?Present-day philosophers usually envision their discipline as an endeavor that has been, since antiquity, distinct from and superior to any particular intellectual discipline, such as theology or science. ?Such philosophical concerns as the mind-body problem or, more generally, the nature of human knowledge, they believe, are basic human questions whose tentative philosophical solutions have served as the necessary foundations on which all other intellectual speculation has rested. ?The basis for this view, however, lies in a serious misinterpretation of the past, a projection of modern concerns onto past events. ?The idea of an autonomous discipline called “philosophy,” distinct from and sitting in judgment on such pursuits as theology and science turns out, on close examination, to be of quite recent origin. ?When, in the seventeenth century, Descartes and Hobbes rejected medieval philosophy, they did not think of themselves, as modern philosophers do, as proposing a new and better philosophy, but rather as furthering “the warfare between science and theology” . ?They were fighting, albeit discreetly, to open the intellectual world to the new science and to liberate intellectual life from ecclesiastical philosophy and envisioned their work as contributing to the growth, not of philosophy, but of research in mathematics and physics. ?This link between philosophical interests and scientific practice persisted until the nineteenth century, when decline in ecclesiastical power over scholarship and changes in the nature of science provoked the final separation of philosophy from both. ?The demarcation of philosophy from science was facilitated by the development in the early nineteenth century of a new notion, that philosophy’s core interest should be epistemology, the general explanation of what it means to know something. ?Modern philosophers now trace that notion back at least to Descartes and Spinoza, but it was not explicitly articulated until the late eighteenth century, by Kant, and did not become built into the structure of academic institutions and the standard self-descriptions of philosophy professors until the late nineteenth century. ?Without the idea of epistemology, the survival of philosophy in an age of modern science is hard to imagine. ?Metaphysics, philosophy’s traditional core—considered as the most general description of how the heavens and the earth are put together—had been rendered almost completely meaningless by the spectacular progress of physics. ?Kant, however, by focusing philosophy on the problem of knowledge, managed to replace metaphysics with epistemology, and thus to transform the notion of philosophy as “queen of sciences” into the new notion of philosophy as a separate, foundational discipline. ?Philosophy became “primary” no longer in the sense of “highest” but in the sense of “underlying”. ?After Kant, philosophers were able to reinterpret seventeenth-and eighteenth-century thinkers as attempting to discover “How is our knowledge possible?” and to project this question back even on the ancients. 1. Which of the following best expresses the author’s main point?

A、Philosophy’s overriding interest in basic human questions is a legacy primarily of the work of Kant.

B、Philosophy was deeply involved in the seventeenth-century warfare between science and religion.

C、The set of problems of primary importance to philosophers has remained relatively constant since antiquity.

D、The status of philosophy as an independent intellectual pursuit is a relatively recent development.

Section D

Carnegie Hall, the famous concert hall in New York city, has again undergone a restoration. While this is not the first,【72】. As a result of this new restoration, Carnegie Hall once again has the quality of sound that it had when it was first built.

Carnegie Hall owes its existence to Andrew Carnegie,【73】. The hall was finished in 1891 and quickly gained a reputation as an excellent performing arts hall where accomplished musicians gained fame. Despite its reputation, however,【74】over the years. During the Great Depression, when fewer people could afford to attend performances, the directors sold part of the building to commercial businesses. As a result,【75】, for which the builders replaced a brick and terra cotta walls with windowpanes. A renovation in 1946 seriously damaged the acoustical quality of the hall when the makers of the film Carnegie Hall cut a gaping hole in the dome of the ceiling to allow for lights and air vents. The hole was later covered with short curtains and a fake ceiling, but【76】.

In 1960, the violinist Issac Stern became involved in restoring the hall after a group of real estate developers unveiled plans to demolish Carnegie Hall and build a high-rise office building on the site. This threat spurred Stern to rally public support for Carnegie Hall and【77】. The movement was successful, and the concert hall is now owned by the city. In the current restoration, builders tested each new material for its sound qualities, and they replaced the hole in the ceiling with a dome.【78】and closed the coffee shop. Carnegie has never sounded better, and its prospects for the future have never looked more promising.

A. A coffee shop was opened in one corner of the building.

B. The builders also restored the outer walls to their original appearance.

C. The recent restoration repaired the outer walls.

D. Encourage the City of New York to buy property.

E. IT is certainly the most extensive in the building history.

F. The hall never sounded the same afterwards.

G. The wealthy owner of a steel company in the late 1800s.

H. The concert hall suffered from several detrimental renovations.

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The giant panda, the creature that has become a symbol of conservation, is facing extinction. The major reason is loss of habitat, which has continued despite the establishment, since 1963, of 14 panda reserves. Deforestation, mainly carried out by farmers clearing land to make way for fields as they move higher into the mountains, has drastically contracted the mammal's range. The panda has disappeared from much of central and eastern China, and is now restricted to the eastern flank of the Himalayas in Sichuan and Gansu provinces, and the Qinling Mountains in Shanxi province. Fewer than 1,400 of the animals are believed to remain in the wild.

Satellite imagery has shown the seriousness of the situation ; almost half of the panda's habitat has been destroyed or degraded since 1975. Worse, the surviving panda population has also become fragmented; a combination of satellite imagery and ground surveys reveals panda "islands" in patches of forest separated by cleared land. The population of these islands, ranging from fewer than ten to more than 50 pandas, has become isolated because the animals are unwilling to cross open areas. Just putting a road through a panda habitat may be enough to split a population in two.

The minuscule size of the panda populations worries conservationists. The smallest groups have too few animals to be viable, and will inevitably die out. The larger populations may be viable in the short term, but will be susceptible to genetic defects as a result of inbreeding.

In these circumstances, a more traditional threat to pandas--the cycle of flowering and subsequent withering of the bamboo that is their staple food--can become literally species-threatening. The flowerings prompt pandas to move from one area to another, thus preventing inbreeding in what would otherwise be sedentary populations. In panda islands, however, bamboo flowering could prove catastrophic because the pandas are unable to emigrate.

The latest conservation management plan for the panda, prepared by China's Ministry of Forestry and the World Wide Fund for Nature, aims primarily to maintain panda habitats and to ensure that populations are linked wherever possible. The plan will change some existing reserve boundaries, establish 14 new reserves and protect or replant corridors of forest between panda islands. Other measures include: better control of poaching, which remains a problem despite strict laws, as panda skins fetch high prices; reducing the degradation of habitats outside reserves; and reforestation.

The plan is ambitious. Implementation will be expensive--56.6 million yuan(US 12.5 million) will be needed for the development of the panda reserves--and will require participation by individuals ranging from villagers to government officials.

Summary

The survival of the giant panda is being seriously threatened. Panda numbers have already seriously decreased. This is largely because the overall size of their【61】has been reduced, and habitable areas are now disconnected from each other. Two results are that pandas are more prone to【62】problems and are unable to move around freely to follow the growth cycles of the bamboo that they eat. A new plan aims to【63】existing panda habitats and to join many of them together. This plan also includes reforestation and the creation of【64】To succeed, everyone, including both the government and【65】, will have to cooperate.

(61)

Section B

The giant panda, the creature that has become a symbol of conservation, is facing extinction. The major reason is loss of habitat, which has continued despite the establishment of 14 panda reserves. Deforestation, mainly carried out by fanners clearing land to make way for fields as they move higher into the mountains, has drastically contracted mammal’s range. The panda has disappeared from much of central and eastern China, and is now restricted to the eastern flank of the Himalayas.

Satellite imagery has shown the seriousness of the situation; almost half of the panda's habitat has been cut down or degraded since 1975. Worse, the surviving panda population has also become fragmented; a combination of satellite imagery and ground surveys reveals panda "islands" in patches of forest separated by cleared land. The population of these islands has become isolated because the animals are loath to cross open areas. Just puting a road through panda habitat may be enough to split a population in two.

The minuscule size of the panda population worries conservationists. The smallest groups have too few animals to be viable, and will inevitably die out. The larger populations may be viable in the short term, but will be susceptible to genetic defect as a result of inbreeding.

In these circumstances, a more traditional threat to panda-cycle of flowering and subsequent withering of the bamboo that is their staple food—can become literally species—threatening. The flowering prompts panda to move from one area to another, thus preventing inbreeding in otherwise sedentary populations. In panda islands, however, bamboo flowering could prove catastrophic(災難性的) because the pandas are unable to emigrate.

The last conservation management plan for the panda, prepared by China’s Ministry of Forestry and the World Wild Fund for Nature, aims primarily at maintaining panda habitats and ensuring that populations are linked wherever possible. This plan will change some existing reserve boundaries, establish 14 new reserves and protect or replant corridors of forest between panda islands. Other measures include better control of poaching, reducing the degradation of habitats outside reserves and reforestation.

The plan is ambitious. Implementation will be expensive and will require participation by individuals ranging from villagers to government officials.

The survival of the giant panda is being seriously【61】______. This is largely because the overall size of their habitat has been reduced. As a result, pandas are more prone to problems and are unable to【62】______around freely, following the growth cycles of【63】______ plant. A new plan aims to protect existing panda【64】______and to join some of them together. This plan also involves reforestation and the creation of new reserves. To succeed, everyone,【65】______both the government and individuals, will have to cooperate.

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Our daily existence is divided to two phases, as S1.______

distinct as day and night. We call them work and play.

And, when we have allowed the necessary minimum

for such activities as eating and shop, the rest we S2.______

spend in various activities where are known as S3.______

recreations, an elegant word which disguise the fact S4.______

that we usually do not even play in our hours of

leisure, but spend them in various forms of passive

enjoyment or entertainment—not playing football but

watching football matches; not acting

but theatre-going.

We need to make, therefore, a hard-and-fast

distinction not only between work and play but

equal between active play and passive entertainment. S5.______

It seems that the decline of active play—of amateur

sport—and the enormous growth of purely receptive

entertainment which has given rise a sociological S6.______

interest in the problem, If the greater part of the

population, instead indulging in sport, spends S7.______

hour of leisure viewing television programmers, there S8.______

will inevitably be a decline in health and physique.

We should live art if we would be affect by art. We S9.______

should paint rather than appreciate painting,

play piano rather than go to concerts, dance and sing

and act ourselves, engaging all our the senses in the S10.______

touch of arts.

【S1】

Myths and legends of the supernatural shroud the early history of writing,

as they do of speech. Archaeological discoveries provide charming pinholes of

illumination along with frustrated problems of interpretation. An account of the 【S1】______.

early history of writing has gradually emerged, but it keeps many gaps and 【S2】______.

ambiguities.

The matter is complicated by the fact that, in this early period, it is by

no means easy to decide whether a piece of graphic expression should be

counted as an artistic imagination or as a symbol of primitive writing. In 【S3】______.

principle, the difference is clear: the first conveys personal and subjective 【S4】______.

meanings, and does not combine into a system of recurring symbols with

accepted values; by contrast, the latter is conventional and institutionalized,

capable of been understood in the same way by all who are using the system. 【S5】______.

When the product is a rock carving or painting of an animal, there is a little 【S6】______.

doubt that its purpose is nonlinguistic (thought whether it has an aesthetic,

religious, or other function is debatable). However, when the product is a

series of apparent geometrical shapes or tiny characters, the distinction

between art and writing becomes more obvious. The language may even reflect 【S7】______.

the problem: in early Greek, and in Egyptian, the same word was used for

both "write" and "draw". One point, at least, is fairly clear. It now seems

most likely that writing system revolved independently of each other at 【S8】______.

different times in several parts of the world -- in Mesopotamia, China, Meso-

America, and elsewhere. There is anything to support a theory of common 【S9】______.

origin. There are of course similarities between these systems, but these are

not altogether surprising, giving the limited ways of devising a system of 【S10】______.

written communication.

【S1】