1、大学英语四级分类模拟题 329 及答案解析(总分：100.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、Reading Comprehensio(总题数：0，分数：0.00)Helicopter Moms VS. Free-Range KidsA. Would you let your fourth-grader ride public transportation without an adult? Probably not. Still, when Lenore Skenazy, a columnist for the New York Sun , wrote about letting her son
2、 take the subway alone to get back to “Long story short: my son got home from a department store on the Upper East Side“, she didn“t expect to get hit with a wave of criticism from readers. B. “Long story short: My son got home, overjoyed with independence,“ Skenazy wrote on April 4 in the New York
3、Sun . “Long story longer: Half the people I“ve told this episode to now want to turn on in for child abuse. As if keeping kids under lock and key and cell phone and careful watch is the right way to rear kids. It“s not. It“s debilitating (使虚弱)for us and for them.“ C. Online message boards were soon
4、full of people both applauding and condemning Skenazy“s decision to let her son go it alone. She wound up defending herself on CNN (accompanied by her son) and on popular blogs like the buffing ton post, where her follow-up piece was ironically headlined “More From America“s Worst Mom.“ D. The episo
5、de has ignited another one of those debates that divides parents into vocal opposing camps. Are Modern parents needlessly overprotective, or is the world a more complicated and dangerous place than it was when previous generations were allowed to wander about unsupervised? E. From the “she“s an irre
6、sponsible mother“ camp came: “Shame on you for being so careless about his safety,“ in Comments on the buffing ton post. And there was this from a mother of four: “How would you have felt if he didn“t come home?“ But Skenazy got a lot of support, too, with women and men writing in with stories about
7、 how they were allowed to take trips all by themselves at seven or eight. She also got heaps of praise for bucking the “helicopter parent“ trend: “Good for this Morn,“ one commenter wrote on the buffing ton post. “This is a much-needed reality check.“ F. Last week, encouraged by all the attention, S
8、kenazy started her own blogFree Range kidspromoting the idea that modern children need some of the same independence that her generation had. In the good old days nine-year-old baby boomers rode their bikes to school, walked to the store, took busesand even subwaysall by themselves. Her blog, she sa
9、ys, is dedicated to sensible parenting. “At Free Range Kids, we believe in safe kids. We believe in car seats and safety belts. We do NOT believe that every time school-age children go outside, they need a security guard.“ G. So why are some parents so nervous about letting their children out of the
10、ir sight? Are cities and towns less safe and kids more vulnerable to crimes like child kidnap and sexual abuse than they were in previous generations? H. Not exactly. New York City, for instance, is safer than it“s ever been; it“s ranked 36th in crime among all American cities. Nationwide, stranger
11、kidnaps are extremely rare; there“s a one-in-a-million chance a child will be taken by a stranger, according to the Justice Department. And 90 percent of sexual abuse cases are committed by someone the child knows. Mortality rates from all causes, including disease and accidents, for American childr
12、en are lower now than they were 25 years“ ago. According to Child Trends , a nonprofit research group, between 1980 and 2003 death rates dropped by 44 percent for children aged 5 to 14 and 32 percent for teens aged 15 to 19. I. Then there“s the whole question of whether modern parents are more watch
13、ful and nervous about safety than previous generations. Yes, some are. Part of the problem is that with wall to wall Internet and cable news, every missing child case gets so much airtime that it“s not surprising even normal parental anxiety can be amplified. And many middle-class parents have gotte
14、n used to managing their children“s time and shuttling them to various enriching activities, so the idea of letting them out on their own can seem like a risk. Back in 1972, when many of today“s parents were kids, 87 percent of children who lived within a mile of school walked or biked every day. Bu
15、t today, the Centers for Disease Control report that only 13 percent of children bike, walk or otherwise get themselves to school. J. The extra supervision is both a city and a suburb phenomenon. Parents are worried about crime, and they are worried about kids getting caught in traffic in a city tha
16、t“s not used to pedestrians. On the other hand, there are still plenty of kids whose parents give them a lot of independence, by choice or by necessity. The After School Alliance finds that more than 14 million kids aged 5 to 17 are responsible for taking care of themselves after school. Only 6.5 mi
17、llion kids participate in organized programs. “Many children who have working parents have to take the subway or bus to get to school. Many do this by themselves because they have no other way to get to the schools,“ says Dr. Richard Gallagher, director of the Parenting Institute at the New York Uni
18、versity Child Study Center. K. For those parents who wonder how and when they should start allowing their kids more freedom, there“s no clear-cut answer. Child experts discourage a one-size-fits-all approach to parenting. What“s right for Skenazy“s nine-year-old could be inappropriate for another on
19、e. It all depends on developmental issue, maturity, and the psychological and emotional makeup of that child. Several factors must be taken into account, says Gallagher. “The ability to follow parent guidelines, the child“s level of comfort in handling such situations, and a child“s general judgment
20、 should be weighed.“ L. Gallagher agrees with Skenazy that many nine-year-olds are ready for independence like taking public transportation alone. “At certain times of the day, on certain routes, the subways are generally safe for these children, especially if they have grown up in the city and have
21、 been taught how to be safe, how to obtain help if they are concerned for their safety, and how to avoid unsafe situations by being watchful and on their toes.“ M. But even with more traffic and fewer sidewalks, modern parents do have one advantage their parents didn“t: the cell phone. Being able to
22、 check in with a child anytime goes a long way toward relieving parental anxiety and may help parents loosen their control a little sooner. Skenazy got a lot of criticism because she didn“t give her kid her cell phone because she thought he“d lose it and wanted him to learn to go it alone without de
23、pending on moma major principle of bee-range parenting. But most parents are more than happy to use cell phones to keep track of their kids. N. And for those who like the idea of free-range kids but still struggle with their inner helicopter parent, there may be a middle way. A new generation of GPS
24、 cell phones with tracking software make it easier than ever to follow a child“s every movement via the Interactwithout seeming to interfere or hover. Of course, when they go to college, they might start objecting to being monitored as they“re on parole (假释).（分数：25.00）(1).Lots of support and condemn
25、 have come to Skenazy“s decision to let her son get home alone online.（分数：2.50）(2).Comments on the buffing ton post say she is an irresponsible mother, and doesn“t care about her son“s safety.（分数：2.50）(3).A new cell phone with tracking software make it easier to follow a child“s movement.（分数：2.50）(4
26、).Some parents wonder when and how to give their kids more freedom, but child experts say there is no one-size-fits-all approach.（分数：2.50）(5).Skenazy didn“t give her kids her mobile phone, but most parents are very happy to do this.（分数：2.50）(6).Dr. Richard Gallagher says, many children have to take
27、the subway or bus to get to school by themselves.（分数：2.50）(7).Keeping kids under lock and key and cell phone is not the fight way to rear kids, it only debilitates parents and kids both.（分数：2.50）(8).Mortality rates of children are lower now than they were 25 years“ ago.（分数：2.50）(9).Skenazy says that
28、 in old days, nine-year-old baby boomers rode their bikes to school without a security guard.（分数：2.50）(10).There is a debate about whether Modern parents are overprotective or is the world a more complicated one.（分数：2.50）Into the UnknownA. Until the early 1900s nobody thought much about the whole po
29、pulations getting older. The UN had the foresight to convene a “world assembly on ageing“ back in 1982, but that came and went. By 1994 the World Bank had noticed that something big was happening. In a report entitled “Averting the Old Age Crisis“, it argued that pension arrangements in most countri
30、es were unsustainable. B. For the next ten years a succession of books, mainly by Americans, sounded the alarm. They had titles like Young vs Old, Gray Dawn and The Coming Generational Stoma, and their message was blunt: health-care systems were heading for the rocks, pensioners were taking young pe
31、ople to the cleaners, and soon there would be intergenerational warfare. C. Since then the debate has become less emotional, not least because a lot more is known about the subject. Books, conferences and research papers have multiplied. International organizations such as the OECD and the EU issue
32、regular reports. Population ageing is on every agenda, from G8 economic conferences to NATO summits. The World Economic Forum plans to consider the future of pensions and health care at its prestigious Davos conference early next year. The media, including the newspaper, are giving the subject exten
33、sive coverage. D. Whether all that attention has translated into sufficient action is another question. Governments in rich countries now accept that their pension and health-care promises will soon become unaffordable, and many of them have embarked on reforms, but so far only timidly. That is not
34、surprising: politicians with an eye on the next election will hardly rush to introduce unpopular measures that may not bear fruit for years, perhaps decades. E. The outline of the changes needed is clear. To avoid fiscal (财政的) meltdown, public pensions and health-care provision will have to be reine
35、d back severely and taxes may have to go up. By far the most effective method to restrain pension spending is to give people the opportunity to work longer, because it increases tax revenues and reduces spending on pensions at the same time. It may even keep them alive longer. John Rother, the AARP“
36、s head of policy and strategy, points to studies showing that other things being equal, people who remain at work have lower death rates than their retired peers. F. Younger people today mostly accept that they will have to work for longer and that their pensions will be less generous. Employers sti
37、ll need to be persuaded that older workers are worth holding on to. That may be because they have had plenty of younger ones to choose from, partly thanks to the post-war baby-boom and partly because over the past few decades many more women have entered the labor force, increasing employers“ choice
38、. But the reservoir of women able and willing to take up paid work is running low, and the baby-boomers are going grey. G. In many countries immigrants have been filling such gaps in the labor force as have already emerged (and remember that the real shortage is still around ten years off). Immigrat
39、ion in the developed world is the highest it has ever been, and it is making a useful difference. In still-fertile America it currently accounts for about 40% of total population growth, and in fast-ageing Western Europe for about 90%. H. On the face of it, it seems the perfect solution. Many develo
40、ping countries have lots of young people in the need of jobs, while many rich countries need helping hands that will boost tax revenues and keep up economic growth. But over the next few decades labor forces in rich countries are set to shrink so much that inflows of immigrants would have to increas
41、e enormously to compensate: to at least twice their current size in western Europe“s most youthful countries, and three times in the older ones. Japan would need a large multiple of the few immigrants it has at present. Public opinion polls show that people in most rich countries already think that
42、immigration is too high. Further big increases would be politically unfeasible. I. To tackle the problem of ageing populations at its root, “old“ countries would have to rejuvenate (使年轻) themselves by having more of their own children. A number of them have tried, some more successfully than others.
43、 But it is not a simple matter of offering financial incentives or providing more child care. Modern urban life in rich countries is not well adapted to large families. Women find it hard to combine family and career. They often compromise by having just one child. J. And if fertility in ageing coun
44、tries does not pick up? It will not be the end of the world, at least not for quite a while yet, but the world will become a different place. Older societies may be less innovative and more strongly disinclined to take risks than younger ones. By 2025 at the latest, about half the voters in America
45、and most of those in western European countries will be over 50and older people turn out to vote in much greater numbers than younger ones. Academic studies have found no evidence so far that older voters have used their power at the ballot box to push for policies that specifically benefit them, th
46、ough if in future there are many more of them they might start doing so. K. Nor is there any sign of the intergenerational warfare predicted in the 1990s. After all, older people themselves mostly have families. In a recent study of parents and grown-up children in 11 European countries, Karsten Han
47、k of Mannheim University found that 85% of them lived within 25kin of each other and the majority of them were in touch at least once a week. L. Even so, the shift in the centre of gravity to older age groups is bound to have a profound effect on societies, not just economically and politically but
48、in all sorts of other ways too. Richard Jackson and Neil Howe of America“s CSIS, in a thoughtful book called The Graying of the Great Powers, argue that, among other things, the ageing of the developed countries will have a number of serious security implications. M. For example, the shortage of you
49、ng adults is likely to make countries more reluctant to commit the few they have to military service. In the decades to 2050, America will find itself playing an ever-increasing role in the developed world“s defense effort. Because America“s population will still be growing when that of most other developed countries is shrinking, America will be the only developed country that still matters geopolitically (地缘政治上). N. There is little that can be done to stop population ageing, so the world will have to live with it. But some of the consequences can be alleviated. Many experts now belie
