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

游客2023-10-23  28

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;清洁地) 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 (死后的;遗腹的) 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 dumb-waiter 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 (痉挛的;间歇性的) 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. [br] The nurses prepared flowers and books in order to________.

选项 A、delight the Director
B、prepare for the training
C、decorate the nursery
D、frighten the disobedient babies

答案 B

解析 细节题。由题干定位到原文第十一段至第二十六段。作者在第十一段中提到了要给婴儿们看书和花,在接下来的段落中描述了婴儿对这两样东西的好奇和喜爱,而随后通过在婴儿接触这两样东西时鸣响警报和进行电击,让婴儿们感到恐惧,进而将他们对书和花的感觉由喜爱转为害怕,并强化这种恐惧,可见,在育婴室放置花和书是为训练婴儿做准备,故B为答案。文中没有描述主任与花和书籍的关系,可见,A“取悦主任”与文意不符,可先排除;从第三段对鲜花摆放的描述可知,有些花显得没有什么生机,也和育婴室单调沉闷的环境不和谐,C“装饰育婴室”与文意不符,故排除;D“吓唬不听话的婴儿”是对原文的曲解,书和花本身并不会吓到孩子,因此也排除。
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