Exercises
A. Determining the main idea.
Choose the best answer. Do not refer to the text.
The main idea of the text is that ______. ( C )
(a) the American character is complicated and success as a goal and materialism are also complicated
(b) the American character is marked by diversities and to be successful and keep as much money as one can are among the major features
(c) the Americans’ idea of success as a goal and making money constitutes part of the American character
(d) The typical Americans love success and money
B. Comprehending the text.
Choose the best answer.
1. The author believes that _______. ( C )
(a) all Americans are Puritans and they spend too much time working
(b) there is no single pattern of American character though there may be a single English or Turkish character
(c) the American character, like the English character, has many patterns
(d) American character is complicated by diverse racial and cultural origins, like in any other nation
2. Americans value success very much, and success means ______. ( B )
(a) material rewards exclusively
(b) recognition
(c) being a preacher in a church
(d) becoming a successful businessman
3. Factors contributing to the American idea of success include all of the following except ______ . ( D )
(a) the Puritan belief in the virtue of work
(b) the richness of opportunity in America
(c) a society without fixed ranks and classes
(d) competition within the family for the favor of the parents
4. According to Geoffray Gorer, ______. ( C )
(a) immigrants from Europe rely on their own culture for a new life in America
(b) immigrants of the first generation set a limit to their goal
(c) the second generation children think that their parents failed to keep up to American standards
(d) the immigrants do not respect their parents
5. To determine if a person is successful, we need to know ______. ( C )
(a) if he/she is loved by others
(b) how much money he/she has
(c) how far he has climbed from where he/she started
(d) whether he is able to become President 6. To Americans, it is ridiculous for ________. ( D )
(a) a college professor to make furniture
(b) a banker to be an expert chef
(c) a farmer to change his job and become a worker in industry
(d) a man to be afraid of changing jobs
7. According to the author, ________. ( B )
(a) to emphasize achievement is to be admired
(b) to be successful and to be well liked at once are contradictory
(c) one doesn’t have to be aggressive to succeed
(d) in order to be more successful, you need to be easygoing
8.According to the author, the correct attitude of the Americans toward money is to ______. ( B )
(a) have money and hoard it
(b) make money and use it
(c) have money and be practical about it
(d) own money and give it to others
9.According to Hugo Munsterberg, the Americans ______.( D )
(a) value political freedom more than they do money
(b) see the gold as an indication of his social status
(c) are rightly called materialists
(d) work for money as a mark of appreciation
C. Understanding vocabulary.
Choose the correct definition according to the context.
1. "American women are shameless sirens."─"No, they're prudes."( A )
(a) persons excessively proper or modest in speech, conduct, dress
(b) persons trying to be showy
(c) persons lacking proper manners
(d) persons without adequate education
2. Personality in America is further complicated by our diverse racial ad cultural origins, by successive waves of immigration from all parts of the world, by our regional diversities. ( B )
(a) richness
(b) differences
(c) complexity
(d) cultures
3. But the bigger his church and congregation, the more successful he is judged to be. ( A )
(a) gathering of people
(b) church office
(c) ambition
(d) achievement
4. There was the determination of the immigrant to gain in the new world what had been denied to him in the old, and on the part of his children an urge to throw off the immigrant onus by still more success and still more rise in a fluid, classless society. ( D )
(a) trouble
(b) pledge
(c) obsession
(d) burden
5. The second generation child, in turn, rejects the alien parents because they cannot measure up to American standards. ( A )
(a) reach
(b) consider
(c) understand
(d) rely on
6. In a mobile society an energetic person can hardly help matching himself against others and seeing how far he can go. ( A )
(a) capable of moving
(b) characterized by motors
(c) readily communicative
(d) highly industrialized
7. In their turn they produce an excessive craving for love. ( B )
(a) interest
(b) yearning
(c) energy
(d) effort
8. Americans still like to be handy at all things. ( B )
(a) ready
(b) skillful
(c) attempted to try
(d) trying their hands
9. A single individual can be at once an intellectual, a Boy Scout leader, a business man, a sportsman, a dabbler in music or painting, a nature-lover, and one who does many of his own household chores. ( D )
(a) fad very much interested
(b) practitioner who succeeds
(c) good artist
(d) person who works in an irregular or superficial manner
10. It is, therefore, fundamentally false to stigmatize the American as a materialist, and to deny his idealism... ( C )
(a) regard
(b) style
(c) disgrace
(d) talk about
11. But the retention of money is not important at all. ( A )
(a) keeping possession
(b) strict evaluating
(c) high placing
(d) making use
12. Automation now promises to put a final end to all drudgery, even to building in the controls which will keep the machines from making mistakes. ( C )
(a) suffering
(b) whims
(c) hard and dull work
(d) misery
D. Discussing the following topics.
1. In the text the author gives an ideal of the American character. What has influenced Americans to value success?
答案
A good many things have influenced Americans to value success, such as the Puritan belief in the virtue of work, a country full of opportunities, a society with no limit regarding ranks or classes, immigrants' determination to succeed in the new world, etc.
2. According to the author, money is a symbol and a tool. How does he justify this statement?
Money can help a man rise in the society and as his social status rises, the social demands on him also increase. Then he has to repay the society by being involved in all sorts of commitments and associations. Thus money becomes a tool to gain prestige, and a symbol of success and prestige.
3. Discuss the American attitude toward money. Can you give examples to illustrate that attitude?
Ideally, Americans will not cherish money for itself; it is rather a symbol and a tool. And material success is not looked upon as selfish. Its results are seen to have communal values. For example, Ford, Carnegie, Rockefeller built great fortunes for themselves. But they also used the wealth to help millions of Americans, caring for their material well-being, health care and educational opportunities.
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