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adv. 极其，非常
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Passage Three
Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage.
Most people would agree that, although our age exceeds all previous ages in knowledge, there has been no corresponding increase in wisdom. But Agreement ceases as soon as we attempt to define “wisdom” and consider means of promoting it.
There are several factors that contribute to wisdom. Of these I should put first a sense of proportion: the capacity to take account of all the important factors in a problem and to attach to each its due weight. This has become more difficult than it used to be owing to the extent and complexity of the special knowledge required of various kinds of technicians. Suppose, for example, that you are engaged in research in scientific medicine. The work is difficult and is likely to absorb the whole of your mind. You have no time to consider the effect which your discoveries or inventions may have outside the field of medicine. You succeed (let us say) as modern medicine has succeeded, in enormously lowering the infant death-rate, not only in Europe and America, but also in Asia and Africa. This has the entirely unintended result of making the food supply inadequate and lowing the standard of life in the parts of the world that have the greatest populations. To take an even more dramatic example, which is in everybody’s mind at the present time; you study the makeup of the atom from a disinterested (无利害关系的) desire for knowledge, and by chance place in the hands of a powerful mad man the means of destroying the human race.
Therefore, with every increase of knowledge and skill, wisdom becomes more necessary, for every such increase augments (增强) our capacity for realizing our purposes, and therefore augments our capacity for evil, if our purpose are unwise.
31. Disagreement arises when people try to decide ________.
A) how much more wisdom we have now than before
B) what wisdom is and how to develop it
C) if there is a great increase of wisdom in our age
D) whether wisdom can be developed or not（B）
32. According to the author, “wisdom” is the ability to ________.
A) carefully consider the bad effects of any kind of research work
B) give each important problem some careful consideration
C) acquire a great deal of complex and special knowledge
D) give suitable consideration to all the possible elements in a problem（D）
33. Lowering the infant death-rate may ________.
A) prove to be helpful everywhere in the world
B) give rise to an increase in population in Europe
C) cause food shortages in Asia and Africa
D) raise the living standard of the people in Africa（C）
34. The author uses the examples in the passage to illustrate his point that ________.
A) it’s extremely difficult to consider all the important elements in problem
B) success in medical research has its negative effects
C) scientists may unknowingly cause destruction to the human race
D) it’s unwise to be totally absorbed in research in scientific medicine（A）
35. What is the main idea of the passage?
A) It is unwise to place the results of scientific research in the hands of a powerful mad man.
B) The more knowledge one has, the wiser one becomes.
C) Any increase of knowledge could lead to disastrous results without the guidance of wisdom.
D) Wisdom increases in proportion to one’s age.（C）
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