2016年6月大学英语六级阅读练习5
Does Travel Broaden The Mind?One often hears it said that travel broadens themind: if you stay in your
own country the whole time, your ideas remain narrow; whereas if you
travelabroad you see new customs, eat new foods, do newthings, and come back
home with a broader mind.
But does this always — or even usually — happen?An acquaintance2 of mine
who lives in England andhad never been outside it until last summer, decided to
go over3 to France for a trip. When hereturned, I asked him how he liked
it.“Terrible, ”was his answer.“ I couldn’t get a nice cup of teaanywhere . 4
Thank goodness I’m back. ”I asked him whether he hadn’t had any good foodwhile
he was there .“Oh, the dinners were all right, ”he said.“I found a little place
where theymade quite good fish and chips. Not as good as ours, mind you5, but
they were passable. Butthe breakfasts were terrible: no bacon or kippers. I had
fried eggs and chips, but it was quite a6 business getting them to make them.
They expected me to eat rolls. And when I asked formarmalade , they brought
strawberry jam. And do you know, they insisted that it wasmarmalade? The trouble
is they don’t know English. ”
I thought it useless to explain that we borrowed the word‘marmalade ’from
French, and that itmeans, in that language, any kind of jam. So I said,“But
didn’t you eat any of the famousFrench food?”“What? Me?”he said.“Of course not!
Give me good old English food every time!None of these fancy bits for me!
”Obviously travel had not broadened his mind.
This does not, of course, happen only to Englishmen in France: all
nationalities, in all foreigncountries, can be found judging what they see,
hear, taste and smell according to their ownhabits and customs. People who are
better educated and who have read a lot about foreigncountries tend to be more
adaptable7 and tolerant8, but this is because their minds havealready been
broadened before they start travelling. In fact, it is easier to be
broad-mindedabout foreign habits and customs, if one’s acquaintance with these
things is limited to booksand films. The American smiles tolerantly over the
absence of central heating in most Englishhomes when he is himself comfortably
seated in his armchair in his centrally heated house inChicago; the English man
reads about the sanitary arrangements in a certain tropical country,and the
inhabitants of the latter read about London fogs, and each side manages to
bedetached and broad-minded. 9 But actual physical contact with things one is
unaccustomed tois much more difficult to bear philosophically.
Perhaps the ideal would be if travel could succeed in making people
tolerant of the habits andcustoms of others without abandoning their own. The
criterion for judging a foreigner couldbe: Does he try to be polite and
considerate to others? Instead of: Is he like me?
自测题
Ⅰ. True o r Fa lse :
1. It is often said that if you travel abroad to see many new things, your
mind will bebroadened.
2. The Englishman had a happy life when he travelled to France .
3. The word‘marmalade’is originally a French word, which means any kind of
jam.
4. In the view of the author, people often judge things according to their
own habits andcustoms.
5. The author thinks that people who are better educated and read a lot are
easily to betolerant.
6. Tea , bacon, kippers, chips are all typical English food.
参考答案
Ⅰ. 1. T 2. F 3 . T 4 . T 5 . T 6 . T
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