1、大学英语四级改革适用（阅读）模拟试卷 113及答案与解析 Section B 0 Fixing a World That Fosters Obesity A)Why are Americans getting fatter and fatter? The simple explanation is that we eat too much junk food and spend too much time in front of screens be they television, phone or computer to burn off all those empty calories.
2、 B)One handy prescription for healthier lives is behavior modification. If people only ate more fresh produce. If only children exercised more. Unfortunately, behavior changes wont work on their own without huge societal shifts, health experts say, because eating too much and exercising too little a
3、re merely symptoms of a much larger disease. The real problem is a landscape littered with inexpensive fast-food meals; much advertising for fatty, sugary products; inner cities that lack supermarkets; and unhealthy, high-stress workplaces. In other words, its the environment. C)“Everyone knows that
4、 you shouldnt eat junk food and you should exercise,“ says Kelly D. Brownell, the director of the Rudd Centre for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale. “But the environment makes it so difficult that fewer people can do these things, and then you have a public health catastrophe.“ Dr. Brownell, who has a
5、 doctorate in psychology, is among a number of leading researchers who are proposing large-scale changes to food pricing, advertising and availability, all in the hope of creating an environment favorable to healthier diet and exercise choices. To that end, health researchers are grappling with how
6、to fix systems that are the root causes of obesity, says Dee W. Edington, the director of the Health Management Research Center at the University of Michigan. “If you take a changed person and put them in the same environment, they are going to go back to the old behavior,“ says Dr. Edington, who ha
7、s a doctorate in physical education. “If you change the culture and the environment first, then you can go back into a healthy environment and, when you get change, it sticks.“ D)Indeed, despite individual efforts by some states to tax soda pop, promote farm stands, require healthier school lunches
8、or order calorie information in chain restaurants, obesity rates in the United States are growing. An estimated 72.5 million adults in the United States are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC). Last year, about 27 percent of adults said they were obese, compared w
9、ith about 20 percent in 2000, as reported in a CDC study published this month. And, the report said, obesity may cost the medical system as much as $ 147 billion annually. E)So what kind of changes might help nudge(促使 )Americans into healthier routines? Equalizing food pricing, for one. Fast-food re
10、staurants can charge lower prices for value meals of hamburgers and French fries than for salad because the government subsidizes the corn and soybeans used for animal feed and vegetable oil, says Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the Gillings School of Public Health at the University of Nor
11、th Carolina at Chapel Hill. “We have made it more expensive to eat healthy in a very big way,“ says Dr. Popkin, who has a doctorate in agricultural economics and is the author of a book called The World Is Fat: The Fads, Trends, Policies and Products That Are Fattening the Human Race. F)The inflatio
12、n-adjusted price of a McDonalds quarter-pounder with cheese, for example, fell 5.44 percent from 1990 to 2007, according to an article on the economics of child obesity published in the journal Health Affairs. But the inflation-adjusted price of fruit and vegetables, which are not subject to federal
13、 largess(赠款 ), rose 17 percent just from 1997 to 2003, the study said. Cutting agricultural subsidies would have a big impact on peoples eating habits, says Dr. Popkin. “If we cut the subsidy on whole milk and made it cheaper only to drink low-fat milk,“ he says, “people would switch to it and it wo
14、uld save a lot of calories.“ G)Health experts are also looking to the private sector. On-site fitness centres and vending machines that sell good-for-you snacks are practical workplace innovations that many companies have instituted. H)On a more philosophical level, innovative companies are training
15、 managers not to burn out employees by overworking them, says Dr. Edington of the University of Michigan. “Stress comes up. It can lead to overeating and obesity,“ Dr. Edington says. At companies that see employee health as a renewable resource, he adds, managers encourage employees to go home on ti
16、me so they can spend more time with their families, communities or favorite activities. “Instead of going home with an empty tank, you can go home with the energy that we gave you by the way we run our business,“ he says. I)Corporate-sector efforts arent entirely altruistic(无私心的 ). Its less expensiv
17、e for businesses to keep healthy workers healthy than to cover the medical costs of obesity and related problems like diabetes(糖尿病 ). For employees at IBM and their families, for example, the annual medical claim for an obese adult or child costs about double that of a non-obese adult or child, says
18、 Martin J. Sepulveda, IBMs vice president for integrated health services. J)IBM has been promoting wellness for employees since the 1980s. But in 2008, it began offering a new program, the Childrens Health Rebate, to encourage employees to increase their at-home family dinners, their servings of fru
19、its and vegetables, and their physical activities, as well as to reduce their childrens television and computer time. In addition to helping prevent obesity in children, Mr. Sepulveda says, the program is aimed at employees who might neglect to exercise on their own but would willingly participate a
20、s part of a family project. Each family that completes the program receives $ 150. K)All of these ideas sound promising. But the architecture of obesity is so entrenched(难以更改的 )that policy makers, companies, communities, families and individuals will need to undertake a variety of efforts to displac
21、e and replace it, says Alan Lyles, a professor at the School of Health and Human Services at the University of Baltimore. L)And American efforts can seem piecemeal compared with those in Britain, where the government has undertaken an all-round national attack, requiring changes in schools, health s
22、ervices and the food industry. Britain now places restrictions on advertising fatty, sugary and salty foods during childrens shows, for example. And by 2013, cooking classes will be mandatory(强制性的 )for all 11- to 14-year-old students in the nation. The hope is to teach a generation of children who g
23、rew up on prepared foods how to cook healthy meals, and perhaps to make eating at home instead of at the local fried fish-and-chips shop the default option. 1 According to Dr. Edington, environment has an influence on peoples behavior. 2 Some companies regard employee health as a renewable resource,
24、 and do not encourage their stuff to work overtime. 3 Policy makers, companies, etc. will need to make a lot of efforts to displace and replace the architecture of obesity. 4 The living environment is the real problem that leads to obesity. 5 In Britain, by 2013, it will be compulsory for 11- to 14-
25、year-old students to attend cooking classes. 6 To change peoples behavior is a convenient way to live a healthier life. 7 Promoting fatty, sweet and salty foods during childrens programs is restricted in Britain. 8 The government could cut agricultural subsidies to change peoples eating habits. 9 Th
26、e companies make efforts to keep employees healthy, which will reduce their costs of medical care. 10 Equalizing food pricing might encourage Americans to adopt a healthier lifestyle. 10 Fixing American Schools: Charter Vocational High School A)Public education in America is a mess. Too often, paren
27、ts are absent or indifferent; teachers dont know their own subjects; administrators are powerless to fire the worst and hire the best. Daunting(逃学 )problems, yes. But a number of schools have quietly launched experiments that seem to be working. This article, the first in a series, looks at two scho
28、ols with a common belief:Even the hardest-to-reach student can be inspired to learn. B)Just two years ago, Aaron Segura was adrift, and slowly sinking. The 15-year-old was a standout golfer at West Mesa High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but his studies were another matter. Aaron was “just shuf
29、fling through the chapters“ in courses like chemistry, his grades were low, and he was close to dropping out. Its not that Aaron didnt have ambition; it simply wasnt being tapped in his large, impersonal public high school. C)Then his mother heard about Albuquerques Charter Vocational High School, a
30、 place where students get plenty of one-on-one attention. Something else intrigued(激起兴趣 )Aaron even more. His one passionate goal was to go into architecture, and Charter Vocational had just the thing for him: an architectural CAD(computer-aided drafting)program. D)Aaron enrolled at the beginning of
31、 his junior year and, for the first time, found himself excited about learning. By the following summer, he had landed a job as a draftsman for an architectural firm. His plan now is to take up drafting professionally after he graduates this spring. E)If Aaron has anyone to thank for his change of f
32、ortune, its 56-year-old Danny Moon. A longtime industrial-arts teacher, Moon ran a vocational shadowing and apprenticeship program in the mid-1990s, until the Albuquerque school district couldnt pay for it any longer. F)But two years later, in 2000, Moons phone rang. The state had recently passed a
33、charter school law, and a district official wondered if Moon might be interested in opening a vocational charter school. Easy answer. With this sort of instruction, Moon knew he could target students like Aaron, who might have a tough time keeping their heads above water in traditional high schools.
34、 Hed also be filling a surging demand across New Mexico for skilled labor. “Theres been a mind-set that we needed to be training everyone in high school to go to college,“says Jim Folkman, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Central New Mexico and a founding member of the sc
35、hools board. “As a result, there was a huge void created for the tradesnot just construction, but auto mechanics, computer trades, and so on.“ G)What Moon came up with was a school day consisting of four two-and-a-half-hour blocks of instruction. Each student would attend two of the blocks, one of t
36、hem academic, the other vocational. A further twist was that, on the academic side, Moon didnt want teachers getting up and lecturing. Instead, students would learn from online course work provided by a computer program called Novanet, while teachers circulated through the classrooms to work one-on-
37、one with students having problems. H)One of Novanets major advantages over traditional classwork is that the program requires scores of 80 percent or higher on each of its lessons before you can move on. So much for “social promotion.“ I)When Charter Vocational first opened its doors in August, 2002
38、, it had 300 students and 15 faculty members. At the time, its only vocational classes were architectural CAD, automotive theory(and introduction to auto repair), and light construction trades(like building sheds). Since then, the school has added such subjects as PC repair and desktop publishing. I
39、t now employs a faculty of more than 30 and has about 650 students. Not that Moon is stopping there. Hes finalizing plans for a second vocational charter specializing in heavy trades like home construction and forklift(铲车 )operation. J)Daphne Orner, a mechanical engineer turned math teacher and the
40、first instructor Moon hired at Charter Vocational is typical of the schools true believers. “What we can do with kids here, we cant do anywhere else,“she says. Orner points out that, since the kids work individually with their teachers, they can progress at their own pace. “The beauty of this is tha
41、t if a student finishes(a course)in November, he can start the second semester the next day. If they finish in February, well, okay, they start in February. “ K)Does that make academic sense? Well, last year roughly 75 of 80 seniors graduated(the others are finishing coursework). The successes on th
42、e vocational side have been no less impressive, mostly due to first-rate faculty. Moon says that Charter Vocational is “one of the only schools going thats bringing in top-level expertise. I have an architect on staff, a custom home designer.“ In 2004, Moon entered some of his students in the State
43、Skills USA Contest, a statewide vocational competition. They took first and third place in architectural CAD. and the top three spots in PC repair and networking. L)Results like these are raising eyebrows in the New Mexico business community and across the country. Mick Rich, the owner of a local co
44、nstruction company and another Charter Vocational board member, belongs to a national organization of builders called the Jack Miller Network, which meets twice each year. “One of the things we talk about is how do we find young people to go into construction?“ Rich says. “When I bring up the vocati
45、onal high school,(the response is)What did you do? How do we get this started? “ Maybe the better question, in communities everywhere, is:“Who can be our Danny Moon?“ 11 The New Mexico business community and the country have cast curiosity on the success of Charter Vocational. 12 Charter Vocational
46、High School ensures that every student will receive sufficient individual attention. 13 In Danny Moons school, students are taught with not only academic lessons but also professional skills in class. 14 The success of Charter Vocational High School lies mainly in its top faculty. 15 Aaron should be
47、 grateful to Danny Moon for his change of fortune. 16 Aaron Segura wasnt a standout student in terms of academic study when he was in a traditional high school. 17 Aaron Segura had already found a job as a draftsman for an architectural firm. 18 The target students of Danny Moon are those who have f
48、ound themselves struggling in traditional high schools. 19 Students at Charter Vocational can complete a course at their own pace for they can personally work with their teachers. 20 Once a time Charter Vocational School only offered three vocational classes. 20 Exercise Is All You Get at the Gym A)
49、When you go to the gym, do you wash your hands before and after using the equipment? Bring your own regularly cleaned mat for floor exercises? Shower with antibacterial soap and put on clean clothes immediately after your workout? Use only your own towels, razors, bar soap, water bottles? If you answered “no“ to any of the above, you could wind up with one of the many skin infections that can spread like wildfire in athletic settings. In June, the National Athletic Trainers Association, known as NATA, issued a position paper
