英语六级对于大学生而言是十分重要的一件事，其中阅读让不少人都十分头疼，今天小编为大家带来了几篇六级的阅读来供大家好好学习一下。
Does Travel Broaden The Mind? 1
One often hears it said that travel broadens the mind: if you stay in your own country thewhole time , your ideas remain narrow; whereas if you travel abroad you see new customs, eatnewfoods, do new things, and come back home with a broader mind.
But does this always — or even usually — happen? An acquaintance2 of mine who lives inEngland and had never been outside it until last summer, decided to go over3 to France for atrip. When hereturned, I asked him how he liked it.“Terrible, ”was his answer.“ I couldn’t get anice cup of tea anywhere . 4 Thank goodness I’m back. ”I asked him whether he hadn’t had anygood food while hewas there .“Oh, the dinners were all right, ”he said.“I found a little placewhere they made quite good fish and chips. Not as good as ours, mind you5, but they werepassable. But the breakfastswere terrible: no bacon or kippers. I had fried eggs and chips, butit was quite a 6 business getting them to make them. They expected me to eat rolls. And whenI asked for marmalade , theybrought strawberry jam. And do you know, they insisted that itwas marmalade? The trouble is they don’t know English. ”
I thought it useless to explain that we borrowed the word‘marmalade ’from French, and that itmeans, in that language, any kind of jam. So I said,“But didn’t you eat any of the famousFrenchfood?”“What? Me?”he said.“Of course not! Give me good old English food every time!None of these fancy bits for me! ”Obviously travel had not broadened his mind.
This does not, of course, happen only to Englishmen in France: all nationalities, in all foreigncountries, can be found judging what they see, hear, taste and smell according to theirownhabits and customs. People who are better educated and who have read a lot about foreigncountries tend to be more adaptable7 and tolerant8, but this is because their minds havealready beenbroadened before they start travelling. In fact, it is easier to be broad-mindedabout foreign habits and customs, if one’s acquaintance with these things is limited to booksand films. TheAmerican smiles tolerantly over the absence of central heating in most Englishhomes when he is himself comfortably seated in his armchair in his centrally heated house inChicago; the Englishman reads about the sanitary arrangements in a certain tropical country,and the inhabitants of the latter read about London fogs, and each side manages to bedetached and broad-minded. 9 Butactual physical contact with things one is unaccustomed tois much more difficult to bear philosophically.
Perhaps the ideal would be if travel could succeed in making people tolerant of the habits andcustoms of others without abandoning their own. The criterion for judging a foreigner couldbe:Does he try to be polite and considerate to others? Instead of: Is he like me?
Unreality Of TV
Dr. Heinrich Applebaum recently completed a study on the effects of television on children. In his case, though, he wasn’t concerned1 with violence , but how television gives children a falsesense of reality.
Dr. Applebaum told me,“The greatest danger of television is that it presents a world to children that doesn’t exist, and raises expectations that can never be fulfilled. ” “ I don’tunderstand, Doctor, ”I said. “Well, let me cite one example. Have you ever seen a television show where a person in an automobile doesn’t immediately find a parking2 place on the very firsttry?” “Come to think of it, ”I said,“I haven’t. ”
“Not only is there always a parking spot available3 but the driver doesn’t even have to back into it. There are two parking spaces available whenever someone in a TV show needs one . Childrenare being led to believe that when they grow up they will always be able to find a parking place when and where they want it. Can you imagine the trauma when they discover that in real life youcan drive around a block for three hours and still not find a place to put your car?”
“ I never thought of it but it’s true . What else do they show on television which gives a distorted4 picture of the real world?” “Have you noticed that whenever a character walks out of arestaurant or office building or apartment and says to the doorman,‘Get me a taxi, ’the taxi immediately arrives? Millions of children are under the impression5 that all a doorman has to do isblow his whistle and a taxi will be there. I have never seen a show where the doorman has said, ‘ I’m sorry. I can’t get you a taxi. You better take the bus. ’” “Of course , ”I said.“I neverknew before what bothered me about those TV action programs, but now I do. There is always a yellow taxi waiting off screen. ” “Now, ”said Applebaum,“ have you ever said to a taxi driver,‘Follow that car and don’t lose him’?”
“Not really. ” “Well, if you had, the driver would have told you to blow it out your ear. No taxi driver is in a mood to follow another car because that means he ’s going to get involved.
But on TV every cabdriver looks as if he ’d like nothing better to do than to drive 90 miles an hour through a rain-swept street trying to keep up with a carful of hoods. And the worst thingis that the kids believe it. ”
Female Oppression
No one who has studied history, even superficially, will for a moment dispute the statement that there has brooded very steadily over1 the female half of the human family an air ofrepression, of limitation, of hindrance , of disability, of gloom, of servitude. If there have been epochs during which women have been regarded equal to men, they have been brief and abnormal.
Among the Hindus2, woman was the slave of man , forbidden to speak the language of her master, and compelled to use the patois3 of the slaves. The Hebrews pronounced her an afterthought4 ofthe Deity, and the mother of all evils. The Greek law regarded her as a child, and held her in life -long tutelage. The Greek philosophers proclaimed her a “monster”,“ an accidentalproduction”. Medieval councils declared her unfit for instruction. The early Christian fathers denounced her as a“ noxious animal”, a“painted temptress”, a“ necessary evil”,“a desirablecalamity”, and a“ domestic peril”.
In marriage she has been a serf; as a mother she has been robbed of her children; in public instruction she has been ignored; in labor she has been a menial, and then inadequatelycompensated; civilly she has been a minor, and politically she has had no existence. She has been the equal of man only when punishment and the payment of taxes were in question5 .
