六级考试阅读考前练习3

　　1 The world has become so complicated that weve lost confidence in our ability to understand and deal with it. But common sense is useful now as it ever was. No amount of expertise substitutes for an intimate knowledge of a person or a situation. At times you just have to trust your own judgement.

　　2 It almost cost me my life to learn that. I was reading a book one day, idly scratching the back of my head, when I noticed that, in one particular spot, the scratching echoed inside my head like fingernails on an empty cardboard carton, I rushed off to my doctor.

　　3 Got a hole in your head, have you? he teased. Its nothingjust one of those little scalp nerves sounding off.

　　4 Two years and four doctors later, I was still being told it was nothing. To the fifth doctor. I said, almost in desperation,But I live in tis body. I know somethings different.

　　5 If you wont take my word for it,Ill take an X-ray and prove it to you, he said.

　　6 Well, there it was, of course, the tumor that had made a hole as big as an eye socket in the back of my skull. After the operation, a young resident paused by my bed. Its a good thing youre so smart, he said. Most patient die of these tumors because we dont know theyre there until it is too late.

　　7 Im really not so smart. And Im too docile in the face of authority. I should have been more aggressive with those first four doctors. Its hard to question opinions delivered with absolute certainty.

　　8 Experts always sound so sure. Nevile Chamberlain, the British prime minister, was positive, just before the start of World War II, that there would be peace for our time. Producer Irving Thalberg did not hesitate to advise Louis B. Mayer against buying the rights to Gone With the Wind because no Civil War picture ever made a nickel. Even Abraham Lincoln surely believed it when he said in his Gettysburg Address: The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here

　　9 We should not, therefore, be intimidated by experts. When its an area we really know aboutour bodies, our families, our houseslets listen to what the experts say, then make up our own minds.

　　Notes

　　1 cardboard carton:a box or container made of a stiff pasteboard of paper

　　2 scalp: the skin covering the head

　　3 tumor:肿瘤

　　4 eye socket: the opening or cavity in which the eye fits

　　5 docile: easily managed or taught