2008年高考英语天津卷 - 阅读理解D

We can achieve knowledge either actively or passively. We achieve it actively by direct experience, by testing and proving an idea, or by reasoning.
我们可以主动或被动地获取知识。我们通过直接经验、测试证明观点或推理主动获取。

We achieve knowledge passively by being told by someone else. Most of the learning that takes place in the classroom and the kind that happens when we watch TV or read newspapers or magazines is passive. Conditioned as we are to passive learning, it’s not surprising that we depend on it in our everyday communication with friends and co-workers.
通过别人告知是被动获取知识。大多数发生在课堂上的学习，以及当我们看电视、读报纸或杂志时发生的学习，都是被动的。我们习惯于被动学习，所以我们在与朋友和同事的日常交流中依赖它也就不足为奇了。

Unfortunately, passive learning has a serious problem. It makes us tend to accept what we are told even when it is little more than hearsay and rumor.
不过被动学习有一个严重的问题。它使我们倾向于接受别人告诉我们的，即使只是道听途说和谣言。

Did you ever play the game Rumor? It begins when one person writes down a message but doesn’t show it to anyone. Then the person whispers it, word for word, to another person. That person, in turn, whispers it to still another, and so on, through all the people playing the game. The last person writes down the message word for word as he or she hears it. Then the two written statements are compared. Typically, the original message has changed.
你有玩过“传话筒”游戏吗？开始是一个人写下一句话，但不给任何人看。然后这个人一字一句耳语给下一个人。这个人再按顺序耳语给下一个人，直到所有参与游戏的人。最后一个人听到时，逐字写下。然后比较这两种书面陈述。通常，原始文字已更改。

That’s what happens in daily life. The simple fact that people repeat a story in their own words changes the story. Then, too, most people listen imperfectly. And many enjoy adding their own creative touch to a story, trying to improve on it, stamping it with their own personal style. Yet those who hear it think they know.
这就是日常生活中发生的事情。简单的事实是人们用自己的话重复故事时会改变故事。而且大多数人的听力也不完美。许多人喜欢在故事中加入自己的创意，试图在故事中有所改进，在故事中留下个人标记。然而，那些听的人认为他们知道。

This process is also found among scholars and authors: A statement of opinion by one writer may be re-stated as fact by another, who may in turn be quoted by yet another; and this process may continue, unless it occurs to someone to question the facts on which the original writer based his opinion or to challenge the interpretation he placed upon those facts.
这一过程在学者和作家中也有发现：一位作家的观点可能被另一位作家重新表述为事实，而他又可能被另一位作家引用；这一过程可能会继续，除非有人对原作者的观点所依据的事实提出质疑，或对对这些事实的解释提出质疑。