1、大学英语四级改革适用（阅读）模拟试卷 131及答案与解析 Section A 0 A study of the physical activity habits of 4 563 adults found that those who said they did the most housework were also the largest. The findings challenge Public Health England and the World Health Organizations endorsement of household chores(家庭杂务 )as a【 C1
2、】 _contribution towards a recommended target of 150 minutes of physical activity a week. The study, carried out by Professor Marie Murphy and her colleagues at the University of Ulster, found that women and older people were particularly likely to list domestic physical activity as a significant【 C2
3、】 _of their moderate to vigorous physical activity. But the study found that those who said they did the most were also the largest. Murphy said: “We found housework was inversely(相反地 ) 【 C3】 _to leanness, which suggests that either people are overestimating the amount of moderate-intensity physical
4、 activity they do through housework or are eating too much to【 C4】 _for the amount of activity undertaken. “ Kevin Fenton, director of health and wellbeing at Public Health England, suggested the study could【 C5】 _evidence that some people thought they were healthier than they actually were. “At an
5、individual level there may be a【 C6】 _to overestimate the level of good behavior were doing and this is reflected when people use food diaries, pedometers or apps to measure more【 C7】 _what they have achieved. This study may reflect this,“ he said. But he【 C8】 _everyday tasks as genuinely useful. He
6、 added: “From an individual【 C9】 _, physical activities such as housework, doing the shopping and walking to collect children from school or to post a letter, can have positive【 C10】 _on physical and mental wellbeing. “ A)ambition F)intelligible K)reinforce B)barren G)objectively L)related C)compens
7、ate H)perspective M)scandals D)defended I)probably N)tendency E)impacts J)proportion O)worthwhile 1 【 C1】 2 【 C2】 3 【 C3】 4 【 C4】 5 【 C5】 6 【 C6】 7 【 C7】 8 【 C8】 9 【 C9】 10 【 C10】 Section B 10 The Redistribution of Hope A)“HOPE“ is one of the most overused words in public life, up there with “change
8、“. Yet it matters enormously. Politicians always pay close attention to right-track/wrong-track indicators. Confidence determines whether consumers spend, and so whether companies invest. The “power of positive thinking“, as Norman Vincent Peale pointed out, is enormous. B)For the past 400 years the
9、 West has enjoyed a comparative advantage over the rest of the world when it comes to optimism. Western intellectuals dreamed up the ideas of enlightenment and progress, and Western men of affairs harnessed technology to impose their will on the rest of the world. The Founding Fathers of the United
10、States, who firmly believed that the country they created would be better than any that had come before, offered citizens not just life and liberty but also the pursuit of happiness. C)The Westerners growing pessimism is reshaping political life. At present, the mood in Washington is as glum as it h
11、as been since Jimmy Carter argued that America was suffering from “malaise(不安 )“. The Democrats dream that the country was on the verge of a 1960s-style liberal renaissance foundered(失败 )in the mid-terms. But the Republicans are hardly hopeful: their creed leans towards anger and resentment rather t
12、han optimism. D)Europe, meanwhile, has seen mass protests, some of them violent, on the streets of Athens, Dublin, London, Madrid, Paris and Rome. If the countries on the European Unions periphery(边缘 )are down in the dumps it is hardly surprising, but there is pessimism at its more successful core,
13、too. The best-selling book in Germany is Thilo Sarrazins Germany Does Away With Itself, a jeremiad(血泪史 )about the “fact“ that less able women are having more children than their brighter sisters. French intellectuals will soon have Jean-Pierre Chevenements Is France Finished ? on their shelves along
14、side Eric Zemmours French Melancholy. E)The immediate explanation for this asymmetry(不对称 )is the economic crisis, which has not just shaken Westerners confidence in the system that they built, but also widened the growth gap between mature and emerging economies. China and India are growing by 10% a
15、nd 9%, compared with 3% for America and 2% for Europe. Many European countries unemployment rates are disgraceful even by their own dismal standards: 41% of young Spaniards are unemployed, for example. And the great American job machine has stalled: one in ten is unemployed and more than a million m
16、ay have given up looking for work. But the change goes deeper than that to the dreams that have propelled the West. F)For most of its history America has kept its promise to give its citizens a good chance of living better than their parents. But these days, less than half of Americans think their c
17、hildrens living standards will be better than theirs. Experience has made them gloomy: the income of the median worker has been more or less stagnant since the mid-1970s, and, thanks to a combination of failing schools and disappearing mid-level jobs, social mobility in America is now among the lowe
18、st in the rich world. G)European dreams are different from American ones, but just as important to hopes of a peaceful and prosperous future. They come in two forms: an ever deeper European Union(banishing nationalism)and ever more generous welfare states(offering security). With the break-up of the
19、 Euro a possibility, and governments sinking under the burden of unaff ordable entitlements as their populations age and the number of workers contracts, those happy notions are evaporating(逐渐消逝 ). H)In the emerging world, meanwhile, they are not arguing about pensions, but building colleges. Chinas
20、 university population has quadrupled in the past two decades. UNESCO(United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)notes that the proportion of scientific researchers based in the developing world increased from 30% in 2002 to 38% in 2007. World-class companies such as Indias Inf
21、osys and Chinas Huawei are beating developed-country competitors. I)The rise of positive thinking in the emerging world is something to be welcomed- not least because it challenges the present situation. Nandan Nilekani of Infosys says that his companys greatest achievement lies not in producing tec
22、hnology but in redefining the boundaries of the possible. If people in other countries take those ideas seriously, they will make life uncomfortable for the old in China and Arabia. J)But there are dangers, too. Optimism can easily become irrational exuberance(兴奋 ): asset prices in some emerging mar
23、kets have risen too high. And there is a danger of a Western backlash. Unless developing countries start taking their responsibility for global security seriously, Americans and Europeans may begin to wonder why they are policing the world to keep markets open for others to get rich. K)As for the We
24、sterners gloom, it has its uses. There is a growing recognition that the old rich world cannot take its prosperity for granted that it will be overtaken by hungrier powers if it fails to deal with its structural problems. Americans are beginning to accept that their country must become less wasteful
25、. Europeans are realizing that they need to make their economies more agile and innovative. Both are beginning to treat this crisis as the opportunity that it is. L)Nor should Westerners overdo the despair, for the emergence of new great powers will benefit them, too. True, their governments will fi
26、nd it harder to boss the rest of the world around; their most desirable properties will increasingly be owned by foreigners; their children will have to work harder to get good jobs in an increasingly globalized economy. But the rising number of Indians, Chinese and Brazilians who can afford to buy
27、their products and services will help their companies prosper. The countries that have provided them with workers will increasingly provide them with customers, too. M)It may not feel like it in the West, but this is, in many ways, the best of times. Hundreds of millions are climbing out of poverty.
28、 The Internet gives ordinary people access to information that even the most privileged scholar could not have dreamed of a few years ago. Medical advances are conquering diseases and extending life spans. For most of human history, only a privileged few have reasonably been able to hope that the fu
29、ture would be better than the present. Today the masses everywhere can; that is surely the reason to be optimistic. 11 Western developed countries have realized they will be overtaken by other countries if they cannot tackle their structural problems. 12 Compared with the Democrats, the Republicans
30、tend to be less hopeful and less optimistic. 13 Unlike the past, today people everywhere can imagine a better future and feel optimistic. 14 A bestseller in Germany tells us about the sufferings of those less able women. 15 These days, America seems unable to fulfill its promise to give its citizens
31、 a better life than their parents. 16 UNESCO finds the number of scientific researchers in the developing world increased significantly from 2002 to 2007. 17 The economic crisis has brought about the unbalanced economic growth rate between developed and developing countries. 18 According to Nandan N
32、ilekani, Infosys greatest success lies in trying to innovate. 19 The fact that more people from emerging countries buy things from the West may lead to the prosperity of Western companies. 20 Compared with people in other areas, Westerners were more optimistic in the past several hundred years. Sect
33、ion C 20 At a music festival in California in June 1967, a middle-aged sitar player watched Jimi Hendrix set his guitar on fire. The crowd cheered. Ravi Shankar was horrified. Born in 1920 in Benares, a holy Indian city now called Varanasi, Mr. Shankar came from an affluent and artistic family. Mr.
34、Shankar gained acclaim in India as both a performer and a composer he wrote scores for Satyajit Ray, a fellow Bengali who is still regarded as one of the countrys best film-makers. He started teaching American jazz musicians such as John Coltrane and Don Ellis, and also recorded albums with Yehudi M
35、enuhin, an American violinist, and Philip Glass, one of the 20th centurys most influential composers. But he is perhaps best known for his influence on the Beatles Harrison, the bands lead guitarist, was so taken with Mr. Shankar that he went to India to have sitar lessons with him. Music was also t
36、he spine of his personal life. His first wife was Annapurna Devi, his gurus daughter and a gifted sitarist. A 2005 biography of Ms. Devi states that her husband made her vow not to perform in public so that she would not overshadow him. In the late 1940s, Mr. Shankar began a long relationship with K
37、amala Shastri, a dancer. He then met Sue Jones, a concert producer with whom he had a daughter in 1979, Norah Jones, a singer who has won nine Grammy awards. In 1989, he married Sukanya Rajan. Their daughter, Anoushka Shankar, is a sitarist who performed regularly with her father over the last decad
38、e. On paper, Mr. Shankar was a perfect guru for the long-haired, incense-burning hippy movement. But, in later years, he admitted he was not entirely comfortable at the hedonistic(快乐主义的 )California festivals of the 1960s, such as Monterey Festival and Woodstock. The drugs, mayhem(骚乱 )and short-lived
39、 fads for one kind of music or another unsettled him. He thought Jimi Hendrixs flaming guitar was the “greatest sacrilege(渎圣行为 )possible“. However, he continued his pop music collaborations, even though some musicians in India, perhaps envious, criticised him for working with Western pop stars. A we
40、ek before his death, he was told that he would receive a lifetime achievement award at next years Grammy ceremony in February. 21 What can be learned about Ravi Shankars background? （ A） He was from a family of musicians. （ B） He was from a family full of artistic air. （ C） He was from an Indian-Ame
41、rican family. （ D） He was from a loving and caring family. 22 What artistic achievement did Shankar achieve? （ A） He was one of the best film-makers in India. （ B） He created plays for famous film-makers. （ C） He made records with other musicians. （ D） He composed songs for the Beatles. 23 What did
42、Mr. Shankars personal life suggest? （ A） Almost all women around him were art lovers. （ B） His first wife was far more famous than him. （ C） Mr. Shankar was a very charming artist. （ D） He enjoyed performing with his daughters. 24 What did Mr. Shankar think of hippy movement? （ A） He believed he was
43、 a leader of the movement. （ B） He loved the way hippies expressed themselves. （ C） He disliked the way hippies treated music. （ D） He felt hippies insulted his religious belief. 25 How did Mr. Shankar cope with peer reviews in India? （ A） He began to collaborate with his peers. （ B） He shifted his
44、attention to other artists. （ C） He seemed to turn a deaf ear to those reviews. （ D） He felt anxious about those reviews. 25 I spent Monday morning at a speed awareness course, whereas I had been dispatched for failing to notice a speed camera on the other side of a dual carriageway. It was an inter
45、esting opportunity for the examination of the emotional mechanisms underlying moral conduct. Driving a car is almost certainly the most dangerous thing that any of us do in our lives. Certainly, its the most dangerous to other people. Even the ghastly(令人震惊的 )Mexican drug wars(60 000 killed since 200
46、6)are not more lethal than the traffic there, which kills about 17 000 people every year. One interesting thing is that there was no attempt by our lecturers to make explicit the moral dimensions of what we had done. Im not saying there should have been. It wouldnt have been effective. But the empha
47、sis was entirely on self-interest and the unpleasant social and financial consequences of being caught again. Related to this was the extraordinary lack of regret or even interest shown by some of the participants. I was sitting next to a man who ran a minicab company and consistently guessed that t
48、he speed limits on various classes of roads were anything up to 20mph lower than they actually are. This did not mean that he drove at 20mph below the limit, only that he assumed that he was speeding all the time and everywhere. The only time there was an outbreak of moral outrage was when one of ou
49、r members confessed that he sometimes rode a bicycle. Cyclists, we rapidly learned, were vile, dangerous outlaws who shot red lights, paid no tax, rode on the pavement and behaved with utter disregard for the safety of anyone else on the road. While this noise was going on, I had a small epiphany(顿悟 ). The cyclists were hated because they are cheats. They are getting away with something that car drivers cannot. Especially in London traffic, the cyclist appears as a figure high above all laws and
