2006年12月23日英语四级最新预测卷（三）

 
Part ⅣReading Comprehension（Reading in Depth）（25 minutes）
Section A
Directions:In this section,there is a passage with ten blanks.You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage.Read the passage through carefully before making your choices.Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter.Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.
Questions 47 to 56 are based on the following passage.
What is it about Americans and food? We love to eat, but we feel
47          about it afterward. We say we want only the best, but we strangely enjoy junk food. We’re48          with health and weight loss but face an uNPRecedented epidemic of obesity(肥胖). Perhaps the49          to this ambivalence(矛盾情结) lies in our history. The first Europeans came to this continent searching for new spices but went in vain. The first cash crop(经济作物) wasn’t eaten but smoked. Then there was Prohibition, intended to prohibit drinking but actually encouraging more50          ways of doing it.
The immigrant experience, too, has been one of inharmony. Do as Romans do means eating what “real Americans” eat, but our nation’s food has come to be
51          by imports—pizza, say, or hot dogs. And some of the country’s most treasured cooking comes from people who arrived here in shackles.
Perhaps it should come as no surprise then that food has been a medium for the nation’s defining struggles, whether at the Boston Tea Party or the sitins at southern lunch counters. It is integral to our concepts of health and even morality whether one refrains from alcohol for religious reasons or evades meat for political52          .
But strong opinions have not brought53          . Americans are ambivalent about what they put in their mouths. We have become54          of our foods, especially as we learn more about what they contain.
The55          in food is still prosperous in the American consciousness. It’s no coincidence, then, that the first Thanksgiving holds the American imagination in such bondage（束缚）. It’s what we eat—and how we56          it with friends, family, and strangers—that help define America as a community today.
A. answerB. resultC. shareD. guiltyE. constant
F. definedG. vanishH. adaptedI. creativeJ. belief
K. suspiciousL. certaintyM. obsessedN. identifyO. ideals

Section B
Directions:There are 2 passages in this section.Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements.For each of them there are four choices marked A),B),C)  and D) .You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.
Passage One
Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage.
Resources can be said to be scarce in both an absolute and relative sense: the surface of the Earth is finite, imposing absolute scarcity; but the scarcity that concerns economists is the relative scarcity of resources in different uses. Materials used for one purpose cannot at the same time be used for other purposes; if the quantity of an input is limited, the  increased use of it in one manufacturing process must cause it to become less available for other uses.
The cost of a product in terms of money may not measure its true cost to society. The true cost of, say, the construction of a supersonic jet is the value of the schools and refrigerators that will never be built as a result. Every act of production uses up some of society’s available resources; it means the foregoing of an opportunity to produce something else. In deciding how to use resources most effectively to satisfy the wants of the community, this opportunity cost must ultimately be taken into account.
In a market economy the price of a good and the quantity supplied depend on the cost of making it, and that cost, ultimately, is the cost of not making other goods. The market mechanism enforces this relationship. The cost of, say, a pair of shoes is the price of the leather, the labor, the fuel, and other elements used up in producing them. But the price of these inputs, in turn, depends on what they can produce elsewhere—if the leather can be used to produce handbags that are valued highly by consumers, the prices of leather will be bid up correspondingly.
57. What does this passage mainly discuss?
A)  The scarcity of manufactured goods.
B)  The value of scarce materials.
C)  The manufacturing of scarce goods.
D)  The cost of producing shoes.
58. According to the passage, what are the opportunity costs of an item?
A)  The amount of time and money spent in producing it.
B)  The opportunities a person has to buy it.
C)  The value of what could have been produced instead.
D)  The value of the resources used in its production.
59. According to the passage, what is the relationship between production and resources?
A)  Available resources stimulate production.
B)  Resources are totally independent of production.
C)  Production increases as resources increase.
D)  Production lessens the amount of available resources.
60. What determines the price of a good in a market economy?
A)  The cost of all elements in production.B)  The cost of not making other goods.
C)  The efficiency of the manufacturing process.D)  The quantity of materials supplied.
61. Which of the following examples BEST reflects a cost to society as defined in the passage?
A)  A family buying a dog.
B)  Eating in a restaurant instead of at home.
C)  Using land for a house instead of a park.
D)  Staying at home instead of going to school.
Passage Two
Questions 62 to 66 are based on the following passage.
According to sociologists, there are several different ways in which a person may become recognized as the leader of a social group. In the family, traditional cultural patterns confer leadership on one or both of the parents. In other cases, such as friendship groups, one or more persons may gradually emerge as leaders, although there is no formal process of selection. In larger groups, leaders are usually chosen formally through election or recruitment.
Although leaders are often thought to be people with unusual personal ability, decades of research have failed to produce consistent evidence that there is any category of “natural leaders”. It seems that there is no set of personal qualities that all leaders have in common; rather, virtually any person may be recognized as a leader if the person has qualities that meet the needs of that particular group.
Research suggests that there are typically two different leadership roles that are held by different individuals. Instrumental leadership is leadership that emphasizes the completion of tasks by a social group. Group members look to instrumental leaders to “get things done”. Expressive leadership, on the other hand, is leadership that emphasizes the collective wellbeings of a social groups members. Expressive leaders are less concerned with the overall goals of the group than with providing emotional support to group members and attempting to minimize tension and conflict among them.
Instrumental leaders are likely to have a rather secondary relationship to other group members. They give others and may discipline group members who inhibit(阻碍) attainment of the groups goals. Expressive leaders cultivate a more personal or primary relationship to others in the group. They offer sympathy when someone experiences difficulties and try to resolve issues that threaten to divide the group. As the difference in these two roles suggest, expressive leaders generally receive more personal affection from group members; instrumental leaders, if they are successful in promoting group goals, may enjoy a more distant respect.
62. What does the passage mainly discuss?
A)  The problems faced by leaders.
B)  How leadership differs in small and large groups.
C)  How social groups determine who will lead them.
D)  The role of leaders in social groups.
63. The passage mentions all of the following ways by which people can become leaders EXCEPT                 .
A)  recruitment
B)  formal election process
C)  specific leadership training
D)  traditional cultural patterns
64. Which of the following statements about leadership can be inferred from paragraph 2?
A)  person who is an effective leader of a particular group may not be an effective leader in another group.
B)  Few people succeed in sharing a leadership role with another person.
C)  A person can best learn how to be an effective leader by studying research on leadership.
D)  Most people desire to be leaders but can produce little evidence of their qualifications.
65. In mentioning “natural leaders” in line 7, the author is making the point that        .
A)  few people qualify as “natural leaders”
B)  there is no proof that “natural leaders” exist
C)  “natural leaders” are easily accepted by the members of a group
D)  “natural leaders” share a similar set of characteristics
66. The passage indicates that instrumental leaders generally focus on           .
A)  ensuring harmonious relationships
B)  sharing responsibility with group members
C)  identifying new leaders
D)  achieving a goal
 
Part Ⅴ Error Correction
Direction:This part consists of a short passage. In this passage, there are altogether 10 mistakes, one in each numbered line. You may have to change a word, add a word or delete a word. Mark out the mistakes and put the corrections in the blanks provided. If you change a word, cross it out and write the correct word in thecorresponding  blank. If you add a word, put an insertion mark (∧) in the right place and write the missing word in the blank. If you delete a word, cross it out and put a slash (/) in the blank.
 
 
When we speak of a human need, we mean something
which is unnecessary to life, something we can live with.    67        
Food is a human need. We will starve to death if there      68       
were no food on earth; but even if we have plenty of food,
but of the wrong kind, our bodies will have problem from
lack of the right food. This is known for malnutrition(营     69       
养不良）.
In countries where are not developed, man’s food          70       
needs are the same like in the most advanced societies. We     71       
all need food and could live a good life on very few types of
food. People in very developed countries eat only the kinds      72       
of food which can be grown near their homes, whereas
people in developed countries eat foods which are often
grown many thousands of miles away form their homes.
People in undeveloped countries are happy with less
different kinds of foods than people in very developed ones
are, so we can say that despite the needs of the two kinds         73       
of people are the same, their wants are different. People in
very developed countries eat many different types of
meat—they could live by only one, but they would be very        74       
unhappy because every time what they ate was the same.
Even such special foods like chicken would be less fun to         75       
eat if you had them every day. But we can’t just live on
meat—we need other kinds of food like bread, rice, and
vegetables which are no more necessary to our bodies.           76