大学英语精读听力第二册 2_un09

[00:00.00]Unit Nine Text
[00:24.58]Asimov explains why there is much more in intelligence
[00:31.14]than just being able to score high on intelligence tests.
[00:37.02]WHAT IS INTEL LIGENCE, ANYWAY?
[00:41.27]Isaac Asimov
[00:44.75]What is intelligence,anyway?
[00:48.40]When I was in the army I received a kind of aptitude test
[00:54.05] that all soldiers took and,against a normal of 100,scored 160.
[01:01.91]No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that
[01:06.77] and for two hours they made a big fuss over me.
[01:11.34](It didn't mean anything.
[01:14.68]The next day I was still a buck private with KP as my highest duty.)
[01:20.56] All my life I've been registering scores like that,
[01:25.42]so that I have the complacent feeling that I'm highly intelligent,
[01:30.98]and I expect other people to think so,too.
[01:35.43] Actually,though, don't such scores simply mean
[01:40.78]that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions
[01:46.42]that are considered worthy of answers
[01:50.55]by the people who make up the intelligence tests
[01:55.41]people with intellectual bents similar to mine?
[02:00.24]For instance, I had an auto-repair man once,
[02:05.39]who, on these intelligence tests,
[02:10.06]could not possibly have scored more than 80,by my estimate.
[02:15.71]I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was.
[02:21.66]Yet,when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it,
[02:27.41]watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals,
[02:32.48]and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles
[02:38.64] and he always fixed my car.
[02:42.30]Well, then,suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test.
[02:49.56]Or suppose a carpenter did,or a farmer,or,indeed,almost anyone but an academician.
[02:57.42]By every one of those tests,I'd prove myself a moron.And I'd be a moron,too.
[03:05.00]In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents
[03:11.06] but had to do something intricate or hard,
[03:15.19]working with my hands,I would do poorly.
[03:20.02]My intelligence,then, is not absolute.
[03:24.38]Its worth is determined by the society I live in.
[03:29.42]Its numerical evaluation is determined by a small subsection of that society
[03:36.87] which has managed to foist itself on the rest of us as an arbiter of such matters.
[03:44.34]Consider my auto-repair man,again.
[03:48.18]He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me.
[03:53.14]One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say:
[03:58.71]"Doc,a deaf-and-dumb guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails.
[04:05.16]He put two fingers together on the counter
[04:09.84]and made hammering motions with the other hand.
[04:14.28]The clerk brought him a hammer.
[04:17.65]He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering.
[04:22.79]The clerk brought him nails.
[04:26.27]He picked out the sizes he wanted,and left.
[04:30.94]Well,doc,the next guy who came in was a blind man.He wanted scissors.
[04:37.29]How do you suppose he asked for them?"
[04:41.26]I lifted my right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers.
[04:47.32]Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed heartily and said,
[04:52.96]"Why, you dumb fool,he used his voice and asked for them."
[04:58.61]Then he said,smugly,"I'v been trying that on all my customers today."
[05:05.06]"Did you catch many?"I asked.
[05:08.61]"Quite a few," he said,"but I knew for sure I'd catch you."
[05:14.07]"Why is that?"I asked. "Because you're so goddamned educated,doc,
[05:20.03]I knew you couldn't be very smart.
[05:23.79]And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there.