泽熙美文Cloze Test
Americans’ Paradoxical Behavior
One of the generalities most often noted about Americans is that we are a restless, a dissatisfied, a searching people. We spend our time searching for security, and hate it when we get it. For the most part we are an intemperate people: We 1 too much when we can, drink too much, indulge our 2 too much. Even in our so-called virtues we are 3 : a teetotaler is not content not to drink 4 stop all the drinking in the world; a vegetarian 5 us would outlaw the eating of meat. We work 6 , and many die under the strain; and then to 7 for that we play with a violence just as suicidal. The 8 is that we seem to be in a state of turmoil 9 , both physically and mentally. We are able to 10 that our Government is weak, stupid, overbearing, dishonest, 11 , and at the same time we are deeply 12 that it is the best Government in the world, and we would like to 13 it upon everyone else.
Americans overindulge their children and do not like them; the children 14 are overly dependent and full of hate for their parents. Americans are 15 kind and hospitable and open with both guests and 16 and yet they will make a wide circle around a man 17 on the pavement rather than become involved. Fortunes are 18 getting cats out of trees and dogs out of sewer pipes; but a girl 19 for help in the street draws only slammed doors, closed 20 and silence.
Americans seems to live and breathe and function by paradox; but in nothing are we so paradoxical as in our passionate belief in our own myths. We truly believe ourselves to be natural-born mechanics and do-it-yourselfers. We spend our lives in motorcars, yet most of us—a great many of us at least—do not know enough about a car to check the gas tank when the motor fails. Our believed myths are everywhere: We shout that we are a nation of laws, not men—and then proceed to bread every law we can if we can get away with it. From puberty we are preoccupied with sex; but our courts, our counselors, and our psychiatrists are dealing constantly with cases of sexual failure or charges of frigidity or impotence, which amounts to the same thing.
1.
A.talk
B.work
C.waste
D.eat
正确答案：D
2.
A.entertainments
B.senses
C.freedom
D.dreaming
正确答案：B
3.
A.intemperate
B.indulgent
C.inefficient
D.insufficient
正确答案：A
4.
A.may
B.can
C.might
D.must
正确答案：D
5.
A.between
B.among
C.amid
D.above
正确答案：B
6.
A.so
B.very
C.extremely
D.too hard
正确答案：D
7.
A.make up
B.make do
C.look up
D.look in
正确答案：A
8.
A.result
B.point
C.consequence
D.problem
正确答案：A
9.
A.much of the time
B.all the time
C.consistently
D.scarcely
正确答案：B
10.
A.believe
B.embark
C.convince
D.wonder
正确答案：A
11.
A.contradictive
B.rebellious
C.inefficient
D.proficient
正确答案：C
12.
A.moved
B.stimulated
C.put up
D.convinced
正确答案：D
13.
A.force
B.impose
C.pass
D.justify
正确答案：B
14.
A.in turn
B.in earnest
C.in fact
D.in season
正确答案：A
15.
A.terribly
B.dreadfully
C.remarkably
D.honestly
正确答案：C
16.
A.travelers
B.clients
C.strangers
D.customers
正确答案：C
