2009年12月大学英语四级模拟试题(3)

　　Questions 76 to 80 are based on the following passage:
　　Ours has become a society of employees. A hundred years or so ago onlyone out of every five Americans at work was employed, i.e., worked forsomebody else. Today only one out of five is not employed but working forhimself. And when fifty years ago"being employed"meant working as afactory labourer or as a farmhand, the employee of today is increasinglya middle-class person with a substantial formal education, holding aprofessional or management job requiring intellectual and technical skills.Indeed, two things have characterized American society during these lastfifty years: middle-class employees have been the fastest-growing groupsin our working population -- growing so fast that the industrial worker,that oldest child of the Industrial Revolution, has been losing in numeri-cal importance despite the expansion of industrial production.
　　Yet you will find little if anything written on what it is to be anemployee. You can find a great deal of very dubious advice on how to geta job or how to get a promotion. You can also find a good deal of workin a chosen field, whether it be the mechanist's trade or book keeping(?a??). Every one of these trades requires different skills, sets differentstandards, and requires a different preparation. Yet they all have em-ployeeship in common. And increasingly, especially in the large businessor in the government, employeeship is more important to success than thespecial professional knowledge or skill. Certainly more people fail becausethey do not know the requirements of being an employee than because theydo not adequately possess the skills of their trade; the higher youclimb the ladder, the more you get into administrative or executive work,the greater the emphasis on ability to work within the organization ratherthan on technical abilities or professional knowledge.
　　76. It is implied that fifty years ago _______.
　　A) eighty per cent of American working people were employed in factories
　　B) twenty per cent of American intellectuals were employees
　　C) the percentage of intellectuals in the total work force was almost
　　the same as that of industrial workers
　　D) the percentage of intellectuals working as employees was not so large as that of industrial workers
　　77. According to the passage, with the development of modern industry,______.
　　A) factory labourers will overtake intellectual employees in number
　　B) there are as many middle-class employees as factory labourers
　　C) employers have attached great importance to factory labourers
　　D) the proportion of factory labourers in the total employee
　　population has decreased.
　　78. The word 'dubious' (Line 2, Para. 2) most probably means _______.
　　A) valuable B) useful C) doubtful D) helpful
　　79. According to the writer, professional knowledge or skill is _______.
　　A) less important than awareness of being a good employee
　　B) as important as the ability to deal with public relations
　　C) more important than employer-employee relations
　　D) as important as the ability to co-operate with others
　　80. From the passage it can be seen that employeeship helps one _______.
　　A) to be more successful in his career
　　B) to be more specialized in his field
　　C) to gain professional ability
　　D) to develop his professional skill
　　Questions 81 to 85 are based on the following passage:
　　The United States court system, as part of the federal system of go-vernment, is characterized by dual hierarchies: there are both state andfederal courts. Each state has its own system of courts, composed of civiland criminal trial courts, sometimes intermediate courts of appeal, and astate supreme court. The federal court system consists of a series oftrial courts (called district courts) serving relatively small geographicregions (there is at least one for every state), a tier of circuit courtsof appeal that hear appeals from many district courts in a particular geo-graphic region, and the Supreme Court of the United States. The two courtsystems are to some extent overlapping, in that certain kinds of disputes(such as a claim that a state law is in violation of the Constitution) maybe initiated in either system. They are also to some extent hierarchical,for the federal system stands above the state system in that litigants(persons engaged in lawsuits) who lose their cases in the state supremecourt may appeal their cases to the Supreme Court of the United States.
　　Thus, the typical court case begins in a trial court -- a court ofgeneral jurisdiction -- in the state or federal system. Most cases go nofurther than the trial court: for example , the criminal defendant isconvicted (by a trial or a guilty plea) and sentenced by the court andthe case ends; the personal injury suit results in a judgment by a trialcourt (or an out-of-court settlement by the parties while the courts suitis pending) and the parties leave the court system. But sometimes the losingparty at the trial court cares enough about the cause that the matter doesnot end there. In these cases, the"loser"at the trial court may appealto the next higher court.
　　81. What does the passage mainly discuss?
　　A) Civil and criminal trial courts.
　　B) Trial court cases.
　　C) The court system in the United States.
　　D) The appeal court process.
　　82. According to the passage district courts are also known as_______.
　　A) circuit courts B) supreme courts dedecms.com
　　C) intermediate courts D) trial courts
　　83. In the last sentence of the first paragraph, the phrase"engaged in"
　　could best be replaced by which of the following?
　　A) committed to. B) involved in.
　　C) attentive to. D) covered in.
　　84. The passage indicates that litigants who lose their cases in the state
　　trial court may take them to _______.
　　A) different trial court in the same state
　　B) court in a different geographic region
　　C) federal trial court
　　D) state supreme court
　　85. It can be inferred from the passage that typical court cases are _______.
　　A) always appealed
　　B) usually resolved in the district courts
　　C) always overlapping
　　D) usually settled by the Supreme Court