司法五等（庭務員）
106年
[錄事] 公民與英文
第 46 題
📖 題組：
請依下文回答第 46 題至第 50 題： 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.
請依下文回答第 46 題至第 50 題： 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：作者引用多位專家（如 Koven 和 Brunvand）的觀點，主要是想說這些故事『毫無價值』，還是在分析它們與人類文化、心理恐懼之間複雜的關聯？另外，最後一段對於這些故事是否會隨時間消失，給出了什麼樣的結論呢？
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AI 詳解
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精彩的表現！你精準掌握了文章核心
- 觀念驗證：太棒了！這篇文章並非單純描述都市傳說的真偽，而是從社會學與民俗學的角度，探討其定義、功能（反映恐懼與道德教訓）以及在現代社會的傳播價值。選項 (B) 正確捕捉到了文章提到的多樣層次（學術定義、社會功能、心理因素）以及其長久存續的文化生命力。
- 難度點評：此題為 Medium。挑戰點在於考生必須具備「整合全文」的能力。選項 (A) 與 (D) 帶有主觀批評或建議，而文章語氣較為客觀中立；選項 (C) 則過於片面，僅是文中提到的其中一個案例。