“The first and best of victories for a man is to conquer himself; to be conquered by himself is, of all things, the most shameful,” says Plato. Self-control is at the root of all the advantages. Let a man give in to his impulses (冲动) and feelings, and from that moment he gives up his moral freedom.
A single angry word has lost many friends. When Socrates found in himself any temper or anger, he would check it by speaking low in order to control himself. If you are conscious of being angry, keep your mouth shut so that you can hold back rising anger. Many a person has dropped dead in great anger. Fits of anger bring fits of disease. “Whoever the gods would destroy, they first make them mad.” “Keep cool,” says Webster, “anger is not argument.” “Be calm in arguing,” says George Herbert, “for fierceness makes error a fault.”
To be angry with a weak man is to prove that you are not strong yourself. “Anger,” says Pythagoras, “begins with foolishness and ends with regret.” You must measure the strength of a man by the power of the feelings he conquers, not by the power of those which conquer him.
Self-control is man’s last and greatest victory.
If a man lacks self-control he seems to lack everything. Without it he can have no patience, no power to govern himself; he can have no self-confidence, for he will always be controlled by his strongest feeling. If he lacks self-control, the very backbone and nerve of character are lacking too.
小题1:What’s the main idea of the passage?
A．Self- control is important for a man
B．We should learn to be strong.
C．A man who keeps cool won’t lose any game.
D．The great heroes in history knew how to control themselves.小题2:What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 2 mean?
A．If you are mad, the gods will fail you.
B．If you lose your temper first, gods will fail you first.
C．If you can’t control yourself, you will be crazy.
D．If the gods want to fail you, they will make you mad first.小题3:Which of the following is NOT true, according to passage?
A．The first and best of victories for a man is to conquer himself.
B．You will make a small mistake serious if you don’t keep cool.
C．You must measure a man’s strength by the power of the feelings which conquer him.
D．Anger begins with foolishness and ends with regret.小题4:Which of the following can’t help you avoid anger, according to the passage?
A．Being calm in arguing
B．Checking your temper or anger by speaking low.
C．Keeping your mouth shut
D．Trying to make the other angry first.小题5:If a man lacks self-control,______________________________
A．He will always be controlled by all the people all the time.
B．He will began with foolish everything every day and lack the strength.
C．Moral strength and nerve of character will lack as well.
D．He will have power of gover himself.
小题1:A
小题2:D
小题3:C
小题4:D
小题5:C
题目分析：本文的大意是自控对人的重要性，如何控制我们的情感，失去自控意味着失去了一切。
小题1:主旨大意题。根据文章第 1 段的“The first and best of victories for a man is to conquer himself; to be conquered by himself is, of all things, the most shameful,” 及全文的内容可知，本文的大意是“自控的重要性”。故答案选 A。
小题2:语义理解题。根据上文 you can hold back rising anger. Many a person has dropped dead in great anger. Fits of anger bring fits of disease 可知答案选 D。
小题3:推理判断题。根据文章倒数第 3 段的最后一句 You must measure the strength of a man by the power of the feelings he conquers, not by the power of those which conquer him 可知，选项 C 与之矛盾。故答案选 C。
小题4:推理判断题。根据文章第 2 段的第 2 句和第 3 句以及最后一句可以排除选项 A、B、C，从而得出答案为 D。
小题5:细节题：从文章最后一句话If he lacks self-control, the very backbone and nerve of character are lacking too.
可知选C
点评：本文要求考生读懂文章中的每个句子的意思还要推理它们之间的关系，结合自己的生活常识和经验，再通过逻辑推理和判断，理解文章的言外之意，从而揭示文章的深层涵义。任何一篇文章都有其特定的写作目的，读者应当知道如何去做或按照某种方式传递思考问题。推理判断题的答案不可能在文章中直接找到，因此推理时我们务必要忠于原文，在文章中寻找并确定可推论的依据，即：已知部分－推论的前提，从中推测出未知部分－推理的结论，切忌妄加评论，把自己的观点当成作者的观点。