1、专业英语四级（阅读）模拟试卷 200及答案与解析 SECTION A In this section there are several passages followed by ten multiple-choice questions. For each question, there are four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer. 0 (1) The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and eve
2、rybody seemed sorry. The miller at Cresscombe lent him the small white tilted cart and horse to carry his goods to the city of his destination, about twenty miles off, such a vehicle proving of quite sufficient size for the departing teachers effects. For the schoolhouse had been partly furnished by
3、 the managers, and the only cumbersome article possessed by the master, in addition to the packing-case of books, was a cottage piano. (2) The blacksmith, the farm bailiff, and the schoolmaster himself were standing in perplexed attitudes in the parlour before the instrument. The master had remarked
4、 that even if he got it into the cart he should not know what to do with it on his arrival at Christminster, the city he was bound for, since he was only going into temporary lodgings just at first. (3) A little boy of eleven, who had been thoughtfully assisting in the packing, joined the group of m
5、en, and as they rubbed their chins he spoke up, blushing at the sound of his own voice: “Aunt have got a great fuel-house, and it could be put there, perhaps, till youve found a place to settle in, sir.“ (4) “A proper good notion,“ said the blacksmith. (5) “Sorry I am going, Jude?“ asked the master
6、kindly. (6) Tears rose into the boys eyes, for he was not among the regular day scholars, who came unromantically close to the schoolmasters life, but one who had attended the night school only during the present teachers term of office. The regular scholars, if the truth must be told, stood at the
7、present moment afar off, like certain historic disciples, indisposed to any enthusiastic volunteering of aid. (7) The boy awkwardly opened the book he held in his hand, which Mr. Phillotson had bestowed on him as a parting gift, and admitted that he was sorry. (8) “So am I,“ said Mr. Phillotson. (9)
8、 “Why do you go, sir?“ asked the boy. (10) “Ah that would be a long story. You wouldnt understand my reasons, Jude. You will, perhaps, when you are older.“ (11) “I think I should now, sir.“ (12) “Well dont speak of this everywhere. YoUKnow what a university is, and a university degree? It is the nec
9、essary hallmark of a man who wants to do anything in teaching. My scheme, or dream, is to be a university graduate, and then to be ordained. By going to live at Christminster, or near it, I shall be at headquarters, so to speak, and if my scheme is practicable at all, I consider that being on the sp
10、ot will afford me a better chance of carrying it out than I should have elsewhere.“ (13) The boy Jude assisted in loading some small articles, and at nine oclock Mr. Phillotson mounted beside his box of books and other IMPEDIMENTA, and bade his friends good-bye. (14) “I shant forget you, Jude,“ he s
11、aid, smiling, as the cart moved off. “Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read all you can. And if ever you come to Christminster remember you hunt me out for old acquaintance sake.“ (15) The cart creaked across the green, and disappeared round the corner by the rectory-ho
12、use. The boy returned to the draw-well at the edge of the greensward, where he had left his buckets when he went to help his patron and teacher in the loading. There was a quiver in his lip now and after opening the well-cover to begin lowering the bucket he paused and leant with his forehead and ar
13、ms against the framework, his face wearing the fixity of a thoughtful childs who has felt the pricks of life somewhat before his time. The well into which he was looking was as ancient as the village itself, and from his present position appeared as a long circular perspective ending in a shining di
14、sk of quivering water at a distance of a hundred feet down. There was a lining of green moss near the top, and nearer still the harts-tongue fern. (16) He said to himself, in the melodramatic tones of a whimsical boy, that the schoolmaster had drawn at that well scores of times on a morning like thi
15、s, and would never draw there any more. “Ive seen him look down into it, when he was tired with his drawing, just as I do now, and when he rested a bit before carrying the buckets home! But he was too clever to bide here any longer a small sleepy place like this!“ 1 The schoolmaster held a perplexed
16、 attitude towards his piano, because it became a _ under his current condition. （ A） white elephant （ B） black sheep （ C） dark horse （ D） busy bee 2 In Para. 2, the phrase “was bound for“ is closest in meaning to _. （ A） was appealed to （ B） set off for （ C） was talking about （ D） dwelt temporarily
17、3 The action of “rubbed their chins“ in Para. 3 indicates that the group of men _. （ A） was getting frustrated （ B） was at their wits end （ C） felt tired of the packing （ D） thought the work was tedious 3 (1) Its no secret that Brits love to talk about the weather. Its essentially a national pastime
18、. This is a country, for instance, where the Shipping Forecast is a beloved institution, even among the vast majority of Brits whose livelihoods dont depend on the sea. (2) All of this talk about weather has led to a number of words that enliven British English. Take “Northern nanny“, which describe
19、s cold hail and windstorm coming from the north, or “moor-gallop“, a sudden squall on a moor. Lexicographer Susan Rennie says that English dialects are “rich in weather words and I love dinderex, a Devon term for a bolt of lightning which literally means thunder-axe.“ (3) As the U.K. is marked by a
20、high density of regional accents and dialects, many of these words are very local. Its clear that there are geographically specific patterns to the use of weather words. One example comes from the BBCs Voices project, which in 2005 aimed to map current patterns in language use. This showed that the
21、UKs 10 favorite words to describe a light rain included picking, although this is mainly used in a few parts of Wales. (4) “It is not surprising that there are far more words for bad weather in both English and Scots than for good weather,“ says Rennie. “Partly this is because, over the centuries, o
22、ur ancestors have encountered more distinct types of rain, wind and snow than sunshine. But it also reflects the potential dangers posed by bad weather and the need for exact and unambiguous communication.“ (5) Weather words arent just many and diverse they also show a whimsical attitude towards lan
23、guage. After all, Brits love wordplay. This fascination with language games extends to the way Brits talk about the weather. Describing a storm as a “hurly-burly“ is one example. The onomatopoeia of “feefle“, a Scots word for snow swirling around a corner, is another. (6) Weather is compared to food
24、, as with “custard wind“ (cold, easterly winds on Englands northeast coast). Its likened to animals, for instance a “cats nose“ (cool north-westerly wind), or “raining cats and dogs“ (the exact etymology is contested, but the phrase has English origins). (7) Whimsical weather words arent the sole pu
25、rview of the British. Other variants of English also have plenty. Theres “sugar weather“ in Canada, to describe the cold weather that gets maple syrup running, and “toad-strangler“ (very heavy rain) along the Gulf Coast of the U.S. (8) But many of these colourful words arent used very often these da
26、ys. It is noted that when it comes to regionally specific terms, like Nottinghams “goose fair morning“ to describe a bright but cool daybreak, many have probably fallen out of common usage as people have become detached from or less dependent on the weather for their fortunes. (9) Clifford Sofield,
27、senior assistant editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, says that three types of weather-related words tend to sound comical to the ears of English speakers. Firstly, “words that sound peculiar to a person are ones that theyre not familiar with or words that they have heard but havent used themsel
28、ves.“ These include terms that were once used more widely, but now have become regionalisms. For example, “airish“ (for cool weather) is now mainly used in Scotland and the southern U.S. (10) Secondly, words and usages that have become obsolete strike us as odd. Shakespeare used “naughty“ to describ
29、e the weather in King Lear; a University of Liverpool research project which is examining historical records of U.K. weather events has uncovered examples of the weather being described as mischievous or misbehaving. But it would be eccentric to refer to a naughty wind today. (11) Finally, Sofield s
30、ays, there are weather words that are new or sound like theyre new. “Mizzling“ might seem like a neologism combining mist and drizzling, but it actually derives from the Dutch “miezelen“ (drizzle) which itself may stem from words for “urinate“. (12) Creativity when it comes to creating weather expre
31、ssions is unlikely to stop any time soon. One example, from the last 20 or 30 years, is the term “lumps of rain“ to describe heavy, thick rainfall. So if centuries of linguistic history (or U.K. weather) have shown us anything, its that the future of British English will continue to include many wor
32、ds for “letty“ , “stoating“ or “specking“ that is, many words for rain. 4 Which of the following is true of British weather words? （ A） They are only used in limited areas. （ B） Most are used to describe bad weather. （ C） They are barriers to clear communication. （ D） They reflect Brits attitude tow
33、ards life. 5 The example of “goose fair morning“ in Para. 8 indicates the influence of _ on the lexicon. （ A） weather condition constraints （ B） natural environment variations （ C） social economy development （ D） changed life routines 6 About weather words, Mr. Sofield has explored the following asp
34、ects EXCEPT _. （ A） the prevalence of their usage （ B） their epochal character （ C） the creativity of people （ D） the origin of the words 7 What is the implied message of the author in the last paragraph? （ A） The influence of nature on lexica will persist. （ B） British people are still engaged in w
35、ord-play. （ C） Language innovation is fading in Britain. （ D） There are too many words for rain in history. 7 (1) Someday soon, you will ask a robot to fetch a slice of pizza from your refrigerator. On that day, youll trust that the robot wont tear through your walls and rip the fridge door off its
36、hinges to get at your leftovers. (2) Getting robots to do the things humans do in the ways that humans do them (or better) without human intervention is an immensely wicked problem of autonomy. With as many as half of American jobs at risk of automation according to one study, and with an expected 1
37、0 million self driving cars on the road by 2020, robots are going to be everywhere, forever, and they wont go away. (3) The enormous scope and scale of how autonomous robots will begin changing our lives requires the public and technologists alike to consider the challenges of autonomy. Where will w
38、e allow robots to intervene into our lives? How do we make ethical judgments about the behavior of robots? What kind of partnerships will we develop with them? These are big questions. And one key challenge at the core of many of them is, in roboticist talk, what it means to establish “meaningful hu
39、man control,“ or sufficient oversight over an autonomous agent. To get a grip on our autonomous future, well need to figure out what constitutes “enough“ oversight of a machine imbued with incredible intelligence. (4) Today, most robots are made to accomplish a very specific set of tasks within a ve
40、ry specific set of parameters, such as geographic or time limitations, that are tied to the circuits of the machine itself. “Were not at the stage where robots can do everything that humans can do,“ says Dr. Spring Berman, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Arizona State
41、University. “They could be multi-functional but theyre limited by their hardware.“ (5) Thus, they need a human hand to help direct them toward a specific goal, in a futuristic version of ancient dog and human partnerships, says Dr. Nancy Cooke, a professor of human systems engineering at ASU, who st
42、udies human-machine teaming. Before dogs can lead search and rescue teams to buried skiers or sniff out bombs, they require an immense amount of training and “on-leash“ time, Cooke says, and the same level of training is necessary for robots, though that training is usually programmed and based on m
43、ultiple tests as opposed to the robot actually “learning.“ (6) Even after rigorous “training“ and vetting against a variety of distractions and difficulties, sometimes robots still do things they arent supposed to do because of quirks buried in their programming. In those cases, someone needs to be
44、held accountable if the robot goes outside of its boundaries. (7) “It cant be some patsy sitting in a cubicle somewhere pushing a button,“ says Dr. Heather Roff, a research scientist at ASUs Global Security Initiative and senior research fellow at Oxford University. “Thats not meaningful.“ Based on
45、her work with autonomous weapons systems, Dr. Roff says she is also wary of the sentiment that there will always be a human around. “A machine is not a morally responsible agent,“ she says, “a human has to have a pretty good idea of what hes asking the system to do, and the human has to be accountab
46、le.“ (8) The allure of technology resolving problems difficult for humans, like identifying enemy combatants, is immense. Yet technological solutions require us to reflect deeply on the system being deployed： How is the combatant being identified? By skin tone, or gender or age or the presence or ab
47、sence of certain clothing? What happens when a domestic police force deploys a robot equipped with this software? Ultimately, whose finger is on the trigger? (9) Many of the ethics questions in robotics boil down to how the technology could be used by someone else in the future, and how much decisio
48、n-making power you give to a robot, says Berman. “I think its really important that a moral agent is the solely responsible person for a robot,“ says Roff. “Humans justify bad actions all the time even without robots. We cant create a situation where someone can shirk their moral responsibilities.“
49、And we cant allow robots to make decisions without asking why we want robots to make those decisions in the first place. Answering those questions allows us to understand and implement meaningful human control. 8 The scene in Para. 1 is described to _. （ A） compare two generations of robots （ B） show the development of autonomy （ C） reveal the enormous power of robots （ D） warn us against the potential threats 9 Which of the following themes is repeated by both Berman and Roff? （ A） H
