Silence is unnatural to man．He begins life with a cry and ends it in stillness．I

Silence is unnatural to man．He begins life with a cry and ends it in stillness．In between he does all he can to make a noise in theworld, and he fears silence more than anything else．Even his conversation is an attempt to prevent afearful silence．If he is introduced to another person, anda number of pauses occur in the conversation, he regards himself as a failure,a worthless person, and is full of envy of the emptiest headed chatterbox（喋喋不休的人）.He knows that ninety-nine percent of humanconversation means no more than the buzzing of a fly, but he is anxiousto join in the buzz and to prove that he is a man and not a waxwork figure（蜡塑人像）.

The aim of conversation is not, for the most part, tocommunicate ideas; it is to keep up the buzzing sound. There are, it must beadmitted, different qualities of buzz; there is even a buzz that is as annoyingas the continuous noise made by a mosquito （蚊子）.But at adinner party one would rather be a mosquito than a quiet person. Most buzzing,fortunately, is pleasant to the ear, and some of it is pleasant even to themind. He would be a foolish man if he waited until he had a wise thought totake part in the buzzing -with his neighbors.

Those who hate to pick up the weather as aconversational opening seem to me not to know the reason why human beings wishto talk. Very few human beings join in a conversation in the hope of learninganything new. Some of them are content if they are merely allowed to go onmaking a noise into other people's ears, though they have nothing to tell themexcept that they have seen two or three new plays or that they had food in aSwiss hotel. At the end of an evening during which they have said nothingmeaningful for a long time, they just prove themselves to be successfulconservationists.

1.According to the passage, people usually talk totheir neighbors_____.

A．in the hopeof learning something new

B．in the hopeof getting on well

C．aboutwhatever they have prepared

D．aboutwhatever they want to

2.According to the author, people make conversationto______.

A．achievesuccess in life

B．exchangeideas

C．overcometheir fear of silence

D．prove theirvalue

3.What is the author's purpose in writing the passage?

A．To persuadepeople to stop making noises．

B．To explainwhy people keep talking．

C．To discusswhy people like talking about weather．

D．To encouragepeople to join in conversations．

4.By "the buzzing of a fly"(Para.1), theauthor means"_____".

A．the voice ofa chatterbox

B．meaninglesstalk sound

C．a lowwhispering

D．the noise ofan insect

试题答案

【答案】

1.D

2.C

3.B

4.B

【解析】

试题