2014年12月英语四级考试真题试卷附答案 第3套(2)

　　Part III Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)

　　Section A

　　Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select oneword for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read thepassage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified bya letter. Please mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through thecentre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.

　　Questions 36 to 45 are based on the following passage.

　　One principle of taxation, called the benefit principle, states that people should pay taxesbased on the benefits they receive from government services. This principle tries to makepublic goods similar to __36__ goods. It seems reasonable that a person who often goes tothe movies pays more in __37__ for movie tickets than a person who rarely goes. And __38__a person who gets great benefit from a public good should pay more for it than a person whogets little benefit.

　　The gasoline tax, for instance, is sometimes __39__ using the benefits principle. In somestates, __40__ from the gasoline tax are used to build and maintain roads. Because thosewho buy gasoline are the same people who use the roads, the gasoline tax might be viewedas a __41__ way to pay this government service.

　　The benefits principle can also be used to argue that wealthy citizens should pay higher taxesthan poorer ones, __42__ because the wealthy benefit more from public services. Consider, forexample, the benefits of police protection from __43__. Citizens with much to protect getgreater benefit from police than those with less to protect. Therefore, according to thebenefits principle, the wealthy should __44__ more than the poor to the cost of __45__ thepolice force. The same argument can be used for many other public services, such as fireprotection, national defense, and the court system.

　　A) adapt

　　B) contribute

　　C) exerting

　　D) expenses

　　E) fair

　　F) justified

　　G) maintaining

　　H) private

　　I) provided

　　J) revenues

　　K) similarly

　　L) simply

　　M) theft

　　N) total

　　O) wealth

　　Section B

　　Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it.Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs Identify the paragraphfrom which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Eachparagraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter onAnswer Sheet 2.

　　Growing Up Colored

　　[A] You wouldn't know Piedmont anymore—my Piedmont, I mean—the town in West Virginiawhere I learned to be a colored boy.

　　[B] The 1950s in Piedmont was a time to remember, or at least to me. People were alwaysproud to be from Piedmont—lying at the foot of a mountain, on the banks of the mightyPotomac. We knew God gave America no more beautiful location. I never knew colored peopleanywhere who were crazier about mountains and water, flowers and trees, fishing and hunting.For as long as anyone could remember, we could outhunt, outshoot, and outswim the whiteboys in the valley.

　　[C] The social structure of Piedmont was something we knew like the back of our hands. It wasan immigrant town; white Piedmont was Italian and Irish, with a handful of wealthy WASPs (盎格鲁撒克逊裔的白人新教徒) on East Hampshire Street, and "ethnic" neighborhoods of working-classpeople everywhere else, colored and white.

　　[D] For as long as anyone can remember, Piedmont's character has been completely bound upwith the Westvaco paper mill: its prosperous past and doubtful future. At first glance, thetown is a typical dying mill center. Many once beautiful buildings stand empty, evidencing abygone time of spirit and pride. The big houses on East Hampshire Street are no longerproud, as they were when I cet4v.com

　　[E] Like the Italians and the Irish, most of the colored people migrated to Piedmont at the turnof the 20th century to work at the paper mill, which opened in 1888. All the colored men at thepaper mill worked on "the platform"—loading paper into trucks until the craft unions werefinally integrated in 1968. Loading is what Daddy did every working day of his life. That's whatalmost every colored grown-up I knew did.

　　[F] Colored people lived in three neighborhoods that were clearly separated. Welcome to theColored Zone, a large stretched banner could have said. And it felt good in there, like walkingaround your house in bare feet and underwear, or snoring right out loud on the couch in frontof the TV—enveloped by the comforts of home, the warmth of those you love.

　　[G] Of course, the colored world was not so much a neighborhood as a condition of existence.And though our own world was seemingly self-contained, it impacted on the white world ofPiedmont in almost every direction. Certainly, the borders of our world seemed to be impactedon when some white man or woman showed up where he or she did not belong, such as at theblack Legion Hall. Our space was violated when one of them showed up at a dance or a party.The rhythms would be off. The music would sound not quite right: attempts to pat the beat offjust so. Everybody would leave early.

　　[H] Before 1955, most white people were just shadowy presences in our world, vague figuresof power like remote bosses at the mill or tellers at the bank. There were exceptions, ofcourse, the white people who would come into our world in ritualized, everyday ways we allunderstood. Mr. Mail Man, Mr. Insurance Man, Mr. White-and-Chocolate Milk Man, Mr. LandlordMan, Mr. Police Man: we called white people by their trade, like characters in a mystery play. Mr.Insurance Man would come by every other week to collect premiums on college or deathpolicies, sometimes 50 cents or less.

　　[I] "It's no disgrace to be colored," the black entertainer Bert Williams famously observed earlyin the century, "but it is awfully inconvenient." For most of my childhood, we couldn't cat inrestaurants or sleep in hotels, we couldn't use certain bathrooms or try on clothes in stores.Mama insisted that we dress up when we went to shop. She was carefully dressed when shewent to clothing stores, and wore white pads called shields under her arms so her dress orblouse would show no sweat. "We'd like to try this on," she'd say carefully, uttering her wordsprecisely and properly. "We don't buy clothes we can't try on," she'd say when they declined,and we'd walk out in Mama's dignified (有尊严的) manner. She preferred to shop where we hadan account and where everyone knew who she was.

　　[J] At the Cut-Rate Drug Store, no one colored was allowed to sit down at the counter ortables, with one exception: my father. I don't know for certain why Carl Dadisman, the owner,wouldn't stop Daddy from sitting down. But I believe it was in part because Daddy was so light-colored, and in part because, during his shift at the phone company, he picked up orders forfood and coffee for the operators. Colored people were supposed to stand at the counter, gettheir food to go, and leave. Even when Young Doc Bess would set up the basketball team withfree Cokes after one of many victories, the colored players had to stand around and drink outof paper cups while the white players and cheerleaders sat down in comfortable chairs anddrank out of glasses.

　　[K] I couldn't have been much older than five or six as I sat with my father at the Cut-Rate oneafternoon, enjoying two scoops of caramel ice cream. Mr. Wilson, a stony-faced, broodingIrishman, walked by.

　　"Hello, Mr. Wilson," my father said.

　　"Hello, George."

　　[L] I was genuinely puzzled. Mr. Wilson must have confused my father with somebody else,but who? There weren't any Georges among the colored people in Piedmont. "Why don't youtell him your name, Daddy?" I asked loudly. "Your name isn't George."

　　"He knows my name, boy," my father said after a long pause. "He calls all colored peopleGeorge."

　　[M] I knew we wouldn't talk about it again; even at that age, 1 was given to understand thatthere were some subjects it didn't do to worry to death about. Now that I have children, Irealize that what distressed my father wasn't so much the Mr. Wilsons of the world as thepainful obligation to explain the racial facts of life to someone who hadn't quite learned themyet. Maybe Mr. Wilson couldn't hurt my father by calling him George; but I hurt him by asking toknow why.

　　注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。

　　46. The author felt as a boy that his life in a separated neighborhood was casual and cozy.

　　47. There is every sign of decline at the paper mill now.

　　48. One reason the author's father could sit and eat at the drug store was that he didn't lookthat dark.

　　49. Piedmont was a town of immigrants from different parts of the world.

　　50. In spite of the awful inconveniences caused by racial prejudice, the author's familymanaged to live a life of dignity.

　　51. The author later realized he had caused great distress to his father by asking why he waswrongly addressed.

　　52. The author took pride in being from Piedmont because of its natural beauty.

　　53. Colored people called white people by the business they did.

　　54. Colored people who lived in Piedmont did heavy manual jobs at the paper mill.

　　55. The colored people felt uneasy at the presence of the whites in their neighborhood

　　Section C

　　Directions: In this section, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read forthe first time，you should listen carefully for its general idea.When the passage is read for thesecond time，you are required to fill in the blanks with the exact words you have just heard.Finally，when the passage is read for the third time，you should check what you have written.

　　注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。