英语专四阅读模拟题别告诉陌生人你的电话.doc

2012年英语专四阅读模拟题：别告诉陌生人你的电话The simple act of surrendering a telephone number to a store clerk may not seem harmful-so much so that many consumers do it with no questions asked. Yet that one action can set in motion a cascade of silent events, as that data point is acquired, analyzed, categorized, stored and sold over and over again. Future attacks on your privacy may come from anywhere, from anyone with money to purchase that phone number you surrendered. If you doubt the multiplier effect, consider your e-mail inbox. If its loaded with spam, its undoubtedly because at some point in time you unknowingly surrendered your e-mall to the wrong Web site.Do you think your telephone number or address is handled differently? A cottage industry of small companies with names youve probably never heard of-like Acxiom or Merlin-buy and sell your personal information the way other commodities like corn or cattle futures are bartered. You may think your cell phone is unlisted, but if youve ever ordered a pizza, it might not be. Merlin is one of many commercial data brokers that advertises sale of unlisted phone numbers compiled from various sources-including pizza delivery companies. These unintended, unpredictable consequences that flow from simple actions make privacy issues difficult to grasp, and grapple with.In a larger sense, privacy also is often cast as a tale of Big Brother-the government is watching you or An big corporation is watching you. But privacy issues dont necessarily involve large faceless institutions: A spouse takes a casual glance at her husbands Blackberry, a co-worker looks at e-mall over your shoulder or a friend glances at a cell phone text message from the next seat on the bus. while very little of this is news to anyone-people are now well aware there are video cameras and Internet cookies everywhere-there is abundant evidence that people live their lives ignorant of the monitoring, assuming a mythical level of privacy. People write e-mails and type instant messages they never expect anyone to see. Just ask Mark Foley or even Bill Gates, whose e-mails were a cornerstone of the Justice Departments antitrust case against Microsoft.And polls and studies have repeatedly shown that Americans are indifferent to privacy concerns. The general defense for such indifference is summed up a single phrase: I have nothing to hide. If you have nothing to hide, why shouldnt the government be able to peek at your phone records, your wife see your e-mail or a company send you junk mail? Its a powerful argument, one that privacy advocates spend considerable time discussing and strategizing over.It is hard to deny, however, that people behave different when theyre being watched. And it is also impossible to deny that Americans are now being watched more than at any time in history.1. In the first paragraph, the telephone number is cited to showA. many customers didnt keep their privacy confidential.B. it is harmful to give a store clerk a telephone number.C. careless disposal of personal information can be harmful.D. customers should inquire its use when giving telephone numbers to others.2. What do companies like Acxiom and Merlin do?A. Compile telephone directories for businessmen.B. Collect and sell personal information to make a profit.C. Trade commodities like corn on the market.D. Crack down crimes like stealing private information.3. From Paragraph 3, we learn thatA. cases of privacy intrusion happen only in large institutions.B. people are quite aware of how their privacy is intruded.C. it is not privacy intrusion when a wife glances at her husbands cell phone.D. Bill Gates email messages were cited as evidence against him.。4. It can be inferred from the fourth paragraph that the author thinksA. Americans are actually concerned about privacy issues.B. Americans are indifferent to privacy concerns.C. Americans are very frank about privacy concerns.D. Americans are puzzled about privacy concerns.5. Which of the following is the authors viewpoint?A. Never give your private information to anyone.B. People should pay more attention to their privacy issues.C. Do not surrender your email to any website.D. It does no good saying I have nothing to hide.【文章概要】本文以个人无意泄漏电话号码和电子邮件为例引出对隐私问题的探讨。首段指出简单无意识地泄漏个人信息的行为可能事后会给自己带来麻烦；第2段讲述某些小 公司利用泄漏个人信息来赢利，使得隐私成为一个棘手的问题；第3段进一步提到隐私问题不一定只涉及大机构，隐私在日常生活中就可能有意无意地受到侵犯；第4段讲到美国人对隐私问题的态度及作者对此的看法；第5段作小结指出美国人正面临着更多的监视。【答案解析】1C细节判断题。首段第l句提到泄漏电话号码的例子，第2、3句指出这一行为可能带来的麻烦，故选C。A、B本身正确但只停留在例子本身，并没有指明举例要表明的问题；D在文中没有提及。2B细节推断题。根据Acxiom和Merlin定位到第2段第2旬。该句第2个破折号说明了这两家公司的性质，指出他们买卖个人信息就像买卖玉米和牛期货证券一样，故选8。文中提到Merlin公司出售那些未登记过的电话号码，这些号码汇编来源多样，A只是利用原文个别单词设置的干扰项；文中 只是说这些公司买卖个人信息的方式就像在市场买卖玉米的方式一样，故C错；D“破解如窃取个人信息的犯罪行为”在文中没有提及。3D段落细节题。由第3段第2句可知A错误；由该段倒数2、3句可知人们对隐私受侵犯并没有多深的意识，故B也错：But一句指出隐私问题并不一定只涉及大机构，冒号后所列举的例子即是对此观点的支持，可见C的说法也是不正确的；末旬指出司法部控告微软公司就是利用比尔盖茨的邮件为证据，故D正确。4A推理判断题。第4段第l句指出调查和研究证明美国人对隐私问题漠不关心，但根据后文连续几个假设问句可以推断出。美国人实际上很关住他们的隐私问题，故C错误；B只是一种表面现象；文中没有提及他们对隐私的关注是否“迷惑”，D也不对。5B观点态度题。文章首段就提到了隐私无意间的泄漏可能会带来的麻烦，接下来几段分别从个人信息被滥用、隐私问题无处不在、美国人对隐私的态度等方面说明，在当今时代，由于通信技术的发达，个人隐私的保护问题越来越复杂因此人们对隐私问题应给予更多的重视，故选B。A、C说法太过绝对；D项也不能概述作者的观点。2012年英语专四阅读模拟题(2)：从才华到艺术I have known very few writers, but those I have known, and whom I respected, confess at once that they have little idea where they are going when they first set pen to paper. They have a character, perhaps two; they are in that condition of eager discomfort which passes for inspiration; all admit radical changes of destination once the joumey has begun; one, to my certain knowledge, spent nine months on a novel about Kashmir, then reset the whole thing in the Scottish Highlands. I never heard of anyone making a skeleton, as we were taught at school. In the breaking and remaking, in the timing, interweaving, beginning afresh, the writer comes to discern things in his material which were not consciously in his mind when he began.This organic process, often leading to moments of extraordinary self-discovery, is of an indescribable fascination. A blurred image appears, he adds a brushstroke and another, and it is gone; but something was there, and he will not rest till he has captured it. Sometimes the yeast within a writer outlives a book he has written. I have heard of writers who read nothing but their own books, like adolescents they stand before the mirror, and still cannot fathom the exact outline of the vision before them. For the same reason, writers talk interminably about their own books, winkling out hidden meanings, superimposing new ones, begging response from those around them.Of course a writer doing this is misunderstood: he might as well try to explain a crime or a love affair. He is also. Incidentally, an unforgivable bore. This temptation to cover the distance between himself and the reader, to study his image in the sight of those who do not know him, can be his undoing: he has begun to write to please.A young English writer made the pertinent observation a year or two back that the talent goes into the first draft, and the art into the drafts that follow. For this reason also the writer, like any other artist, has no resting place, no crowd or movement in which he may take comfort, no judgment from outside which can replace the judgment from within. A writer makes order out of the anarchy of his heart; he submits himself to a more ruthless discipline than any critic dreamed of, and when he flirts with fame, he is taking time off from living with himself, from the search for what his world contains at its inmost point.1. The writers that the author is familiar with confess that they wouldA. work out the ending of a novel in advance.B. follow the writing methods learned at school.C. remodel the main character in writing.D. make changes to the stories they first construct.2. According to the passage, the process of writingA. depends on skillful planning.B. is predictable and methodological.C. depends on the writers experiences.D. is disorderly and unsystematic.3. The word undoing in the third paragraph probably suggestsA. success.B. happiness.C. failure.D. sorrow.4. According to the passage, the writer has no resting place becauseA. he is not clear about what he will write at the beginning.B. he should constantly edit his work to make it perfect.C. he has to face a lot of responses given by readers.D. he should add brushstrokes to the appearing blurred images.5. Which of the following statements about writers is TRUE according to the last paragraph?A. They have little ideas before they start writing.B. Their talent goes into all their drafts.C. It does harm to their writing when they flirt with fame.D. They try to increase communication with readers.【文章概要】第l段指出作家在写作前后，作品的内容往往可能发生极大的变化。第2段承接上文指出这一有机写作过程，往往能引领作者到达自我发现的境界：并指出作家在写作完成后的种种表现。第3段指出作家如果企图通过他人的评论了解自己塑造的形象，就相当于为取悦他人而写作。第4段指出作家需不断创作和修改作品的真正原因及作家追逐名利的危害。【答案解析】1D细节判断题。根据familiar with，confess及各选项内容定位到第1段。第1段指出，这些作家在写作前后，作品的内容往往可能发生极大的变化，其中作者提到，有一位作家就将小说的背景从克什米尔搬到了苏格兰高地。由此可见，D的表述符合文意，为本题答案。文中指出，这些作家动笔之前不会有整篇的构思，也不会按学校所教的那样列出提纲，A、B可排除。文中只说作者开始写作时可能心中已经设定了一两个角色，并没有提到会否重新塑造或改变作品的主要角色，故C应排除。2D细节推断题。第1段明确指出，作者熟悉的那些作家在写作过程中没有既定的思路，情节设置也往往根据需要或更深了解素材后才做出相应的变化和调整，这就表明，写作过程有点“混乱”，构思也不很系统化；此外，第2段提到。如果作家脑海中出现了朦胧的形象，他们会在此基础上做任意的改动。由此可见，D正确。根据文中介绍，写作过程并没有完整的构思，也无法预见，只是在写作过程中不断完善，可很快将A、B排除。此外。作家在写作的过程中会更多地了解所搜集的素材，这也与经历无关，故C也排除。3C词义推断题。第3段指出作家如果试图拉近自己与读者的距离，企图通过他人的评论了解自己塑造的形象，就相当于为取悦他人而写作。四个选项中，较能概括这种行为性质的是C。此外，undoing有“毁灭”之义，故C为本题答案。4B因果关系题。根据题干中的no resting place定位到第4段。第4段段首提到：作家的才华体现在初稿，而艺术则体现在之后不断修改的稿子中。第2句以For this reason(鉴于此)引出作家不能休息的情形。由此可见，第4段首句的内容，即作家需不断创作和修改作品：以实现由才华到艺术的转变是作家无法休息的真正原因。故8为答案，A、C、D不合文意。5C细节判断题。末段末旬指出：“当他追逐名利时，他就脱离了自我生活，脱离了对自己内心最深处世界的探索”，故C符合文意，为本题答案。选项A、D均来自文中，但与末段无关，可排除。B与原文表述“作家的才华体现在初稿，而艺术则体现在之后不断修改的稿子中”不符，可排除。2012年英语专四阅读模拟题(3)：黑暗中的坚持I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a box car in a freight yard in Atlantic City and landing on my head. Now I am thirty two. I can vaguely remember the brightness of sunshine and what color red is. It would be wonderful to see again, but a calamity can do strange things to people. It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadnt been blind. I believe in life now. I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply, otherwise. I dont mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.Life, I believe, asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality. The more readily a person is able to make these adjustments, the more meaningful his own private world becomes. The adjustment is never easy. I was bewildered and afraid. But I was lucky. My parents and my teachers saw something in me-a potential to live, you might call it-which I didnt see, and they made me want to fight it out with blindness.The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. That was basic. If I hadnt been able to do that, I would have collapsed and become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my life. When I say belief in myself I am not talking about simply the kind of self confidence that helps me down an unfamiliar staircase alone. That is part of it. But I mean something bigger than that: an assurance that I am, despite imperfections, a real, positive person; that somewhere in the sweeping, intricate pattern of people there is a special place where I can make myself fit.It took me years to discover and strengthen this assurance. It had to start with the most elementary things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball. I thought he was mocking me and I was hurt. I cant use this. I said. Take it with you, he urged me, and roll it around. The words stuck in my head. Roll it around! By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible: playing baseball. At Philadelphias Overbrook School for the Blind I invented a successful variation of baseball. We called it ground ball.All my life I have set ahead of me a series of goals and then tried to reach them, one at a time. I had to learn my limitations. It was no good to try for something I knew at the start was wildly out of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.1. We can learn from the beginning of the passage thatA. the author lost his sight because of a car crash.B. the author wouldnt love life if the disaster didnt happen.C. the disaster made the author appreciate what he had.D. the disaster strengthened the authors desire to see.2. Whats the most difficult thing for the author?A. How to adjust himself to reality.B. Building up assurance that he can find his place in life.C. Learning to manage his life alone.D. To find a special work that suits the author.3. According to the context, a chair rocker on the front porch in paragraph 3 means that the authorA. would sit in a rocking chair and enjoy his life.B. was paralyzed and stayed in a rocking chair.C. would lose his will to struggle against difficulties.D. would sit in a chair and stay at home.4. According to the passage, the baseball and encouragement offered by the manA. hurt the authors feeling.B. gave the author a deep impression.C. directly led to the invention of ground ball.D. inspired the author.5. According to the passage, which of the following is CORRECT?A. The author set goals for himself but only invited failure most of the time.B. The author suggested not trying something beyond ones ability at the beginning.C. The bitterness of failure prevented the author from trying something out of reach.D. Because of his limitations, the author tried to reach one goal at a time.【文章概要】本文讲述一位盲人因一次意外事故失明后如何克服困难，重新定位自己，取得人生价值的故事。第1段叙述作者因一次意外事故失明，但失明没有使他丧失对生活的信心，反而让他更懂得珍惜他所拥有的东西；第24段讲述他如何走出阴影，最终找到了自己的位置，并发明了滚球 (ground ball)；最后一段总结他的成功经验，即在生活中不断给自己设立目标并为之而奋斗。【答案解析】1C细节判断题。第l段最后一句指出“所失去的让我更懂得珍惜现在拥有的”，故选C。作者失明是因为他从一辆货车(box car)A摔下来，而不是因为汽车事故，故排除A；B的推断没有原文依据；文中提到他渴望重见光明。D的表述与原文有出入。2B细节判断题。the most difficult thin9是The hardest lesson的同义改写，故可定位到第3段。该段首句指出最困难的事情是“相信自己”，But所在的句子做了更具体的解释即“对自己的一种坚信，我还是 我，尽管不是完美的坚信自己可以找到一个适合自己的位置”，故选B。A太笼统；由第2段可知他的生活并不是孤单的，他还有父母、老师等的支持，故C错 误；D文中没有提到。3C句意理解题。本题可用排除法。第3段第3句提到，“如果我不坚信自己，我会崩溃，变成一个坐在轮椅里的废人了，在门廊前度此余生”，由此可知C正确。4D细节判断题。根据baseball定位到倒数第2段。从该段最后两句可知棒球和那个男人的鼓励给作者以启示和鼓舞从而发明了一种叫“滚球”的运动，故选D。该段提到作者以为那个男人是在嘲讽他，但后来在他的激励下有所启发，故A错误；B“给作者留下了深刻印象”在文中没有提及；C中的directly错误，男人的话只是给了作者启发。5B细节判断题。最后一段第2、3句表明我们要意识到自己的局限性，在开始时尝试那些遥不可及的东西只会徒劳无益，故B正确；由该段第1句和最后一句可知作者为自己不断设立目标并实现了大部分的目标，故A错误：最后一句的anyway but可知C错误；文中并没有指出他每次尝试一个目标是因为他自己的局限，故D属干随意捏造。2012年英语专四阅读模拟题(4)：手足情深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, theyve 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 well 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 orderOlder sibs were said to be strivers；younger ones rebels；middle kids the lost soulsThe stereotypes were broad，if not entirely untrue，and there the discussion mostly endedBut all thats changin9At research centers in the US，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 int0or 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 favoritismFrom that research，scientists are gaining intriguing insights into the people we become as adultsDoes 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 Daddys girl? Do husbands and wives benefit from the intergender negotiations they waged when their most important partners were their sisters and brothers? All that is under investigation“Siblings have just been off the radar screen until now，”says CongerBut today serious work is revealing exactly how our brothers and sisters influence us1The beginning of the passage indicates thatAresearchers have found out what shapes usBour peer is the last factor influencing usCwhat researchers found contributes in a limited wayDwhat researchers found is good and trustworthy2In the third paragraph, the author tries to demonstrate that our siblingsAoffer us much useful informationBhave great influences on usCare the ones who love us completelyDaccompany us throughout our life3In scientific community, previous research on siblingsAmostly focused on the sibling orderBstudied the characteristics of the kidsCstudied the matter in a broad senseDwasnt believable and the discussion ended4Which of the following is NOT sibling dynamic?AA brother cautions his sister against getting into troubleBSisters have quarrels with each otherCSiblings compete for parental favoritismDOlder kids in a family try hard to achieve5From the last paragraph，we can conclude thatAmanagers learned management skills from the family playroomBspouses learned negotiation skills from their siblingsCstudies on siblings are under the way。Dstudies on siblings need thorough investigation【文章概要】本文通过分析研究得出兄弟姐妹对我们影响最深刻。第1段指出研究人员发现父母、朋友和基因影响着我们的性格：第2段指出研究发现，兄弟姐妹对我们的影响最大；第3段具体分析了兄弟姐妹在我们生命中扮演的角色，再次证明兄弟姐妹对我们的影响力；第4-6段指出科学界对兄弟姐妹对性格的影响的研究存在局限性及近来研究方向的转变。【答案解析】1C细节判断题。第1段指出了研究人员研究什么塑造我们，并取得了一些成果，最后一句“但这仅仅是就目前的研究而言”表明目前研究的局限性，C 表达了这个含义。由第1段可知，研究者还在探索到底是什么塑造了我们，故A错误；该段倒数第2句提到虽然我们的同龄人出现得最晚，但是影响却最深刻，故B 也错了；trustworthy在文中没有依据，故排除D。2B段落大意题。第3段讲到了兄弟姐妹在我们生活中扮演的各种角色对我们生命的影响，故选B；A“提供给我们有用的信息”属段落细节，不是作者在第3段想要说明的问题；C“完完全全爱我们的人”过于绝对且在文中找不到对应 信息点；D“伴随我们一生”只是影响我们的一个方面，故D也可排除。3A细节判断题。根据scientific community定位到第4段首句。由该句but转折处可知答案应为A。第2句提到年长的、年小的、中间的孩子共有的定式，并没有对他们的个性特征进行研究，故B排除；最后一句说这种定式很普遍，但并不意味着从广义上来研究兄弟姐妹对我们的影响，故C排除；D在文中没有依据。4D 细节判断题。根据sibling dynamic定位到第5段。本题可用排除法。A、B对应steer away from risky behavior；C在该段提及，也属sibling dynamic。