Passage Five
All day long, you are affected by large forces. Genes influence your intelligence and willingness to take risks. Social dynamics unconsciously shape your choices. Instantaneous perceptions set off neutral reactions in your head without you even being aware of them.
Over the past few years, scientists have made a series of exciting discoveries about how these deep patterns influence daily life. Nobody has done more to bring these discoveries to public attention than Malcolm Gladwell.
Gladwell’s noncontroversial claim is that some people have more opportunities than others. Bill Gates was lucky to go to a great private school with its own computer at the dawn of the information revolution.
Gladwell’s book is being received by reviewers as a call to action for the Obama Age. It could lead policy makers to finally reject policies built on the assumption that people are coldly rational profit-maximizing individuals. It could cause them to focus more one policy that foster relationships, social bonds and cultures of achievement.
Yet, I can’t help but feel that Glad well and others who share his emphasis are preoccupied with the coolness of the discoveries. They’ve lost sight of the point at which the influence of social forces ends and the influence of the self-initiating individual begins.
Most successful people begin with two beliefs: the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so. They were often showered by good fortunes, but relied at crucial moments upon achievements of individual will. These people also have an extraordinary ability to consciously focus their attention. Control of attention is the ultimate individual power. People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them. They can choose from the patterns in the world and lengthen their time horizons.
Gladwell’s social determinism overlooks the importance of individual character and individual creativity. And it doesn’t fully explain the genuine greatness of humanity’s talents. As the classical philosophers understood, examples of individual greatness inspire achievement more reliably than any other form of education.

25. In Paragraph 2, “these deep patterns” refers to all of the following EXCEPT _____
A. genes B. social dynamics
C. instantaneous perceptions. D. neutral reactions
26. According to the author, Gladwell’s new book Outliers is mainly_____.
A. a descriptive study of exceptionally talented individuals
B. about the importance of social arrangements to personal success
C. to discuss why some people have more opportunities than others
D. to explain why Bill Gates is much luckier than others
27. It can be seen from Paragraph 5 that Gladwell’s book _____.
A. has become quite influential
B. is beginning to influence Obama’s policies
C. has received severe criticisms
D. assumes that people just pursue maximum profits
28. According to the author, the most fundamental individual power is _____.
A. individual will B. control of attention
C. a good character D. exceptional creativity
29. The author believes that individual greatness is more closely related to _____.
A. social forces and genes
B. good luck and education
C. individual character and creativity
D. individual genes and good education
30. This passage is probably a _____
A. book review B. book report C. political essay D. news report

参考答案：DBABCA