1、史地自然型阅读理解——真题再现【2015·北京】Freedom and Responsibility Freedom’s challenge in the Digital Age is a serious topic. We are facing today a strange new world and we are all wondering what we are going to do with it. Some 2,500 years ago Greece discovered f
2、reedom. Before that there was no freedom. There were great civilizations, splendid empires, but no freedom anywhere. Egypt and Babylon were both tyrannies, one very powerful man ruling over helpless masses. In Greece, in Athens (雅典), a little city in a lit
3、tle country, there were no helpless masses. And Athenians willingly obeyed the written laws which they themselves passed, and the unwritten, which must be obeyed if free men live together. They must show each other kindness and pity and the many qualities w
4、ithout which life would be very painful unless one chose to live alone in the desert.The Athenians never thought that a man was free if he could do what he wanted. A man was free if he was self-controlled. To make yourself obey what you approved was freedom
5、. They were saved from looking at their lives as their own private affair. Each one felt responsible for the welfare of Athens, not because it was forced on him from the outside, but because the city was his pride and his safety. The essential belief of the
6、 first free government in the world was liberty for all men who could control themselves and would take responsibility for the state. But discovering freedom is not like discovering computers. It cannot be discovered once for all. If people do not prize it,
7、 and work for it, it will go. Constant watch is its price. Athens changed. It was a change that took place without being noticed though it was of the extreme importance, a spiritual change which affected the whole state. It had been theAthenian’ s pride and
8、 joy to give to their city. That theycouldget material benefits from her never entered their minds. There had to be a complete change of attitude before they could look at the city as an employer who p
