Conservative: Socialists begin their arguments with an analysis of history, from which they claim to derive certain trends leading inevitably to a socialist future. But in the day-to-day progress of history there are never such discernible trends. Only in retrospect does inevitability appear, for history occurs through accident, contingency, and individual struggle.
Socialist: If we thought the outcome of history were inevitable, we would not work so hard to transform the institutions of capitalist society. But to transform them we must first understand them, and we can only understand them by an analysis of their history. This is why historical analysis is important in socialist argument.
12. The socialist’s statements imply a conflict with the conservative’s view of history if the conservative also holds that
(A) it would have been impossible for anyone to predict a significant period beforehand that the institutions of capitalist society would take the form that they actually took
(B) the apparent inevitability of historical change is deceptive; all historical events could have occurred otherwise than they actually did
(C) in the past, radical changes in social structures have mostly resulted in a deterioration of social conditions
(D) since socialism cannot arise by accident or contingency, it can only arise as a result of individual struggle
(E) because historical changes are mostly accidental, it is impossible for people to direct their efforts sensibly toward achieving large-scale changes in social conditions
这个题目如何分辨选项,然后抛弃不正确的选项.答案是E
M: 此题关键在于理解原文的意思. conservative认为历史是不可预见的, 因为充满了accident等,所以analysis无用. 而socialist认为历史是不可预见的,所以要transform,通过对了解历史事件对的影响,可以改变历史. 这里你可以看到一个分歧, 就是S认为accident等也是历史时间的一部分,通过对它们的了解可以用于改变和创造历史, 而C认为accident本身造成无法analysis. 所以E对.