1.2021下半年英语四级考试阅读理解练习题
It’s very interesting to note where the debate about diversity(多样化) is taking place. It is taking place primarily in political circles. Here at the College Fund, we have a lot of contact with top corporate(公司的) leaders; none of them is talking about getting rid of those instruments that produce diversity. In fact, they say that if their companies are to compete in the global village and in the global market place,diversity. In fact, they say that if their companies are to compete in the global village and in the global market place, diversity is an imperative. They also say that the need for talented, skilled Americans means we have to expand the pool of potential employees. And in looking at where birth rates are growing andat where the population is shifting, corporate America understands that expanding the pool means promotingpolicies that help provide skills to more minorities, more women and more immigrants. Corporate leaders know that if that does not occur in our society, they will not have the engineers, the scientists, the lawyers, or the business managers they will need.Likewise, I don’t hear people in the academy saying.”Let’s go backward. Let’s go back to the good old days, when we had a meritocracy(不拘一格选人才)” (which was never true-we never had a meritocracy, although we’ve come closer to it in the last 30 years.) I recently visited a great little college in New York where the campus has doubled its minority population in the last six years. I talked with an African American who has been a professor there for a long time, and she remembers that when she first joined the community, there were fewer than a handful of minorities on campus. Now, all of us feel the university is betterbecause corporate board rooms or on college campuses.
练习题：
Choose correct answers to the question:
1.The word”imperative”(Line5,Para.1) most probably refers to something _____
A.Superficial
B.remarkable
C.debatable
D.essential
2.Which of the following groups of people still differ in their views on diversity?
A. Minorities.
B. Politicians.
C. Professors.
D. Managers.
3.High corporate leaders seem to be in favor of promoting diversity so as to ______
A. lower the rate of unemployment
B. win equal political rights for minorities
C. be competitive in the world market
D. satisfy the demands of a growing population
4.It can be inferred from the passage that _____
A. meritocracy can never be realized without diversity
B. American political circles will not accept diversity
C. it is unlikely that diversity will occur in the U.S. Media
D. minorities can only enter the fields were no debate is heard about diversity
5.According to the passage diversity can be achieved in American society by ____
A. expanding the pool of potential employees
B. promoting policies that provide skills to employees
C. training more engineers, scientists lawyers and business managers
D. providing education for all regardless of race or sex
1.[D] 词义理解题。本句说到公司要在地球村和全球市场上竞争，多样性是imperative，由前文“没有取消引起多样性的手段”和下文提到的公司对各种各样有技能的美国人的需求可知，多样性对于企业来说应该“必需的”故D正确。
2.[B] 事实细节题。第2段末句指出这种辩论主要存在于政治圈和媒体中，结合上句内容，可知其中的this debate指的就是关于多样性的辩论，故B正确。
3.[C] 事实细节题。由第1段第4句可知，公司高层领导人促进多样化的原因是想要在全球市场上更具竞争力，C与此相符。
4.[A] 推理判断题。第2段中提到有些人认为在没有多样性的过去照样能做到不拘—格选人才，但作者马上which was never true否定此观点，故A正确。第2段只提到多样性的辩论存在于政治圈和媒体，但并不代 表在这两个圈子里不能接受或从未出现多样性，故排除B、C;D说法过于绝对,且在文中找不到依据，也可排除。
5.[D] 推理判断埋。由第1段倒数第2句可知企业expand the pool就意味着向more minorities，more women 和 more immigrants提供技能培训，而expand the pool对应的就是题干中的说的多样性的形成，D中的race 和sex分别对文中minorities和women，故正确。A泛泛而谈，没有说到点子上，不如D具体、准确;B与多样性没有关系，C是利用文中的有关职业的词拼凑而成的干扰项。
2.2021下半年英语四级考试阅读理解练习题
In bringing up children, every parent watches eagerly the child’s acquisition (学会) of each new skill- the first spoken words, the first independent steps, or the beginning of reading and writing. It is often tempting to hurry the child beyond his natural learning rate, but this can set up dangerous feelings of failure and states of worry in the child might be encouraged to learn to read before he knows the meaning of the words he reads. On the other hand, though, if a child is left alone too much, or without any learning opportunities, he loses his natural enthusiasm for life and his desire to find out new things for himself.Parents vary greatly in their degree of strictness towards their children. Some may be especially strict in money matters. Others are sever over times of coming home at night or punctuality for meals. In general,the controls imposed represent the needs of the parents and the values of the community as much as the child’s own happiness.
As regard the development of moral standards in the growing child, consistency is very important in parental teaching. To forbid a thing one day and excuse it the next is no foundation for morality(道德). Also, parents should realize that “ example is better than precept ”. If they are not sincere and do not practice what they preach(说教), their children may grow confused and emotionally insecure when they grow old enough to think for themselves, and realize they have been to some extent fooled.
A sudden awareness of a marked difference between their parents’ principles and their morals can be a dangerous disappointment.
练习题：
Choose correct answers to the question:
1.Eagerly watching the child’s acquisition of new skill ______
A.can be avoided
B.is universal among parents
C.sets up dangerous states of worry in the child
D.will make him lose interest in learning new things
2.In the process of children’s learning new skills parents ________
A. should encourage them to read before they know the meaning of the words they read
B. should not expect too much of them
C. should achieve a balance between pushing them too hard and leaving them on their own
D.should creative as many learning opportunities as possible
3.The second paragraph mainly tells us that _________
A. parents should be strict with their children
B. parental controls reflect only the needs of the parents and the values of the community.
C. parental restrictions vary, and are not always enforced for the benefit of the children alone.
D. parental vary in their strictness towards their children according to the situation.
4.The word “precept” (Line3, Para.3) probably means “_______”
A. Idea
B.punishment
C. behavior
D. instruction
5.In moral matters, parents should ________
A. observe the rules themselves
B. be aware of the marked difference between adults and children
C. forbid things which have no foundation in morality
D.consistently ensure the security of their children
1.[B] 事实细节题。第1段第1句中的every parent，often等词表明这种做法在父母中是非常普遍的，显然B与之相符。A说法无原文依据，且由原文可看出题干所述现象是很难避免的;C中dangerous—词在原文中本是修饰其他情绪，故C不符;D是过多地让孩子自己一个独处的后果,不是题干所述行为的后果。
2.[C] 推理判断题。第1段第2句说明父母逼得太过分，应避免。后一句则说明对小孩太放任自流同样不利。由这两点，我们可以做出如下判断：父母对孩子的“严”和“松”之间有一个恰当的“度”。C与之相符。
3.[C] 事实细节题。文章第2段表明：不同的家长对孩子的管制程度不同;家长对小孩的管制不仅是为了孩子个人的幸福，也反映了父母的需要以及社区的价值观，故C与原文相符。
4.[D] 词义理解题。由precept所在句可猜测precept应与example相对，且与下文的preach意思相近，故D正确。
5.[A] 推理判断题。第3段提到父母应该避免讲一套做一套，结合后一段可得出结论：关于思想道德教育问题，父母应以身作则，带头遵循，故A正确。
3.2021下半年英语四级考试阅读理解练习题
Sign has become a scientific hot button. Only in the past 20 years have specialists in language study realized that signed languages are unique—a speech of the hand. They offer a new way to probe how the brain generates and understands language, and throw new light on an old scientific controversy: whether language,complete with grammar, is something that we are born With, or whether it is a learned behavior. The current interest in sign language has roots in the pioneering work of one rebel teacher at Gallaudet University in Washington, D. C., the world’s only liberal arts university for deaf people.When Bill Stokoe went to Gallaudet to teach English, the school enrolled him in a course in signing. But Stokoe noticed something odd: among themselves, students signed differently from his classroom teacher.
Stokoe had been taught a sort of gestural code, each movement of the hands representing a word in English.At the time, American Sign Language (ASL) was thought to be no more than a form of pidgin English (混杂英语). But Stokoe believed the “hand talk”his students used looked richer. He wondered: Might deaf people actually: have a genuine language? And could that language be unlike any other on Earth? It was 1955, wheneven deaf people dismissed their signing as“substandard”. Stokoe’s idea was academic heresy (异端邪说).
It is 37 years later. Stokoe—now devoting his time to writing and editing books and journals and to producing video materials on ASL and the deaf culture—is having lunch at a cafe near the Gallaudet campus and explaining how he started a revolution. For decades educators fought his idea that signed languages are natural languages like English, French and Japanese. They assumed language must be based on speech, the modulation (调节) of sound. But sign language is based on the movement of hands, the modulation of space. “What I said,” Stokoe explains, “is that language is not mouth stuff—it’s brain stuff.”
练习题：
Choose correct answers to the question:
1. The study of sign language is thought to be ________.
A. a new way to look at the learning of language
B. a challenge to traditional, views on the nature of language
C. an approach: to simplifying the grammatical structure of a language
D. an attempt to clarify misunderstanding about the origin of language
2. The present growing interest in sign language was stimulated by ______
_.
A. a famous scholar in the study of the human brain
B. a leading specialist in the study of liberal arts
C. an English teacher in a university for the deaf
D. some senior experts in American Sign Language
3. According to Stokoe, sign language is ________.
A. a Substandard language
B. a genuine language
C. an artificial language
D. an international language
4. Most educators objected to Stokoe’s idea because they thought ________.
A. sign language was not extensively used even by deaf people
B. sign language was too artificial to be widely accepted
C. a language should be easy to use and understand
D. a language could only exist in the form of speech sounds
5. Stokoe’s argument is based on his belief that ________.
A. sign language is as efficient as any other language
B. sign language is derived from natural language
C. language is a system of meaningful codes
D. language is a product of the brain
1.[B] 从文章第3句“手语提供了一种新方法，用以探索大脑如何产生和理解语言，并为一个长期以来的科学争端——语言(连同语法)究竟是我们与生俱来的，还是一种我们后天学会的行为——提出了新的解释”可以看出，这是对语言的性质的传统观点的挑战，即B 。A错在learning,文章并不是在讨论语言的学习，而是语言的产生和理解;C为简单原词干扰D;中的an attempt to clarify misunderstanding是对throw new light on an old scientific controversy的曲解，因为controversy不等于misunderstanding。另外，第1段后一句中的rebel“反叛”一词也与B中的“挑战”一致。
2.[C] 根据第1段后一句可知，选C。题干中的was stimulated相当于原文中的has roots in。
3.[B] 根据第3段第2—4句以及后一段第3句，可知B为答案。前者提出猜想(Might deaf people actually have a genuine language?)，后者含有一个同位语 his idea that signed languages are natural languages。
4.[D] 根据后一段第4句，可知D正确。D中的only exist in the form of speech sounds是对原文中be based on speech的同义表达。
5.[D] 根据文章后一句，可知D正确。D中的a product of the brain是对原文中brain stuff的同义表达。B中的derived from错误，因为Stokoe认为sign language就是一种natural language。
