【B1】 【B2】

He was a funny-looking man with a cheerful face, good-natured and a great talker. He was described by his student, the great philosopher Plato. as "the best and most just and wisest man". Yet this same man was condemned to death for his beliefs by a jury composed of the leading figures of the time in Athens.
The man was the Greek philosopher Socrates, and he was put to death for not believing in the recognized gods and for corrupting young people. The second charge stemmed from his association with numerous young men who came to Athens from all over the civilized world to study under him.
Socrates’ method of teaching was to ask questions and, by pretending not to know the answers, to press his students into thinking for themselves. His teachings had unsurpassed influence on all the great Greek and Roman schools of philosophy. Yet for all his fame and influence, Socrates himself never wrote a word.
Socrates encouraged new ideas and free thinking in the young，and this was frightening to the conservatives
in Athens. They wanted him silenced. Yet many were probably surprised that he accepted death so readily.
Socrates had the right to ask for a less severe penalty, and he probably could have persuaded the jury to change the verdict. But Socrates, as a firm believer in law, reasoned that it was proper to submit to the death sentence. SO he calmly accepted his fate and drank a cup of poison in the presence of his grief-stricken friends and students.