阅读理解
No one can be a great thinker who does not realize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think. Not that it is solely, or chiefly, to form great thinkers that freedom of thinking is required. On the contrary, it is as much or even more indispensable to enable average human beings to attain the mental quality which they are capable of. There have been, and may again be, great individual thinkers in a general atmosphere of mental slavery. But there never has been, nor ever will be, in that atmosphere an intellectually active people. While any people has made a temporary approach to such a character, it has been because the dread of heterodox(非正统的) thinking was for a time suspended. Where there is an unspoken convention that principles are not to be disputed; where the discussion of the greatest questions which can occupy humanity is considered to be closed, we cannot hope to find that generally high scale of mental activity which has made some periods of history so remarkable. Never when prolonged arguments avoided the subjects which are large and important enough to rouse enthusiasm was the mind of a people stirred up from its foundations and the impulse given which raised even persons of the most ordinary intellect to something of thinking beings.
He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, and if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion. The rational position for him would be suspension of judgment, and unless he contents himself with that, he is either led by authority, or adopts, like the generality of the world, the side to which he feels the most inclination. Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments of opponents from his own teachers ,presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. That is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or bring them into real contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their seemingly reasonable and persuasive form: he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; otherwise he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty. Ninety-nine in a hundred of what are called educated men are in this condition, and even of those who can argue fluently for their opinions. Their conclusion may be true, but it might be false for anything they know. They have never thrown themselves into the mental position of those who think differently from them and considered what such persons may have to say.
单选题
The fundamental criterion for a great thinker consists in his
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】此文起始句实际上提出了great thinker 的标准，即follow his intellect(靠自己的智力，即独立思考)做出结论。C项与此意相符。
A项的prime events(重要事件)和B项的major issues(重大问题)皆是想当然的臆断，文中未提。D项强调intellectual faculties(智力天赋/才能)，而非think for himself(独立思考)。
单选题
According to the author, it is always advisable to
单选题
According to the text ,which of the following statements is true?
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】第2段说，在辩论一问题时，只了解己方的理由，不了解也无法驳倒对方的理由，不是正确处理论据的方法(not the way to do justice to the arguments)。该段倒数第3句说，即使那些能滔滔不绝地为自己的意见辩护的人，也有99%处于这种状况。由此可知，A项说法正确。
其余三项皆与文意相悖。D项的the generality of people 相当于文中的 the generality of the world(大多数人)。