Passage 7
A moment’s drilling by the dentist may make us nervous and upset. Many of us cannot stand pain. To avoid the pain of a drilling that may last perhaps a minute or two, we demand the “needle”- a shot of novocaine (奴佛卡因)－that deadens the nerves around the tooth.
Now it’s true that the human body has developed its millions of nerves to be highly aware of what goes on both inside and outside of it.
This helps us adjust to the world. Without our nerves - and our brain, which is a bundle of nerves - we wouldn’t know what’s happening. But we pay for our sensitivity. We can feel pain when the slightest thing is wrong with any part of our body. The history of torture is based on the human body being open to pain.
But there is a way to handle pain. Look at the Indian fakir(行僧) who sits on a bed of nails. Fakirs can put a needle right through an arm, and feel no pain. This ability that some humans have developed to handle pain should give us ideas about how the mind can deal with pain.
The big thing in withstanding pain is our attitude toward it. if the dentist says,“This will hurt a little,” it helps us to accept the pain. By staying relaxed, and by treating the pain as an interesting sensation (感觉), we can handle the pain without falling apart. After all, although pain is an unpleasant sensation, it is still a sensation, and sensations are the stuff of life.
1. The passage is mainly about .
A) how to suffer pain
B) how to avoid pain
C) how to handle pain
D) how to stop pain
2. The sentence “But we pay for our sensitivity.” in the second paragraph implies that .
A) we should pay a debt for our feeling
B) we have to be hurt when we feel something
C) our pain is worth feeling
D) when we feel pain, we are suffering it
3. When the author mentions the Indian fakir, he suggests that .
A) Indians are not at all afraid of pain
B) people may be senseless of pain
C) some people are able to handle pain
D) fakirs have magic to put needles right through their arms
4. the most important thing to handle pain is .
A) how we look at pain
B) to feel pain as much as possible
C) to show an interest in pain
D) to accept the pain reluctantly
5. The author’s attitude towards pain is .
A) pessimistic B) optimistic C) radical (极端的) D) practical
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Passage 8
Thirty-two people watched kitty Genovese being killed right beneath their windows. She was their neighbor. Yet none of the 32 helped her. Not one even called the police. Was this in gunman cruelty? Was it lack of feeling about one’s fellow man?
“Not so,” say scientists John Barley and Bib Fatane. These men went beyond the headlines to probe the reasons why people didn’t act. They found that a person has to go through two...[查看详情]
