1.2023年12月英语四级阅读精选练习 篇一
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
2.2023年12月英语四级阅读精选练习 篇二
Learning how to write is like taking a course in public speaking. I'd ask whether anyone in class had evertaken such a course. Always a few hands would go up."What did you learn in that course?" I'd ask.
"Well, the main thing was learning how to face an audience: not to be inhibited (拘谨)... not to be nervous. "
Exactly, when you take a course in public speaking nowadays, you don't hear much about grammar and vocabulary. Instead. you're taught how not to be afraid or embarrassed, how to speak without a prepared sc.ript. how to read out to the live audience before you. Public speaking is a matter of overcoming your long-standing nervous inhibitions.
The same is true of writing. The point of the whole thing is to overcome your nervous inhibitions, to break through the invisible barrier that separates you from the person who’ll read what you wrote. You must learn to sit in front of your typewriter of dictating machine and read out to the person at the other end of the line.
Of course, in public speaking with the audience right in front of you, the problem is easier. You can lookat them and talk to them directly. In writing, you 're alone. It needs an effort of your experience or imagination to take hold of that other person and talk to him or her. But that effort is necessary or at least it' s necessary until you've reached the point when you quite naturally and unconsciously "talk on paper".
练习题：
Choose correct answers to the question:
1.The main task of a public speech course is to __________.
A.teach grammar and vocabulary
B. teach how to write a sc.ript
C. teach how to overcome nervousness
D. teach live spoken-language expressions
2.Learning how to write is similar to learning how to speak in public in that writer should _____.
A.overcome his or her nervousness in the first place
B. take hold of a reader and talk to him or her before writing
C. learn to use a typewriter or dictating machine
D. talk to himself on paper
3.what does the author compare writing and public speaking?
A.Writhing needs more experience and imagination than public speaking
B.Both writing and public speaking require great effort
C.Writhing is just as imagination as public speaking
D.Writhing is not as natural as public speaking
4.Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
A.Few students feel the need to learn public speaking
B.Training is necessary before you can speak with a sc.ript
C.In public speaking, the audience are more nervous than the speaker
D.Writing is just like making a public speech on paper
5.This selection is mainly about ___________.
A.the effort involved in writing
B.the similarities between writing and public speaking
C.learning how to make a public speech
D.learning how to talk on paper
3.2023年12月英语四级阅读精选练习 篇三
Congratulations, Mr. Jones, it's a girl."Fatherhood is going to have a different meaning and bring forth a different response from every man who hears these words. Some feel pride when they receive the news, while others worry, wondering whether they will be good fathers. Although there are some men who like children and may have had considerable experiencewith them, others do not particularly care for children and spend little time with them. Many fathers and mothers have been planning and looking forward to children for some time. For other couples, pregnancy wasan accident that both husband and wife have accepted willingly or unwillingly.
Whatever the reaction to the birth of a child, it is obvious that the shift from the role of husband to that of father is a difficult task. Yet, unfortunately, few attempts have been made to educate fathers in this reconciliation (协调) process. Although numerous books have been written about American mothers, only recently has literature focused on the role of fathers.
It is argued by some writers that the change to the father's role, although difficult, is not nearly as great as the change the wife must take to the mother's role. The mother's role seems to require a complete transformation in daily routine and highly innovative(创新的) adaptation. On the other hand, the father's role is less demanding and immediate. However, even though we mentioned the fact that growing numbers of women are working outside the home, the father is still thought by many as the breadwinner in the household.
练习题：
Choose correct answers to the question:
1.What can we know about fatherhood from the passage?
A.It brings a feeling of excitement to most man
B.It make some man feel proud and others uneasy
C.It has a different meaning for men who have daughters
D.It means a responsibility that men accept unwillingly
2.What does the passage say about the shift from the role of husband to that of father?
A. Numerous books have been written about it.
B. Not enough attention has been paid to it.
C. The shift is harder for men than for women.
D. The shift is a difficult but incomplete one.
3.What can we know about mothers from the passage?
A.Mothers get more attention and recognition from society
B.Mothers are innovative and demanding according to some writers
C.Mothers generally stay at home to take care of the children
D.Mothers should help fathers in their reconciliation process
4.Which of the following will the author most probably disagree with?
A. It's as difficult to be a father as it is to be a mother.
B. More books should focus on the role of fathers.
C. The father is still the breadwinner in the household.
D. Fathers are as important to children as mothers.
5.The author's purpose in writing this passage is to
A. explain why there are few books on the role of fathers.
B. praise mothers for their great contributions to the home.
C. criticize fathers for not taking enough responsibility in bringing up the children.
D. complain about the lack of social programs to help fathers in their role shift.
