1.2021年12月英语四级阅读模拟习题
People become quite illogical when they try to decide what can be eaten and what cannot be eaten. If you lived in the Mediterranean, for instance, you would consider octopus a great delicacy. You would not be able to understand why some people find it repulsive. On the other hand, your stomach would turn at the idea of frying potatoes in animal fat -- the normally accepted practice in many northern countries. The sad truth is that most of us have been brought up to eat certain foods and we stick to them all our lives.No creature has received more praise and abuse than the common garden snail. Cooked in wine, snails are a great luxury in various parts of the world. There are countless people who, ever since their early years, have learned to associate snails with food. My friend, Robert, lives in a country where snails are despised. As his flat is in a large town, he has no garden of his own. For years he has been asking me to collectsnails from my garden and take them to him. The idea never appealed to me very much, but one day, after heavy shower, I happened to be walking in my garden when I noticed a huge number of snails taking a stroll on some of my prize plants. Acting on a sudden impulse, I collected several dozen, put them in a paper bag,and took them to Robert. Robert was delighted to see me and equally pleased with my little gift. I left the bag in the hall and Robert and I went into the living room where we talked for a couple of hours. I had forgotten all about the snails when Robert suddenly said that I must stay to dinner. Snails would, of course, be the main dish. I did not fancy the idea and I reluctantly followed Robert out of the room. To our dismay, we saw that there were snails everywhere: they had escaped from the paper bag and had taken complete possession of the hall! I have never been able to look at a snail since then.
练习题：
Choose correct answers to the question:
1.The underlined word “repulsive” in Paragraph 1 most probably means“_____”.
A.disgusting B. pleasant C. acceptable D. delicious
2.We can infer from Paragraph 3 that when collecting the snails, the author____ .
A.was glad that he could share them with his friend
B.was angry because they might damage his beloved plants
C.was excited about being able to give his friend a surprise
D.was depressed because it was hard to catch them all
3.The author finds that snails _______ .
A. are as delicious as octopus
B. are disliked in his hometown
C.are the most controversial food
D. are as popular as fried potatoes
4.The best title for the passage might be “______”?
A.One Man’s Meat is Another Man’s Poison
B.Foods and Cultures
C.Snail and Octopus
D.People Are Illogical in Front of Delicacies
5.As indicated in the passage,people love different foods mainly because____
A.they live in different places.
B.they learn to eat certain foods in their families
C.they have different understanding of delicacy
D.they are too illogical to explain
1.[A] 词义推断题。解答本题的关键首先要理解repulsive前面的it是指上一句的octopus，由On the other hand可知第2句和第3句描述的是人们对章鱼作为食物的两种相反的反应，而与a great delicacy相反的是A，故A为正确答案。
2.[B] 推理判断题。在第2段中查找到作者有一天在阵雨后散步发现蜗牛爬在他那些prize plants上面，所以才突然有了去抓蜗牛的冲动。理解prize在此意为“一流的，珍视的”，便可知作者当时很生气，由此可确定答案为B。
3.[C] 事实细节题。本题考査复合句的理解。第2段第1句“No creature...more...than snails”表达的是高级概念，即：Snails have received most praise and abuse由此可知，蜗牛是具争议性的食物，因此C就是该句的近义替换。作者没有把蜗牛与章鱼或炸土豆作比较，因此A和D不对;文中提到在朋友的居住地，蜗牛
是没人瞧得上的，但没有提到在作者的家乡是否受欢迎，因此B也不对。
4.[A] 主旨大意题。文章第1句话其实是全文的主题句，说明人们对于选择吃什么、不吃什么是没有什么章法的，暗示了人们在饮食方面有大相径庭的喜好，接着用了数个具体例子说明，并着重以蜗牛为例，阐明这种差异。英语习语“One man’s meat is another man’s poison”形象地表达了这一观点。本题具干扰性的是B，文章在第1段谈到饮食有差异，这涉及到了culture,但作者并没花太多笔墨描述各国不同的文化，因此，culture并非本文的中心。另外，D的表达与文章第1句很相似，但是D说的是人们在美食面前会丧失理智，与第1句的意思其实相差甚远，且并非文章要阐明的主题。
5.[B] 推理判断题。本题考查表语从句的理解。从第1段的后一句中“most of us have been brought up to eat certain foods”可推断B为不同的人喜好不同食物的主要原因。A具干扰性,它也是原因之一，但住在同一个地方的人也会有不同的饮食差异，所以还是因为家庭的原因所造成的。
2.2021年12月英语四级阅读模拟习题
On average, American kids ages 3 to 12 spent 29 hours a week in school, eight hours more that they did in 1981. They also did more household work and participated in more of such organized activities as soccer and ballet (芭蕾舞). Involvement in sports, in particular, rose almost 50% from 1981 to 1997: boys now spendan average of four hours a week playing sports; girls log hall that time. All in all, however, children’sleisure time dropped from 40% of the day in 1981 to 25%“Children are affected by the same time crunch (危机) that affects their parents,” says Sandra Hofferth,who headed the recent study of children’s timetable. A chief reason, she says, is that more mothers are working outside the home. (Nevertheless, children in both double-income and “male breadwinner” householdsspent comparable amounts of time interacting with their parents 19 hours and 22 hours respectively. In contrast, children spent only 9 hours with their single mothers.)
All work and no play could make for some very messed-up kids. “Play is the most powerful way a child explores the world and learns about himself,” says T. Berry Brazelton, professor at Harvard Medical School Unstructured play encourages independent thinking and allows the young to negotiate their relationships withtheir peers, but kids ages 3 to 12 spent only 12 hours a week engaged in it.
The children sampled spent a quarter of their rapidly decreasing “free time” watching television. But that, believe it or not, was one of the findings parents might regard as good news. If they’re spending less time in front of the TV set, however, kids aren’t replacing it with reading. Despite efforts to get kids more interested in books, the children spent just over an hour a week reading. Let’s face it, who’s got the time?
练习题：
Choose correct answers to the question:
1. By mentioning “the same time crunch” (Line 1, Para. 2) Sandra Hofferth means ________.
A. children have little time to play with their parents
B. children are not taken good care of by their working parents
C. both parents and children suffer from lack of leisure time
D. both parents and children have trouble managing their time
2. According to the author, the reason given by Sandra Hofferth for the time crunch is ________.
A. quite convincing
B. partially true
C. totally groundless
D. rather confusing
3. According to the author a child develops better if ________.
A. he has plenty of time reading and studying
B. he is left to play with his peers in his own way
C. he has more time participating in school activities
D. he is free to interact with his working parents
4. The author is concerned about the fact that American kids ________.
A. are engaged in more and more structured activities
B. are increasingly neglected by their working mothers
C. are spending more and more time watching TV
D. are involved less and less in household work
5. We can infer from the passage that ________.
A. extracurricular activities promote children’s intelligence
B. most children will turn to reading with TV sets switched off
C. efforts to get kids interested in reading have been fruitful
D. most parents believe reading to be beneficial to children
1.[C] 语义理解题。该短语所在句子的上文(第1段后一句)表明“孩子的课余时间比以前少了”,而本句指出父母和孩子都受time crunch的影响，可见the same time crunch是指空闲时间不够用，故C正确。
2.[B] 观点态度题。第2段第2句中括号里的内容表明了作者的观点。转折词Nevertheless说明作者的观点跟上文Sandra Hofferth的看法不完全一致，而作者在下文举例中提到，单身母亲因为要上班，与孩子在起的时间只有9个小时，确实少了很多，这与Hofferth所述一致，因此选B。
3.[B] 事实细节题。第3段后一句表明孩子自由玩乐能促使他们独立思考，并使他们学会处理与同龄关系，其中unstructured play 相当于B中的play in his own way，故B正确。
4.[A] 观点态度题。文章一开头作者就说孩子们比1981年时上学的时间每周多8小时，他们还做更多的家务,参加更多的有组织性的活动等等,而这些均是造成孩子们空闲时间越来越少的原因，而孩子们空闲时间少也正是作者忧虑的问题，故可推知本题选A。B是作者在第2段括号里反驳过的观点;C错在more and more time，而且作者对孩子看电视也不完全反对;孩子们事实上要做更多家务，故D错。
5.[D] 推理判断题。文章后一段倒数第2句说“尽管父母费尽心思培养孩子的读书兴趣，可孩子们一周也只不过花一个多小时读书”。由此可见,父母认为读书对孩子有好处，即D。A中的extracurricular activities包含 structured and unstructured activities，文中只说unstructured activities有助于培养孩子独立思考以及与同龄人交往的能力，没有说structured activities对intelligence有什么帮助;B与文章的倒数第3句不符;C与倒数第2句不符。
3.2021年12月英语四级阅读模拟习题
There is no denying that students should learn something about how computers work, just as we expect them at least to understand that the internal-combustion engine(内燃机)has something to do with burning fuel, expanding gases and pistons (活塞)being driven. For people should have some basic idea of how the things that they use do what they do. Further, students might be helped by a course that considers the computer’s impact on society. But that is not what is meant by computer literacy. For computer literacy is not a formof literacy (读写能力);it is a trade skill that should not be taught as a liberal art.Learning how to use a computer and learning how to program one are two distinct activities. A case might be made that the competent citizens of tomorrow should free themselves from their fear of computers. But this is quite different from saying that all ought to know how to program one. Leave that to people who havechosen programming as a career. While programming can be lots of fun, and while our society needs some people who are experts at it, the same is true of auto repair and violin-making.
Learning how to use a computer is not that difficult, and it gets easier all the time as programs become more “user-friendly”. Let us assume that in the future everyone is going to have to know how to use a computer to be a competent citizen. What does the phrase learning to use a computer mean? It sounds like “learning to drive a car", that is, it sounds as if there is some set of definite skills that, once acquired,enable one to use a computer.
In fact, "learning to use a computer" is much more like “learning to play a game”,but learning the rulesof one game may not help you play a second game, whose rules may not be the same. There is no such a thingas teaching someone how to use a computer. One can only teach people to use this or that program and generally that is easily accomplished.
练习题：
Choose correct answers to the question:
1.To be the competent citizens of tomorrow, people should _______.
A. try to lay a solid foundation in computer science
B. be aware of how the things that they use do what they do
C. learn to use a computer by acquiring a certain set of skills
D. understand that programming a computer is more essential than repairing a car
2. In the second paragraph“auto repair”and“violin-making”are mentioned to show that _______ .
A. programming a computer is as interesting as making a violin
B. our society needs experts in different fields
C. violin making requires as much skill as computer programming
D. people who can use a computer don't necessarily have to know computer programming
3. Learning to use a computer is getting easier all the time because _______ .
A. programs are becoming less complicated
B. programs are designed to be convenient to users
C. programming is becoming easier and easier
D. programs are becoming readily available to computer users
4. According to the author,the phrase“learning to use a computer”(Lines3,4,Para.3) means learning _______.
A. a set of rules B. the fundamentals of computer science
C. specific programs D. general principles of programming
5. The author's purpose in writing this passage is _______.
A. to stress the impact of the computer on society
B. to explain the concept of computer literacy
C. to illustrate the requirements for being competent citizens of tomorrow
D. to emphasize that computer programming is an interesting and challenging job
1.[C] 推理判断题。第2段提到未来有能力的人应该从恐惧中解脱出来，第3段则提到学习计算机则就像是“学开车”一样，只要掌握某套技能即可，故可知有能力的人只需要通过掌握技能学习计算机即可，而不必学习编程，故C正确。
2.[D] 词义理解题。在第2段中，作者强调一般人只需学会使用计算机，而不必学会编程，后指出这与“汽车修理”和“小提琴制作”一样，可见作者提到“汽车修理”(类似一般人使用计算机)和“小提琴创作”(数似于电 脑专业人员编程)还是为了说明上文的观点，故D正确。
3.[B] 事实细节题。第3段首句提到学习使用计算机越来越容易的原因是计算机编程变得更user-friendly, B中的convenient to users与此相符，故正确。
4.[C] 句意理解题。第4段指出教人学习使用计算机就是教人use this or that program，故C与此相符。
5.[B] 主旨大意题。本文围绕学生应如何学习计算机，阐述计算机能力(computer literacy)的概念;它只是一种技能,故B正确。A、C、D均只是利用文中的片言只语拼凑而成的干扰项，不足以概括文章大意。
