单选题
Silence is unnatural to man. He begins his life with a cry and
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it in stillness. In the
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he does all he can to make a noise and there are few things of which he stands in more fear than the
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of noise. Even his conversation is in great measure a desperate attempt to
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a dreadful(糟透的，讨厌的) silence. If he is introduced to someone, and a number of
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occur in the conversation he regards himself as a failure and is full of
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of the empties-headed chatterbox. He knows that 99% of human conversation means no more than the buzzing(嗡嗡声) of a fly, but he
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to join in the buzz, and to
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that he is a man and not a wax-work figure.
The
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of a conversation is usually not to communicate ideas, but to
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up all the buzzing sound.
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, most buzzing is agreeable to the ear, and some of it is agreeable to the
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. A man would be very
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if he waited until he had a wise thought before taking part in the buzzing with others. Those who despise (鄙视，看不起) the weather as a conversational
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seem to me to be
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of the reason why human beings wish to talk.
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, very few human beings join in a conversation in which they are
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allowed to go on making a noise into other people"s ears, though they have nothing to tell them
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that they have seen two or three new plays or
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they have had bad food in a Swiss hotel. At the end of the evening during which they have said nothing meaningful
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immense length they congratulate themselves on their success as talkers.
【答案解析】[解析] 考查名词词义辨析。此句话从正反两个方面论述了声音的存在对于人类的重要性：前半句表明人类在一生中总是在尽力要发出声音，而后半句指出很少有事物能够像沉寂(the absence of noise)一样引起人类的恐惧。故absence“缺席，不存在”为正确答案。disturbance“动乱，喧嚣”；avoidance“避免”；presence“出席，到场”放在此处均与文意不符。
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[解析] 考查动词词义辨析。此句活的意思是“在很大程度上人类谈话就是想竭力避免可怕的沉寂”。in great measure意为“在很大程度上，多半”。由此可见，prevent“阻止，阻碍”是正确答案。cause“使产生，使发生”；make“创造，引起”；forbid“禁止，不许”均与文意不符。
【答案解析】[解析] 考查上下文逻辑关系。根据上下文，这句话的意思是“但是，很少有人参加只允许他们向别人发出无意义噪音的谈话”。即谈话者希望自己的谈话不仅仅只是发出声音，同时还要agreeable to the mind。所以，这里所需要的是一个表示转折意义的副词。选项therefore“因此”表示因果关系；accordingly“相应地”也是表示因果关系；furthermore“更进一步来讲”表示递进关系，都不合文意。故选however。