单选题
The universities have trained the intellectual pioneers of
our civilization — the priests, the lawyers, the statesmen, the doctors, the men
of science, and the men of letters. The conduct of business now requires
intellectual imagination of the same type as that which in former times has
mainly passed into those other occupations. There is one
{{U}}great difficulty which hinders all the higher types of human effort{{/U}}. In
modern times, this difficulty has even increased in its possibilities for evil.
In any large organization the younger men, who are novices, must be set to jobs
which consist in carrying out fixed duties in obedience to orders. No president
of a large corporation meets his youngest employee at his office door with the
offer of the most responsible job which the work of that corporation includes.
The young men are set to work at a fixed routine, and only occasionally even see
the president as he passes in and out of the building. Such work is a great
discipline. It imparts knowledge, and it produces reliability of character; also
it is the only work for which the young men, in that novice stage, are fit, and
it is the work for which they are hired. There can be no criticism of the
custom, but there may be an unfortunate effect: prolonged routine work dulls the
imagination. The way in which a university should function in
the preparation for an intellectual career, is by promoting the imaginative
consideration of the various general principles underlying that career. Its
students thus pass into their period of technical apprenticeship with their
imaginations already practiced in connecting details with general
principles. Thus the proper function of a university is the
imaginative acquisition of knowledge. Apart from this importance of the
imagination, there is no reason why businessmen, and other professional men,
should not pick up their facts bit by bit as they want them for particular
occasions. A university is imaginative or it is nothing — at least nothing
useful.
单选题
What is a basic requirement for work in all professions according to
the passage?
A. Imagination.
B. Reliability of character.
C. Discipline.
D. Obedience to orders.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】细节题。答案对应于第一段最后一句：The conduct of business now requires intellectual imagination…other occupations，即与以前的其他职业一样，如今任何工作都需要有知识性的想像力，故选[A]。
单选题
Which of the following serves best as the title of the passage?
单选题
In modern times the period of technical apprenticeship______.
A. may have bad effects upon the young men
B. can very well train the young men
C. is a root cause of many evils
D. is unnecessary for the employees and the business
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】分析推理题。文章第二段首先指出阻碍人们做出更大努力的一个难题，然后以现代社会对于年轻人就业时有漫长的“学徒期”这一现象进行了说明和分析，最后得出结论：prolonged routine work dulls the imagination。因此作者认为学徒期对于年轻人的想像力是有不良作用的，选[A]。
单选题
If a university is to be of any use, it should prepare the students for
an intellectual career by______.
A. imparting knowledge and developing skills
B. developing students' independence in thinking
C. disciplining the students in their subject fields
D. promoting the imagination in connecting details with general
principles
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】细节题。答案信息对应于第三段第一句：The way…underlying that career，这是作者所赞同的、认为大学应当起的作用。
单选题
What does the "great difficulty which hinders all the higher types of
human effort" mean?
A. Prolonged and fixed routine work in the apprenticeship period.
B. The young employee's seldom seeing the president of the company.
C. Universities' failure to get young people ready for future work.
D. Young men having to obey orders in the early stage of their
work.