2012年考研英语阅读基础训练及答案(五)

Text 5

In science the meaning of the word “explain” suffers with civilization’s every step in search of reality. Science cannot really explain electricity, magnetism, and gravitation; their effects can be measured and predicted, but of their nature no more is known to the modern scientist than to Thales who first looked into the nature of the electrification of amber, a hard yellowish-brown gum. Most contemporary physicists reject the notion that man can ever discover what these mysterious forces “really” are. “Electricity,” Bertrand Russell says, “is not a thing, like St. Paul’s Cathedral; it is a way in which things behave. When we have told how things behave when they are electrified, and under what circumstances they are electrified, we have told all there is to tell.” Until recently scientists would have disapproved of such an idea. Aristotle, for example, whose natural science dominated Western thought for two thousand years, believed that man could arrive at an understanding of reality by reasoning from self-evident principles. He felt, for example, that it is a self-evident principle that everything in the universe has its proper place, hence one can deduce that objects fall to the ground because that’s where they belong, and smoke goes up because that’s where it belongs. The goal of Aristotelian science was to explain why things happen. Modern science was born when Galileo began trying to explain how things happen and thus originated the method of controlled experiment which now forms the basis of scientific investigation.

21. The aim of controlled scientific experiments is ________.

[A] to explain why things happen

[B] to explain how things happen

[C] to describe self-evident principles(B)

[D] to support Aristotelian science

22. What principles most influenced scientific thought for two thousand years?

[A] the speculations of Thales

[B] the forces of electricity, magnetism, and gravity

[C] Aristotle’s natural science(C)

[D] Galileo’s discoveries

23. Bertrand Russell’s notion about electricity is ________.

[A] disapproved of by most modern scientists

[B] in agreement with Aristotle’s theory of self-evident principles

[C] in agreement with scientific investigation directed toward “how” things happen(C)

[D] in agreement with scientific investigation directed toward “why” things happen

24. The passage says that until recently scientists disagreed with the idea ________.

[A] that there are mysterious forces in the universe

[B] that man cannot discover what forces “really” are

[C] that there are self-evident principles(B)

[D] that we can discover why things behave as they do

25. Modern science came into being ________.

[A] when the method of controlled experiment was first introduced

[B] when Galileo succeeded in explaining how things happen

[C] when Aristotelian scientist tried to explain why things happen(A)

[D] when scientists were able to acquire an understanding of reality of reasoning




 

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