1、公共英语五级-17 及答案解析(总分：54.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、Section Use of Eng(总题数：1，分数：20.00)As the Internet has rapidly become a mainstream medium, the social impact of the Internet has been a topic of ongoing debate. Some studies have found that Internet use is associated with reduced social networks and increased lon
2、eliness. Internet use appears to cause a decline in psychological well-being, 1 to research at Carnegie Mellon University. Even people 2 spent just a few hours a week 3 the Internet experienced more depression and loneliness 4 those who logged on less frequently, the two-year study showed. And it wa
3、sn“t 5 people who were already feeling had spent more time on the internet, 6 that using the Net actually appeared to 7 the bad feelings. Researchers are puzzling over the results, 8 were completely contrary 9 their expectation. They expected that the Net would 10 socially healthier than television,
4、 since the Net allows 11 to choose their information and to communicate 12 others. The fact 13 Internet use reduces time available for family and friends may account 14 the drop in well-being, researchers hypothesized. Faceless, bodiless “virtual“ communication may be less psychologically satisfying
5、 than 15 conversation, and the relationships formed through it may be shallower. 16 possibility is that exposure 17 the wider world via the Net makes users less 18 with their lives. “But it“s important to remember this is 19 about the technology, per se; it“s about 20 it is used,“ says psychologist
6、Christine Riley of Intel, one of the study“s sponsors. “It really points to the need for considering social factors in terms of how you design applications and services for technology.“（分数：20.00）二、Section Reading Co(总题数：0，分数：0.00)三、Part A(总题数：0，分数：0.00)四、Text 1(总题数：1，分数：5.00)Opinion polls are now be
7、ginning to show that, whoever is to blame and whatever happens from now on, high unemployment is probably hero to stay. This means we shall have to make ways of sharing the available employment more widely. But we need to go further. We must ask some primary questions about the future of work. Would
8、 we continue to treat employment as the norm? Would we not rather encourage many other ways for self-respecting people to work? Should we not create conditions in which many of us can work for ourselves, rather than for an employer? Should we not aim to revive the household and the neighborhood, as
9、well as the factory and the office, as centers of production and work? The industrial age has been the only period of human history in which most people“s work has taken the form of jobs. The industrial age may now be coaling to an end, and some of the changes in work patterns which it brought may h
10、ave to be reversed. This seems a daunting thought. But, in fact, it could provide the prospect of a better future for work. Universal employment, as its history shows, has not meant economic freedom. Employment became widespread when the enclosures of the 17th and 18th centuries made many people dep
11、endent on paid work by depriving them of the use of the land, and thus of the means to provide a living for themselves. Then the factory system destroyed the cottage industries and removed work from people“s homes. Later, as transportation improved, first by rail and then by road, people commuted lo
12、nger distances to their places of employment until, eventually, many people“s work lost all connection with their home lives and the place in which they lived. Meanwhile, employment put women at a disadvantage. In pre-industrial time, men and women had shared the productive work of the household and
13、 village community. Now it became customary for the husband to go out to be paid employment, leaving the unpaid work of the home and family to his wife. Tax and benefit regulations still assume this norm today and restrict more flexible sharing of work roles between the sexes. It was not only women
14、whose work status suffered. As employment became the dominant form of work, young people and old people were excludeda problem now, as more teenagers become frustrated at school and more retired people want to live active lives. All this may now have to change. The time has certainly come to switch
15、some effort and resources away from the idealist goal of creating jobs for all, to the urgent practical task of helping many people to manage without full time jobs.（分数：5.00）(1).Research carried out in the recent opinion polls shows that（分数：1.00）A.available employment should be restricted to a small
16、 percentage of the population.B.new jobs must be created in order to rectify high unemployment figures.C.available employment must be more widely distributed among the unemployed.D.the nowaday high unemployment figures are a truth of life.(2).The arrival of the industrial age in our historical evolu
17、tion meant that（分数：1.00）A.universal employment virtually guaranteed prosperity.B.economic freedom came within everyone“s control.C.patterns of work were fundamentally changed.D.people“s attitudes to work had to be reversed.(3).The enclosures of the 17th and 18th centuries meant that（分数：1.00）A.people
18、 were no longer legally entitled to own land.B.people were driven to look elsewhere for means of supporting themselves.C.people were not adequately compensated for the loss of their land.D.people were badly paid for the work they managed to find.(4).The effects of almost universal employment were ov
19、erwhelming in that（分数：1.00）A.the household and village community disappeared completely.B.men now travelled enormous distances to their places of work.C.young and old people became superfluous components of society.D.the work status of those not in paid employment suffered.(5).The article concludes
20、that（分数：1.00）A.the creation of jobs for all is an impossibility.B.our efforts and resources in terms of tackling unemployment are insufficient.C.people should begin supporting themselves by learning a practical skill.D.we should help those whose jobs are only part-time.五、Text 2(总题数：1，分数：5.00)Many th
21、ings make people think artists are weird. But the weirdest may be this: artists“ only job is to explore emotions, and yet they choose to focus on the ones that feel bad. This wasn“t always so. The earliest forms of art, like painting and music, are those best suited for expressing joy. But somewhere
22、 in the 19th century onward, more artists began seeing happiness as meaningless, phony or, worst of all, boring, as we went from Wordsworth“s daffodils to Baudelaire“s flowers of evil. You could argue that art became more skeptical of happiness because modem times have seen so much misery. But it“s
23、not as if earlier times didn“t know perpetual war, disaster and the massacre of innocents. The reason, in fact, may be just the opposite: there is too much damn happiness in the world today. After all, what is the one modem form of expression almost completely dedicated to depicting happiness? Adver
24、tising. The rise of anti-happy art almost exactly tracks the emergence of mass media, and with it, a commercial culture in which happiness is not just all ideal but an ideology. People in earlier eras were surrounded by reminders of misery. They worked until exhausted, lived with few protections and
25、 died young. In the West, before mass communication and literacy, the most powerful mass medium was the church, which reminded worshippers that their souls were in danger and that they would someday be meat for worms. Given all this, they did not exactly need their art to be a bummer too. Today the
26、messages the average Westerner is bombarded with are not religious but commercial, and for ever happy Fast-food eaters, news anchors, text messengers, all smiling, smiling, smiling. Our magazines feature beaming celebrities and happy families in perfect homes. And since these messages have an agenda
27、 - to lure us to open our wallets - they make the very idea of happiness seem unreliable. “Celebrate!“ commanded the ads for the arthritis drug Celebrex, before we found out it could increase the risk of heart attacks. But what we forget - what our economy depends on us forgetting - is that happines
28、s is more than pleasure without pain. The things that bring the greatest joy carry the greatest potential for loss and disappointment. Today, surrounded by promises of easy happiness, we need art to tell us, as religion once did, Me mento mori: remember that you will die, that everything ends, and t
29、hat happiness comes not in denying this but in living with it. It“s a message even more bitter than a clove cigarette, yet, somehow, a breath of fresh air.（分数：5.00）(1).By citing the examples of poets Wordsworth and Baudelaire, the author intends to show that _.（分数：1.00）A.poetry is not as expressive
30、of joy as painting or musicB.art grows out of both positive and negative feelingsC.poets today are less skeptical of happinessD.artists have changed their focus of interest(2).The word “bummer“ (Line 4, Paragraph 5) most probably means something _.（分数：1.00）A.religiousB.unpleasantC.entertainingD.comm
31、ercial(3).In the author“s opinion, advertising _.（分数：1.00）A.emerges in the wake of the anti-happy artB.is a cause of disappointment for the general publicC.replaces tile church as a major source of informationD.creates an illusion of happiness rather than happiness itself(4).We can learn from the la
32、st paragraph that the author believes _.（分数：1.00）A.happiness more often than not ends in sadnessB.the anti-happy art is distasteful but refreshingC.misery should be enjoyed rather than deniedD.the anti happy art flourishes when economy booms(5).Which of the following is true of the text?（分数：1.00）A.R
33、eligion once functioned as a reminder of misery.B.Art provides a balance between expectation and reality.C.People feel disappointed at tile realities of modem society.D.Mass media are disinclined to cover disasters and deaths.六、Text 3(总题数：1，分数：5.00)At dawn one morning in early May, Sean Cosgrove is
34、stashing piles of maps, notes and photocopied documents in his gym bag before heading for West Milford High, a rural school in northernmost New Jersey. On his 30-minute commute, the young former investment banker tries to dream up new ways of lifting the monumentally forgettable Mexican War off the
35、textbook page and into his students“ imaginations. Can he invoke the storied memories of Robert E. Lee, who cut his first military exploits on the plains of Veracuzor will he be met with thundering responses of “Who“s Lee“? Should he raise James K. Polk out of the mystic chords of memory, and hope,
36、for a nanosecond, that the kids will care about the first U.S. president who stepped aside because he“d accomplished everything he wanted? Let“s think some more. Well, there“s always the Alamo. And hey, isn“t that the teachers“ parking lot up ahead? It“s never an easy task. These big kids in big jea
37、ns and ball caps, come to his history classes believing that history is about as useful as Latin. Most are either unaware or unimpressed that the area“s iron forges once produced artillery cannon for George Washington“s army. Their sense of history orbits more narrowly around last month“s adventures
38、 on “Shop Rite Strip“, the students“ nickname for downtown West Milford, once a factory town, now a Magnet for middle-class vacationers. Cosgrove looks uncommonly glum as he thumbs through a stack of exams in the teachers“ lounge. “I can“t belive anyone in my class could think John Brown was the gov
39、ernor of Massachusetts, “moans Cosgrove, 28, pointing to one student“s test paper. He had to be sleeping for days on end. The same morning, students in his college bound class could name only one U. S. Supreme Court justiceClarence Thomas. All his wit, energy and beyond-the-textbook research can“t c
40、ompletely reverse the students“ poor preparation in history, their lack of general knowledge, their numbness to the outside world. It“s the bane of history teachers at every level. When University of Vermont professor James Loewen asked his senior social-science majors who fought in the Vietnam War,
41、 22 percent answered North and South Korea. Don“t these kids even go to the movies?（分数：5.00）(1).What did Cosgrove do before he became a teacher teaching history?（分数：1.00）A.A clerk working in a gym.B.A man running a bank.C.A sportsman.D.A historian.(2).On the way to school, Cosgrove _.（分数：1.00）A.was
42、deep in thought of his pastB.was thinking of who Lee wasC.was thinking of how to teach his classD.was having a talk with another passenger(3).It can be inferred from the passage that _.（分数：1.00）A.the task for Cosgrove is quite heavyB.the students are enthusiastic about history studyC.the students ha
43、ve little interest in history studyD.West Milford once was a factory town(4).Which of the following is true according to this passage?（分数：1.00）A.Only the students in high school were poor in history study.B.Only college students could not study history well.C.Students at every level have poor knowle
44、dge of history.D.All American“s knowledge of history was poor.(5).What“s the meaning of the word “bane“ in the 6th line of the last paragraph?（分数：1.00）A.Headache.B.Ban.C.Pleasure.D.Opportunity.七、Part B(总题数：1，分数：10.00)The year 1972 was marked by publication of a controversial book, The Limits to Grow
45、th. This study of the world“s future, done by a team of MIT scientists with the aid of computer “mode-is“ of the future of our society, forecast a planet wide disaster unless humankind sharply limits its population growth and consumption of natural resources. 1 Many refused to believe that disaster
46、is possible, probable, inevitable if we don“t change our mode of running Spaceship Earth. But science fiction people were neither surprised nor outraged. The study was really old news to them. They“d been making their own “models“ of tomorrow and testing them all their lives. For what the scientists
47、 attempted with their computer model is very much like the thing that science fiction writers and readers have been doing for decades. Instead of using a computer to “model“ a future world society, science fiction writers have used their human imaginations. This gives the writers some enormous advan
48、tages. 2 Science fiction writers are not in the business of predicting the future. They do something much more important. They try to show the many possible futures that lie open to us. For there is not simply a future, a time to come that“s inevitable. Our future is built, bit by bit, minute by min
49、ute, by the actions of human beings. One vital role of science fiction is to show what kinds of future might result from certain kinds of human actions. 3 For while a scientist“ s job has largely ended when he“ s reduced his data to tabular or graph form, the work of a science fiction writer is just beginning. His task is to convey the human story: the scientific basis for the possible future of his story is merely the background. Perhaps “merely“ is too limiting a word. Much of science fiction consists of precious little except the background, the basi
