SAT閱讀題型分類——詞匯題

　The passage is taken from a description of the life of certain Pacific Islanders written by a pioneering sociologist.

　　By the time a child is six or seven she has all the essential

　　avoidances well enough by heart to be trusted with the care of a

　　younger child. And she also develops a number of simple

　　techniques. She learns to weave firm square balls from palm

　　(5) leaves, to make pinwheels of palm leaves or frangipani blossoms,

　　to climb a coconut tree by walking up the trunk on flexible little

　　feet, to break open a coconut with one firm well-directed blow of

　　a knife as long as she is tall, to play a number of group games

　　and sing the songs which go with them, to tidy the house by

　　(10 )picking up the litter on the stony floor, to bring water from the

　　sea, to spread out the copra to dry and to help gather it in when

　　rain threatens, to go to a neighboring house and bring back a

　　lighted faggot for the chief's pipe or the cook-house fire.

　　But in the case of the little girls all these tasks are merely

　　(15) supplementary to the main business of baby-tending. Very small

　　boys also have some care of the younger children, but at eight or

　　nine years of age they are usually relieved of it. Whatever rough

　　edges have not been smoothed off by this responsibility for

　　younger children are worn off by their contact with older boys.

　　(20) For little boys are admitted to interesting and important activities

　　only so long as their behavior is circumspect and helpful. Where

　　small girls are brusquely pushed aside, small boys will be

　　patiently tolerated and they become adept at making themselves

　　useful. The four or five little boys who all wish to assist at the

　　(25) important, business of helping a grown youth lasso reef eels,

　　organize themselves into a highly efficient working team; one boy

　　holds the bait, another holds an extra lasso, others poke

　　eagerly about in holes in the reef looking for prey, while still

　　another tucks the captured eels into his lavalava. The small girls,

　　(30) burdened with heavy babies or the care of little staggerers who are

　　too small to adventure on the reef, discouraged by the hostility

　　of the small boys and the scorn of the older ones, have

　　little opportunity for learning the more adventurous forms of work

　　and play. So while the little boys first undergo the

　　(35) chastening effects of baby-tending and then have many

　　opportunities to learn effective cooperation under the supervision

　　of older boys, the girls' education is less comprehensive. They

　　have a high standard of individual responsibility, but the

　　community provides them with no lessons in cooperation with one

　　40 another. This is particularly apparent in the activities of young

　　people: the boys organize quickly; the girls waste hours in

　　bickering, innocent of any technique for quick and efficient

　　cooperation.

　2. The word 'brusquely' (line 22) most nearly means

　　A. quickly

　　B. gently

　　C. nonchalantly

　　D. abruptly

　　E. callously

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