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Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage.
The biographer has to dance between two shaky positions with respect to the subject. Too close a relation, and the writer may be objectivity. Not close enough, and the writer may lack the sympathy necessary to any effort to portray a mind, a soul-the quality of life. Who should write the biography of a family, for example? Because of their closeness to the subject, family members may have special information, but by the same token, they may not have the distance that would allow them to be fair. Similarly, a king’s servant might not be the best one to write a biography of that king. But a foreigner might not have the knowledge and sympathy necessary to write the king’s biography-not for a readership from within the kingdom, at any rate.
There is no ideal position for such a task. The biographer has to work with the position he or she has in the world, adjusting that position as necessary to deal with the subject. Every position has strengths and weaknesses: to thrive, a writer must try to become aware of these, evaluate them in terms of the subject, and select a position accordingly.
When their subjects are heroes or famous figures, biographies often reveal a democratic motive: they attempt to show that their subjects are only human, no better than anyone else. Other biographies are meant to change us, to invite us to become better than we are. The biographies of Jesus found in the Bible are in this class.
Biographers may claim that their account is the “authentic” one. In advancing this claim, they are helped if the biography is “authorized” by the subject, this presumably allows the biographer special access to private information. “Unauthorized” biographies also have their appeal, however, since they can suggest an independence of mind in the biographer. In book promotions, the “unauthorized” characterisation usually suggests the prospect of juicy gossip that the subject had hoped to suppress. A subject might have several biographies, even several “authentic” ones. We sense intuitively that no one is in a position to tell the story of a life, perhaps not even the subject, and this has been proved by the history of biography.
31. According to the author, an ideal biographer would be one who ________.
A) knows the subject very well and yet maintains a proper distance from him
B) is close to the subject and knows the techniques of biography writing
C) is independent and treats the subject with fairness and objectivity
D) possesses special private information and is sympathetic toward the subject
32. The author cites the biographies of Jesus in the Bible in order to show that ________.
A) the best biographies are meant to transform their readers
B) biographies are authentic accounts of their subjects’ lives
C) the best biographies are the of heroes and famous figures
D) biographies can serve different purpose
33. Which of the following statements is true, according to the passage?
A) An authentic biography seldom appeals to its readers.
B) An authentic biography is one authorized by the subject.
C) No one can write a perfect biography.
D) Authorized biographies have a wider readership.
34. An unauthorized biography is likely to attract more readers because ________.
A) it portrays the subject both faithfully and vividly
B) it contains interesting information about the subject’s private life
C) it reveals a lot of accurate details unknown to outsiders
D) it usually gives a sympathetic description of the subject’s character
35. In this passage, the author focuses on ________.
A) the difficulty of a biographer in finding the proper perspective to do his job
B) the secret of a biographer to win more readers
C) the techniques required of a biographer to write a food biography
D) the characteristics of different kinds of biographies
Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage.
Whether the eyes are “the windows of the soul” is debatable, that they are intensely important in interpersonal communication is a fact. During the first two months of a baby’s life, the stimulus that produces a smile is a pair of eyes. The eyes need not be real: a mask with two dots will produce a smile. Significantly, a real human face with eyes then the face will not motivate a smile, nor will the sight of only one eye then the face is presented in profile. This attraction to eyes as opposed to the nose or mouth continues as the baby matures. In one study, when American four-year-olds were asked to draw people, 75 percent of them drew people with mouths, but 99 percent of them drew people with eyes. In Japan, however, where babies are carried on their mother’s back, infants to not acquire as much attachment to eyes as they do in other cultures. As a result, Japanese adults make little use of the face either to encode or decode meaning. In fact, Argyle reveals that the “proper place to focus one’s gaze during a conversation in Japan is on the neck of one’s conversation partner.”
The role of eye contact in a conversational exchange between two Americans is well defined: speakers make contact with the eyes of their listener for about one second, then glance away as they talk; in a few moments they re-establish eye contact with the listener or reassure themselves that their audience is still attentive, then shift their gaze away once more. Listeners, meanwhile, keep their eyes on the face of the speaker, allowing themselves-to glance away only briefly. It is important that they be looking at the speaker at the `precise moment when the speaker reestablishes eye contact: if they are not looking, the speaker assumes that they are disinterested and either will pause until eye contact is resumed or will terminate the conversation. Just how critical this eye maneuvering is to the maintenance of conversational flow becomes evident when two speakers are wearing dark glasses: there may be a sort of traffic jam of words caused by interruption, false starts, and unpredictable pauses.
36. The author is convinced that the eyes are ________.
A) of extreme importance in expressing feelings and exchanging ideas
B) something through which one can see a person’s inner world
C) of considerable significance in making conversations interesting
D) something the value of which is largely a matter of long debate
37. Babies will not be stimulated to smile by a person ________.
A) whose front view is fully perceived
B) whose face is covered with a mask
C) whose face is seen from the side
D) whose face is free of any covering
38. According to the passage, the Japanese fix their gaze on their conversation partner’s neck because ________.
A) they don’t like to keep their eyes on the face of the speaker
B) they need not communicate through eye contact
C) they don’t think it polite to have eye contact
D) they didn’t have much opportunity to communicate through eye contact in babyhood
39. According to the passage, a conversation between two Americans may break down due to ________.
A) one temporarily glancing away from the other
B) eye contact of more than one second
C) improperly-timed ceasing of eye contact
D) constant adjustment of eye contact
40. To keep a conversation flowing smoothly, it is better for the participants ________.
A) not to wear dark spectacles
B) not to make any interruptions
C) not to glance away from each other
D) not to make unpredictable pauses
