We are all conditioned by the way we are brought up. Our values are determined by our parents, and in a larger sense, by the culture in which we live. Chinese people, for example, are traditionally not accustomed to drinking milk, and may actually become sick if they are compelled to drink a glassful of the beverage. Americans, on the other hand, thrive on milk, although they have many taboos of their own.
Some years ago I gave a dinner party during which I served a delicious hors d’oeuvre filled with a meat that tasted somewhat like chicken. My guests wondered what the meat was, but I refused to tell them until they had eaten their fill. I explained that they had just dined on the flesh of freshly killed rattlesnake. Some people reacted by becoming nauseous, and a few people even vomited. By contrast, if I had served rattlesnake to a Chinese person, he might have requested a second helping, for in China the dish is considered a delicacy.
Another int
A. were delighted
B. were surprised
C. praised the dish
D. felt sick
If we were asked exactly what we were doing a year ago, we should probably have to say that we could not remember. But if we had kept a book and had written in it an account of what we did each day, we should be able to give an answer to the question. It is the same in history. Many things have been forgotten because we do not have any written account of them. Sometimes men did keep a record of the most important happenings in their country, but often it was destroyed by fire or in a war. Sometimes there was never any written record at all because the people of that time and place did not know how to write. For example, we know a good deal about the people who lived in China 4 000 years ago, because they could write and leave written records for those who lived after them. But we know almost nothing about the people who lived even 200 years ago in central Africa, because they had not learned to wrtie.
Sometimes, of course, even if the people cannot write, they may know so
A. there was nothing worth being written down at that time
B. the people there ignored the importance of keeping a record
C. the written records were perhaps destroyed by a fire
D. the people there had not known how to write
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