SAMPLE 11

　　[歷史學]

　　Traditionally, the study of history has had fixed boundaries and focal points — periods, countries, dramatic events, and great leaders. It also has had clear and firm notions of scholarly procedure: how one inquires into a historical problem, how one presents and documents one’s findings, what constitutes admissible and adequate proof.

　　Anyone who has followed recent historical literature can testify to the revolution that is taking place in historical studies. The currently fashionable subjects come directly from the sociology catalog: childhood, work, leisure. The new subjects are accompanied by new methods. Where history once was primarily narrative, it is now entirely analytic. The old questions “What happened?” and “How did it happen?” have given way to the question “Why did it happen?” Prominent among the methods used to answer the question “Why” is psychoanalysis, and its use has given rise to psychohistory.

　　Psychohistory does not merely use psychological explanations in historical contexts. Historians have always used such explanations when they were appropriate and when there was sufficient evidence for them. But this pragmatic use of psychology is not what psychohistorians intend. They are committed, not just to psychology in general, but to Freudian psychoanalysis. This commitment precludes a commitment to history as historians have always understood it. Psychohistory derives its “facts” not from history, the detailed records of events and their consequences, but from psychoanalysis of the individuals who made history, and deduces its theories not from this or that instance in their lives, but from a view of human nature that transcends history. It denies the basic criterion of historical evidence: that evidence be publicly accessible to, and therefore assessable by, all historians. And it violates the basic tenet of historical method: that historians be alert to the negative instances that would refute their theses. Psychohistorians, convinced of the absolute rightness of their own theories, are also convinced that theirs is the “deepest” explanation of any event, that other explanations fall short of the truth.

　　Psychohistory is not content to violate the discipline of history (in the sense of the proper mode of studying and writing about the past); it also violates the past itself. It denies to the past an integrity and will of its own, in which people acted out of a variety of motives and in which events had a multiplicity of causes and effects. It imposes upon the past the same determinism that it imposes upon the present, thus robbing people and events of their individuality and of their complexity. Instead of respecting the particularity of the past, it assimilates all events, past and present, into a single deterministic schema that is presumed to be true at all times and in all circumstances.

　　1. Which of the following best states the main point of the text?

　　[A] The approach of psychohistorians to historical study is currently in vogue even though it lacks the rigor and verifiability of traditional historical method.

　　[B] Traditional historians can benefit from studying the techniques and findings of psychohistorians.

　　[C] Areas of sociological study such as childhood and work are of little interest to traditional historians.

　　[D] The psychological assessment of an individual’s behavior and attitudes is more informative than the details of his or her daily life.

　　2. The author mentions which of the following as a characteristic of the practice of psychohistorians?

　　[A] The lives of historical figures are presented in episodic rather than narrative form.

　　[B] Archives used by psychohistorians to gather material are not accessible to other scholars.

　　[C] Past and current events are all placed within the same deterministic diagram.

　　[D] Events in the adult life of a historical figure are seen to be more consequential than are those in the childhood of the figure.

　　3. The author of the text suggests that psychohistorians view history primarily as

　　[A] a report of events, causes, and effects that is generally accepted by historians but which is, for the most part, unverifiable.

　　[B] an episodic account that lacks cohesion because records of the role of childhood, work, and leisure in the lives of historical figures are rare.

　　[C] an uncharted sea of seemingly unexplainable events that have meaning only when examined as discrete units.

　　[D] a record the way in which a closed set of immutable psychological laws seems to have shaped events.

　　4. The author of the text puts the word “deepest” (line 14, paragraph 3) in quotation marks most probably in order to

　　[A] signal her reservations about the accuracy of psychohistorians’ claims for their work.

　　[B] draw attention to a contradiction in the psychohistorians’ method.

　　[C] emphasize the major difference between the traditional historians’ method and that of psychohistorians.

　　[D] disassociate her opinion of the psychohistorians’ claims from her opinion of their method.

　　5. In presenting her analysis, the author does all of the following EXCEPT.

　　[A] Make general statements without reference to specific examples.

　　[B] Describe some of the criteria employed by traditional historians.

　　[C] Question the adequacy of the psychohistorians’ interpretation of events.

　　[D] Point out inconsistencies in the psychohistorians’ application of their methods.

　　[答案與考點解析]

　　1. 【答案】A

　　【考點解析】這是一道中心主旨題。從第二段開始出現(xiàn)全文的主要談論內(nèi)容，第二段的最后一句出現(xiàn)了全文所談論的中心“psychohistory”，在第二段中談到了“psychohistory”的流行性，在第二段和第三段中作者談到了“psychohistory”缺乏歷史科學研究的“嚴密性和可考證性”。由此分析可見本題的正確選項應該是包含“psychohistory”和“history”概念的選項A�？忌�在解題時要善于首先捕捉全文的中心主旨句，并通過閱讀和理解去把握原文所表達的思想。

　　2. 【答案】C

　　【考點解析】這是一道審題定位題。通過題干中的“psychohistorians”可將本題的答案信息確定在第三、四段，但是題干并沒有明確指出本題準確的信息來源。但是題干中的“practice”(實踐)一詞暗示考生本題的答案信息可能在尾段，因為人們一般闡述問題的規(guī)律是：從理論談到實踐。如果不出萬一本文的尾段應該談到“psychohistorians”的實踐問題。通過閱讀尾段，尤其是尾段尾句，我們可得出本題的正確選項應該是C。這道題的難點在于審題定位。審題定位不是一個簡單的問題，需要考生對文章的敘述結構和人類的表達習慣有所認識。

　　3. 【答案】D

　　【考點解析】這是一道審題定位題。通過題干中的“psychohistorians view history primarily as”可判斷本題是要考生找出“psychohistorians”如何看待(view…as)歷史(history)，即要考生找出“psychohistorians”對歷史的看法和態(tài)度。根據(jù)行文和表達規(guī)律，這道題的答案信息應該在第三段，準確地說在第三段的第五句話，因為這句話包含“history”一詞。通過閱讀和理解第三段的第四、五、六句話，我們可以推導出本題的正確選項應該是突出“psychological”含義的選項D�？忌�在解題時一定要注意英語行文和表達的規(guī)則。

　　4. 【答案】A

　　【考點解析】這是一道標點符號題。本題題干已將本題的答案信息確定在第三段的倒數(shù)第二行。此處引號所表達的含義是“所謂最深刻的”，即實際上是“不深刻的”。故本題的正確選項應該是含有“reservations”(有保留)一詞的選項A�？忌�在破解閱讀理解題型時一定要注意標點符號的應用，以及它們所產(chǎn)生的相應的含義。

　　5. 【答案】D

　　【考點解析】本題是一道寫作手法題型。這是一道比較難的題，旨在考察考生的語言基本功，尤其是寫作手法和文章結構方面的知識。本題A、B、C中所涉及的內(nèi)容可分別在第三段第六、七、八句、第一段第一、二句以及第三段的尾句找到。本文并沒有談到“psychohistorians”在應用自己方法方面的前后矛盾不一致性，故本題的正確選項應該是選項D�？忌�在解題時應注意原文中常用的寫作手法。

　　[參考譯文]

　　傳統(tǒng)上，歷史研究具有固定的界限和焦點——時期、國家、引人注目的事件，和偉大的領袖。在學術過程上的觀念也非常清晰和堅定：研究者是如何探究歷史問題的，他們是如何展示他們的發(fā)現(xiàn)并歸納成文檔的，有什么令人信服的足夠的證據(jù)。

　　凡是注意最近的歷史文獻的人都能證明在歷史研究上正在發(fā)生一場革命。目前最流行的題材直接來源于社會學領域：兒童時代，工作，休閑。伴隨著新的題材的是新的研究方法。過去的歷史主要是敘述性的，現(xiàn)在則完全變成分析性的了。過去的問題是“發(fā)生了什么?”和“怎么發(fā)生的?”，現(xiàn)在它們則讓位給了“為什么會發(fā)生?”。在用來回答“為什么”這一問題的方法中，最突出的是心理分析，而對這種方法的使用則導致了心理歷史學的興起。

　　心理歷史學并不僅僅在歷史環(huán)境下使用心理解釋。過去，歷史學家也總是在適當并有足夠證據(jù)支持的時候使用這樣的解釋。但這種對心理學的實用主義的應用并不是心理歷史學家所希望的。他們通常不只局限于心理學，而是要使用弗洛伊德的心理分析。這樣，就同過去歷史學家所理解的歷史大相徑庭了。心理歷史學不是從歷史，從事件的詳細記錄和它們的前因后果中來獲取“事實”，而是對造成歷史的個人進行心理分析，從中獲取“事實”;不是從這些創(chuàng)造歷史的人物一生的這個或那個實例中演繹出理論，而是從超越歷史的人類本性的角度來推導理論。它否定關于歷史證據(jù)的基本標準，即：這些證據(jù)應該是公眾能夠了解的，因此，也就是所有歷史學家都能夠了解的。它還違反了歷史學方法的基本原則：歷史學家要警惕能夠駁倒他們的論題的反面事例。心理歷史學家，則相信他們的理論絕對正確，而且確信他們的理論是對任何事件的“最深刻”的解釋，而其它的解釋都遠離真實。

　　心理歷史學家并不滿足于破壞歷史學的規(guī)范(在正確研究和書寫過去的意義上);它還要破壞過去本身。它否定過去是一個整體并有自身的發(fā)展規(guī)律，人們在這個整體中出于各種不同的動機行事，事件的發(fā)生是由多種原因和影響共同造成的。它把決定當前情況的決定論強加給過去，這就剝奪了人和事件的獨特性和復雜性。它不是尊重過去的特殊性，而是把過去和現(xiàn)在的所有事件都吸收到一個單一的決定論模式中，假設這個模式在任意時間和任意環(huán)境中都是正確的。