题目内容

Why was Masabumix denounced as a disgrace to Japan?

A. Because he killed some people on the TitaniC
Because he was then an official.
C. Because he was dismissed from his ministry post.
D. Because the culture of shame was too strong.

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Since the Titanic vanished beneath the frigid waters of the North Atlantic 85 years ago, nothing in the hundreds of books and films about the ship has ever hinted at a connection to Japan -- until now. Director James Cameron's '200 million epic Titanic premiered at the Tokyo International Fihn Festival last Saturday. Among the audience for a glimpse of Hollywood's costliest film ever descendants of the liner's only Japanese survivor.
The newly rediscovered diary of Masabumix Hosono has Titanic enthusiasts in a frenzy, the document is scrawled in 4,300 Japanese character on a rare piece of RMS Titanic stationery. Written as the Japanese bureaucrat steamed to safety in New York aboard the ocean liner Carpathia, which rescued 706 survivors, the account and other documents released by his grandchildren last week offer a fresh -- and poignant -- reminder of the emotional wreckage left by the tragedy.
Hosono, then 42 and an official at Japan's Transportation Ministry, was studying railway networks in Europe. He boarded the Titanic in Southampton, en route home via the US. According to Hosono's account, he was awakened by a loud knock on the door of his second - class deck with the steerage passengers. Hosono tried to race back upstairs, but a sailor blocked his way. The Japanese feigned ignorance and pushed past. He arrived on deck to find lifeboats being lowered into darkness, flares bursting over the ship and an eerie human silence. He wrote:" Not a single passenger would howl or scream."
Yet Hosono was screaming inside. Women were being taken to lifeboats and men held back at gunpoint. "I tried to prepare myself for the last moment with no agitation, making up my mind not to do any- thing disgraceful as a Japanese," he wrote. "But still I found myself looking for and waiting for any possible chance of survival." Then an officer shouted, "Room for two more " Hosono recalled:" I myself was deep in desolate thought that I would no more be able to see my beloved wife and children." Then he jumped into the boat.
When Hosono arrived in Tokyo two months later, he was met with suspicion that he had survived at someone else's expense. The culture of shame was especially strong in prewar Japan. In the face of rumors and bad press, Hosono was dismissed from his post in 1914. He worked at the office part -time until retiring in 1923. His grandchildren say he never mentioned tile Titanic again before his death in 1939.
Even then, shame continued to haunt the family. In newspapers, letters and even a school textbook, Hosono was denounced as a disgrace to Japan. Reader's Digest reopened the wound in 1956 with an a- bridged Japanese version of Walter Load's best seller. A Night to remember, which described , Anglo - Saxons" as acting bravely on the Titanic, while "Frenchmen, Italians, Americans, Japanese and Chinese were disgraceful." Citing his father's diary, one of Hosono's sons, Hideo, launched a letter -writing campaign to restore the family name. But nobody in Japan seemed to care.
The diary resurfaced last summer. A representative for a US foundation that plans to hold an exhibition of Titanic artifacts in Japan next August found Hosono's name on a passenger list. A search led him to Ha-ruomix Hosono, a well- known composer, and to his cousin Yuruoi, Hideo's daughter. She revealed that she had her grandfather's dairy as well as a collection of his letters and postcards. "I was floored," says Mixchael Findley, cofounder of the Titanic International Society in the US "This is a fantastic, fresh new look at the sinking and the only one written on Titanic stationery immediately after the disaster."
The information allows enthusiasts to rearrange some historical minutes, such as which lifeboat Hosono jumped into. More chilling, the account confirms that the crew tried to keep foreigners and third - class passengers on the ship's lower deck, effectively ensuring their name. T

A. Masabumix Hosono.
B. Yuriko.
Cameron.
D. RMS.

We all believe in something or someone. We must believe, just as we must eat, sleep, and reproduce. Mankind has an insatiable need for and an irresistible attraction to a vast array of beliefs about gods and demons, magic and miracles, truth and falsehood, love and hate, similarity and difference. Implausible, even irrational ideas, have been cherished for centuries. Saints and other martyrs suffered indescribable pain and agony, even death, for their beliefs. Scientists have been put to death for their belief that the earth is round, or that there is an invisible force called gravity, or that the earth is not the center of the universe with the sun revolving around it, or that the blood circulates throughout the body, or that Man evolving around it, or that the blood circulates throughout the body, or that Man evolved from lower forms of life. Religious leaders have attracted millions of people with their version of how life began and how we must behave.
If people do not believe in medicine and science, religion, education, government, and the social contract, chaos results and no society can tolerate that, which is why all societies impose order on their members. We must believe or face unbearable ambiguity and anxiety.
Belief is faith and faith is trust and trust is security, predictability. Fear and hope are the twins that shape belief. We fear death, our enemies, illness, the known, the unknown', and punishment. Hope tells us that things will improve. We will not be defeated. We will succeed. It promises us a good life here and after death. Fear persuades us to believe that we can be protected, safe, if we join a group whose god is capable of holding evil at bay, then I cling to that group. We dare not, not believe. Furthermore, belief confers upon believers a special status: those who know the truth. Many people believe that their faith will help them to overcome sickness, fear, sorrow, joy, grief ect., each trigger specific endocrinal secretions--hormones and neurotransmitters (adrenalin, serotonin or dopamine) that modify behavior. In order to control this torrent of endocrinal activity, many people turn to their faith because it convinces them that things will improve and that positive attitude cures the body to fight the invading bacteria or virus. Mind and body are totally integrated, supporting the notion that belief (faith) is a very powerful emotional force affecting physical behavior.
Is the most effective belief system one that is composed of absolutes--unyielding, unvarying and eternal? The answer is yes, because when we eliminate doubt from a situation we feel secure, restored to balance, but if the belief system is science and is based on objective information without absolutes and requires a questioning attitude, not an accepting one as in most belief systems it unnerves people. They cannot handle the uncertainty, the lack of a God or some omnipotent overseer who eliminates doubt and reassures us that all is well and under control. Any system that offers definitive answers to complex human questions and problems: this is right, this is wrong, this is true, this is false--one question, one answer only, is very appealing.
All beliefs require confirmation from an authoritative source whether that be a priest, a rabbi, a shaman, a family member, a special friend, an expert--one who commands obedience and respect an authenticator. Perhaps all belief is composed of the same elements in approximately the same proportions for even science requires a suspension of some disbelief, some uncertainty, however miniscule. Black Holes and the Big Bang are metaphoric truths derived from the physics we know now. But you have to believe, to have faith in the methods of science to gather information, to analyse and interpret it objectively in order to accept its conclusions. No one witnessed the Big Bang, or a Black Hole. These were inferred from careful, study and analysis by

A. Faith.
B. Trust.
C. Security.
D. Hope.

SECTION B INTERVIEW
Directions: In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Questions 1 to 5 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the following five questions.
Now listen to the interview.
听力原文:Mr. Green:While you’re here, I wish you'd have a look around the house. I had a terrible fuel bill last winter. My mother-in-law was staying with us and she wanted the temperature around 80°F all the time.
Engineer:Yes,lots of people overheat their houses. Actually 70 °F is comfortable, if you let yourself get used to it.
Mr. Green: What’s the most popular heating system used nowadays?
Engineer:The warm air system, the kind you have, has be-come more common because of economy and convenience. A heat chamber heats air, which passes through ducts and openings into the rooms by blowers or by convection. These openings are called outlets. Fitters are installed in the ducts to collect others. Fitters are installed in the ducts to collect dust. They can also control humidity to some extent. The fuel is usually coal, oil, or gas.
Mr. Green:What kind of cooling systems are used in homes?
Engineer:Either central or localized air conditioning is used. With the central system, air ducts bring cool air into the rooms. Sometimes, if the house has warm air heating, the same ducts may be used for air conditioning. This system provides an even temperature throughout the house. However, in homes which are not constructed for the central system, small individual air conditioners are installed at several windows. This is probably the easiest way. But the temperature of the rooms is quite uneven.
Mr. Green:How important is the insulation of the house?
Engineer: Very important, and sometimes this is not appreciated. The roof, for example, should have adequate insulation with glass fiber, aluminum toil, or something similar. It is important to have vapor seals on the warm side, to avoid moisture when the air cools. Double glazing of windows is also very important.
Why did Mr. Green have a terrible fuel bill last winter?

A. Because his wife overheated the house.
Because his mother overheated the house.
C. Because his wife’s mother overheated the house.
D. Because he overheated the house.

I have no statistics on this, but conversation with friends and dozens of person-on-the-street interviews I saw and heard last month convince me that a lot of Americans felt a sense of personal loss at the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. Their grief was palpable and clearly genuine. Yet I couldn't help wondering how many would have reacted this way to the death of a relative, a mother or father, sure. But what about uncle John, who lives across town; or Cousin Tara, who moved to another state; or even, Grandma, whom we see once or twice a year, from the other side of the country?
For many of us, the concept of family is a lot narrower than it used to be. Today children go away to college, and take up careers wherever opportunity seems greatest. So instead of growing up in an extended family, with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins involved in our day-to-day lives, many of us are truly connected only to our parents and siblings. Many kids today knew little of the lives of relatives outside the nuclear family, and don't care deeply about them.
Whether we're aware of it or not, this estrangement creates a void. "People have an inherent need to feel connected," says Joy Browne, a psychologist and talkshow host in the U.S. "And they'll do it in what- ever ways are easiest for them. "When family members are distant, what could be easier than forming a connection to celebrities--especially glamorous, public- spirited ones like the Kennedys".
This sort of false intimacy isn't new, of course. People wept when Rudolph Valentime died in 1926 and when the Lindberghs lost their baby in 1932. It's natural and in most ways harmless to identify with the famous. But todays combination of busy lives, fragmented families and saturation media coverage of celebrities. means this is the only intimacy many of us experience outside our immediate family. And that's unhealthy, because these celebrity relationships are not two way.
For that, we need to stay connected to our own families. We'll never turn back the clock to keep families from scattering. But parents can help by telling their kids stories about their grandparents, aunts and cousins, and by keeping the relatives informed of the kids'latest activities and interests.
Technology can encourage more frequent, more casual contact. It's no chore to dash off an email to Granddad.
Better yet, take a vacation with members of your extended family--and not at anyone's home. A week or so of relaxed interaction can be a great way to turn up family ties. And when tragedy happens, there's no substitute for family. Because no matter how much we cry for the Kennedys, they can't be there to cry for us.
Thank you for today's program. Now let's listen to a song.
The author is ______.

A. talking on the phone
B. talking on the television
C. talking on the radio
D. talking on the platform

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