专题01 阅读理解之说明文 -2021-2022年新高考英语模拟题分项汇编（第5期）

专题01 阅读理解之说明文 一、（福建省龙岩市第二中学2021-2022学年高三期中）A competition making up Versailles literature was launched on Sina Weibo recently. So what is Versailles literature? Actually, the term has nothing to do with the French palace nor with literature. It came from The Rose of Versailles, a Japanese manga series about aristocratic（贵族化的）life at the palace of Versailles in France in the late 18th century, and was coined by a Chinese influencer earlier this year. Known as humblebragging, it is a boast（吹牛）disguised as a complaint. “I have too many houses. How can I decide which one to decorate?” and “I thought I lost weight this morning. So disappointed when I realized it was because I took off the huge diamond ring my boyfriend gave me last night” are some examples of Versailles literature. The intention is to show off --- usually things of materialistic values, yet one ought to pretend that’s not the point. As the 19th century English author Jane Austen famously wrote, “Nothing is more deceitful（欺诈的）than the appearance of humility（谦逊）.” The psychology behind humblebragging is to be recognized for one’s successes and be liked by others at the same time, according to scholars. In her article titled Why do people hate humblebragging? published in Psychology Today, psychologist Dr. Susan Krauss Whitbourne at the University of Massachusetts Amherst noted that humblebragging is a “strategy in pursuit of respect” because it draws attention to one’s accomplishments in a circuitous way. However, studies on social media users show that humblebragging as a self-promotion strategy does not work. In the essay Humblebragging: A distinct and ineffective self-presentation strategy, the University of North Carolina researcher Ovul Sezer and Harvard University scholars Francesca Gino and Michael Norton concluded from their research that humblebraggers are perceived more negatively than straight braggers due to the former’s insincerity. “The critical factor differentiating the two groups of p