Part B
Sample One
Directions：
In the following text， some sentences have been removed. For Questions 4145， choose the most suitable one from the list AG to fit into each of the numbered blanks. There are two extra choices， which do not fit in any of the blanks.Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.（10 points）
Americans wear black for mourning. Chinese wear white. Westerners think of dragons as monsters. Chinese honor them as symbols of God. Chinese civilization has often shown such polarities with the West， as though each stands at extreme ends of a global string. 41）
His findings go far toward explaining why American cultures seem so contentious and Chinese cultures so passive， when compared to each other. More importantly， the research opens the way for the peoples of the East and the West to learn from each other in fundamental ways. 42）said Kaiping Peng， a former Beijing scholar， who is now a UC Berkeley assistant professor of psychology.
“Americans have a terrible need to find out who is right in an argument，” said Peng. “The problem is that at the interpersonal level， you really don't need to find the truth， or may be there isn't any.” Chinese people， said Peng， are far more content to think that both sides have flaws and virtues， because they have a holistic awareness that life is full of contradictions. They do far less blaming of the individual than do Americans， he added.
In studies of interpersonal argument， for example， when subjects were asked to deal with contradictory information stemming from conflict between a mother and a daughter or a student and a school， Peng found that Americans were “noncompromising， blaming one side—usually the mother— for the causes of the problems， demanding changes from one side to attain a solution and offering no compromise” in dealing with the conflict.
43）
In tests of scientific thinking， however， the Chinese came up short. Asked to determine which statement was true—whether， for instance， smoking makes people gain or lose weight—Chinese respondents took the middle road， even when they believed one statement to be less true than another.
44）
He believes that this tendency to find the middle way has hampered Chinese efforts to seek out scientific truth through aggressive argumentation， the classic Western method for forging a linear path through contradictory information， which results in identifying right and wrong answers.
Dialectical thinking also has a Western version， which Americans often consider the highest， most sophisticated form of reasoning， said Peng. This type of reasoning allows people to proceed from thesis to antithesis， to synthesis.
45）
［A］In Chinese folk wisdom， by comparison， people do not attempt to work through the contradictions， following a cultural tradition which holds that reality is “multilayer， unpredictable and contradictory [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] 下一页 |
