The desire to use language as a sign of national identity

is a very natural one, and in result language has played a 【B1】 __

prominent part in national moves. Men have often felt the 【B2】 __

need to cultivate a given language to show that they are

distinctive from another race whose hegemony they resent. 【B3】 __

At the time the United States split off from Britain, for 【B4】 __

example, there were proposals that independence should be

linguistically accepted by the use of a different language from 【B5】 __

those of Britain. There was even one proposal that Americans 【B6】 __

should adopt Hebrew. Others favoured the adoption of

Greek, though, as one man put it, things would certainly be

simpler for Americans if they stuck on to English and made 【B7】 __

the British learn Greek. At the end, as everyone knows, the 【B8】 __

two countries adopted the practical and satisfactory solution

of carrying with the same language as before. 【B9】 __

Since nearly two hundred years now, they have shown 【B10】 __

the world that political independence and national identity

can be complete without sacrificing the enormous mutual

advantages of a common language.

【B1】

In the 21st century, those people with old ideas will ____ (落后于是代).

Take good care of yourself and ____ (远离) bad books.

The culture of any society is usually thought to be of two kinds: material and nonmaterial. Material culture includes the man-made phenomena which have physical properties such as height, breadth, and weight. A boat, a machine, a house — all these objects are part of the material culture. The nonmaterial culture is that portion of the environment which surrounds man and which has an impact on his behavior. but which lacks these material properties: values, beliefs, traditions, and all the other habits and ideas invented and acquired by man as a member of society.

Contemporary sociological theory tends to assign primary importance to the nonmaterial culture in choosing problems for study. It assumes, for example, that boats, planes, automobiles, and so forth, are not nearly so important as the traditions we have developed which make their manufacture possible — indeed, which prescribe how we are to use them. The emphasis of contemporary sociology is to insist that the material culture would not exist had not the nonmaterial culture first been available to suggest the ideas which are embodied in the inventions of material culture.

听力原文：Although some airlines prevent passengers from using portable electrical devices during take-off and landing, few has given them a total ban, as many passengers want to work during flights.

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听力原文：Although the engineers could not be certain that the new plan would work, it seemed like a good solution to the problem, at least on paper.

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