专四阅读详解 1

星期1 Monday

What makes life dreary is the want of motive.没有了原动力，生活便会沉郁无光。

Text A

In America, the movement of housing away from the high-rise buildings of the inner cities originated in the 1920s, but was stalled by the Great Depression of the 1930s and by World War II. After the war a tremendous surge occurred in the real estate market with the advent of single-family homes on relatively small lots — typically less than one-tenth of an acre. During the 1950s, many large tract developments invade former farmlands near metropolitan areas. The most dramatic instances of this sprawling effect were witnessed in western municipalities such as San Joes and San Diego whose city charters defined their boundaries over several hundred square kilometers. These large parcels of land were overrun by standard three bedrooms, two baths, and “ranch-style” home in a few short decades.

By the 1960s construction had died down significantly and developers began building different kinds of plans to try and accommodate the changes in the market. Those who had taken advantage of the suburbanization trend in the post-war years had seen the value of their real estate increase dramatically and many were anxious to reinvest their assets. In an effort to reap this affluence, certain contractors moved away from the standard models and began designing larger buildings on increasingly spacious parcels even farther from city centers. Other builders began working on homes to meet the needs of young couples starting new families. The townhouse, a two-to-three-storey brick and frame structure containing more than 4 but less than 30 units per structure, was seen as the solution. These apartments were successful in luring many young adult city dwellers out to the suburbs.

In subsequent development, traditional single family ranch-style designs continued to be embraced, but new forms were also introduced: the condominium, a single-family attached dwelling, such as the triplex and fourplex, three-and-four-family structures; and prefabs, which have become significantly more popular during the last 20 years owing to their low cost and ease of construction. The prefabs have the additional distinction of being mobile. It is not uncommon to see semi-trailers hauling these modular living units along the freeways to remote destinations. In a very real sense, this phenomenon marks the cutting edge of suburbanization: a move out of the traditional suburbs and into areas that were formally considered wilderness.

1. According to the passage, the large population increases in San Diego and San Jose were due to

[A] proximity to the coast.

[B] excellent year-round weather.

[C] increased employment in the areas.

[D] large areas surrounding metropolitan areas.

2.Which of the following is Not true about “ranch-style” homes?

[A] They were firsth introduced in San Joes and San Diego.

[B] They have two baths.

[C] They have been replaced by prefabs.

[D] They have three bedrooms.

3. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to this passage?

[A] The urbanization trend was partly caused by the war and economic depression.

[B] In the 1960s, the townhouse was popular especially with young couples.

[C] People living in cities have become fewer as the urbanization trend goes on.

[D] People would move out of cities for better job opportunities.

4. Which of the following was NOT true about the prefabs?

[A] They were cheap and easy to construct.

[B] They could be moved from one place to another.

[C] They served as a replacement for the traditional suburban houses.

[D] They became popular after the 1960s.

5. What does the author imply about future housing development?

[A] All housing will be mobilized.

[B] It will slow down as the economy falters.

[C] The move towards suburbs has come to an end.

[D] It will continue to move away from the city centers.

6. What is the best title for the passage?

[A] Real-estate finance. [B] Suburban housing.

[C] Construction techniques. [D] Population increase.

Text B

When Michael Phelps was 16, he struck a deal with his mother. An endorsement contact with Speedo had made him a good bit wealthier than the average Baltimore teenager, and Debbie Phelps wanted to instill a sense of financial prudence in her son. The young swimmer had just bought himself a gray 2000 Cadillac Escalade SUV — used, not new — and now he wanted to trick it up in the style of the hip-hop M.C. s he idolized. Debbie didn?t object, but she had terms: for every world record Michael broke, he could add one outrageously unnecessary equipment to his car. It seemed like a smart bargain. After all, it?s hard to break world records. Isn?t it?

In three years, the car has become a great, blinking monument to Phelps?s dominance in the water. On a March morning, he is driving to breakfast and trying to recall which toy was purchased on the heels of which record. It?s tough keeping all 11 of them straight. Anyway, the deal is off. It was a nice idea, but how could Debbie have predicted that her son, a kid who was afraid to put his face in the water as a 6-year-old, would become the world?s greatest swimmer since Mark Spitz?

There?s little chance he won?t. Phelps will head to Athens as a top U.S. qualifier in three different disciplines: individual medley, butterfly and freestyle. Such versatility is unheard of in an era when kids begin specializing at the age of 12. Then again, Phelps has never been like the other kids. The 19-year-old is a willow y 6 feet 4 inches, “but his legs, compared to his torso, are short,” says his coach Bob Bowman. “That?s a good swimming attribute because your body rides like a boat on the water. The longer the hull, the faster it goes.” Then there are his freak-of-nature traits, such as his elbows, which hyperextend a good 10 degrees past level, and his serpentine toes, which are, in a word, gross.

Mentally, Phelps is hard-wired for greatness. Like most transcendent athletes, he has an endless appetite for training — he swims even on Christmas Day — and a preternatural calm. But greatness isn?t enough for him. He wants to be the Tiger Woods of swimming, a brand name capable of lifting an entire sport. Phelps?s tastes are pure hip-hop —he can quote Chappelle?s Show and rapper Kanye West verbatim, and he rarely leaves home without his throwback Baltimore Orioles baseball cap. But his personality swings the opposite way. He laughs constantly. He is cocky but never provocative. Though he?s still a relative beginner in the international spotlight, Phelps has already mastered the fine art of bland, post-race athlete speech. During a press conference last month following one victory at the Olympic trials, he served up this gem: “It?s one step and I?m just taking it one step at a time, so hopefully we?ll be able to take that next step.”

After the Athens games, Phelps will join Bowman at the University of Michigan, where the coach will take over the men?s swimming team this fall. The two have become uncommonly close; Phelps says Bowm an is “like a big brother”, which might explain why their relationship seems rooted in loving antagonism.

7. Debbie Phelps made a deal with her son in order to

[A] live on their low income.

[B] encourage him to break world records.

[C] develop his ability to manage money matters.

[D] help him get out of the habit of spending freely.

8. According to the passage, which of the following statements is NOT true?

[A] The hip-hop M.C. s are Phelps?s idols.

[B] Like Tiger Woods, Phelps is a versatile swimmer.

[C] Phelps is one of the world?s greatest swimmers since Mark Spitz.

[D] Phelps often wears his throwback Baltimore Orioles baseball cap.

9. What Phelps said at a press conference indicates that

[A] he is a skilled speaker.

[B] he is a talkative man.

[C] he is nervous of speaking in public.

[D] he is clumsy in expressing himself.

10. It can be concluded from the passage that

[A] Phelps was born to be a good swimmer.

[B] Phelps should owe his success to his mother.

[C] Phelps was lucky to be discovered by Bowman.

[D] Phelps?s success should be attributed to his gift and diligence.

Text C

Is language, like food, a basic human need without which a child at a critical period of life can be starved and damaged? Judging from the drastic experiment of Frederick II in the thirteenth century it may be. Hoping to discover what language a child would speak if he heard no mother tongue, he told the nurses to keep silent.

All the infants died before the first year. But clearly there was more than language deprivation here. What was missing was good mothering. Without good mothering, in the first year of life especially, the capacity to survive is seriously affected.

Today no such drastic deprivation exists as ordered by Frederick. Nevertheless, some

children are still backward in speaking. Most often the reason for this is that the mother is insensitive to the cues and signals of the infant, whose brain is programmed to mop up language rapidly. There are critical times, it seems, when children learn more rapidly. If these sensitive periods are neglected, the ideal time for acquiring skills passes and they might never be learned so easily again. A bird learns to sing and to fly rapidly at the right time, but the process is slow and hard once the critical stage has passed.

Linguistics suggest that speech milestones are reached in a fixed sequence and at a constant age, but there are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be of high IQ. At twelve weeks a baby smiles and utters vowel-like sounds; at twelve months he can speak simple words and understand simple commands; at eighteen months he has a vocabulary of three to fifty words. At three he knows about 1000 words which he can put into sentences, and at four his language differs from that of his parents in style rather than grammar.

Recent evidence suggests that an infant is born with the capacity to speak. What?s special about man?s brain, compared with that of the monkey, is the complex system which enables a child to connect the sight and feel of, say, a teddy bear with the sound pattern …teddy bear?. And even more incredible is the young brain?s ability to pick out an order in language from the babble around him, to analyze, to combine and recombine the parts of a language in novel ways.

But speech has to be triggered, and this depends on interaction between the mother and the child, where the mother recognizes the cues and signals in the child?s babbling, clinging, grasping, crying, smiling, and responds to them. Insensitivity of the mother to these signals dulls the interaction because the child gets discouraged and sends out only the obvious signals. Sensitivity to the child?s non-verbal cues is essential to the growth and development of language.

11. The purpose of Frederick Ⅱ?s experi ment was

[A] to discover how a child acquires a language.

[B] to prove that a child could be damaged without learning a language.

[C] to find out what role careful nursing would play in teaching a child to speak.

[D] to discover what language a child would speak without hearing any human speech.

12. Why was Frederick II?s experiment “drastic”?

[A] He went too far in his experiment on infants.

[B] He was unkind to the nurses who tended the infants.

[C] He wanted to discover how a child acquires a language.

[D] He wanted to see if the children would die before one year old.

13. The reason why some children are backward in speaking is that

[A] they do not listen carefully to their mothers.

[B] their brains have to absorb too much language at once.

[C] their mothers do not respond adequately to their attempts to speak.

[D] their mothers are not quick enough to find out their expressions.

14. If a child starts to speak later than others, he will

[A] be less intelligent.

[B] have a high IQ in the future.

[C] be insensitive to verbal signals.

[D] not necessarily be backward in the future.

15. What will happen i f the mother does not respond to her child?s signals?

[A] The child will stop giving out signals.

[B] The child will make little effort to speak.

[C] The child will invent a language of its own.

[D] The child will never be able to speak properly.

Text D

A hundred years ago it was assumed and scientifically “proved” by economists that the laws of society make it necessary to have a vast army of poor and jobless people in order to keep the economy going. Today, hardly anybody would dare to voice this principle. It is generally accepted that nobody should be excluded from the wealth of nation, either by the laws of nature or by those of society. The opinions, which were current a hundred years ago, that the poor owed their conditions to their ignorance and lack of responsibility, are outdated. In all Western industrialized countries, a system of insurance has been introduced which guarantees everyone a minimum of subsistence in case of unemployment, sickness and old age. I would go one step further and argue that, even if these conditions are not present, everyone still has to receive the means to subsist, in other words, he can claim his subsistence minimum without having to have any “reason”. I would suggest, however, that it should be limited to a definite period of time, let?s say two years, so as to avoid the encouragement of an abnormal attitude which refuses any kind of social obligation.

This may sound like a fantastical proposal, just as, I think, our insurance system would have sounded to people a hundred years ago. The main objection to such a scheme would be that if each person were entitled to receive minimum support, people would not work. This assumption rests on the fallacy of the inherent laziness in human nature; actually, aside from abnormally lazy people, there would be very few who would not want to earn more than the minimum, and who would prefer to do nothing rather than work.

However, the suspicions against a system of guaranteed subsistence minimum are not groundless from the standpoint of those who want to use ownership of capital for the purpose of forcing others to accept the work conditions they offer. If nobody were forced to accept work in order not to starve, work would have to be sufficiently interesting and attractive in order to induce one to accept it. Freedom of contract is possible only if both parties are free to accept and reject it; in the present capitalist system this is not the case.

But such a system would not only be the beginning of real freedom of contract between employers and employees, its principal advantage would be the improvement of freedom in interpersonal relationships in every sphere of daily life.

16. People used to think that poverty and unemployment were due to

[A] the slow development of the economy.

[B] the poor and jobless people?s own fault.

[C] the lack of responsibility on the part of society.

[D] the large number of people who were not well educated.

17. The author argues that a system of social insurance should

[A] provide benefits for the sick, old and unemployed.

[B] encourage people to take on more social obligations.

[C] guarantee everyone the right to be employed.

[D] provide everyone with the right to a minimum subsistence for a certain period.

18. According to the author, a system of guaranteed subsistence minimum can be practiced because

[A] people would rather earn more than do nothing.

[B] people would prefer to get the minimum.

[C] laziness is the human nature.

[D] the current insurance system proves to be fallacious.

19. The author will probably disagree that a system of guaranteed subsistence minimum

[A] is better than current system of social insurance.

[B] makes freedom of contract possible.

[C] will please those capitalists.

[D] is a feasible proposal.

20. What?s the major advantage of the system that the author has advocated?

[A] Sufficiently interesting and attractive work.

[B] Real freedom of contract between employers and employees.

[C]Criticisms of capitalist system.

语境词汇

Text A

1. high-rise a.高层的，高耸的n.高层建筑

2. stall v.拖延；熄火；将（动物）关在栏内

3. surge n.激增；突然发生v.在浪涛中或如同波浪般前进

4. real estate 房地产；房地产业

5. tract n.大片土地；小册子（尤指宗教或政治内容的）

6. sprawl v.散乱地延伸；四肢摊开着坐、卧或倒下

7. suburbanization n.郊区化

8. condominium n.（产权为居住者自有的）公寓（的单元）；共管的国家

9. prefab n.预制房屋

Text B

1. strike a deal with sb. 与某人达成协议

2. trick sb./sth. up (in/with sth.) 打扮或装饰某人（某物）

3. outrageously ad.令人震惊地；残暴地

4. medley n.混合泳

5. versatility n.多才多艺；用途广泛

6. willowy a.（指人体）修长而柔软的

7. torso n.(人体的)躯干

8. hull n.船体，船身v.去(谷物、豆等的)壳

9. freak-of-nature a.特殊的，不正常的

10. serpentine a.像蛇般蜷曲的，蜿蜒的

11. preternatural a.异常的，奇特的

12. bland a.泰然自若的；无刺激性的；和蔼的

Text C

1. deprivation n.剥夺，丧失

2. mop up 吸收，取得；用拖把擦去；狼吞虎咽地吃光（或喝干）

3. babble n.听不清的声音，乱哄哄的说话声v.含糊不清地说

4. trigger vt.触发，引起n.扳机，触发器

Text D

1. insurance n.保险

2. fantastical a.不切实际的；极好的

3. entitle vt.给权利；定标题，定名称

4. fallacy n.谬论

5. inherent a.固有的，内在的，天生的

6. standpoint n.立场，立脚点，观点

难句突破

Text A

1. The most dramatic instances of this sprawling effect were witnessed in western municipalities such as San Joes and San Diego whose city charters defined their boundaries over several hundred square kilometers.

【分析】复合句。主句主干是instances were witnessed。such as…kilometers是插入语，其中包含了一个whose引导的定语从句，修饰San Joes and San Diego，whose在从句中作定语。【译文】这种城市扩展的效果最显著的例子可以在西部城市圣荷西和圣地亚哥看到，它们的城市绘图员划定出来的城市面积有好几百平方公里。

2. The townhouse, a two-to-three-storey brick and frame structure containing more than 4 but less than 30 units per structure, was seen as the solution.

【分析】复合句。主句主干是the townhouse was seen。两个逗号之间的成分都是主语的同位语。现在分词containing是后置定语修饰structure，它们之间的关系是主动关系。

【译文】他们的解决方案就是那些两到三层的砖和混凝土结构的城镇住房，每幢房子有四个以上但不到三十个单元。

Text B

1. The young swimmer had just bought himself a gray 2000 Cadillac Escalade SUV — used, not new — and now he wanted to trick it up in the style of the hip-hop M.C. s he idolized.

【分析】并列复合句。and连接并列句，表示顺承。前一个分句中破折号之间的内容是插入语，解释说明a gray 2000 Cadillac Escalade SUV。后一个分句中嵌套了一个省略关系代词的定语从句修饰the hip-hop M.C. s。

【译文】这位年轻的游泳选手当时刚为自己买了一辆二手的银灰色的卡迪拉克攀登者2000SUV轿车，现在他想把它装饰成他所崇拜的说唱乐主唱们的坐骑的风格。

2. Then there are his freak-of-nature traits, such as his elbows, which hyperextend a good 10 degrees past level, and his serpentine toes, which are, in a word, gross.

【分析】复合句。主句的主干是一个there be句型。such as…gross是插入语，这个插入语有两个并列成分elbows和toes，它们分别又被which引导的非限制性定语从句修饰。在第二个定语从句中，in a word又是插入语，分隔了系动词和表语。

【译文】然后是他那特殊的身体构造，比如说伸展时超过水平面足足10度的双肘，还有他那弯弯曲曲的，总之是十分肥大的脚趾。

Text C

1. Linguistics suggest that speech milestones are reached in a fixed sequence and at a constant age, but there are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be of high IQ.

【分析】并列复合句。but连接并列句，表示转折。前一个分句包含了一个that引导的宾语从句。后一个分句主干是there be句型，where引导定语从句修饰cases，它在从句中作状语表示in the cases。在这个定语从句中又嵌套了一个who引导的定语从句，修饰child。

【译文】语言学表明语言发展的里程碑是按照固定的顺序，在固定的年龄时达到的，但是也

有一些小孩小时候说话晚而最后智商却很高的例子。

2. What?s special about man?s brain, compared with that of the monkey, is the complex system which enables a child to connect the sight and feel of, say, a teddy bear with the sound pattern …teddy bear?.

【分析】复合句。该句主干是what?s special about man?s brain is the complex system。句子主语是一个what引导的从句。表语system被一个which引导的定语从句修饰。需要注意的是，句子里有两处插入语。第一处是作方式状语的过去分词短语compared with…，插在主句主语和系动词之间。第二处是say，插在定语从句里介词of和其宾语之间。

【译文】和猴子的脑子相比，人脑的特别之处就在于其拥有一个复杂的体系，比如说，它使得小孩子可以将和泰迪熊有关的视觉和触觉与“泰迪熊”这个单词的声音形式联系起来。Text D

1. The opinions, which were current a hundred years ago, that the poor owed their conditions to their ignorance and lack of responsibility, are outdated.

【分析】复合句。主句主干是opinions are outdated。which引导非限制性定语从句修饰opinions。that引导同位语从句解释说明opinions。

【译文】那些认为穷人应该将他们的境地归因于他们自己的无知和缺乏责任感的观点在一百年前流行，但现在已经过时了。

2. However, the suspicions against a system of guaranteed subsistence minimum are not groundless from the standpoint of those who want to use ownership of capital for the purpose of forcing others to accept the work conditions they offer.

【分析】复合句。主句的主语与系动词被一个很长的介词短语后置定语分隔。who引导定语从句修饰those，在这个从句中又包含了一个省略关系代词的定语从句修饰conditions。

【译文】但是，如果从那些想要利用他们拥有的资本迫使其他人接受他们给出的工作条件的那些人的立场来看，对最低生活保障制度持怀疑态度也不是没有根据的。

英语专业四级阅读理解练习四附答案解析

PART Ⅱ READING COMPREHENSION ［25 MIN.］ In this section there are four passages followed by fifteen questions or unfinished statements, each with four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the correct answer.Mark your choice on your ANSWER SHEET. TEXT A As many as one thousand years ago in the Southwest, the Hopi and Zuni Indians of North America were building with adobe－sun baked brick plastered with mud. Their homes looked remarkably like modern apartment houses. Some were four stories high and contained quarters for perhaps a thousand people, along with storerooms for grain and other goods. These buildings were usually put up against cliffs, both to make construction easier and for defense against enemies. They were really villages in themselves, as later Spanish explorers must have realized since they called them “pueblos”, which is Spanish for town.The people of the pueblos raised what are called “the three sisters”—corn, beans, and squash. They made excellent pottery and wove marvelous baskets, some so fine that they could hold water. The Southwest has always been a dry country, where water is scarce. The Hopi and Zuni brought water from streams to their fields and gardens through irrigation ditches. Water was so important that it played a major role in their religion. They developed elaborate ceremonies and religious rituals to bring rain. The way of life of less settled groups was simpler and more strongly influenced by nature. Small tribes such as the Shoshone and Ute wandered the dry and mountainous lands between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. They gathered seeds and hunted small animals such as small rabbits and snakes. In the Far North the ancestors of today’s Inuit hunted seals, walruses, and the great whales. They lived right on the frozen seas in shelters called igloos built of blocks of packed snow. When summer came, they fished for salmon and hunted the lordly caribou. The Cheyenne, Pawnee, and Sioux tribes, known as the Plains Indians, lived on the grasslands between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River. They hunted bison, commonly called the buffalo. Its meat was the chief food of these tribes, and its hide was used to make their clothing and covering of their tents and tipis. 16. What does the passage mainly discuss? A. The architecture of early American Indian buildings. B. The movement of American Indians across North America. C. Ceremonies and rituals of American Indians. D. The way of life of American Indian tribes in early North America. 17. It can be inferred from the passage that the dwellings of the Hopi and Zuni were ___ A. very small B. highly advanced C. difficult to defend D. quickly constructed TEXT B Most earthquakes occur within the upper 15 miles of the earth’s surface. But earthquakes can and do occur at all depths to about 460 miles. Their number decreases as the depth increases. At about 460 miles one earthquake occurs only every few years. Near the surface earthquakes may run as high as 100 in a month, but the yearly average does not vary much. In comparison with the total number of earthquakes each year, the number of disastrous earthquakes is very small.[JP] The extent of the disaster in an earthquake depends on many factors. If you carefully build a toy house with an erect set, it will still stand no matter how much you shake the table. But if you build a toy house with a pack of cards, a slight shake of the table will make it fall. An earthquake in Agadir, Morocco, was not strong enough to be recorded on distant instruments, but it completely destroyed the city. Many stronger earthquakes have done

英语专业四级考试阅读理解考前最后冲刺技巧上

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TEXT A If you like the idea of staying with a family, living in house (guest house 1. 小旅馆2. （大房子旁供客人居住的）客房) might be the answer.[81]Good landladies (a woman from whom you rent a room, a house, etc. 女房东；女地主; a woman who owns or manages a pub or a guest house （酒吧或招待所的）女店主，老板娘)---those who are superb cooks and launderers (洗衣工. thunderer 怒喝的人大声说话的人. blunderer 犯大错的人), are figures as popular in fiction as the bad ones who terrorize（to frighten and threaten people so that they will not oppose something or will do as they are told 恐吓；恫吓；威胁）their guest and overcharge （to make somebody pay too much for something 多收（某人的）钱）them at the slightest opportunity. The truth is probably somewhere between the two extremes. If you are lucky, the food will be adequate, some of your laundry may be done for you and you will have a reasonable amount of comfort and companionship. For the less fortune, house rules may restrict the freedom to invite friends to visit, and shared cooking and bathroom facilities can be frustrating and row-provoking (/ra?/ a serious disagreement between people, organizations, etc. about something 严重分歧；纠纷; a noisy argument between two or more people 吵架；争吵) if tidy and untidy guest (a person who is staying at a hotel, etc. 旅客；房客) are living under the same roof. // [82]The same disadvantages can apply to flat sharing, with the added difficulties that arise from deciding who pays for what, and in what proportion. One person may spend hours on the phone, while another rarely makes calls. If you want privacy with guest, how do you persuade the others to go out; how do you persuade them to leave you in peace, especially if you are student and want to study? [83]Conversely, flat sharing can be very cheap, there will always

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专四阅读详解 2

星期2 Tuesday Happiness is nearly always a rebound from hard work.辛勤工作的报酬几乎总是幸福。 Beauty is a curious phenomenon, one of permeable, shifting boundaries. We may think we understand it, since we sense it effortlessly. In fact, it is a bundle of mysteries researchers are still uncovering. Consider the ancient proverb: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Until about 30 years ago it seemed too obvious for scientists to bother with. When they finally tested it, their results startled them. On the one hand, the maxim is false. Facial beauty is the same throughout the world. In every tribe and culture, individuals will consider Marilyn Monroe, say, an attractive woman. It goes further. Males can identify good-looking men, and females charming women. Old and young, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, all agree on who is beautiful. So do people of every class and personality type. We don’t learn this response. We’re born with it. In one recent study, babies just 20 hours old recognized attractive faces and preferred them. So beauty is in our DNA. The eye of the beholder doesn’t matter. On the other hand, and this is where it gets interesting, the facial shell is just the foundation of beauty. We see the self in the face, every day, all the time, and we can’t distinguish the two. This blurring means that we gift the attractive with a large number of virtues. They seem more competent, likeable, happier, blessed with better lives and personalities. In one experiment, people predicted happier marriages and better jobs for them, and rated them lower on only one aspect: their caliber as parents. Another study found people consider them more amiable, happy, flexible, pleasure-seeking, serious, candid, outspoken, perceptive, confident, assertive, curious and active. They exert more control over their destiny, subjects felt, while the homely endure the world’s sudden change. It is calle d the “beautiful is good” stereotype, and it grants the attractive a parade of boons. Teachers consider them smarter and give them higher grades. Bosses promote them faster. In one tale in The Thousand and One Nights, a thief steals a coin-bag, and when the victim accuses him, people protest: “No, he’s such a handsome youth. He wouldn’t steal anything!” In fact, attractive people can shoplift with greater ease, since witnesses are less likely to report them. And when they do stand before the court, juries acquit them more readily and judges give them lighter penalties. 1. The proverb “beauty is in the eye of beholder” means [A] that beauty can only be admitted when most people recognize it. [B] whether somebody is beautiful depends on the person who is looking.

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4) For a long time, researchers have tried to nail down just what shapes us--or what, at least, shapes us most. And over the years, they've had a lot of exclamation moments. First it was our parents, particularly our mothers. Then it was our genes. Next it was our peers, who show up last but hold great sway. And all those ideas were good ones--but only as far as they went. Somewhere, there was a sort of temperamental dark matter exerting an invisible gravitational pull of its own. More and more, scientists are concluding that this unexplained force is our siblings. From the time we are born, our brothers and sisters are our collaborators and co-conspirators, our role models and cautionary tales. They are our scolds, protectors, goads, tormentors, playmates, counselors, sources of envy, objects of pride. They teach us how to resolve conflicts and how not to; how to conduct friendships and when to walk away from them. Sisters teach brothers about the mysteries of girls; brothers teach sisters about the puzzle of boys. Our spouses arrive comparatively late in our lives; our parents eventually leave us. Our siblings may be the only people we'll ever know who truly qualify as partners for life. "Siblings," says family sociologist Katherine Conger, "are with us for the whole journey." Within the scientific community, siblings have not been wholly ignored, but research has been limited mostly to discussions of birth order．Older sibs were said to be strivers；younger ones rebels；middle kids the lost souls．The stereotypes were broad，if not entirely untrue，and there the discussion mostly ended． But all that’s changin9．At research centers in the U．S．，Canada，Europe and elsewhere，investigators are launching a wealth of new studies into the sibling dynamic，looking at ways brothers and sisters steer one another int0—or away from--risky behavior how they form a protective buffer(减震器)against family upheaval；how they educate one another about the opposite sex；how all siblings compete for family recognition and come to terms--or blows--over such impossibly charged issues as parental favoritism． From that research，scientists are gaining intriguing insights into the people we become as adults．Does the manager who runs a harmonious office call on the peacemaking skills learned in the family playroom? Does the student struggling with a professor who plays favorites summon up the coping skills acquired from dealing with a sister who was Daddy’s girl? Do husbands and wives benefit from the inter—gender negotiations they waged when their most important partners were their sisters and brothers? All that is under investigation．“Siblings have just been o ff the radar screen until now，”says Conger．But today serious work is revealing exactly how our brothers and sisters influence us．1．The beginning of the passage indicates that A．researchers have found out what shapes us．B．our peer is the last factor influencing us． C．what researchers found contributes in a limited way． D．what researchers found is good and trustworthy．2．In the third paragraph, the author tries to demonstrate that our siblings A．offer us much useful information． B．have great influences on us． C．are the ones who love us completely． D．accompany us throughout our life． 3．In scientific community, previous research on siblings A．mostly focused on the sibling order． B．studied the characteristics of the kids． C．studied the matter in a broad sense． D．wasn’t believable and the discussion ended． 4．Which of the following is NOT sibling dynamic? A．A brother cautions his sister against getting into trouble． B．Sisters have quarrels with each other． C．Siblings compete for parental favoritism． D．Older kids in a family try hard to achieve． 5．From the last paragraph，we can conclude that A．managers learned management skills from the family playroom． B．spouses learned negotiation skills from their siblings． C．studies on siblings are under the way。 D．studies on siblings need thorough investigation． 5) What comes to mind when you hear the word--diversity? Issues of race or gender may spring to mind．Equal rights? Or minority issues? I encourage people to look at a much wider definition of the word．1 would tend to say diversity is “differentness” in any form．A good example of this kind of diversity has been experienced by every person who ever left behind the comforts of home and moved into uncharted territory．Issues of diversity are informed not only by your cultural background and context，but also by your religion，age，field of work，family situation，personality，and countless other factors that make us unique．Diversity affects everyone．

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