题目内容
Part A
Directions: You will hear a talk. As you listen, answer Questions 1-10 by circling TRUE or FALSE. You will hear the talk ONLY ONCE. You now have 1 minute to read Questions 1-10.
听力原文： Do It Yourself Magazine organizes a competition every summer to elect the "Handyman of the year". The winner of this year is Mr. Roy Miller, a Sheffield postman. A journalist and a photographer have come to his house. The journalist is interviewing Mr. Miller for an article in the magazine.
W: Well, I'm very impressed by all the work you've done on your house, Mr. Miller. How long have you been working on it？
M: I first became interested in Do-it-Yourself several years ago. You see, my son Paul is disabled. He's in a wheel-chair and I just had to make alterations to the house. I couldn't afford to pay workmen to do it. I had to learn to do it myself.
W: Had you had any experience in this kind of work？ Did you have any practical skills？
M: No. I got a few books from the library but they didn't help very much. So I decided to go to evening classes so that I could learn basic carpentry and electrical wiring.
W: What sort of changes did you make to the house？
M: First of all, practical things to help Paul. You never really realize the problems handicapped people have until it attacks your own family. Most government buildings, for example, have steps up to the door. They don't plan buildings so that disabled people can get in and out. We used to live in a flat, and of course, it was totally unsuitable. Just imagine the problems a disabled person would have in your house. We needed a larger noise with wide corridors so that Paul could get from one room to another. We didn't have much money and we had to buy this one. It's over ninety years old and it was in a very bad state of repair.
W: Where did you begin？
M: The electrical. I completely rewired the house so that Paul could reach all the switches. I had to lower the light switches and raise the power-points. I went on to do the whole house so that Paul could reach things and go where he needed.
W: What else did you do？
M: By the time I'd altered everything for Paul, do-it-yourself had become a hobby. I really enjoyed doing things with my hands. Look, I even installed smoke-alarms.
W: What was the purpose of that？
M: I was very worried about fire. You see, Paul can't move very fast. I fitted them so that we would have plenty of warning if there were a fire. I put in a complete burglar-alarm system. It took weeks. The front door opens automatically, and I'm going to put a device on Paul's wheelchair so that he'll be able to open and close it when he wants.
W: What are you working on now？
M: I've just finished the kitchen. I've designed it so that he can reach everything. Now I'm building an extension so that Paul will have a large room on the ground floor where he can work.
W: There's a $10, 000prize. How are you going to spend it？
M: I am going to start my own business so that I can convert ordinary houses for disabled people. I think I've become an expert on die subject.
Though Paul is disabled, he managed to move around in the house.
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Government buildings often have special paths for those people handicapped.
The front door to his home does not open automatically.
What's the main idea of this passage？
David Landes, author of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, credits the world's economics and social progress over the last thousand years to "Western civilization and its dissemination." The reason, he believes, is that Europeans invented systematic economic development. Landes adds that two unique aspects of Europeans culture were crucial ingredient in EUrope's economic growth.
First, Landes espouses a generalized form. of Max Weber's thesis that the values of work, initiative, and investment made the difference for Europe. Despite his emphasis on science, Landes does not stress the notion of rationality as such. In his view, "what counts is work, thrift, honesty, patience, tenacity." The only route to economic success for individuals or states is working hard, spending less than you earn, and investing the rest in productive capacity. This is the fundamental explanation of the problem posed by his book's subtitle: "Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor." For historical reasons—an emphasis on private property, an experience of political pluralism, a temperate climate, an urban style—Europeans have, on balance, followed those practices and therefore have prospered.
Second, and perhaps most important, Europeans were learners. They "learned rather greedily," as Joel Mokyr put it in a review of Landes's book. Even if Europeans possessed indigenous technologies that gave them an advantage (spectacles, for example), as Landes believes they did, their most vital asset was the ability to assimilate knowledge from around the world and put it to use—as in borrowing the concept of zero and rediscovering Aristotle's Logic from the Arabs and taking paper and gunpowder from the Chinese via the Muslim world. Landes argues that a systematic resistance to learning from other cultures had become the greatest handicap of the Chinese by the eighteenth century and remains the greatest handicap of Arab countries today.
Although his analysis of Europeans expansion is almost nonexistent, Landes does not argue that Europeans were beneficent bearers of civilization to a benighted world. Rather, he relies on his own commonsense law: "When one group is strong enough to push another around and stands to gain by it, it will do so." In contrast to the new school of world historians, Landes believes that specific cultural values enabled technological advances that in turn made some Europeans strong enough to dominate people in other parts of the world. Europeans therefore proceeded to do so with great viciousness and cruelty. By focusing on their victimization in this process, Landes holds, some postcolonial states have wasted energy that could have been put into productive work and investment. If one could sum up Landes's advice to these states in one sentence, it might be "Stop whining and get to work." This is particularly important, indeed hopeful, advice, he would argue, because success is not permanent. Advantages are not fixed, gains from trade are unequal, and different societies react differently to market signals. Therefore, not only is there hope for undeveloped countries, but developed countries have little cause to be complacent, because the current situation "will press hard" on them.
The thrust of studies like Landes's is to identify those distinctive features of European civilization that lie behind Europe's rise to power and the creation of modernity more generally. Other historians have placed a greater emphasis on such features as liberty, individualism, and Christianity. In a review essay, the art historian Craig Clunas listed some of the less well known linkages that have been proposed between Western culture and modernity, including the propensities to think quantitatively, enjoy pornography, and consume sugar. All such proposals assume the fundamental aptness of the question: What elements of Europeans civilization led to European success？ It is a short leap fr
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