Question

We can achieve knowledge either actively or passively（被動地）. We achieve it actively by direct experience, by testing and proving an idea, or by reasoning.

We achieve knowledge passively by being told by someone else. Most of the learning that takes place in the classroom and the kind that happens when we watch TV or read newspapers or magazines is passive. Conditioned as we are to passive learning, it’s not surprising that we depend on it in our everyday communication with friends and co-workers.

Unfortunately, passive learning has a serious problem. It makes us tend to accept what we are told even when it is little more than hearsay and rumor(謠言).

Did you ever play the game Rumor? It begins when one person writes down a message but doesn’t show it to anyone. Then the person whispers it, word for word, to another person. That person, in turn, whispers it to still another, and so on, through all the people playing the game. The last person writes down the message word for word as he or she hears it. Then the two written statements are compared. Typically, the original message has changed.

That’s what happens in daily life. The simple fact that people repeat a story in their own words changes the story. Then, too, most people listen imperfectly. And many enjoy adding their own creative touch to a story, trying to improve on it, stamping（打上標記）it with their own personal style. Yet those who hear it think they know.

This process is also found among scholars and authors: A statement of opinion by one writer may be re-stated as fact by another, who may in turn be quoted by yet another; and this process may continue, unless it occurs to someone to question the facts on which the original writer based his opinion or to challenge the interpretation he placed upon those facts.

48. According to the passage, passive learning may occur in _______.

   A. doing a medical experiment

   B. solving a math problem

   C. visiting an exhibition

   D. doing scientific reasoning

49. The underlined word “it” in Paragraph 2 refers to _____.

   A. active learning

   B. knowledge

   C. communication

   D. passive learning

50. The author mentions the game Rumor to show that _____.

   A. a message may be changed when being passed on

   B. a message should be delivered in different ways

   C. people may have problems with their sense of hearing

   D. people tend not to believe in what they know as rumor

51. What can we infer from the passage?

   A. Active learning is less important.

   B. Passive learning may not be reliable.

   C. Active learning occurs more frequently.

   D. Passive learning is not found among scholars.

Answer 1

 解析：

本文是一篇說明文，主要介紹了被動獲得知識所存在的一個嚴重的問題――被告知的可能是謠言。并用現實生活中簡單的事例加以說明。

      48．C  推理判斷題。由文章第二段前兩句we achieve knowledge passively by being told by some else,……in the classroom and the kind that happens when we watch TV of read newspaper or magazines is passive可知被動學習是指由別人告知所獲得的知識。故選C.  A、B、D   都是主動學習。

      49. D  推理判斷題。根據it 所在句可知這個代詞指代的是前句所提的被動學習，句意：在日常生活中依靠被動學習并不奇怪。

      50．A 

      推理判斷題。通過第四段最后一句可知，原始的含義改變了，例證了第三段提出的論點“被動學習使我們接受被告知的事物，甚至有時是謠言。”因此A項為正確項。

      51．B 推理判斷題。此題可用排除法。A、C兩項未提，而由最后一段第一句可知D項不正確。由文章第三段加后幾段的例證可推知B 項正確。