2015年英语四级考试每日一练(11月11日)
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单项选择题
1、阅读下文,回答题
Questions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.
Child psychologists--and kindergarten teachers--have long known that when children first show up for school,some of them speak a lot more fluently than others. Psychologists also know that children’s socioeconomic status tends to be closely connected with their language facility. The better off and more educated a child’s parents are,the better vocabulary ability that child tends to have by school age—and vocabulary skill is a key predictor for success in school. Children from low-income families,who may often start school knowing significantly fewer words than their better-off peers,will struggle for years to make up that ground.
Previous studies have shown that wealthier,educated parents talk to their young children more,using more complex vocabulary and sentences,than parents of lesser means. And these differences may help explain why richer kids start school with richer vocabularies. But what goes on before children can talk. during that phase--familiar to any parent--when communication takes the form of pointing,waving,grabbing and other kinds of baby sign language? Do well--off parents also gesture more to their kids?
Indeed they do,say psychologists Susan Gold in-Meadow and Meredith Rowe of the University of Chicago. The researchers found that at 14 months of age, babies already showed a wide range of “speaking” ability through gestures, and that those differences were closely linked with their socioeconomic back ground and how frequently their parents used gestures to communicate. High-income,better-educated parents gestured more frequently to their children to convey meaning and new concepts, and in turn,their kids gestured more to them. When researchers tested the same children at 54 months of age, they found that those early gesturers turned out to have better vocabulary ability than other students.
At 14 months of age, researches say, pointing toward an object is the way most kids use gestures. If a parent responds to that gesture by identifying the object in words—by saying, “That’s a doll,”for example--children get a head start on growing their original vocabularies.“That’s a teachable moment. And mothers are teaching the kids the word for an object.” says Gold in-Meadow.
Psychologists have found that children’s language ability largely depends on __________.
A.their family’s socioeconomic background
B.their successful performance in school
C.their education background before school
D.their own personality
2、
It Ain’t Easy Being Green
Green stories of hoteIs
A)Over the summer,I stayed at four hotels in the United States.They were all owned by different companies,but they had one thing in common:A little card on the bathroom counter telling me that the establishment was very concerned about the environment,and appealing to me to do my part to help them save the earth by hanging up my wet towels and using them again the next day.Two of the hotels also placed a card next to the bed informing me that housekeeping would not change the sheets unless I left the card on the pillow.
B) It is true that keeping all those towels clean requires all enormous amount of electricity and water and soap,and that cutting down on the number of loads of laundry would be more eco-friendly than my insisting on a new towel each day.But am I a heartless cynic for doubting that a collective environmental anxiety has seized the hotel industry?
C)Here is an alternative explanation:All that water,soap,and electricity costs a lot of money and eats into the hotel’s profits.A little card on the counter telling customers that they won’t get new towels because the hotel doesn’t want to pay for laundry wouldn’t go over very well.But by couching it as a green campaign,the hotels actually get credit for providing less service to their customers,while pocketing the difference.
D)Industry groups that advise hotels on becoming more environmentally friendly tend to stress the money they’ll save just as much as the benefits to the planet.“Why should hotels be green?’’ asks the Green Hotels Association’s Web site “Haven’t you heard? Being green goes directly to your bottom line.”The site explains that by getting guests to recycle towels and sheets,hotels can save 5 percent on utilitybills.“Some days,housekeeping wooers,who usually clean 15 rooms a day,don’t change a single bed,’’said one satisfied hotel owner, who estimates that“70 percent of people staying more than one night participate in the program.”Another member reports that far fewer guests ask for new towels.
E)So let's renew:We give up a nice luxury to save the hotel money;the hotel congratulates itself on being green for peer pressuring us into giving up the luxury under the excuse of environmental consciousness;the hotel keeps the money.Nice work.After all,even if profit is the motive,the net result is a reduction in the hotel’s “carbon footprint”.But here’s what gets me:the hotels I stayed in this summer didn't seem all that interested in being green when it came to other things.The lobby of the big resort was air conditioned to meat locker temperatures.All day lon9,that frosty air rushed out the vast double doors,which were left open in the July heat.The resort also had a fleet of bi9,gas guzzling(耗油)vans idling at the curb to transport guests around the grounds.
Green stories of companies
F)Hotels are not the only offenders in this kind of green fakery.Some companies have embraced conservation for real.They build headquarters with solar panels and rainwater collection systems;they think of the environmental impact of every aspect of their businesses and actually change the way they do things to reduce waste.But this is labor intensive,often expensive,and takes commitment.Faced with that,many corporations take a different approach:They don’t do much of anything to change the way they do business,but make a big show of their contribution to Mother Earth.
G)It’s usually easy to spot these companies:They make their customers do the work, and then take the credit.In the name of saving the planet,my cable TV operator keeps asking for permission to stop sending paper statements in the mail each month.Instead,I'm supposed to check my statement online.The real reason,of course,is that doing so would save them paper, printing and postage.This is a perfectly reasonable reason for them to want me to switch.But when they pretend that it’s all about the environment.It just makes me hate my cable company even more than I already do.
Grin stories of ad campaigns
H)Sometimes a good ad campaign does a better job of enhancing a company’s green reputation than going through the expense and difficulty of adopting actual environmentally sound practices.Billboards in Washington appeal to me to join the cause.“l will unplug Stuff more,”reads one.Another says,“l will at least consider buying a hybrid(合成物).”These ads are the work of Chevron,the giant oil company,whose “Will You Join Us?’’ ads try to convince people that saving the planet is at the top of their list.You might think that if Chevron was really worried about problems like global warming,they would spend some of those dollars lobbying Congress to adopt stricter gas mileage(英里数)requirements for automobiles.They do not do this.Instead,I'm apparently supposed to praise them as environmental heroes because they tell me to unplug my toaster and think about getting a Toyota Prius.
I)Yet ad campaigns like these work.Chevron lands at N0.371 out of 500 companies on Newsweek's green rankings.But it claims the No.62 spot when it comes to green reputation thanks in part to those pretty,polished ads.Green marketing has also helped Wal-Mart appear kinder and gentler in recent years.To be fair, the retailing giant has done more than redesign its logo.The company,which ranks 59th on Newsweek’s list, has embraced a series of in-house green initiatives and is demanding its suppliers do the same.The result:Wal-Mart scores first place in our reputation survey.
J)Given the power of positive marketing,it’s easy to see why those little towel cards are so popular--enough so that there are now a lot of companies that market them to hotels,along with all manner of products intended to make customers feel good about themselves while helping the hotels feel good about their bank balances.I suppose it is time that I step up and do my part.On behalf of the planet1 will dutifully sleep on day-old sheets.But please,for the love of all that is good and right, keep the towel coming.
Industry groups tend to emphasize the money hotels can save along with the benefits to the environment when they persuade hotels into being eco-friendly.·
3、听录音,回答题
A.Advice on the purchase of cars.
B.Solutions to global fuel shortage.
C.Trends for the development of the motor car.
D.Information about the new green-fuel vehicles.
4、
A Mess on the Ladder of Success
A. Throughout American history there has almost always been at least one central economic narrativethat gave the ambitious or unsatisfied reason to pack up and seek their fortune elsewhere. For thefrst 300 or so years of European settlement, the story was about moving outward: getting immigrantsto the continent and then to the frontier to clear the prairies (大草原), drain the wetlands and buildnew cities.
B. By the end of the 19th century, as the frontier vanished, the U.S. had a mild panic attack. Whatwould this energetic, enterprising country, be without new lands to conquer?. Some people, such asTeddy Roosevelt, decided to keep on conquering (Cuba, the Philippines, etc.), but eventually, inindustrialization, the U.S. found a new narrative of economic mobility at home. From the 1890s to the1960s, people moved from farm to city, first in "the North and then in the South. In fact, by the1950s, there was enough prosperity and white-collar work that many began to move to the suburbs..As the population aged, there was also a shift from the cold Rust Belt to the comforts of the SunBelt. We think of this as an old person's migration, but it created many jobs for the young inconstruction and health care, not to mention tourism, retail and restaurants.
C. For the last 20 years--from the end of the cold war through two burst bubbles in a single decade--the U.S. has been casting about for its next economic narrative. And now it is experiencing anotherperiod of. panic, which is bad news for much of the workfor~e but particularly for its youngestmemher
D. The U.S. has always been a remarkably mobile country, but new data from the Cen~sus Bureauindicate that mobility has reached its lowest level in recorded history. Sure, some people are stuck inhomes valued at less than their mortgages (抵押贷款), but many young people--who don't own homesand don't yet have families--are staying put, too. This suggests, among other things, that peoplearen't packing up for new economic opportunities the way they used to. Rather than dividing thecountry into the 1 percenters versus (与.....相对) everyone else, the split in our economy is reallybetween two other, classes: the mobile and immobile.
E. Part of the problem is that the country's largest industries are in decline. In the past, it was perfectlyclear where young people should go for work (Chicago in the 1870s, Detroit in the 1910s, Houston inthe 1970s) and, more or less, what they'd be doing when they got there (killing cattle, building cars,selling oil). And these industries were large enougl~ to offer jobs to each class of worker, from un-skilled laborer to manager or engineer. Today, the few bright spots in our economy are relativelysmall (though some promise future growth) and decentralized. There are great jobs in Silicon Valley,in the biotech research capitals of Boston and Raleigh-Durham and in advanced manufacturing plantsalong the southern 1-85 corridor. These companies recruit all over the country and the globe forworkers with specific abilities. (You don't need to be the next Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook,to get a job in one of the microhubs (微中心), by the way. But you will almost certainly need atleast a B.A. in computer science or a year or two at a technical school.) This newer, select job mar-ket is national, and it offers members of the mobile class competitive salaries and higher bargainingpower.
F. Many members of the immobile class, on the other hand, live in the America of the gloomyheadlines. If you have no specialized skills, there's little reason to uproot to another state and be thelast in line for a low-paying job at a new auto plant or a green-energy startup. The surprise in thecensus (普查) data, however, is that the immobile workforce is not limited to unskilled workers. Infact, many have a college degree.
G. Until now, a B.A. in any subject was a near-guarantee of at least middle-class wages. But today, aquarter of college graduates make less than the typical worker without a bachelor's degree. DavidAutor, a prominent labor economist at M.I.T., recently told me that a college degree alone is nolonger a guarantor of a good job. While graduates from top universities are still likely to get a goodjob no matter what their major is, he said, graduates from less-famous schools are going to bejudged on what they know. To compete for jobs on a national level, they should be armed with theskills that emerging industries need, whether technical or not.
H. Those without such specialized skills--like poetry, or even history, majors--are already competingwith their neighbors for the same sorts of second-rate,poorer-paying local jobs like low-levelmanagement or big-box retail sales. And with the low-skilied labor market atomized into thousands ofmicroeconomies, immobile workers are less able to demand better wages or conditions or to acquirevaluable skills.
I. So what, exactly, should the ambitious young worker of today be learning? Unfortunately, it's hard tosay, since the U.S. doesn't have one clear national project. There are plenty of emerging, smaller in-dustries, but which ones are the most promising? (Nanotechnology's (纳米技术) moment of remarkablegrowth seems to have been 5 years into the future for something like 20 years now.) It's not clearexactly what skills are most needed or if they will even be valuable in a decade.
J. What is clear is that all sorts of govenunent issues--education, health-insurance portability, workerretraining--are no longer just bonuses to already prosperous lives but existential requirements. It's inall. of our interests to make sure that as many people as possible are able to move toward opportu-nity, and America's ability to invest people and money in excithag new ideas is still greater than that
of most other wealthy countries. (As recently as five years-ago, U.S. migration was twice the rate ofEuropean Union states.) That, at least, is some comfort at a time when our national economy seemsto be searching for its next story line.
Unlike in the past, a college degree alone does not guarantee a good job for its holder.
5、听录音,回答题
A. Shehad a job interview to attend.
B. She was busy finishing her project.
C. She had to attend an important meeting.
D. She was in the middle of writing an essay.
6、听录音,
回答题
A. The woman is fussy about the cleanness of the apartment.
B. He has not cleaned the apartment since his mother's visit.
C. He does not remember when his mother canoe over.
D. His mother often helps him to clean the apartment.
7、Questions are based on the following passage.
Alex Pang's amusing new book The Distraction Addiction addresses those of us who feel panic without a cellphone or computer.And that, he claims, is pretty much all of us.When we're not online, where we spend four months annually, we're engaged in the stressful work of trying to get online.
The Distraction Addiction is not framed as a self-help book.It's a thoughtful examination of the dangers of our computing overdose and a historical overview of how technological advances change consciousness.A "professional futurist", Pang urges an approach which he calls "contemplative (沉思的) computing." He asks that you pay full attention to "how your mind and body interact with computers and how your attention and creativity are influenced by technology."
Pang's first job is to free you from the common misconception that doing two things at once allows you to get more done.What is commonly called multitasking is, in fact, switch-tasking, and its harmful effects on productivity are well documented.Pang doesn't advocate returning to a pre-Internet world.Instead, he asks you to "take a more ecological (生态的) view of your relationships with technologies and
look for ways devices or media may be making specific tasks easier or faster but at the same time making your work and life harder."
The Distraction Addiction is particularly fascinating on how technologies have changed certain fields of labor-often for the worse.For architects, computer-aided design has become essential but in some ways has cheapened the design process.As one architect puts it, "Architecture is first and foremost about thinking.., and drawing is a more productive way of thinking" than computer-aided design.
Somewhat less amusing are Pang's solutions for kicking the Internet habit.He recommends the usual behavior-modification approaches, familiar to anyone who has completed a not smoking program.Keep logs to study your online profile and decide what you can knock out, download a program like Freedom that locks you out of your browser, or take a "digital Sabbath (安息日 )": "Unless you're a reporter or
emergency-department doctor, you'll discover that your world doesn't fall apart when you go offline."
Alex Pang's new book is aimed for readers who
A.find their work online too stressful
B.go online mainly for entertainment
C.are fearful about using the cellphone or computer
D.can hardly tear themselves away from the Internet
8、听录音,回答题
A.To go boating on the St.Lawrence River.
B.To go sightseeing in Quebec Province.
C.To call on a friend in Quebec City.
D.To attend a wedding in Montreal.
9、Questions are based on the following passage.
Fire, scientists agree, helped give rise to a successful, thriving human population by providing heatfor cooking and protection from the cold.
But they don't agree36 __ when humans began using fire. Some researchers argue that it 37 __ more than a million years ago when early humans made their way to Europe from Africa, and others say it happened much later. Now, a new study argues that humans did not 38 __ fire until about 400,000 years ago.
Two archaeologists in the US report their39 __ in the current issue of the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The pair looked at excavation (发掘 ) reports and studies from 141 sites in Europe that were between 1.2 million and 35,000 years old. They think there is no clear evidence of 40 __ fire use until about 400,000 years ago. In Africa, while there are several sites where there was evidence of fire, those may have been41 __ fires that occurred in the African grassland.
Yet there are sites older than 400,000 years in Europe that indicate the42 __ of humans, with the oldest, in Spain, more than a million years old. This means that despite Europe's extreme winter climates, early humans found a way to 43 __ without the warmth of a fire. As the researchers mention, early humans are adaptable and persistent. But some researchers maintain that it is still a puzzling explanation and it still44 __ some serious thinking about how early the human being could have survived on a seasonally variable food45 __ despite having small teeth and small guts. Up to now, none has solved this problem yet.
A. acquire
B. authentic
C. demands
D. exactly
E. eventually
F. findings
G. habitual
H. investigations
I. master
J. natural
K. occurred
L. presence
M. skillful
N. supply
O. survive
第(36)题应填__________
简答题
10、中国戏曲是中国戏剧和音乐剧的结合。其起源可追溯到3世纪。中国戏曲有很多地方剧分支。京剧是其中有名的一个。京剧出现于18世纪末,并于l9世纪中期得到充分发展和认可。京剧在清朝宫廷{the qing Dy-nasty court}特别受欢迎,并已被视为中国的文化珍品之一。中国戏曲会用到面具。面具的每种颜色代表不同的含义,用来表现人物角色,说明他们的情感状态和大致性格。
1、阅读下文,回答题
Questions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.
Child psychologists--and kindergarten teachers--have long known that when children first show up for school,some of them speak a lot more fluently than others. Psychologists also know that children’s socioeconomic status tends to be closely connected with their language facility. The better off and more educated a child’s parents are,the better vocabulary ability that child tends to have by school age—and vocabulary skill is a key predictor for success in school. Children from low-income families,who may often start school knowing significantly fewer words than their better-off peers,will struggle for years to make up that ground.
Previous studies have shown that wealthier,educated parents talk to their young children more,using more complex vocabulary and sentences,than parents of lesser means. And these differences may help explain why richer kids start school with richer vocabularies. But what goes on before children can talk. during that phase--familiar to any parent--when communication takes the form of pointing,waving,grabbing and other kinds of baby sign language? Do well--off parents also gesture more to their kids?
Indeed they do,say psychologists Susan Gold in-Meadow and Meredith Rowe of the University of Chicago. The researchers found that at 14 months of age, babies already showed a wide range of “speaking” ability through gestures, and that those differences were closely linked with their socioeconomic back ground and how frequently their parents used gestures to communicate. High-income,better-educated parents gestured more frequently to their children to convey meaning and new concepts, and in turn,their kids gestured more to them. When researchers tested the same children at 54 months of age, they found that those early gesturers turned out to have better vocabulary ability than other students.
At 14 months of age, researches say, pointing toward an object is the way most kids use gestures. If a parent responds to that gesture by identifying the object in words—by saying, “That’s a doll,”for example--children get a head start on growing their original vocabularies.“That’s a teachable moment. And mothers are teaching the kids the word for an object.” says Gold in-Meadow.
Psychologists have found that children’s language ability largely depends on __________.
A.their family’s socioeconomic background
B.their successful performance in school
C.their education background before school
D.their own personality
2、
It Ain’t Easy Being Green
Green stories of hoteIs
A)Over the summer,I stayed at four hotels in the United States.They were all owned by different companies,but they had one thing in common:A little card on the bathroom counter telling me that the establishment was very concerned about the environment,and appealing to me to do my part to help them save the earth by hanging up my wet towels and using them again the next day.Two of the hotels also placed a card next to the bed informing me that housekeeping would not change the sheets unless I left the card on the pillow.
B) It is true that keeping all those towels clean requires all enormous amount of electricity and water and soap,and that cutting down on the number of loads of laundry would be more eco-friendly than my insisting on a new towel each day.But am I a heartless cynic for doubting that a collective environmental anxiety has seized the hotel industry?
C)Here is an alternative explanation:All that water,soap,and electricity costs a lot of money and eats into the hotel’s profits.A little card on the counter telling customers that they won’t get new towels because the hotel doesn’t want to pay for laundry wouldn’t go over very well.But by couching it as a green campaign,the hotels actually get credit for providing less service to their customers,while pocketing the difference.
D)Industry groups that advise hotels on becoming more environmentally friendly tend to stress the money they’ll save just as much as the benefits to the planet.“Why should hotels be green?’’ asks the Green Hotels Association’s Web site “Haven’t you heard? Being green goes directly to your bottom line.”The site explains that by getting guests to recycle towels and sheets,hotels can save 5 percent on utilitybills.“Some days,housekeeping wooers,who usually clean 15 rooms a day,don’t change a single bed,’’said one satisfied hotel owner, who estimates that“70 percent of people staying more than one night participate in the program.”Another member reports that far fewer guests ask for new towels.
E)So let's renew:We give up a nice luxury to save the hotel money;the hotel congratulates itself on being green for peer pressuring us into giving up the luxury under the excuse of environmental consciousness;the hotel keeps the money.Nice work.After all,even if profit is the motive,the net result is a reduction in the hotel’s “carbon footprint”.But here’s what gets me:the hotels I stayed in this summer didn't seem all that interested in being green when it came to other things.The lobby of the big resort was air conditioned to meat locker temperatures.All day lon9,that frosty air rushed out the vast double doors,which were left open in the July heat.The resort also had a fleet of bi9,gas guzzling(耗油)vans idling at the curb to transport guests around the grounds.
Green stories of companies
F)Hotels are not the only offenders in this kind of green fakery.Some companies have embraced conservation for real.They build headquarters with solar panels and rainwater collection systems;they think of the environmental impact of every aspect of their businesses and actually change the way they do things to reduce waste.But this is labor intensive,often expensive,and takes commitment.Faced with that,many corporations take a different approach:They don’t do much of anything to change the way they do business,but make a big show of their contribution to Mother Earth.
G)It’s usually easy to spot these companies:They make their customers do the work, and then take the credit.In the name of saving the planet,my cable TV operator keeps asking for permission to stop sending paper statements in the mail each month.Instead,I'm supposed to check my statement online.The real reason,of course,is that doing so would save them paper, printing and postage.This is a perfectly reasonable reason for them to want me to switch.But when they pretend that it’s all about the environment.It just makes me hate my cable company even more than I already do.
Grin stories of ad campaigns
H)Sometimes a good ad campaign does a better job of enhancing a company’s green reputation than going through the expense and difficulty of adopting actual environmentally sound practices.Billboards in Washington appeal to me to join the cause.“l will unplug Stuff more,”reads one.Another says,“l will at least consider buying a hybrid(合成物).”These ads are the work of Chevron,the giant oil company,whose “Will You Join Us?’’ ads try to convince people that saving the planet is at the top of their list.You might think that if Chevron was really worried about problems like global warming,they would spend some of those dollars lobbying Congress to adopt stricter gas mileage(英里数)requirements for automobiles.They do not do this.Instead,I'm apparently supposed to praise them as environmental heroes because they tell me to unplug my toaster and think about getting a Toyota Prius.
I)Yet ad campaigns like these work.Chevron lands at N0.371 out of 500 companies on Newsweek's green rankings.But it claims the No.62 spot when it comes to green reputation thanks in part to those pretty,polished ads.Green marketing has also helped Wal-Mart appear kinder and gentler in recent years.To be fair, the retailing giant has done more than redesign its logo.The company,which ranks 59th on Newsweek’s list, has embraced a series of in-house green initiatives and is demanding its suppliers do the same.The result:Wal-Mart scores first place in our reputation survey.
J)Given the power of positive marketing,it’s easy to see why those little towel cards are so popular--enough so that there are now a lot of companies that market them to hotels,along with all manner of products intended to make customers feel good about themselves while helping the hotels feel good about their bank balances.I suppose it is time that I step up and do my part.On behalf of the planet1 will dutifully sleep on day-old sheets.But please,for the love of all that is good and right, keep the towel coming.
Industry groups tend to emphasize the money hotels can save along with the benefits to the environment when they persuade hotels into being eco-friendly.·
3、听录音,回答题
A.Advice on the purchase of cars.
B.Solutions to global fuel shortage.
C.Trends for the development of the motor car.
D.Information about the new green-fuel vehicles.
4、
A Mess on the Ladder of Success
A. Throughout American history there has almost always been at least one central economic narrativethat gave the ambitious or unsatisfied reason to pack up and seek their fortune elsewhere. For thefrst 300 or so years of European settlement, the story was about moving outward: getting immigrantsto the continent and then to the frontier to clear the prairies (大草原), drain the wetlands and buildnew cities.
B. By the end of the 19th century, as the frontier vanished, the U.S. had a mild panic attack. Whatwould this energetic, enterprising country, be without new lands to conquer?. Some people, such asTeddy Roosevelt, decided to keep on conquering (Cuba, the Philippines, etc.), but eventually, inindustrialization, the U.S. found a new narrative of economic mobility at home. From the 1890s to the1960s, people moved from farm to city, first in "the North and then in the South. In fact, by the1950s, there was enough prosperity and white-collar work that many began to move to the suburbs..As the population aged, there was also a shift from the cold Rust Belt to the comforts of the SunBelt. We think of this as an old person's migration, but it created many jobs for the young inconstruction and health care, not to mention tourism, retail and restaurants.
C. For the last 20 years--from the end of the cold war through two burst bubbles in a single decade--the U.S. has been casting about for its next economic narrative. And now it is experiencing anotherperiod of. panic, which is bad news for much of the workfor~e but particularly for its youngestmemher
D. The U.S. has always been a remarkably mobile country, but new data from the Cen~sus Bureauindicate that mobility has reached its lowest level in recorded history. Sure, some people are stuck inhomes valued at less than their mortgages (抵押贷款), but many young people--who don't own homesand don't yet have families--are staying put, too. This suggests, among other things, that peoplearen't packing up for new economic opportunities the way they used to. Rather than dividing thecountry into the 1 percenters versus (与.....相对) everyone else, the split in our economy is reallybetween two other, classes: the mobile and immobile.
E. Part of the problem is that the country's largest industries are in decline. In the past, it was perfectlyclear where young people should go for work (Chicago in the 1870s, Detroit in the 1910s, Houston inthe 1970s) and, more or less, what they'd be doing when they got there (killing cattle, building cars,selling oil). And these industries were large enougl~ to offer jobs to each class of worker, from un-skilled laborer to manager or engineer. Today, the few bright spots in our economy are relativelysmall (though some promise future growth) and decentralized. There are great jobs in Silicon Valley,in the biotech research capitals of Boston and Raleigh-Durham and in advanced manufacturing plantsalong the southern 1-85 corridor. These companies recruit all over the country and the globe forworkers with specific abilities. (You don't need to be the next Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook,to get a job in one of the microhubs (微中心), by the way. But you will almost certainly need atleast a B.A. in computer science or a year or two at a technical school.) This newer, select job mar-ket is national, and it offers members of the mobile class competitive salaries and higher bargainingpower.
F. Many members of the immobile class, on the other hand, live in the America of the gloomyheadlines. If you have no specialized skills, there's little reason to uproot to another state and be thelast in line for a low-paying job at a new auto plant or a green-energy startup. The surprise in thecensus (普查) data, however, is that the immobile workforce is not limited to unskilled workers. Infact, many have a college degree.
G. Until now, a B.A. in any subject was a near-guarantee of at least middle-class wages. But today, aquarter of college graduates make less than the typical worker without a bachelor's degree. DavidAutor, a prominent labor economist at M.I.T., recently told me that a college degree alone is nolonger a guarantor of a good job. While graduates from top universities are still likely to get a goodjob no matter what their major is, he said, graduates from less-famous schools are going to bejudged on what they know. To compete for jobs on a national level, they should be armed with theskills that emerging industries need, whether technical or not.
H. Those without such specialized skills--like poetry, or even history, majors--are already competingwith their neighbors for the same sorts of second-rate,poorer-paying local jobs like low-levelmanagement or big-box retail sales. And with the low-skilied labor market atomized into thousands ofmicroeconomies, immobile workers are less able to demand better wages or conditions or to acquirevaluable skills.
I. So what, exactly, should the ambitious young worker of today be learning? Unfortunately, it's hard tosay, since the U.S. doesn't have one clear national project. There are plenty of emerging, smaller in-dustries, but which ones are the most promising? (Nanotechnology's (纳米技术) moment of remarkablegrowth seems to have been 5 years into the future for something like 20 years now.) It's not clearexactly what skills are most needed or if they will even be valuable in a decade.
J. What is clear is that all sorts of govenunent issues--education, health-insurance portability, workerretraining--are no longer just bonuses to already prosperous lives but existential requirements. It's inall. of our interests to make sure that as many people as possible are able to move toward opportu-nity, and America's ability to invest people and money in excithag new ideas is still greater than that
of most other wealthy countries. (As recently as five years-ago, U.S. migration was twice the rate ofEuropean Union states.) That, at least, is some comfort at a time when our national economy seemsto be searching for its next story line.
Unlike in the past, a college degree alone does not guarantee a good job for its holder.
5、听录音,回答题
A. Shehad a job interview to attend.
B. She was busy finishing her project.
C. She had to attend an important meeting.
D. She was in the middle of writing an essay.
6、听录音,
回答题
A. The woman is fussy about the cleanness of the apartment.
B. He has not cleaned the apartment since his mother's visit.
C. He does not remember when his mother canoe over.
D. His mother often helps him to clean the apartment.
7、Questions are based on the following passage.
Alex Pang's amusing new book The Distraction Addiction addresses those of us who feel panic without a cellphone or computer.And that, he claims, is pretty much all of us.When we're not online, where we spend four months annually, we're engaged in the stressful work of trying to get online.
The Distraction Addiction is not framed as a self-help book.It's a thoughtful examination of the dangers of our computing overdose and a historical overview of how technological advances change consciousness.A "professional futurist", Pang urges an approach which he calls "contemplative (沉思的) computing." He asks that you pay full attention to "how your mind and body interact with computers and how your attention and creativity are influenced by technology."
Pang's first job is to free you from the common misconception that doing two things at once allows you to get more done.What is commonly called multitasking is, in fact, switch-tasking, and its harmful effects on productivity are well documented.Pang doesn't advocate returning to a pre-Internet world.Instead, he asks you to "take a more ecological (生态的) view of your relationships with technologies and
look for ways devices or media may be making specific tasks easier or faster but at the same time making your work and life harder."
The Distraction Addiction is particularly fascinating on how technologies have changed certain fields of labor-often for the worse.For architects, computer-aided design has become essential but in some ways has cheapened the design process.As one architect puts it, "Architecture is first and foremost about thinking.., and drawing is a more productive way of thinking" than computer-aided design.
Somewhat less amusing are Pang's solutions for kicking the Internet habit.He recommends the usual behavior-modification approaches, familiar to anyone who has completed a not smoking program.Keep logs to study your online profile and decide what you can knock out, download a program like Freedom that locks you out of your browser, or take a "digital Sabbath (安息日 )": "Unless you're a reporter or
emergency-department doctor, you'll discover that your world doesn't fall apart when you go offline."
Alex Pang's new book is aimed for readers who
A.find their work online too stressful
B.go online mainly for entertainment
C.are fearful about using the cellphone or computer
D.can hardly tear themselves away from the Internet
8、听录音,回答题
A.To go boating on the St.Lawrence River.
B.To go sightseeing in Quebec Province.
C.To call on a friend in Quebec City.
D.To attend a wedding in Montreal.
9、Questions are based on the following passage.
Fire, scientists agree, helped give rise to a successful, thriving human population by providing heatfor cooking and protection from the cold.
But they don't agree36 __ when humans began using fire. Some researchers argue that it 37 __ more than a million years ago when early humans made their way to Europe from Africa, and others say it happened much later. Now, a new study argues that humans did not 38 __ fire until about 400,000 years ago.
Two archaeologists in the US report their39 __ in the current issue of the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The pair looked at excavation (发掘 ) reports and studies from 141 sites in Europe that were between 1.2 million and 35,000 years old. They think there is no clear evidence of 40 __ fire use until about 400,000 years ago. In Africa, while there are several sites where there was evidence of fire, those may have been41 __ fires that occurred in the African grassland.
Yet there are sites older than 400,000 years in Europe that indicate the42 __ of humans, with the oldest, in Spain, more than a million years old. This means that despite Europe's extreme winter climates, early humans found a way to 43 __ without the warmth of a fire. As the researchers mention, early humans are adaptable and persistent. But some researchers maintain that it is still a puzzling explanation and it still44 __ some serious thinking about how early the human being could have survived on a seasonally variable food45 __ despite having small teeth and small guts. Up to now, none has solved this problem yet.
A. acquire
B. authentic
C. demands
D. exactly
E. eventually
F. findings
G. habitual
H. investigations
I. master
J. natural
K. occurred
L. presence
M. skillful
N. supply
O. survive
第(36)题应填__________
简答题
10、中国戏曲是中国戏剧和音乐剧的结合。其起源可追溯到3世纪。中国戏曲有很多地方剧分支。京剧是其中有名的一个。京剧出现于18世纪末,并于l9世纪中期得到充分发展和认可。京剧在清朝宫廷{the qing Dy-nasty court}特别受欢迎,并已被视为中国的文化珍品之一。中国戏曲会用到面具。面具的每种颜色代表不同的含义,用来表现人物角色,说明他们的情感状态和大致性格。
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