2．Socrates shared with Confucius the idea that________.

　　A．all men were equal when they were born

　　B．the lower classes should be ruled by the upper class

　　C．the purpose of man was to seek freedom and wisdom

　　D．people should not do to others what they did not want others to do to them

　　解析：选B　细节理解题。根据第三段最后一句"Like Confucius, he believed that the superior class should rule the inferior (下层的) classes."可以判断。

　　3．What made some people different from others according to Confucius?

　　A．Family.　　　　　　　 B．Potential.

　　C．Knowledge. D．Community.

　　解析：选C　细节理解题。根据文章第三段中"... and that it was knowledge that set men apart."可以判断。

　　4．This passage is organized in the pattern of ________.

　　A．time and events

　　B．comparison and contrast

　　C．cause and effect

　　D．definition and classification

　　解析：选B　篇章结构题。文章的谋篇布局主要是以比较和对照来阐述两位伟大哲学家孔子与苏格拉底的哲学思想对社会的影响以及思想观点的相似与不同的。故B项正确。

　　B

　　Science, as we think, was born when the Greek philosopher Thales (about 640－546 B．C.) asked a difficult question: What makes up our universe?

　　No one had a ready answer, so Thales went on studying the earth around him, the sky and the stars. He saw so much water on earth and so much water falling from the sky as rain that he decided water must be the basic substance (物质) of the universe.

　　Other Greek thinkers became interested in this question. They suggested other answers. One said that because air lies around the earth, it must be air that makes up all things. Another said that fire, appearing in different forms, was the building block of the universe.

　　The Greek philosophers were feeling their way towards the ideas on which chemistry is based. Centuries later, scientists proved that the universe is made up of certain basic substances. But the list is much more complicated than the Greeks realized. We now know of 103 basic substances which we call "elements (元素)"．

语篇解读：本文讲述了希腊的哲学家在很早的时候就对宇宙的组成物质有所研究。他们通过研究发现因为水、火和空气始终伴随着宇宙，认为它们是宇宙的基本组成物质。在后来人的研究中确实发现希腊的哲学家所说的宇宙是由基本物质组成的观点是对的，只