Online HomeWork_U1B4
I. Reading Comprehension Section One: Fast Reading
1. One summer day my father sent me to buy some wire and fencing to put around our barn to pen up the bull. At 16, I liked nothing better than getting behind the wheel of our truck and driving into town on the old mill road. This trip was different, though. My father had told me I’d have to ask for credit at the store.
2. It was 1976, and the ugly shadow of racism was still a fact of life. I’d seen my friends ask for credit and then stand, head down, while a storeowner enquired into whether they were “good for it”. Many store clerks watched black youths with the assumption that they were thieves every time they even went into a grocery.
3. My family was honest. We paid our debts. But just before harvest, all the money flowed out. There were no new deposits at the bank. Cash was short. At Davis Brothers’ General Store, Buck Davis stood behind the register, talking to a middle-aged farmer. Buck was a tall, weathered man in a red hunting shirt and I nodded as I passed him on my way to the hardware section to get a container of nails, a coil of binding wire and fencing. I pulled my purchases up to the counter and placed the nails in the tray of the scale, saying carefully, “I need to put this on credit.” My brow was moist with nervous sweat and I wiped it away with the back of my arm.
4. The farmer gave me an amused, cynical look, but Buck’s face didn’t change. “Sure,” he said easily, reaching for his booklet where he kept records for credit. I gave a sigh of relief. “Your daddy is always good for it.” He turned to the farmer. “This here is one of James Williams’ sons. They broke the mold when they made that man.”
5. The farmer nodded in a neighborly way. I was filled with pride. “James Williams’ son.” Those three words had opened a door to an adult’s respect and trust.
6. As I heaved the heavy freight into the bed of the truck, I did so with ease, feeling like a stronger man than the one that left the farm that morning. I had discovered that a good name could furnish a capital of good will of great value. Everyone knew what to expect from a Williams: a decent person who kept his word and respected himself too much to do wrong. My great grandfather may have been sold as a slave at auction, but this was not an excuse to do wrong to others. Instead my father believed the only way to honor him was through hard work and respect for all men.
7. We children—eight brothers and two sisters—could enjoy our good name, unearned, unless and until we did something to lose it. We had an interest in how one another behaved and our own actions as well, lest we destroy the name my father had created. Our good name was and still is the glue that holds our family tight together.
8. The desire to honor my father’s good name spurred me to become the first in our family to go to university. I worked my way through college as a porter at a four-star hotel. Eventually, that good name provided the initiative to start my own successful public relations firm in Washington, D.C.
9. The good name passed on by my father and maintained to this day by my brothers and sisters and me is worth as much now as ever. Even today, when I stop into Buck Davis’ shop or my hometown barbershop for a haircut, I am still greeted as James Williams’ son. My family’s good name did pave the way for me. Statements based on the passage:
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1. The writer tried to get the things he needed for free from the storeowner. 2. In 1976 racial discrimination still existed in the country.
3. At that time, black youths were taken as thieves instead of customers in grocery stores. 4. When the writer said to Buck he needed to put his purchases on credit, he was quite
certain that he would be permitted to do so.
5. The farmer thought that the writer would not be able to get credit.
6. The good name of the writer’s family helped him win the respect and trust of other
people.
7. Everyone knew how a member of the Williams would behave and what a Williams
would do: A Williams is a respectable person who always does what he says, therefore is trustworthy.
8. The writer believes the children might lose the family’s good name if they ever did
something unworthy.
9. The writer studied hard, motivated by the desire to free his family from poverty.
10. The writer’s family’s good name indeed made it possible for him to succeed in his
business and in life as well. Section Two: Passage Reading Passage 1
As people generally use the word “honor” they do not do so in the context of thinking about moral virtue. As a result they often confuse honor with fame.
A virtuous person is an honorable person, a person who ought to be honored by the community in which he or she lives. But the virtuous person does not seek honor, being secure in his or her own self-respect. Lack of honor does not detract (减损) from the efficacy (功效) of moral virtue as an operative factor in the pursuit of happiness—as a means to leading a good human life.
Virtuous persons may be considered fortunate if their virtue is recognized and publicly applauded.
Persons lacking moral virtue can achieve fame as readily as, or perhaps more easily than, those who have a high degree of moral virtue. Fame belongs to the great, the outstanding, and the exceptional, without regard to their virtue or lack of it.
Infamy (声名狼藉) is fame, no less than popularity. The great scoundrel (恶棍) can be as famous as the great hero. There can be famous villains (坏人) as well as famous saints. Existing in the reputation a person has, regardless of his or her accomplishments, fame does not tarnish (失去光泽) as honor does when it is unmerited (不配的).
We normally desire the esteem of our fellow human beings, but is not this wish for the esteem of others a desire for fame rather than for honor? A virtuous person will not seek fame or be unhappy for lack of it. For fame can be enjoyed by bad men and women, as well as good. When it is enjoyed by virtuous persons without being sought by them, it is not distinguishable from honor, for then it is deserved.
11. A virtuous person ______.
A. deserves honor B. achieves both honor and fame C. will seek fame D. is publicly identified
12. A virtuous person leads a good human life by means of ______.
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A. achieving moral virtue C. seeking fame
B. pursuing happiness D. seeking honor
13. All of the following people have fame EXCEPT ______.
A. a famous actress B. a well-known political leader C. a Nobel Prize winner D. an unknown writer
14. What tends to tarnish with time? A. A person’s accomplishments. B. Honor that is undeserved. C. The reputation a person has. D. A high degree of moral virtue.
15. Which of the following statements is true?
A. Honor and fame are different concepts. B. Honor and fame are not distinguishable. C. Honor and fame are inseparable. D. Fame is more important than honor.
Passage 2
Early national concepts of fame differ greatly from their late-twentieth and early-twenty-first-century equivalents. While today fame suggests little more than notoriety (坏名声), in the early national period it encompassed (包含) an entire ethic (道德规范).
The concept of fame had particular power among the early national political elite (杰出人物), though its roots reached back to the beginnings of Western civilization; Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, by Plutarch, was a literal guide to gathering fame, describing and ranking a series of heroes who had achieved immortal (不朽的) fame—the highest of goals. In the early American Republic, young gentlemen schooled to find models of personal behavior in Plutarch and other classical texts received this idea from a young age. As Alexander Hamilton put it in The Federalist, “the love of fame” was the “ruling passion of the noblest minds”.
As suggested by Plutarch’s image of great men, a man earned fame by doing great deeds for the state. Francis Bacon mapped out a hierarchy (等级) of such acts in his widely read Essayes, assigning fame to “fathers of their country” who reigned (统治) justly; “champions of the empire” who defended or expanded territories; “saviors of empire” who coped with national crises; lawgivers who governed descendants through their laws; and—highest of all—“founders of states and commonwealths (共和国)”. For early national leaders engaged in the creation of a new nation, this sensibility infused (注入) their political efforts with a sense of lofty purpose as well as deep personal meaning. Seekers of fame wanted to make history and leave their mark on the world. America’s founding generation assumed that they were doing just that. “We live in an important era and in a new-country,” Benjamin Rush observed in 1788. “Much good may be done by individuals and that too in a short time.”
Fame was considered a noble passion because it transformed ambition and self-interest into a desire to achieve great goals that served the public good. Even as fame fueled and inspired a man’s ambitions, it reined (控制) them in; one could only achieve everlasting (永恒的) fame through public service. In essence, fame was a selfish virtue, enabling leaders to
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澶у鑻辫鍥涜瘯棰樿祫鏂?- 鐧惧害鏂囧簱
