2015年12月英语四级考试第三套阅读真题答案

新东方在线考研 [ ]网络课堂电子教材系列

2015年12月英语四级考试第三套阅读真题答案

新东方&新东方在线联合发布

Scholars of the information society are divided over whether social

inequality decreases or increases in an information-based society.

However, they generally agree with the idea that inequality in the

information society is 36 different from that of an industrial society. As

informatization progresses in society, the cause and structural nature of

social inequality changes as well.

It seems that the information society 37 the quantity of information

available to the members of society by revolutionizing the ways of using

and exchanging information. But such a view is a 38 analysis based on

the quantity of information supplied by various forms of the mass media.

A different 39 is possible when the actual amount of information 40 by

the user is taken into account. In fact, the more information 41

throughout the entire society, the wider the gap becomes between

“information haves” and “information have-notes,” leading to digital

divide.

According to recent studies, digital divide has been caused by three

major 42 : class, sex, and generation. In terms of class, digital divide exists

among different types of workers and between the upper and middle

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新东方在线考研 [ ]网络课堂电子教材系列

classes and the lower class. With 43 to sex, digital divide exists between

men and women. The greatest gap, however, is between the

Net-generation, 44 with personal computers and the Internet, and the

older generation, 45 to an industrial society.

A) accustomed I) flows

B) acquired J) fundamentally

C) assembly K) interpretation

D) attribute L) passive

E) champions M) regard

F) elements N) respectively

G) expands O) superficial

H) familiar

答案：JGOKB IFMHA

Joy: A Subject Schools Lack

Becoming educated should not require giving up pleasure.

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新东方在线考研 [ ]网络课堂电子教材系列

A) When Jonathan Swift proposed, in 1729, that the people of Ireland

eat their children, he insisted it would solve three problems at once:

feed the hungry masses, reduce the population during a severe

depression, and stimulate the restaurant business. Even as a satire(讽

刺), it seems disgusting and shocking in America with its

child-centered culture. But actually, the country is closer to his

proposal than you might think.

B) If you spend much time with educators and policy makers, you’ll

hear a lot of the following words: “standards,” “results,” “skills,”

“self-control,” “accountability,” and so on. I have visited some of

the newer supposedly “effective” schools, where children shout

slogans in order to learn self-control or must stand behind their desk

when they can’t sit still.

C) A look at what goes on in most classrooms these days makes it

abundantly clear that when people think about education, they are

not thinking about what it feels like to be a child, or what makes

childhood an important and valuable stage of life in its own right.

D) I’m a mother of three, a teacher, and a developmental psychologist.

So I’ve watched a lot of children—talking, playing, arguing, eating,

studying, and being young. Here’s what I’ve come to understand.

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The thing that sets children apart from adults is not their ignorance,

nor their lack of skills. It’s their enormous capacity for joy. Think of a

3-year-old lost in the pleasures of finding out what he can and cannot

sink in the bathtub, a 5-year-old beside herself with the thrill of

putting together strings of nonsensical words with her best friends, or

an 11-year-old completely absorbed in a fascinating comic strip. A

child’s ability to become deeply absorbed in something, and derive

intense pleasure from that absorption, is something adults spend the

rest of their lives trying to return to.

E) A friend told me the following story. One day, when he went to get his

7-year-old son from soccer practice, his kid greeted him with a

downcast face and a sad voice. The coach had criticized him for not

focusing on his soccer drills. The little boy walked out of the school

with his head and shoulders hanging down. He seemed wrapped in

sadness. But just before eh reached the car door, he suddenly

stopped, crouching(蹲伏) down to peer at something on the sidewalk.

His face went down lower and lower， and then, with complete joy he

called out, “Dad. Come here. This is the strangest bug I’ve ever

seen. It has, like, a million legs. Look at this. It’s amazing.” He

looked up at his father, his features overflowing with energy and

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新东方在线考研 [ ]网络课堂电子教材系列

delight. “Can’t we stay here for just a minute? I want to find out

what he does with all those legs. This is the coolest ever.”

F) The traditional view of such moments is that they constitute a

charming but irrelevant byproduct of youth—something to be

pushed aside to make room for more important qualities, like

perseverance(坚持不懈), obligation, and practicality. Yet moments like

this one are just the kind of intense absorption and pleasure adults

spend the rest of their lives seeking . Human lives are governed by the

desire to experience joy. Becoming educated should not require

giving up joy but rather lead to finding joy in new kinds of things:

reading novels instead of playing with small figures, conducting

experiments instead of sinking cups in the bathtub, and debating

serious issues rather than bringing together nonsense word, for

example. In some cases, schools should help children find new, more

grown-up ways of doing the same things that are constant sources of

joy: making art, making friends, making decisions.

G) Building on a child’s ability to feel joy, rather than pushing it aside,

wouldn’t be that hard. It would just require a shift in the education

wold’s mindset(思维模式). Instead of trying to get children to work

hard, why not focus on getting them to take pleasure in meaningful,

productive activity, like making things, working with others, exploring

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ideas, and solving problems? These focuses are not so different from

the things in which they delight.

H) Before you brush this argument aside as rubbish, or think of joy as an

unaffordable luxury in a nation where there is awful poverty, low

academic achievement, and high dropout rates, think again. The more

horrible the school circumstances, the more important pleasure is to

achieving any educational success.

I) Many of the assignments and rules teachers com up with, often

because they are pressured by their administrators, treat pleasure and

joy as the enemies of competence and responsibility. The assumption

is that children shouldn’t chat in the classroom because it hinders

hard work; instead, they should learn to delay gratification(快乐) so

that they can pursue abstract goals, like going to college.

J) Not only is this a boring and awful way to treat children, it makes no

sense educationally. Decades of research have shown that in order to

acquire skills and real knowledge in school, kids need to want to learn.

You can force a child to stay in his or her seat, fill out a worksheet, or

practice division. But you can’t force the child to think carefully,

enjoy books, digest complex information, or develop a taste for

learning. To make that happen, you have to help the child find

pleasure in learning—to see school as source of joy.

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新东方在线考研 [ ]网络课堂电子教材系列

K) Adults tend to talk about learning as if it were medicine: unpleasant,

but necessary and good for you. Why not instead think of learning as

if it were food —something so valuable to humans that they have

evolved to experience it as a pleasure?

L) Joy should not be trained out of children or left for after-school

programs. The more difficult a child’s life circumstances, the more

important it is for that child to find joy in his or her classroom.

“Pleasure” is not a dirty word. And it doesn’t run counter to the

goals of public education. It is, in fact, the precondition.

46. It will not be difficult to make learning a source of joy if educators

change their way of thinking.

47. What distinguishes children from adults is their strong ability to

derive joy from what they are doing.

48. Children in America are being treated with shocking cruelty.

49. It is human nature to seek joy in life.

50. Grown-ups are likely to think that learning to children is what

medicine is to patients.

51. Bad school conditions make it all the more important to turn learning

into a joyful experience.

52. Adults do not consider children’s feelings when it comes to

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新东方在线考研 [ ]网络课堂电子教材系列

education.

53. Administrators seem to believe that only hard work will lead children

to their educational goals.

54. In the so-called “effective” schools, children are taught self-control

under a set of strict rules.

55. To make learning effective, educators have to ensure that children

want to learn.

答案：GDAFK HCIBJ

Passage One

When it’s five o’clock, people leave their office. The length of the

workday, for many workers, is defined by time. They leave when the clock

tells them they’re done.

These days, the time is everywhere: not just on clocks or watches, but on

cell-phones and computers. That may be a bad thing, particularly at work.

New research show that clock-based work schedules hinder morale （士

气）and creativity.

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Clock-timers organize their day by blocks of minutes and hours. For

example: a meeting from to to noon, etc. On the other

hand, task-timers have a list of things they want to accomplish. They

work down the list, each task starts when the previous task is completed.

It is said that all of us employ a mix of both these types of planning.

What, then, are the effects of thinking about time in these different ways?

Does one make us more productive? Better at the tasks at hand? Happier?

In experiments conducted by Tamar Avnet and Anne-Laure Sellier, they

had participants organize different activities — from project planning,

holiday shopping, to yoga — by time or to-do list to measure how they

performed under “clock time” vs “task time”. They found clock

timers to be more efficient but less happy because they felt little control

over their lives. Task timers are happier and more creative, but less

productive. They tend to enjoy the moment when something good is

happening, and seize opportunities that come up.

The researchers argue that task-based organizing tends to be

undervalued and under-supported in the business culture. Smart

companies, they believe, will try to bake more task-based planning into

their strategies.

This might be a small change to the way we view work and the office, but

the researchers argue that it challenges a widespread characteristics of

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the economy: work organized by clock time. While most people will still

probably need, and be, to some extent, clock-timers, task-based timing

should be used when performing a job that requires more creativity. It’ll

make those tasks easier, and the take doers will be happier.

56. What does the author think of time displayed everywhere?

A) It makes everybody time-conscious.

B) It is a convenience for work and life.

C) It may have a negative effect on creative work.

D) It clearly indicates the fast pace of modern life.

57. How do people usually go about their work according to the author?

A) They combine clock-based and task-based planning.

B) They give priority to the most urgent task on hand.

C) They set a time limit for each specific task.

D) They accomplish their tasks one by one.

58. What did Tamar Avnet and Anne-Laure Sellier find in their

experiments about clock-timers?

A) They seize opportunities as they come up.

B) They always get their work done in time.

C) They have more control over their lives.

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D) They tend to be more productive.

59. What do researchers say about today’s business culture?

A) It does not support the strategies adopted by smart companies.

B) It does not attach enough importance to task-based practice.

C) It places more emphasis on work efficiency than on workers’ lives.

D) It aims to bring employees’ potential and creativity into full play.

60. What do the researchers suggest?

A) Task-based timing is preferred for doing creative work.

B) It is important to keep a balance between work and life.

C) Performing creative jobs tends to make workers happier.

D) A scientific standard should be adopted in job evaluation.

Passage Two

Martha Stewart was charged, tried and convicted of a crime in 2004. As

she neared the end of her prison sentence, a well-known columnist wrote

that se was “paying her dues,” and that “there is simply no reason for

anyone to attempt to deny her right to start anew.”

Surely, the American ideal of second chances should not be reserved

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only for the rich and powerful. Unfortunately, many federal and state

laws impose post-conviction restrictions on a shockingly large number of

Americans, who are prevented from ever fully paying their debt to

society.

At least 65 million people in the United States have a criminal record. This

can result in severe penalties that continue long after punishment is

completed.

Many of these penalties are imposed regardless of the seriousness of the

offense or the person’s individual circumstances. Laws can restrict or

ban voting, access to public housing, and professional and business

licensing. They can affect a person’s ability to get a job and

qualification for benefits.

In all, more than 45,000 laws and rules serve to exclude vast numbers of

people from fully participating in American life.

Some laws make sense. No one advocates letting someone convicted of

pedophilla(恋童癖) work in a school. But too often collateral(附随的)

consequences bear no relation to public safety. Should a woman who

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possessed a small amount of drugs years ago be permanently unable to

be licensed as a nurse?

These laws are also counterproductive, since they make it harder for

people with criminal records to find housing or land a job, two key

factors that reduce backsliding.

A recent report makes several recommendations, including the abolition

of most post-conviction penalties, except for those specifically needed to

protect public safety. Where the penalties are not a must, they should be

imposed only if the facts of a cast support it.

The point is not to excuse of forget the crime. Rather, it is to recognize

that in America’s vast criminal justice system, second chances are

crucial. It is in no one’s interest to keep a large segment of the

population on the margins of society.

61. What does the well-known columnist’s remark about Martha

Stewart suggest?

A) Her past record might stand in her way to a new life.

B) Her business went bankrupt while she was in prison.

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C) Her release from prison has drawn little attention.

D) Her prison sentence might have been extended.

62. What do we learn from the second paragraph about many criminals

in America?

A) They backslide after serving their terms in prison.

B) They are deprived of chances to turn over a new leaf.

C) They receive severe penalties for committing minor offenses.

D) They are convicted regardless of their individual circumstances.

63. What are the consequences for many Americans with a criminal

record?

A) They remain poor for the rest of their lives.

B) They are deprived of all social benefits.

C) They are marginalized in society.

D) They are deserted by their family.

64. What does the author think of the post-conviction laws and rules?

A) They help to maintain social stability.

B) Some of them have long been outdated.

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C) They are hardly understood by the public.

D) A lot of them have negative effects on society.

65. What is the author’s main purpose in writing the passage?

A) To create opportunities for criminals to reform themselves.

B) To appeal for changes in America’s criminal justice system.

C) To ensure that people with a criminal record live a decent life.

D) To call people’s attention to prisoners’ conditions in America.

答案：CADBA ABCDB

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