1、大学英语四级改革适用（阅读）模拟试卷 47（无答案）Section C0 Forget Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? The theme song of this recession might well be “Mother, Can You Write a Check?“ The distressing economy has resulted in increasing numbers of parents and grandparents helping out their strapped adult children and grandkids wi
2、th home down payments, credit-card bailouts(紧急财政援助), and spare cashoften at the same time as parents are trying to confront new retirement budgets.“We are seeing a ton of this,“ says Ross Levin, an Edina, Minn., financial adviser. “Sometimes its a great idea and sometimes it is not. You have to make
3、 sure you put on your own oxygen mask first.“Some 62 percent of visitors to G have helped their kids financially in the past year, with 70 percent of that group handing over cash to help their adult children and grandchildren with daily expenses, says the sites CEO, Jerry Shereshewsky. Another popul
4、ar category is housing; in the last year many parents have coughed up down payments to help their kids get into homes while the $ 8,000 first-time home buyer s credit was in effect.Then there s the debt-bailout situation. A survey recently conducted by Creditcards. com for Newsweek found that 42 per
5、cent of folks with adult children have helped them pay off car loans, credit cards, medical bills, and more.None of this is surprising to Shereshewsky, who sees the trend as a natural result of changing families and the distribution of wealth. “This is where all the money isand it s where the money
6、is, despite the fact that we ve had this meltdown.“ In general, the baby-boom generation is far wealthier than their children are, and has a lower unemployment rate than 20-somethings. He says that the vast majority of multi-generation households now involve adult children(and sometimes their childr
7、en)moving in with aging parents. Baby-boom parents generally aspire to helping their kids and their grandchildren and dont want to wait until they are dead to do it.“You should give while youre young enough to enjoy the fruits of what youre doing,“ says Shereshewsky, who is personally considering ge
8、tting a reverse mortgage on his home when it comes time to help his 20-something kids with home purchases.1 According to the passage, people are regarded as “strapped“ if they are_.（A）jobless in the recession（B） in financial difficulties（C） dependent on their parents（D）troubled by credit card debt2
9、Ross Levin thinks that sometimes, it is not a great idea that_.（A）parents have confronted new retirement budget（B） adult children disregard parents difficulties（C） adult children spend more than they earn（D）parents help out their adult children3 With the first-time home buyers credit,_.（A）children d
10、id not have to turn to parents for help（B） children found it easier to deal with down payment（C） parents still had to help pay for the down payment（D）parents felt relieved from expense on housing4 What do we know about the people of the baby-boom generation?（A）Most of them prefer to live with their
11、children.（B） Most of them become parents in their twenties.（C） They have a higher employment rate than their kids.（D）They are willing to take care of their aging parents.5 Shereshewsky is most likely to agree that_.（A）parents should enjoy their own lives（B） young people should help their parents（C）
12、young people should be independent（D）parents should help out their adult kids5 When your family wants to buy or replace a car, a television, or a washing machine, you find the money either from savings or by borrowing from the bank, a hire-purchase company or perhaps a friend. Similarly, a family bu
13、ying a house for the first time commonly borrows from a building society(住宅互助委员会 ). If you own a private business, a garage, a shop, or a farm, you will need, from time to time, to buy new equipment, new furnishings, or, if you are doing well, new premises(房屋)so that you can expand. Some of the cost
14、 you can meet from the profits you have kept in the business, but often you will need help. You will go to your bank, to a finance house, or perhaps to a relative or friend for finance provided from his savings. When you borrow money or raise money in this way you pay it back out of future profits.M
15、any large businesses, however, need cash for new developments or expansion far in excess of what can be provided from their profits or from private sources of capital. A new factory, an oil-well in the North Sea, can cost millions of pounds to construct and bring into production; a new design of car
16、 or brand of medicine likewise can cost millions of pounds to design, develop, test and market before it reaches the stage where it earns a profit. Often these costs can be met from profits earned in other parts of the business or from reserves built up from profits earned in past years. Sometimes,
17、however, it is necessary, and often it may be more advantageous, to raise new money from other sources.There can be little prospect of raising the sort of stuns needed by major businesses from friends or acquaintances, and generally the banks are reluctant to provide sufficient cash on a permanent b
18、asis for long-term projects, though they will provide short-term finance. Such companies can sometimes only raise the money they need to stay in the front of industry and develop new products and sources of production by turning to the public at large and inviting it to lend them cash or take a shar
19、e in the business in exchange for a share in future profits. This they can do by offering shares in the business or loan capital through stock exchange(证券交易所).6 If you want to buy a house for the first time, which of the following could you do?（A）Borrow money from a building society.（B） Borrow money
20、 from a bank.（C） Take money from your savings.（D）Ask a friend to help you out.7 Large businesses need to borrow huge amounts of money because_.（A）developing and producing a new product take a long time（B） they can not make enough profits（C） developing and expanding production cost a lot of money（D）a
21、 new factory can cost millions of pounds to construct8 Which of the following has the same meaning with “reserves“(Line 7, Para. 2)?（A）Savings.（B） Means.（C） Jewelry.（D）Content.9 Major business gets money to pay for expansion by_.（A）borrowing from friends（B） borrowing from building societies（C） turni
22、ng to banks（D）selling shares of the company10 According to the passage, we can know that_.（A）small companies can only get financial help from the bank（B） the bank won t lend money to individuals（C） the bank is pleased to provide long-term finance for the large businesses（D）the bank can provide short
23、-term money for the large business10 No one should be forced to wear a uniform under any circumstance. Uniforms are demanding to the human spirit and totally unnecessary in a democratic society. Uniforms tell the world that the person who wears one has no value as an individual but only lives to fun
24、ction as a part of a whole. The individual in a uniform loses all self-worth.There are those who say that wearing a uniform gives a person a sense of identification with a larger, more important concept. What could be more important than the individual himself? If an organization is so weak that it
25、must rely on cloth and buttons to inspire its members, that organization has no right to continue its existence. Others say that the practice of making persons wear uniforms, say in a school, eliminates all envy and competition in the matter of dress, such that a poor person who cannot afford good-q
26、uality clothing is not to be belittled by a wealthy person who wears expensive quality clothing. Those persons conveniently ignore such critical concepts as freedom of choice, motivation, and individuality. If all persons were to wear the same clothing, why would anyone strive to be better? It is on
27、ly a short step from forcing everyone to drive the same car, have the same type of foods. When this happens, all incentive to improve one s life is removed. Why would parents bother to work hard so that their children could have a better life than they had when they know that their children are goin
28、g to be forced to have exactly the same life that they had?Uniforms also hurt the economy. Right now, billions of dollars are spent on the fashion industry yearly. Thousands of persons are employed in designing, creating and marketing different types of clothing. If everyone were forced to wear unif
29、orms, artistic personnel would be unnecessary. Sales persons would be superfluous as well; why bother to sell the only items that are available? The wearing of uniforms would destroy the fashion industry, which in turn would have a ripple effect on such industries as advertising and promotion. Witho
30、ut advertising, newspapers, magazines, and television would not be able to remain in business. One entire information and entertainment industry would collapse.11 What is the main idea of this passage?（A）Wearing uniforms has both advantages and disadvantages.（B） Wearing uniforms should be promoted s
31、trongly.（C） Wearing uniforms will destroy economy.（D）Wearing uniforms has many negative effects.12 According to the author, if a person wears a uniform, he will lose his_.（A）importance（B） meaning（C） self-value（D）pride13 In the author s opinion, which is the most important thing?（A）Society.（B） Indivi
32、duality.（C） One s image.（D）Dignity.14 The underlined word “incentive“ in paragraph 2 in probably means_.（A）efforts（B） motivation（C） skills（D）attempts15 The writers attitude of this passage is apparently（A）disapproved（B） positive（C） pessimistic（D）sarcastic15 Most economists hate gold. Not, you unders
33、tand, that they would turn up their noses at a bar or two. But they find the reverence in which many hold the metal almost irrational. Modern money takes the form of paper or, more often, electronic data. To economists, gold is now just another commodity.So why is its price soaring? Over the past we
34、ek, this has topped $450 a troy ounce, up by 9% since the beginning of the year and 77% since April 2001. Ah, comes the reply, gold transactions are denominated in dollars, and the rise in the price simply reflects the dollars fall in terms of other currencies, especially the euro. However, there is
35、 no iron link, as it were, between the value of the dollar and the value of gold. A rising price of gold, like that of anything else, can reflect an increase in demand as well as a depreciation of its unit of account.This is where gold bulls come in. The fall in the dollar is important, but mainly b
36、ecause as a store of value the dollar stinks. With a few longish rallies, the greenback has been on a downward trend since it came off the gold standard in 1971. Now it is suffering one of its sharper declines. At the margin, extra demand has come from those who think dollarsindeed any money backed
37、by nothing more than promises to keep inflation lowa decidedly risky investment, mainly because America, with the world s reserve currency, has been able to create and borrow so many of them. The least painful way of repaying those dollars is to make them worth less.The striking exception to this ex
38、tra demand comes from central banks, which would like to sell some of the gold they already have. Last month the Bank of France said it would sell 500 tonnes in coming years. But big sales by central banks can cause the price to plungeas when the Bank of England sold 395 tonnes between 1999 and 2002
39、. The result was an agreement between central banks to co-ordinate and limit future sales.If the price of gold marches higher, this agreement will presumably be ripped up, although a dollar crisis might make central banks think twice about switching into paper money. Will the overhang of central-ban
40、k gold drag the price down again? Not necessarily. As James Grant points out, in recent years the huge glut of government debt has not stopped a sharp rise in its price.16 In economists eyes, gold is something_.（A）they look down upon（B） that can be exchanged in the market（C） worth people s reverence
41、（D）that should be replaced by other forms of money17 According to the author, one of the reasons for the rising of gold price is_.（A）the increasing demand for gold（B） the depreciation of the euro（C） the link between the dollar and gold（D）the increment of the value of the dollar18 We can infer from t
42、he third paragraph that_.（A）the decline of the dollar is inevitable（B） America benefits from the depreciation of the dollar（C） the depreciation of the dollar is good news to other currencies（D）investment in the dollar yields more returns than that in gold19 The phrase “ripped up“(Line 1, Para.5)most probably means_.（A）strengthened（B） broadened（C） renegotiated（D）torn up20 According to the passage, the rise of gold price_.（A）will not last long（B） will attract some central banks to sell gold（C） will impel central banks to switch into paper money（D）will lead to a dollar crisis
