C

"Her grades are fine; I'm not worried about that, but she just doesn't seem to love learning any more,"

Alice's mum said.

She's absolutely right. I'd noticed the same thing about her daughter over the previous two or three years when I'd been Alice's middle school teacher, and I have an answer, right there on the tip of my tongue, to what has gone wrong. Yet I'm torn between my responsibility to help Alice and the knowledge that what I have to say is a truth I'm not sure this mother is ready to hear.

The truth for this parent and so many others is this: Her child has sacrificed her natural curiosity and love of learning at the altar of achievement, and it's our fault. Alice's parents, her teachers, society at large - we are all supposed to be blamed in this crime against learning. From her first day of school, we pointed her toward that altar and trained her to measure her progress by means of points, scores, and awards.

will any of it survive us?

　　The conventional answer is no. Knowledge requires a knower, and there will be no knowing minds around then. But if information survives, perhaps in books or hard drives, maybe the knowledge isn't quite dead but dormant (休眠), ready to become alive with the help of other minds that develop over time or come to visit Earth in the distant future.

　　At first sight, that seems to be reasonable: after all, we have done similar things with past knowledge. For example, we saved an ancient computer from a ship destroyed at sea off the southern coast of Greece, and succeeded in finding the meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphics（象形文字）. Careful work can bring previously lost wisdom back to life.

However, the key point is that there is a certain cultural continuity with those ancient times that allows us to reason and make progress in the dark: we know we are dealing with the legacy (遗赠) of other humans.

We taught Alice that her potential is tied to her intellec（t

智力）, and that her intellect is more important than

Without that link, the survival of objects and raw data doesn't guarantee the survival of knowledge. And a

her character. We taught her to come home proudly bearing grade As, championship prizes, and college

acceptance, and not on purpose, we taught her that we don't really care how she obtains them. We taught her to protect her academic and extracurricular（课外的）perfection at all costs and that it's better to quit when things get challenging rather than risk losing that perfect record. Above all else, we taught her to fear failure. That fear is what has destroyed her love of learning.

28. We can infer from Paragraph 2 that the author .

A. thinks Alice is right B. is uncertain of the answer

C. hesitates to express an idea D. wonders why the mother is worried

29. Which can replace the underlined words"at the altar of"?

A. instead of B. at the risk of

C. at the loss of D. in the interest of

30. What has really made Alice change her attitude to learning?

A. Being slow in study. B. Fear of bad grades. C. Difficulty in study. D. Press from parents.

31. What is more important for a teenager in the author's opinion?

A. His knowledge. B. His intellect.

C. His character. D. His achievement.

The year 3700, Earth is far too hot for any human to call it home. On this planet at least, man is nothing more than a memory - if there is anything left to remember the"wise man". But what about our wisdom -

lack of continuity in language with any future intelligence would be a barrier. Knowledge is closely

connected with language. When a language dies out, we can lose systems of reasoning that they contain. If that's lost, then it can't be recovered.

　　All this means that other minds might not be able to fully make human knowledge alive when we are gone. It is better to concentrate on not dying out in the first place.

32. What is the main purpose of Paragraph 1?

A. To present an interesting idea. B. To state a problem of the future. C. To inform us of the earth in 3700. D. To introduce the topic of the text.

33. What do the words"similar things"in Paragraph 3 probably refer to?

A. Developing the minds. B. Remembering the wise man.

C. Making lost wisdom alive again. D. Learning from the ancient civilization.

34. What plays the key part in getting cultural continuity according to the text?

A. Language. B. Intelligence. C. Knowledge. D. Information.

35. What can be the best title for the text?

A. Can human beings live on? B. Will our wisdom survive us?

C. How we can protect our culture D. What the earth will be like in the future

第二节 (共 5 小题；每小题 2 分，满分 10 分)

根据短文内容，从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为多余选项。

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