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  3. That Orientals and Westerners think in different ways is not mere prejudice. Many psychological studies conducted over the past

That Orientals and Westerners think in different ways is not mere prejudice. Many psychological studies conducted over the past

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问题     That Orientals and Westerners think in different ways is not mere prejudice. Many psychological studies conducted over the past two decades suggest Westerners have a more individualistic and abstract mental life than do East Asians. Several explanations are proposed to account for different ways of thinking.
    One explanation is that stepping into the modern social, economic and technological situation promotes individualism. However, in Japan, a pretty modern country, its people have retained a collective outlook. A second proposal is that if a place is liable to a higher frequency of infectious disease, it is more dangerous to make contact with strangers, which causes groups in this place to turn inward and tend to be collective. This explanation is also been questioned. Europe has had its share of plagues; probably more than either Japan or Korea. And though in southern China, a source of infection often starts there, this is not true of other parts of that enormous country.
    That led Thomas Talhelm of the University of Virginia and his colleagues to look into a third suggestion; that the crucial difference is agricultural. The West’s staple (主食)is wheat, while the East’s rice. Before the mechanical revolution of agriculture, a farmer who grew rice had to spend twice as many hours doing so as one who grew wheat. To promote efficient agricultural production, especially at times of planting and harvesting, rice-growing societies as far apart as India, Malaysia and Japan all developed cooperative labor exchanges. That is, neighbors arranged their farms’ schedules one after another in order to assist each other during these significant periods. Since, until recently, almost everyone was a farmer, it is a reasonable proposal that such a collective outlook would enjoy a controlling position in a society’s culture and behavior, and might prove so deep rooted that even now, when most people earn their living in other ways, it helps to define their lives. This proposal that the different ways of thinking of East and West are, at least in part, a consequence of their agriculture is worth further exploration.
Which of the following questions the second proposal?
选项 A、People in a place with infectious disease tend to advocate individualism.
B、People in a place with infectious disease tend to contact with outsiders.
C、In China, it is easy to prevent the spread of infectious disease.
D、Europe is more likely to be infected by plagues than Korea.
答案D
解析 本题考查质疑关于东西方思维方式差异的第二种解释的信息。原文第二段提到，第二种解释则是，一个地方传染性疾病的高发性会使得与陌生人打交道更加危险，这便导致当地旅群变得内向，倾向于集体主义，这一解释同样受到质疑。第二段倒数第二旬举出实例质疑了这一解释，欧洲发生过瘟疫，可能比日本或韩国都多。由此可推知，欧洲比韩国更有可能感染瘟疫。但欧洲更看重的是个人主义而不是集体主义，与第二种解释相矛盾，故答案为D。A“有传染性疾病地区的人们倾向于提倡个人主义”和B“有传染性疾病地区的人们倾向于与族群外的人接触”都是对第二种解释的曲解，并不是质疑第二种解释的实例，故排除；C“在中国，容易防止传染性疾病的传播”，原文未提及，故排除。
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