中国农业科学院
Directions: After you have read the following passage, write out a summary in English whit about 70 to 90 words. Put your summary on the ANSWER SHEET.What is Society?Society is a group of human beings, held together by agreement for reasons that are mutually beneficial to the individual members. Societies operate as a whole, as a collective body, chiefly in ways that look out for the highest common good of all. Members have specific roles and responsibilities within the society. One of the best direct analogies is with the human body itself. The cells are all alive, independently, yet they group together and establish roles, responsibilities, and relationships that allow a greater whole to exist that is more than just the sum of the parts. The cells gain from the specific roles they play because they are allowed to be what they are more effectively. Further, they are given a limited awareness of the whole that their efforts aid in creating.Similarly, when individual human beings group together to form societies, an organization is created in which the members are the cells. Subgroups of the members may form organs through which higher level functions can then manifest. If the relationships are loose, the body created has limited functionality over that of any individual member because there is little synergy. When the relationships are close and founded on a basis of love, the body thus created has significant functionality over that of the individuals. When the group is small, few organs can be created so there is limited complexity or functionality. When the group is large, many organs can be created, resulting in highly increased complexity and functionality. Countries, regions, states cities, and neighborhoods could all be considered to be societies as could teams, groups, and any other organizations of people. For our purposes here, the most important society is The United States of America since it is the one established to set up the New Order for the Ages, novus ordo seclorum.Society is more than the government, however. It also includes all the economic and social infrastructure necessary to provide people with what they need.
(1) The natural environment has, of course, always conditioned technology. For example, the nature of an environment (polar, desert, jungle) engenders the development of technologies appropriate to that environment to enable man to adapt successfully to it. Further, emerging scarcity of some technological resource may ignite a research for, and gradual transition to, a new technology using resources present in the environment in greater abundance, as, for example, in the case of the gradual change from wood-based to coal-based technology in England that began in Elizabeth times and stretched until the end of the eighteenth century.(2) In modern Western society, environment has begun to condition technology in new ways, although admittedly more indirectly. The safety and quality of the environment and public perceptions of it have begun to translate into presidential politics and congressional mandates to regulatory agencies to protect or enhance environmental quality or safety, occasionally even at the cost of some perturbation of the tech-economic status-quo. In France, Italy, and recently the United States, political parties have been formed, organized around a complex of technology/ environment issues. In general, in the last fifteen years, the gradual development of broad-based environmental awareness, the lobbying and litigious activities of environmental interest groups, and guidelines issued and reinforced by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) in response to congressional mandates have markedly increased the heed paid to the environment by many corporations in going about their technology activities. Both research a development priorities and capital investment programs of the corporations have been affected by this.41. Which of the following statements is TRUE?42. We can infer from the article that in the 1800s England was probably rich in( ).43. In modern Western society, the environmental problem has( ).44. The underlined word “heed” in the last but one sentence of the passage means( ).45. What is the best topic for the passage?
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