2. 职称英语
  3. (1) Mr. Foster was left in the Decanting Room. The D. H. C. and his students

(1) Mr. Foster was left in the Decanting Room. The D. H. C. and his students

游客2023-10-21  35
问题     (1) Mr. Foster was left in the Decanting Room. The D. H. C. and his students stepped into the nearest lift and were carried up to the fifth floor.
    (2) INFANT NURSERIES. NEO-PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING ROOMS, announced the noticeboard.
    (3) The Director opened a door. They were in a large bare room, very bright and sunny; for the whole of the southern wall was a single window. Half a dozen nurses, trousered and jacketed in the regulation white viscose-linen uniform, their hair aseptically (无菌地) hidden under white caps, were engaged in setting out bowls of roses in a long row across the floor. Big bowls, packed tight with blossom. Thousands of petals, ripe-blown and silkily smooth, like the cheeks of innumerable little cherubs, but of cherubs, in that bright light, not exclusively pink and Aryan, but also luminously Chinese, also Mexican, also apoplectic with too much blowing of celestial trumpets, also pale as death, pale with the posthumous (死后发生的) whiteness of marble.
    (4) The nurses stiffened to attention as the D. H. C. came in.
    (5) "Set out the books, " he said curtly.
    (6) In silence the nurses obeyed his command. Between the rose bowls the books were duly set out— a row of nursery quartos opened invitingly each at some gaily colored image of beast or fish or bird.
    (7) "Now bring in the children. "
    (8) They hurried out of the room and returned in a minute or two, each pushing a kind of tall dumbwaiter laden, on all its four wire-netted shelves, with eight-month-old babies, all exactly alike (a Bokanovsky Group, it was evident) and all (since their caste was Delta) dressed in khaki.
    (9) "Put them down on the floor."
    (10) The infants were unloaded.
    (11) "Now turn them so that they can see the flowers and books."
    (12) Turned, the babies at once fell silent, then began to crawl towards those clusters of sleek colors, those shapes so gay and brilliant on the white pages. As they approached, the sun came out of a momentary eclipse behind a cloud. The roses flamed up as though with a sudden passion from within; a new and profound significance seemed to suffuse the shining pages of the books. From the ranks of the crawling babies came little squeals of excitement, gurgles and twitterings of pleasure.
    (13) The Director rubbed his hands. "Excellent!" he said. "It might almost have been done on purpose."
    (14) The swiftest crawlers were already at their goal. Small hands reached out uncertainly, touched, grasped, unpetaling the transfigured roses, crumpling the illuminated pages of the books. The Director waited until all were happily busy.
    (15) Then, "Watch carefully, " he said. And, lifting his hand, he gave the signal.
    (16) The Head Nurse, who was standing by a switchboard at the other end of the room, pressed down a little lever.
    (17) There was a violent explosion. Shriller and ever shriller, a siren shrieked. Alarm bells maddeningly sounded.
    (18) The children startled, screamed; their faces were distorted with terror.
    (19) "And now, " the Director shouted (for the noise was deafening), "now we proceed to rub in the lesson with a mild electric shock."
    (20) He waved his hand again, and the Head Nurse pressed a second lever. The screaming of the babies suddenly changed its tone. There was something desperate, almost insane, about the sharp spasmodic (痉挛性的) yelps to which they now gave utterance. Their little bodies twitched and stiffened; their limbs moved jerkily as if to the tug of unseen wires.
    (21) "We can electrify that whole strip of floor, " bawled the Director in explanation. "But that’s enough, " he signaled to the nurse.
    (22) The explosions ceased, the bells stopped ringing, the shriek of the siren died down from tone to tone into silence. The stiffly twitching bodies relaxed, and what had become the sob and yelp of infant maniacs broadened out once more into a normal howl of ordinary terror.
    (23) "Offer them the flowers and the books again. "
    (24) The nurses obeyed; but at the approach of the roses, at the mere sight of those gaily-colored images of pussy and cock-a-doodle-doo and baa-baa black sheep, the infants shrank away in horror, the volume of their howling suddenly increased.
    (25) "Observe, " said the Director triumphantly, "observe."
    (26) Books and loud noises, flowers and electric shocks—already in the infant mind these couples were compromisingly linked; and after two hundred repetitions of the same or a similar lesson would be wedded indissolubly. What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder.
    (27) "They’ll grow up with what the psychologists used to call an ’instinctive’ hatred of books and flowers. Reflexes unalterably conditioned. They’ll be safe from books and botany all their lives." The Director turned to his nurses. "Take them away again."
    (28) Still yelling, the khaki babies were loaded on to their dumb-waiters and wheeled out, leaving behind them the smell of sour milk and a most welcome silence. (本文选自 Brave New World) [br] In Para. 19, the phrase "rub in" probably means________.
选项 A、reinforce
B、continue
C、suspend
D、establish
答案 A
解析 语义题。原文第十九段中只有主任所说的一句话，在此句之前。婴儿们已经受到了突如其来的警报声的惊吓，而在该段之后，他们受到了轻微的电击，恐惧的情绪更显著了，电击与警报相比是程度更重，因此题干的意思应该最接近于A“强化”，故A为答案。B“继续”不足以说明前后程度的加强，故排除；主任在说这句话之前和之后都进行了对婴儿们的训练，可见C“中止”和D“建立”都不符合文义，均可排除。
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