题目内容
Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who cut through argument, debate and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand and remember.Churchill warned the British to expect “blood, toil, tears and sweat”; Roosevelt told the Americans that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”; Lenin promised the war-weary Russians peace, land and bread.Straightforward but effective messages.
We have an image of what a leader ought to be.We even recognize the physical signs; leaders may not necessarily be tall, but they must have bigger-than-life, commanding features -- Lyndon Baines Johnson’s nose and ear lobes, Ike’s broad grin.A trade-mark also comes in handy; Lincoln’s stovepipe hat, Kennedy’s rocking chair.We expect our leaders to stand out a little, not to be like an ordinary man.Half of President Ford’s trouble lay on the fact that, if you closed your eyes for a moment, you couldn’t remember his face, figure of clothes.A leader should have an unforgettable identity, instantly and permanently fixed in people’s minds.
It also helps for a leader to be able to do something most of us can’t: FDR overcame polio; Mao swam the Yangtze River at the age of 72. We don’t want our leaders to be "just like us." We want them to be like us but better, special more so. Yet if they are too different, we reject them.
A Chinese philosopher once remarked that a leader must have the grace of a good dancer, and there is a great deal of wisdom to this. A leader should know how to appear relaxed and confident. His walks should be firm and purposeful. He should be able, like Lincoln, Roosevelt, Truman, Lke and JFK, to give a good, hearty, belly laugh, instead of the sickly grin that passes for good humor in Nixon or Carter. Ronald Reagan’s training as an actor showed to good effect in the debate with Carter, when by his easy manner and apparent affability, he managed to convey the impression that in fact he was the president and Carter the challenger.
The every simple truth about leadership is that people can only be led where they want to go. The leader follows, though a step ahead. Americans wanted to climb out of the Depression and needed someone to tell them they could do it, and Roosevelt did. The British believed that they could still win the war after the defeats of 1940, and Churchill told them they were right.
A leader rides the waves, moves with the tides, understands the deepest yearning of his people. He cannot make a nation that wants peace at any price go to war, or stop a nation determined to fight from doing so. His purpose must match the national mood.
1.The underlined word “yearning” in the last paragraph probably means_________.
A.love B.trouble C.desire D.feeling
2.From the fourth paragraph we can learn that_________.
A.leaders usually look special or different
B.leaders don’t have to be tall
C.most leaders look ordinary
D.leaders should always have trademarks
3.According to the article, a leader_________.
A.usually tries to simplify our messages
B.tell us what we want to hear
C.encourages us to think about things in a new way
D.is usually confident and handsome
4.From the passage we can infer that .
A.it helps for a leader to be able to dance or act well
B.great leaders are usually totally different from us
C.Carter was humorous and made good speeches
D.it is the people rather than the president that makes what a nation is
5.Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?
A.Want to be a leader?
B.What makes a leader?
C.What does a leader look like?
D.What must a leader do?
【小题1】C
【小题2】A
【小题3】B
【小题4】D
【小题5】B
解析
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A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as a rule, to have it retold in almost the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as formal texts. It is always much better to tell a story than read it out of a book, and, if a parent can produce what, in the actual situation of the time and the child, is an improvement on the printed text, so much the better.
A charge made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or making him sad thinking. To prove the latter, one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often sorry for cruelty than those who had not. As to fears, there are, I think, some cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy story. Often, however, this arises from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.
There are also people who object to fairy stories on the grounds that they are not objectively true, that giants, witches, two - headed dragons, magic carpets, etc. do not exist; and that, instead of being fond of the strange side in fairy tales, the child should be taught to learn the reality by studying history. I find such people, I must say so peculiar that I do not know how to argue with them. If their case were sound, the world should be full of mad men attempting to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a stick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their beloved girl -friend.
No fairy story ever declared to be a description of the real world and no clever child has ever believed that it was.
1.The author considers that a fairy story is more effective when it is ____ .
A.repeated without any change |
B.treated as a joke |
C.made some changes by the parent |
D.set in the present |
2.According to the passage, great fear can take place in a child when the story is ____ .
A.in a realistic setting |
B.heard for the first time |
C.repeated too often |
D.told in a different way |
3.The advantage claimed (提出) for repeating fairy stories to young children is that it ____.
A.makes them less fearful |
B.develops their power of memory |
C.makes them believe there is nothing to be afraid of |
D.encourages them not to have strange beliefs |
4.The author's mention of sticks and telephones is meant to suggest that ______.
A.fairy stories are still being made up |
B.there is some misunderstanding about fairy tales |
C.people try to modernize old fairy stories |
D.there is more concern for children's fears nowadays |
5.One of the reasons why some people are not in favor of fairy tales is that _______.
A.they are full of imagination |
B.they just make up the stories which are far from the truth |
C.they are not interesting |
D.they make teachers of history difficult to teach |