Passage Five

 Questions 21-25 are based on the following passage.

 The human thumb made man. Its development was as important an event in man’s growth as his success in learning to walk upright. The thumb shaped the human hand. Without it, man might not have survived. Luckily, the hand developed only one thumb. Two thumbs on one hand would be like having two or more cooks in a small kitchen. They would get in each other’s way. As one English writer said almost 500 years ago, “Ah, each finger today is a thumb, I think.”

That is how we still describe a man who cannot get anything right. We say he is “all thumbs”. There are days when this happens to all of us, days when everything we do seems to go wrong. We cannot even get the right shoes on. The typist cannot hit the right key. The carpenter’s hammer misses the nail and hits his finger. Nothing can be done but throw up one’s hands and moan (悲叹), “God, I am all thumbs today!”

Clearly, the hand can have just one master—the thumb. It gives the hand a freedom and control of movement that are beautiful to see. This can be seen in old sculptures and stone carvings. We have a special phrase to express this mastery of the thumb. When one is ruled by another, completely controlled by him, we say the person is “under the other’s thumb”. A sick man, for example, often finds himself “under his doctor’s thumb”. Tenants have often complained about being “under the thumb of the landlord”.

There was a time, very long ago, when such tenants might in anger “bite their thumbs” at the landlord. Such a gesture was an insult that could not be accepted lightly. People no longer do this. But they do something as childish and as offensive and ugly. They “thumb their noses” at somebody they want to defy or insult.

If a person has two or more thumbs on one hand, he would______.

(66)

(67)

(65)

(64)

What does the statement “All men are created equal.” mean according to the passage?

It was twenty years ago and I was living in Paris. [63 I had a tiny apartment in the Latin Quarter overlooking a cemetery and I was earning barely enough money to keep body and soul together.] She had read a book of mine and had written to me about it. I answered, thanking her, and presently I received from her another letter saying that she was passing through Paris and would like to have a chat with me; but her time was limited and the only free moment she had was on the following Thursday; she was spending the morning at the Luxembourg and would I give her a little luncheon at Foyot’s afterwards? [64 Foyot’s is a restaurant at which the French senators eat and it was so far beyond my means that I had never even thought of going there. ][65 But I was flattered and I was too young to have learned to say no to a woman.] (Few men, I may add, learn this until they are too old to make it of any consequence to a woman what they say.)[ 66 I had eighty francs (gold francs) to last me the rest of the month, and a modest luncheon should not cost more than fifteen.]If I cut out coffee for the next two weeks I could manage well enough.

I answered that I would meet my friend—by correspondence—at Foyot’s on Thursday at half past twelve. [67 She was not so young as I expected and in appearance imposing rather than attractive.]She was, in fact, a woman of forty (a charming age, but not one that excites a sudden and devastating passion at first sight), and she gave me the impression of having more teeth, white and large and even, than were necessary for any practical purpose. She was talkative, but since she seemed inclined to talk about me I was prepared to be an attentive listener. 

(From The Luncheon)

（63）

What’s the function of education in a society? Why does the public education show great interest in exceptional children?

(60)

(58)

(59)