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  3. Passage 2 Americans today don′t place a very high value on intellect. Our he...

Passage 2 Americans today don′t place a very high value on intellect. Our he...

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问题 Passage 2
Americans today don′t place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are athletes,
entertainers, and entrepreneurs, not scholars. Even our schools are where we send our children to geta practical education--not to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Symptoms of pervasiveanti-intellectualism in our schools aren′t difficult to fred.
"Schools have always been in a society where practical is more important than intellectual,"says education writer Diane Ravitch."Schools could be a counterbalance." Ravitch′s latest book,Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms, traces the roots of anti-intellectualism in ourschools, concluding they are anything but a counterbalance to the American distaste for intellectualpursuits.
But they could and should be. Encouraging kids to reject the life of the mind leaves themvulnerable to exploitation and control. Without the ability to think critically, to defend their ideasand understand the ideas of others, they cannot fully participate in our democracy. Continuing alongthis path, says writer Earl Shorris, "We will become a second-rate country. We will have a less civilsociety."
"Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege," writes historian and professor RichardHofstadter in Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, a Pulitzer-Prize winning book on the roots ofanti-intellectualism in uspolitics, religion, and education. From the beginning of our history, saysHofstadter, our democratic and populist urges have driven us to reject anything that smells of elitism.
Practicality, common sense, and native intelligence have been considered more noble qualities thananything you could learn from a book.
Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalist philosophers thought schooling andrigorous book learning put unnatural restraints on children: "We are shut up in schools and collegerecitation rooms for 10 or 15 years and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know athing." Mark Twain′ s Huckleberry Finn exemplified American anti-intellectualism. Its hero avoidsbeing civilized--going to school and learning to read--so he can preserve his innate goodness.
Intellect, according to Hofstadter, is different from native intelligence, a quality we reluctantlyadmire. Intellect is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of the mind. Intelligence seeks tograsp, manipulate, re-order, and adjust, while intellect examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes,criticizes and imagines.
School remains a place where intellect is mistrusted. Hofstadter says our country′ s educationalsystem is in the grips of people who "joyfully and militantly proclaim their hostility to intellect andtheir eagerness to identify with children who show the least intellectual promise."
We can learn from the text that Americans have a history of___________.
选项 A.undervaluing intellect

B.favoring intellectualism

C.supporting school reform

D.suppressing native intelligence
答案A
解析细节题。根据题干中的关键词定位到第四段后半部分。霍夫斯塔特说，自历史之初，我们对民主化和大众化的渴望就驱使我们排斥任何带有精英优越论味道的东西。实用性、常识以及天分这些素质一直被视作比从书本里学得的任何东西都高贵。精英优越论味道的东西以及书本里面学到的东西等同于才智．可见美国有史以来就是反对才智主义的。因此，正确答案是A。B项与原文本意恰恰相反．C项与原文信息不符。D项在原文中找不到根据．
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