Text 4

　　“I want to criticize the social system, and to show it at work, at its most intense�！� Virginia Woolf’s provocative statement about her intentions in writing Mrs. Dalloway has regularly been ignored by the critics, since it highlights an aspect of her literary interests very different from the traditional picture of the “poetic” novelist concerned with examining states of reverie and vision and with following the intricate pathways of individual consciousness. But Virginia Woolf was a realistic as well as a poetic novelist, a satirist and social critic as well as a visionary: literary critics’ cavalier dismissal of Woolf’s social vision will not withstand scrutiny。

　　In her novels, Woolf is deeply engaged by the questions of how individuals are shaped (or deformed) by their social environments, how historical forces impinge on people’s lives, how class, wealth, and gender help to determine people’s fates. Most of her novels are rooted in a realistically rendered social setting and in a precise historical time。

　　Woolf’s focus on society has not been generally recognized because of her intense antipathy to propaganda in art. The pictures of reformers in her novels are usually satiric or sharply critical. Even when Woolf is fundamentally sympathetic to their causes, she portrays people anxious to reform their society and possessed of a message or program as arrogant or dishonest, unaware of how their political ideas serve their own psychological needs. (Her Writer’s Diary notes: “the only honest people are the artists,” whereas “these social reformers and philanthropists… harbor… discreditable desires under the disguise of loving their kind…”) Woolf detested what she called “preaching” in fiction, too, and criticized novelist D. H. Lawrence (among others) for working by this method。

　　Woolf’s own social criticism is expressed in the language of observation rather than in direct commentary, since for her, fiction is a contemplative, not an active art. She describes phenomena and provides materials for a judgment about society and social issues; it is the reader’s work to put the observations together and understand the coherent point of view behind them. As a moralist, Woolf works by indirection, subtly undermining officially accepted mores, mocking, suggesting, calling into question, rather than asserting, advocating, bearing witness: hers is the satirist’s art。

　　Woolf’s literary models were acute social observers like Chekhov and Chaucer. As she put it in The Common Reader, “It is safe to say that not a single law has been framed or one stone set upon another because of anything Chaucer said or wrote; and yet, as we read him, we are absorbing morality at every pore�！� Like Chaucer, Woolf chose to understand as well as to judge, to know her society root and branch — a decision crucial in order to produce art rather than polemic.36. Which of the following would be the most appropriate title for the text? [A] Poetry and Satire as Influences on the Novels of Virginia Woolf. [B] Virginia Woolf: Critic and Commentator on the Twentieth-Century Novel. [C] Trends in Contemporary Reform Movements as a Key to Understanding Virginia Woolf’s Novels. [D] Virginia Woolf’s Novels: Critical Reflections on the Individual and on Society。

　　37. In the first paragraph of the text, the author’s attitude toward the literary critics mentioned can best be described as [A] disparaging. [B] ironic. [C] facetious. [D] skeptical but resigned.38. It can be inferred from the text that Woolf chose Chaucer as a literary example because she believed that [A] Chaucer was the first English author to focus on society as a whole as well as on individual characters. [B] Chaucer was an honest and forthright author, whereas novelists like D. H. Lawrence did not sincerely wish to change society. [C] Chaucer was more concerned with understanding his society than with calling its accepted mores into question. [D] Chaucer’s writing was greatly, if subtly, effective in influencing the moral attitudes of his readers.39. It can be inferred from the text that the most probable reason Woolf realistically described the social setting in the majority of her novels was that she [A] was aware that contemporary literary critics considered the novel to be the most realistic of literary genres. [B] was interested in the effect of a person’s social milieu on his or her character and actions. [C] needed to be as attentive to detail as possible in her novels in order to support the arguments she advanced in them. [D] wanted to show that a painstaking fidelity in the representation of reality did not in any way hamper the artist.40. Which of the following phrases best expresses the sense of the word “contemplative” as it is used in line 2, paragraph 4 of the text? [A] Gradually elucidating the rational structures underlying accepted mores. [B] Reflecting on issues in society without prejudice or emotional commitment. [C] Avoiding the aggressive assertion of the author’s perspective to the exclusion of the reader’s judgment. [D] Conveying a broad view of society as a whole rather than focusing on an isolated individual consciousness。

　　Part B

　　Directions:

　　Read the following text and answer question by deciding each of the statements after the text is True or False. Choose T if the statement is true or F if the statement is not true. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points)

　　If you were to examine the birth certificates of every soccer player in 2006’s World Cup tournament, you would most likely find a noteworthy quirk: elite soccer players are more likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than in the later months. If you then examined the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup and professional ranks, you would find this strange phenomenon to be even more pronounced。

　　What might account for this strange phenomenon? Here are a few guesses: a) certain astrological signs confer superior soccer skills; b) winter-born babies tend to have higher oxygen capacity, which increases soccer stamina; c) soccer-mad parents are more likely to conceive children in springtime, at the annual peak of soccer mania; d) none of the above。

　　Anders Ericsson, a 58-year-old psychology professor at Florida State University, says he believes strongly in “none of the above�！� Ericsson grew up in Sweden, and studied nuclear engineering until he realized he would have more opportunity to conduct his own research if he switched to psychology. His first experiment, nearly 30 years ago, involved memory: training a person to hear and then repeat a random series of numbers. “With the first subject, after about 20 hours of training, his digit span had risen from 7 to 20,” Ericsson recalls. “He kept improving, and after about 200 hours of training he had risen to over 80 numbers�！�

　　This success, coupled with later research showing that memory itself is not genetically determined, led Ericsson to conclude that the act of memorizing is more of a cognitive exercise than an intuitive one. In other words, whatever inborn differences two people may exhibit in their abilities to memorize, those differences are swamped by how well each person “encodes” the information. And the best way to learn how to encode information meaningfully, Ericsson determined, was a process known as deliberate practice. Deliberate practice entails more than simply repeating a task. Rather, it involves setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome。

　　Ericsson and his colleagues have thus taken to studying expert performers in a wide range of pursuits, including soccer. They gather all the data they can, not just performance statistics and biographical details but also the results of their own laboratory experiments with high achievers. Their work makes a rather startling assertion: the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers – whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming – are nearly always made, not born。

　　41. The birthday phenomenon found among soccer players is mentioned to explain why some soccer teams play better than others。

　　42. The word “mania” (Line 4, Paragraph 2) most probably means fan。

　　43. According to Ericsson, good memory depends on meaningful processing of information。

　　44. Ericsson and his colleagues believe that high achievers owe their success mostly to nurture。

　　45. The text tries to convey “One reaps what one sows。”