阅读理解

Directions: There are 3 passages in this part each passage is followed by some questions unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice. Write your answers on the answer sheet.

Passage Thre

During adolescence, the development of political ideology becomes apparent in the individual; ideology here is defined as the presence roughly consistent attitudes, more or less organized in reference to a more encompassing, though perhaps tacit, set of general principles. As such, political ideology is dim or absent at the beginning of adolescence. Its acquisition by the adolescent, in even the most modest sense, requires the acquisition of relatively, sophisticated cognitive skills: the ability to manage abstractness, synthesize and generalize, to imagine the future. These are accompanied by a steady advance in the ability to understand principles.

The child’ s rapid acquisition of political knowledge also promotes the growth of political ideology during adolescence. By knowledge I mean more than the dreary “facts”, such as the composition of county government that the child is exposed to in the conventional ninth- grade cities course. Nor do I mean only information on current political realities. These are facets of knowledge, but they are less critical than the adolescent’s absorption, often unwitting, of a feeling for those many unspoken assumptions about the political system that comprise the common ground of understanding— for example, what the state can appropriately demand of its citizens, and vice versa, or the proper relationship of government to subsidiary social institutions, such as the schools and churches. Thus political knowledge is the awareness of social assumptions and relationships as well as of objective facts. Much of the naiveté that characterizes the younger adolescent’ s grasp of politics stems not from an ignorance of “facts” but from conventions of the system, of what is and is not customarily done, and of how and why it is or is not done.

Yet I do not want to overemphasize the significance of increased political knowledge informing adolescent ideology. Over the years I have become progressively disenchanted about the centrality of such knowledge and have come to believe that much current work in political socialization, by relying too heavily on its apparent acquisition, has been misled about the tempo of political understanding m adolescence. Just as young children can count numbers in series without grasping the principle of ordination, young adolescents may have in their heads many random bits of political information without a secure understanding of those concepts that would give order and meaning to the information.

Like magpies, children’ s minds pick up bits and pieces of data. If you encourage them, they will drop these at your feet—Republicans and Democrats, the tripartite division of the federal system, perhaps even the capital of Massachusetts. But until the adolescent has grasped the encompassing function that concepts and principles provide, the data remain fragmented, random, disordered. 

单选题 The author’ s primary purpose in the passage is to.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】综合全文可知， 文章主要是在说明青少年要想培养政治意识需要掌握哪些知识。
单选题 The author uses the term “common ground of understanding” (line 27) to refer to.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】由第二段第四句中unspoken assumptions about the political system that comprise the common ground of understanding—for example. . . such as the schools and churches. 可知， common ground of understanding指的是对国家政治活动的基本认识， 比如政府与学校的关系、 政府与教堂的关系等等。
单选题 The passage suggests that, during early adolescence, a child would find which of the following most difficult to understand?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】由第二段最后一句Much of the naiveté that characterizes the younger adolescent’ s grasp of politics stems not from an ignorance of “facts” but from conventions of the system, of what is and is not customarily done, and of how and why it is or is not done.可知， 年龄较小的青少年不懂的地方来自于对政治体系运行上的一些惯例。 D项中联邦政府是否应该扶持私立学校属于政治体系运行方面的问题。
单选题 It can be inferred from the passage that the author would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements about schools?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】由第二段第四句中unspoken assumptions about the political system that comprise the common ground of understanding—for example. . . such as the schools and churches. 可知， 对政府与学校的关系的认识是青少年需要知道的政治知识， 可见作者认为学校也是政治体系的一部分。
单选题 Which of the following best summarizes the author’ s evaluation of the accumulation of political knowledge by adolescents?
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】由第二段内容可知， 作者认为熟知政治知识是有必要的。第三段首句Yet I do not want to overemphasize the significance of increased political knowledge in forming adolescent ideology中， 作者表示他不想过分强调丰富政治知识的重要性。