲述一则故事比从书中读出来要更好， 如果父母在印刷文本的基础上做些改进，那就更好了”。 故选C。
单选题 The word “overt” (paragraph 2) means _____.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】此句大意为： 总体上， 相对于做出显性行为的刺激来说， 他们象征性的语言表达是一道比较安全的阀门。 overt此处与“象征性的”相对， 表示“真正的”。 authentic真正的。 acute严重的。 apparent显然的。 artificial人工的。 故选B。
单选题 According to the passage, great fear can be stimulated in a child when a story is _____.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】文章第二段提到“Often, however, this arises from the child having been told the story on only one occasion.”。 由此可知只有第一次听到这个故事， 孩子才会感到害怕。 故选B。
单选题 According to the passage, the advantage claimed for repeating fairy stories to young children is that it _____.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】文章第二段最后一句“Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.”由此可知通过重复熟悉这个故事， 孩子们就会把对恐惧的痛苦转化为面对并克服恐惧的快乐。 故选A。
单选题 The author’s mention of broomsticks and telephones is meant to suggest that _____.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】文章第三段最后一句提到 “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 girlfriend.”如果童话反对者的理由是对的， 那这个世界上该充满了疯疯癫癫的人， 想要坐在扫帚上从纽约飞到费城， 或者亲吻电话， 以为那就是他们被施予了魔法的女朋友。 由此可知， 尽管童话描绘了各种梦幻场景， 但孩子们并不会轻易接受童话便是现实。 故选B。