1、专业英语四级-148及答案解析 (总分：99.90，做题时间：90分钟)一、READING COMPREHENSIO(总题数：2，分数：100.00)Section A Multiple-Choice Questions Passage 1 Made was a tall, handsome 22-year-old Balinese man who was in love with one girl but expected to marry another. His stepmother had arranged everythinghe would wed a distant relati
2、on and bring the two families closer together. Made had two choices. He could either marry the girl he did not love, or he could go against the wishes of his parents and be expelled from his village. Actually he had another choice, one which none of his family foresaw. One day his friends found him
3、slumped in a coma on his bed after he had consumed two litres of a powerful insecticide. For more than 60 years the tropical Indonesian island of Bali has been portrayed to the outside world as a heavenly paradise where a strong culture and sense of community protect its inhabitants from the rigors
4、of the modern world. It is an image supported by many millions of dollars from the international hotel community which provides luxury accommodation and facilities for nearly a million foreign visitors now travelling annually to the holiday island. Yet behind the marketing hype lies another storyone
5、 which exists in stark contrast to the sun, sand and sea dream. The truth is that the lives of Balis 2.7 million local inhabitants are often marked by poverty, suffering and family strife. Ketut is a 22-year-old maid who works part-time for an expatriate resident in Ubud, in the centre of the island
6、. Her husband works as a driver for a white-water rafting company which provides day trips to tourists. Sometimes I have no money for my baby because my husband gambles all his wages. The husbands father, unfamiliar with Western support systems, combats his sons behaviour by calling in the dukun, a
7、spiritual healer who makes offerings to the bad spirits at play in his mind. Passage 2 Dear Sirs, Your shipment of twelve thousand Smart watches was received by our company this morning. However, we wish to make a number of complaints concerning the serious delay in delivery and your failure to carr
8、y out our explicit instructions with regard to this order. It was stressed from the outset that the delivery date had to be less than six weeks from the initial order, in order to comply with our own customers requirements. While we appreciate that delays in production are occasionally inevitable, w
9、e must point out that the major reason why the order was placed with your company was because we were assured by you of its straightforwardness, and that your existing stocks were sufficiently high to ensure immediate shipment. Late delivery of the goods has caused us to disappoint several of our mo
10、st valued customers, and is bound to have an adverse effect on potential future orders. The second complaint concerns the discrepancy in colour between the watches we ordered and those delivered. It was stated clearly in the original order that watches in combinations of green/purple and orange/purp
11、le only were required. However, only half the watches in the delivery received are of the colours specified. Our Hong Kong agent assures us that she stressed to you the importance of following our instructions precisely, since we consider there to be only a limited market in this country for watches
12、 of other colours at the present time. Any watches that are not of the specified colours will, of course, be returned to you. We are also somewhat concerned about the rather poor quality of the goods received, since it is apparent that the watches that finally arrived have been produced from inferio
13、r materials and have been manufactured to a lower standard than those in the sample. We have also found that a number of the watches do not appear to be functioning. Whether the latter problem is due to poor manufacture, damage in transit or defective batteries is not yet clear, but we should like t
14、o point out that we feel this matter to be entirely your responsibility. As a result of the above problems, therefore, we feel that the most suitable course of action is to return to you unpaid any of the goods considered unsatisfactory, and to deduct any costs incurred from our final settlement. We
15、 shall also, of course, be forced to reconsider whether any further orders should be placed with your company. We look forward to your prompt reply. Passage 3 The story of the westward movement of population in the United States is, in the main, the story of the expansion of American agricultureof t
16、he development of new areas for the raising of livestock and the cultivation of wheat, corn, tobacco, and cotton. After 1815, improved transportation enabled more and more western farmers to escape a self-sufficient way of life and enter a national market economy. During periods when commodity price
17、s were high, the rate of west-ward migration increased spectacularly. Old America seemed to be breaking up and moving westward, observed an English visitor in 1817, during the first great wave of migration. Emigration to the West reached a peak in the 1830s. Whereas in 1810 only a seventh of the Ame
18、rican people lived west of the Appalachian Mountains, by 1840 more than a third lived there. Why were these hundreds of thousands of settlersmost of them farmers, some of them artisansdrawn away from the cleared fields and established cities and villages of the East? Certain characteristics of Ameri
19、can society help to explain this remarkable migration. The European ancestors of some Americans had for centuries lived rooted to the same village or piece of land until some religious, political, or economic crisis uprooted them and drove them across the Atlantic. Many of those who experienced this
20、 sharp break thereafter lacked the ties that had bound them and their ancestors to a single place. Moreover, European society was relatively stratified; occupation and social status were inherited. In American society, however, the class structure was less rigid; some people changed occupations easi
21、ly and believed it was their duty to improve their social and economic position. As a result, many Americans were an inveterately restless, rootless, and ambitious people. Therefore, these social traits helped to produce the nomadic and daring settlers who kept pushing westward beyond the fringes of
22、 settlement. In addition, there were other immigrants who migrated west in search of new homes, material success, and better lives. The West had plenty of attractions: the alluvial river bottoms, the fecund soils of the rolling forest lands, the black loams of the prairies were tempting to New Engla
23、nd farmers working their rocky, sterile land and to southeastern farmers plagued with soil depletion and erosion. In 1820 under a new land law, a farm could be bought for $100. The continued proliferation of banks made it easier for those without cash to negotiate loans in paper money. Western farme
24、rs borrowed with the confident expectation that the expanding economy would keep farm prices high, thus making it easy to repay loans when they fell due. Transportation was becoming less of a problem for those who wished to move west and for those who hand farm surpluses to send to market. Prior to
25、1815, western farmers who did not live on navigable waterways were connected to them only by dirt roads and mountain trails. Livestock could be driven across the mountains, but the cost of transporting bulky grains in this fashion was several times greater than their value in eastern markets. The fi
26、rst step toward an improvement of western transportation was the construction of turnpikes (高速公路). These roads made possible a reduction in transportation costs and thus stimulated the commercialization of agriculture along their routes. Two other developments presaged the end of the era of turnpike
27、s and started a transportation revolution that resulted in increased regional specialization and the growth of a national market economy. First came the steamboat; although flatboats and keelboats continued to be important until the 1850s steamboats eventually superseded all other craft in the carry
28、ing of passengers and freight. Steamboats were not only faster but also transported upriver freight for about one tenth of what it had previously cost on hand-propelled keelboats. Next came the Erie Canal, an enormous project in its day, spanning about 350 miles. After the canal went into operation,
29、 the cost per mile of transporting a ton of freight from Buffalo to New York City declined from nearly 20 cents to less than 1 cent. Eventually, the western states diverted much of their produce from the rivers to the Erie Canal, a shorter route to eastern markets.（分数：49.95）(1).You would expect to f
30、ind this passage in _. (Passage 1)（分数：3.33）A.a newspaperB.an advertisementC.a travel brochureD.a book(2).How would you describe the writers attitude towards Bali? (Passage 1)（分数：3.33）A.Admiring.B.Critical.C.Subjective.D.Objective.(3).It can be inferred from Paragraph 1 that the third choice that Mad
31、es family failed to foresee is that _. (Passage 1)（分数：3.33）A.he fell into a sleepB.he left homeC.he committed suicideD.he started to take drugs(4).In Paragraph 2, it refers to _. (Passage 1)（分数：3.33）A.strong cultureB.sense of communityC.heavenly paradiseD.the modem world(5).The manufacturers of Smar
32、t watches were given the order because _. (Passage 2)（分数：3.33）A.they thought they would have enough time for production and shipmentB.the watches would be easy to makeC.they promised they could produce enough stocks quite quicklyD.they claimed the order would be easy since the watches were already i
33、n stock(6).The last sentence of Paragraph 5 has been included in order to suggest that _. (Passage 2)（分数：3.33）A.the receiving company may cease trading with the watch manufacturersB.the company will probably reduce the number of watches it orders in futureC.the writers are afraid their company might
34、 go out of business soonD.the company is probably willing to give the manufacturers another chance(7).Which of the following best describes the general tone of the letter? (Passage 2)（分数：3.33）A.Angry and aggressive.B.Firm but polite.C.Reasonable but impolite.D.Polite and forgiving.(8).What can be in
35、ferred from Paragraph 1 about western farmers prior to 1815? (Passage 3)（分数：3.33）A.They had limited their crop production to wheat, corn, tobacco, and cotton.B.They were able to sell their produce at high prices.C.They had not been successful in raising cattle.D.They did not operate in a national ma
36、rket economy.(9).Paragraph 4 suggests that turnpikes affected farmers by _. (Passage 3)（分数：3.33）A.making the price of grain uniform for both eastern and western farmersB.making western farm products more profitable than eastern farm productsC.allowing farmers to drive their livestock across mountain
37、 trailsD.allowing a greater number of farmers to sell their farm products in a commercial market(10).The word diverted in the passage (Paragraph 5) is closest in meaning to _. (Passage 3)（分数：3.33）A.collectedB.shiftedC.transportedD.sold(11).Section B Short Answer Questions Whats the main idea of the
38、passage? (Passage 1)（分数：3.33）_(12).Why is receiving watches in the wrong colors a problem? (Passage 2)（分数：3.33）_(13).What does prompt in Paragraph 6 mean? (Passage 2)（分数：3.33）_(14).What does fringe in Paragraph 2 mean? (Passage 3)（分数：3.33）_(15).According to Paragraph 3, what was the significance of
39、the land law passed in 1820? (Passage 3)（分数：3.33）_Section A Multiple-Choice Questions Passage 1 Its one of the worlds most celebrated theories-that it takes just six steps to link any two people on the planet. Person A would have danced at a ball with B, who once shared a flat with C who bought a bi
40、cycle from D.and so on. Now a few computer whizzes have put the theory to the test and found that it is true-almost. Rather than six degrees of separation, we are linked by 6.6. In other words, we really are just a handful of acquaintances away from the likes of Madonna and the Queen. Eric Horvitz,
41、one of the Microsoft researchers who tested the theory using electronic messages, said he was shocked at the result. The concept of six degrees of separation came to public attention after an experiment in the Sixties, but is seen today as more of an urban legend. However, the Microsoft study shows
42、that neither the growing population-nor advances in communication technology-have markedly changed the result. What were seeing suggests there may be a social connectivity constant for humanity, he said. People have had this suspicion that we are really close. But we are showing on a very large scal
43、e that this idea goes beyond folklore . The researchers studied the addresses of 30 billion instant messages sent through the Microsoft network in a single month in 2006. Two people were considered to be acquaintances-or separated by one degree-if they communicated with one another through the email
44、-like system. Calculations showed the majority of users, or 78 per cent, could be connected by just 6.6 messages or steps. The phrase six degrees of separation came into usage after the 1960s study by academic Stanley Milgram. Milgram sent letters to a random selection of people in American cities,
45、telling them that they were to pass the note to a certain stockbroker living in Boston if they knew him by name. If they did not, they were to pass the letter to someone they knew who they thought might have a better chance of being acquainted with him. The average number of times the letters had to
46、 be passed on to reach the broker was six, or 6.2 to be exact-and a new phrase was born. The concept was not a new one even then, and had been written about in the 1920s by Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy. Karinthy said that any two individuals could be connected by at most five acquaintances. But
47、 after Milgrams experiment the idea captured the worlds imagination, later spawning a play and film. In the 1993 film Six Degrees of Separation , based on the 1990 play of the same name, one of the characters said: Six degrees of separation between us and everybody else on the planet. The president of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I am bound, you are bound, to everyone on this planet by a trail of six peopl
