2014年12月英语四级考试真题试卷附答案 第2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.
For decades, Americans have taken for granted the United States' position in the developmentof new technologies. The innovations (创新) resulted from research and development duringWorld War II and afterwards were __36__ to the prosperity of the nation in the second half ofthe 20th century. Those innovations, upon which virtually all aspects of __37__ society nowdepend, were possible because the United States __38__ then the world in mathematics andscience education. Today, however, despite increasing demand for workers with strong skills inmathematics and science, the __39__ of degrees awarded in science, math, and engineering aredecreasing.
The decline in degree production in what are called the STEM disciplines (science, technology,engineering, and math) seems to be __40__ related to the comparatively weak performanceby U.S. schoolchildren on international assessments of math and science. Many studentsentering college have weak skills in mathematics. According to the 2005 report of the Business-Higher Education Forum, 22 percent of college freshmen must take remedial (补习的) math__41__. and less than half of the students who plan to major in science or engineering __42__complete a major in those fields.
The result has been a decrease in the number of American college graduates who have theskills, __43__ in mathematics, to power a workforce that can keep the country at the forefront(前沿) of innovation and maintain its standard of living. With the __44__ performance ofAmerican students in math and science has come increased competition from students fromother countries that have strongly supported education in these areas. Many more studentsearn __45__ in the STEM disciplines in developing countries, especially China, than in the UnitedStates.
A) accelerating
B) actually
C) closely
D) contemporary
E) courses
F) critical
G) declining
H) degrees
I) especially
J) future
K) led
L) met
M) procedures
N) proportions
O) spheres
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.
Ban Sugary Drinks that Will Add Fuel to the Obesity War
[A] On a train last Thursday, I sat opposite a man who was so fat he filled more than one seat.He was pale and disfigured and looked sick to death, which he probably was: obesity (肥胖症)leads to many nasty ways of dying. Looking around the carriage, 1 saw quite a few people likehim, including a couple of fatty children with swollen checks pressing against their eyes. Thesepeople are part of what is without exaggeration an epidemic (流行病) of obesity.
[B] But it is quite unnecessary: there is a simple idea — far from new — that could sparemillions of such people a lifetime of chronic (长期的) ill health, and at the same time save theNational Health Service(NHS)at least ￡ 14 billion a year in England and Wales. There would, youmight think, be considerable public interest in it. This simple idea is that sugar is as good — oras bad — as poison and should be avoided. It is pure, white and deadly, as Professor JohnYudkin described it 40 years ago in a revolutionary book of that name. The subtitle was HowSugar Is Killing Us.
[C] In its countless hidden forms, in ready meals, junk food and sweet drinks, sugar leads toaddiction (瘾), to hormonal upsets to the appetite, to metabolic (新陈代谢的) malfunctionsand obesity and from there to type 2 diabetes (糖尿病) and its many horrible complication. Ifpeople really grasped that, they would try to kick the habit, particularly as Britain is the "fat manof Europe". They might even feel driven to support government measures to prevent peoplefrom consuming this deadly stuff. Yet so far this idea has met little but resistance.
[D] It is not difficult to imagine the vested interests (既得利益集团) lined up against any sugarcontrol- all the food and drink manufacturers, processors, promoters and retailers who makesuch easy pickings out of the magic powers of sugar. Then there are the liberals, with whom Iwould normally side, who protest that government regulation would be yet another instanceof interference in our lives.
[E] That is true, but people should realize that you cannot have a welfare state without a nannyslate (保姆国家), to some degree. If we are all to be responsible for one another's healthinsurance, through socialized medicine, then we are all closely involved in one another's health,including everyone's eating and drinking. That has already been admitted, finally, with smoking.But it has yet to be admitted with overeating, even though one in four adults in this country isobese and that number is predicted to double by the year 2050. Quite apart from anythingelse, obesity will cripple the NHS.
[F] Recently, though, there have been signs that the medical establishment is trying to soundthe alarm. Last month the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AMRC) published a report sayingthat obesity is the greatest public health issue affecting the UK and urging government to dosomething.
[G] The report offers 10 recommendations, of which the first is imposing a tax of 20 percenton sugary drinks for at least a year, on top of the existing 20 percent value-added tax. That atleast would be an excellent start. The amounts of sugar in soft drinks are horrifying, and turnstraight to fat. As Professor Terence Stephenson, head of the AMRC, has said, sugary softdrinks are "the ultimate bad food. You are just consuming neat sugar. Your body didn't evolveto handle this kind of thing."
[H] Precisely. The risks of eating too much fat or salt (which are very different) pale intoinsignificant compared with the harm done by sugar. And it is everywhere.
[I] It is difficult to buy anything in a supermarket, other than plain, unprepared meat, fish orvegetables, that doesn't have a large amount of sugar in it. This has come about because theprevailing scientific views of the 1960s and 1970s ignored the evidence about sugar, andinstead saw fat as the really serious risk, both to the heart and other organs, as well as thecause of obesity.
[J] The fashion was to avoid fat. But finding that food with much of its fat removed is not veryappetizing, food producers turned to sugar as a magic alternative flavor enhancer, often inthe forms of syrups (糖浆) that had recently been developed from corn, and put it generouslyinto most prepared foods and soft drinks.
[K] This stuff is not just fattening. It is addictive. It interferes with the body's metabolism,possibly via the activity of an appetite-controlling hormone. There's plenty of evidence forthis, for those who will accept the truth.
[L] Theoretically, people ought to make "healthy choices" and avoid overeating. But sugaradditives are not easy to identify and are hard to avoid. So the snacking, over-drinking andover eating that makes people fat is not really their own fault: obesity is in large partsomething that is being done to them. It should be stopped, or rather the government shouldstop it.
[M] Going round my local supermarket, I am constantly astonished that it is still legal to sellall the poisons stacked high on the shelves. The problem is that they are worse than useless.They are poisonous. They are known to be addictive. They are known to make people obese.And giving small children sweet drinks or bottles of fake juice all day long is nothing less thanchild abuse.
[N] Clearly, the sale of such stuff ought to be illegal. I hate to think of yet more governmentregulation. But a bit of tax on sweet soda and a little more health education, a bit of cooking inschools and banning vending machines (自动售货机) here and there — as suggested try theAMRC report — is not going to achieve very much. Labelling is quite inadequate. What isneeded is legislation banning high levels of sugary syrups used in foods and drinks.
[O] In June 2012, the then minister for public health said the government was not scared of thefood industry and had not ruled out legislation, because of the costs of obesity to the NHS.However, nothing has happened yet. Why not have another Jammie Dodger biscuit and forgetabout it.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
46. Avoiding over-consumption of sugar can improve people's health as well as save medicalexpenses.
47. Laws should be passed to make it illegal to produce overly sweet foods or drinks.
48. Giving small children sweet juices to drink all the time is equal to child abuse.
49. Looking around, the author found obesity quite widespread.
50. The number of obese people is expected to increase quickly in the next few decades.
51. If people really understood the horrible consequences of sugary foods and drinks, theywould support government measures against sugar consumption.
52. It would be a very good beginning to improve an additional tax on sugary drinks.
53. The government has not yet taken any action to regulate sugar consumption although itindicated its intention to do so some time ago.
54. Sugar is far more harmful to health than fat and salt.
55. Consumers of sweet foods are not really to blame because they cannot tell what food issugary.