2014年12月大学英语六级精讲试题及答案（3）_第7页

　　Passage 2

　　Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage.

　　Anthropology is the study of human beings as creatures of society. It fastens its attention upon those physical characteristics and industrial techniques, those conventions and values, which distinguish one community from all others that belong to a different tradition.

　　The distinguishing mark of anthropology among the social sciences is what it includes for serious study of other societies than our own. For its purposes any social regulation of mating and reproduction is as significant as our own, though it may be that of the Sea Dyaks(文莱土著), and have no possible historical relation to that of our civilization. To the anthropologist, our customs and those of a New Guinea tribe are two possible social schemes for dealing with a common problem, and in so far as he remains an anthropologist he is bound to avoid any weighting of one in favor of the other. He is interested in human behavior, not as it is shaped by one tradition, our own, but as it has been shaped by any tradition whatsoever. He is interested in a wide range of custom that is found in various cultures, and his object is to understand the way in which these cultures change and differentiate, the different forms through which they express themselves and the manner in which the customs of any peoples function in the lives of the individuals.

　　Now custom has not been commonly regarded as a subject of any great moment. The inner workings of our own brains we feel to be uniquely worthy of investigation, but custom, we have a way of thinking, is behavior at its most commonplace. As a matter of fact, it is the other way round. Traditional custom is a mass of detailed behavior more astonishing than what any one person can ever evolve in individual actions. Yet that is a rather trivial aspect of the matter. The fact of first-rate importance is the predominant role that custom plays in experience and belief, and the very great varieties it may manifest.

　　57. According to the passage, we can say that anthropology______.

　　A) can deal with human beings as one group of the creatures in living world

　　B) can reveal an enormous diversity of traditions

　　C) can provide insights into the relationship between human beings and nature

　　D) can distinguish the human race from other creatures

　　58. For serious study, an anthropologist ______.

　　A) must not study his own culture

　　B) is not supposed to have a prejudice against any society

　　C) should focus on those societies which are historically related to each other

　　D) should not take an interest in his own culture

　　59. In the third paragraph, the author is trying _____.

　　A) to be critical of custom

　　B) to say that anthropology is more important than psychology

　　C) to strengthen the role custom plays in experience and belief

　　D) to draw our attention to the importance of custom

　　60. Which of the following does the author most probably agree with?

　　A) The goal of the anthropologist is to understand the way in which people express themselves

　　B) The anthropologist tries to understand why cultures are carried on without any change.

　　C) The anthropologist's professional interest is as wide as the variety of customs.

　　D) All of the above.

　　61. Which of the following is the best title for the Passage?

　　A) Human behavior. B) Creatures of Society.

　　C) The Study of Customs D) The Functions of Cultures.