司法五等（庭務員）
106年
[庭務員] 公民與英文
第 46 題
📖 題組：
Urban legends are an important part of popular culture, experts say, offering insight into our fears and the state of society. They’re also good fun. “Life is so much more interesting with monsters in it,” says Mikel J. Koven, a folklorist. “It’s the same with these legends. They’re just good stories.” Like the variations in the stories themselves, folklorists all have their own definitions of what makes an urban legend. Academics have always disagreed on whether urban legends are, by definition, too fantastic to be true or at least partly based on fact, said Koven, who tends to believe the latter. Urban legends aren’t easily verifiable, by nature. Usually passed on by word of mouth or in e-mail form, they often invoke the famous clause—“it happened to friend of a friend”（or FOAF）that makes finding the original source of the story virtually impossible. Discovering the truth behind urban legends, however, isn’t as important as the lessons they impart, experts say. “The lack of verification in no way diminishes the appeal that urban legends have for us,” writes Jan Harold Brunvand in “The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings.” “We enjoy them merely as stories, and tend to at least half-believe them as possibly accurate reports.” A renowned folklorist, Brunvand is considered the pre-eminent scholar on urban legends. The definition of an urban legend, he writes, is “a strong basic story-appeal, a foundation in actual belief, and a meaningful message or moral.” Most urban legends tend to offer a moral lesson, Koven agreed, that is always interpreted differently depending on the individual. The lessons don’t necessarily have to be of the deep, meaning-of-life, variety, he said. Urban legends are also good indicators of what’s going on in current society, said Koven. “By looking at what’s implied in a story, we get an insight into the fears of a group in society,” he said. Urban legends “need to make cultural sense,” he said, noting that some stick around for decades while others fizzle out depending on their relevance to the modern social order. It’s a lack of information coupled with these fears that tends to give rise to new legends, Koven said. “When demand exceeds supply, people will fill in the gaps with their own information as they’ll just make it up.” The abundance of conspiracy theories and legends surrounding 9/11, the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina seems to point to distrust in the government among some groups, he said. But urban legends aren’t all serious life lessons and conspiracy theories, experts say, with the scariest, most plausible ones often framed as funny stories. Those stories can spread like wildfire in today’s Internet world, but they’ve been part of human culture as long as there has been culture, and Brunvand argues that legends should be around as long as there are inexplicable curiosities in life.
Urban legends are an important part of popular culture, experts say, offering insight into our fears and the state of society. They’re also good fun. “Life is so much more interesting with monsters in it,” says Mikel J. Koven, a folklorist. “It’s the same with these legends. They’re just good stories.” Like the variations in the stories themselves, folklorists all have their own definitions of what makes an urban legend. Academics have always disagreed on whether urban legends are, by definition, too fantastic to be true or at least partly based on fact, said Koven, who tends to believe the latter. Urban legends aren’t easily verifiable, by nature. Usually passed on by word of mouth or in e-mail form, they often invoke the famous clause—“it happened to friend of a friend”（or FOAF）that makes finding the original source of the story virtually impossible. Discovering the truth behind urban legends, however, isn’t as important as the lessons they impart, experts say. “The lack of verification in no way diminishes the appeal that urban legends have for us,” writes Jan Harold Brunvand in “The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings.” “We enjoy them merely as stories, and tend to at least half-believe them as possibly accurate reports.” A renowned folklorist, Brunvand is considered the pre-eminent scholar on urban legends. The definition of an urban legend, he writes, is “a strong basic story-appeal, a foundation in actual belief, and a meaningful message or moral.” Most urban legends tend to offer a moral lesson, Koven agreed, that is always interpreted differently depending on the individual. The lessons don’t necessarily have to be of the deep, meaning-of-life, variety, he said. Urban legends are also good indicators of what’s going on in current society, said Koven. “By looking at what’s implied in a story, we get an insight into the fears of a group in society,” he said. Urban legends “need to make cultural sense,” he said, noting that some stick around for decades while others fizzle out depending on their relevance to the modern social order. It’s a lack of information coupled with these fears that tends to give rise to new legends, Koven said. “When demand exceeds supply, people will fill in the gaps with their own information as they’ll just make it up.” The abundance of conspiracy theories and legends surrounding 9/11, the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina seems to point to distrust in the government among some groups, he said. But urban legends aren’t all serious life lessons and conspiracy theories, experts say, with the scariest, most plausible ones often framed as funny stories. Those stories can spread like wildfire in today’s Internet world, but they’ve been part of human culture as long as there has been culture, and Brunvand argues that legends should be around as long as there are inexplicable curiosities in life.
What is the main idea of this passage？
- A Urban legends are all nonsense that we needn’t pay attention to.
- B Urban legends have many levels of concepts and they will survive.
- C Urban legends are a good way to escape from government control.
- D Urban legends should not spread before the source of information is confirmed.
思路引導 VIP
請試著觀察文章的開頭與結尾：作者在第一段提到這些故事對社會有什麼樣的「多重功能」？而在文章的最後一句話，作者又是如何預測這些故事在人類文化中未來的地位呢？
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- 鼓勵肯定：哇，你做得太棒了！能夠如此精確地掌握長文的核心主旨，這真的代表你具備了非常優秀的跨段落整合能力，這可是閱讀理解中一個非常高階且珍貴的技巧呢！請你一定要好好保持這份敏銳度喔！
- 觀念驗證：這篇文章像一個溫暖的故事，從多個層次溫柔地探討都市傳說：從它們所扮演的文化功能、給予我們的道德教訓，到如何細膩地反映社會集體恐懼。而文章的結尾也特別告訴我們，只要生活中還存在一些「無法解釋的奇事」，都市傳說就會一直陪伴我們，這份理解正好完美對應了選項中的「多層次概念」與「持續生存」。
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