四级阅读理解部分让人紧张也让人不安，有这种想法的考生大部分是没有复习好，或者英语的基础不好的。这样的不安心态对于四级考试来说是大大不利的。虽然阅读理解部分是四级考试的难点也是得分点，但不一定这个做不好考试就会失败。所以在考前，四级的阅读理解一定要继续学习，先来用下面的真题来练练手吧！

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 letterfor 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 36 t0 45 are based on the following passage.

It’s our guilty pleasure：Watching TV is the most comtion everyday activity，after work and sleep， in many parts of the world.Americans view five hours of TV each day，and while we know that spending so much time sitting(36 )can lead to obesity(肥胖症)and other diseases，researchers have now quantified just how(37)being a couch potato can be.

In an analysis of data from eight large(38)published studies，a Harvard—led group reported in the that for every two hours per day spent channel (39)，the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes Journal of the American Medical Association(糖尿病)rose 20%over 8.5 years，the risk of heart disease increased l5%over a (40 ) ，and the odds of dying prematurely 41 13%during a seven— year follow—up.All of these (42) are linked to a lack of physical exercise.But compared with other sedentary(久坐的)activities，like knitting，viewing TV may be especially (43)at promoting unhealthy habits.For one，the sheer number of hours we pass watching TV dwarfs the time we spend on anything else.And other studies have found that watching ads for beer and popcorn may make you more likely to (44) them.

Even authors admit that they didn’t compare different sedentary activities to (45 )whether TV watching was linked to a greater risk of diabetes，heart disease or early death compared with，say，reading

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Section B

Directions：In this section，you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it.Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs.Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived.You may choose a paragraph more than once.Each paragraph is marked with a letter.Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.

Essay.Grading Software Offers Professors a Break

A.Imagine taking a college exam，and，instead of handing in a blue book and getting a grade from a professor a few weeks later，clicking the send button when you are done and receiving a grade back instantly，your essay scored by a software program.And then，instead of being done with that exam，imagine that the system would immediately let you rewrite the test to try to improve your grade.

B.EDX，the nonprofit enterprise founded by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT)to offer courses on the Internet，has just introduced such a system and will make its automated(自动的)software available free on the Web to any institution that wants to use it.The software uses artificial intelligence to grade student essays and short written answers，freeing professors for other tasks.

C.The new service will bring the educational consortium(联盟)into a growing conflict over the role of automation in education.Although automated grading systems for multiple—choice and true—false tests are now widespread，the use of artificial intelligence technology to grade essay answers has not yet received widespread acceptance by educators and has many critics.

D.Anant Agarwal，an electrical engineer who is president of EDX，predicted that the instant—grading software would be a useful teaching tool enabling students to take tests and write essays over and over and improve the quality of their answers.He said the technology would offer distinct advantages over the traditional classroom system，where students often wait days or weeks lor grades. There is a huge value in learning with instant feedback， Dr.Agarwal said. Students are telling us they learn much better with instant feedback.

E.But skeptics(怀疑者)say the automated system is no match for live teachers.One longtime critic， Les Perelman，has drawn national attention several times for putting together nonsense essays that have fooled software grading programs into giving high marks.He has also been highly critical of studies claiming that the software compares well to human graders.

F.He is among a group of educators who last month began circulating a petition(呼吁)opposing automated assessment software.The group. which calls itself Professionals Against Machine Scoring of Student Essays in High—Stakes Assessment，has collected nearly 2，000 signatures，including some from famous people like Noanl Chomsky.

G. Let’s face the realities of automatic essay scorin9， the group’s statement reads in part. Computers cannot‘read.’They cannot measure the essentials of effective written communication：in9，adequacy of evidence，good sense，ethical(伦理的)position，convincing argument，meaningful organization，and clarity，among others.

H.But EdX expects its software to be adopted widely by schools and universities.It offers free online classes from Harvard.MIT and the University of California—Berkeley;this fall，it will add classes from Well esley.Georgetown and the University of Texas.In all，12 universities participate in EDX，which offers certificates for course completion and has said that it plans to continue to expand next year，including adding international schools.

I.The EDX assessment tool requires human teachers，or graders，to first grade l00 essays or essay questions.The system then uses a variety of machine—learning techniques to train itself to be able to grade any number of essays or answers automatically and almost instantly.The software will assign a grade depending on the scoring system created by the teacher，whether it is a letter grade or numerical(数字的)rank.

J . EDX is not the first to use the automated assessment technology，which dates to early computers in the l960s.There is now a range of companies offering commercial programs to grade written test answers，and four states--Louisiana，North Dakota，Utah and West Virginia--are using some form

of the technology in secondary schools.A fifth，Indiana，has experimented with it.In some cases the software is used as a second reader. to check the reliability of the human graders.

K.But the growing influence of the EDx consortium to set standards is likely to give the technology aboost.On Tuesday，Stanford announced that it would work with EDX to develop a joint educational system that will make use of the automated assessment technology.

L.Two .Coursera and Udacity，recently founded by Stanford faculty members to create massive open online courses， 0r MOOCs，are also committed to automated assessment systems because of the value of instant feedback.‘‘It allows students to get immediate feedback on their

that learning turns into a game，with students naturally gravitating(吸引)toward resubmitting the work until they get it right， said Daphne Koller，a computer scientist and afounder of Coursera.

M.Last year the Hewlett Foundation， a grant—malting organization set up by one of the Hewlett Packard founders and his red two$100，000 prizes aimed at improving software that grades essays and short answers.More than l50 teams entered each category.A winner of one of the Hewlett contests.Vik Paruchuri，was hired by E(Ⅸto help design its assessment software.

N. One of our focuses is to help Mds learn how to think critically， said Victor Vuchic，a program officer at the Hewlett Foundation. It’s probably impossible to do that with multiple—choice tests The challenge is that this requires human graders，and so they cost a lot more and they take a lot more time.

O.Mark D.Shermis，a professor at the University of Akron in ised the Hewlett Foundation’s contest on automated essay scoring and wrote a paper about the experiment.In his view，the technology--though imperfect--has a place in educational settings.

P.With increasingly large classes，it is impossible for most teachers to give students meaningful feedback on writing assignments，he said.Plus，he noted，critics of the technology have tended to come from the nation’s best universities，where the level of teaching is much better than at n lost schools.

Q. Often they come from very famous institutions where，in fact，they do a much of providing feedback than a machine ever could， Dr.Shermis said. There seems to be a lack of appreciation of what is actually going on in the real world.

46.Some professionals in education are collecting signatures to voice their opposition to antomated essay grading.

47.Using software to grade students’ essays saves teachers time for other work.

48.The Hewlett contests aim at improving essay grading software.

49.Though the automated grading system is widely used in multiple—choice ted essay grading is still criticized by many educators.

50.Some people don’t believe the software grading system can do as good a job as human graders.

51.Critics of automated essay scoring do not seem to know the true realities in less famous universities.

52. Critics argue many important aspects of effective writing cannot be measured by computer rating programs.

53.As class size grows，most teachers are unable to give students valuable comments aS to how to improve their writin9.

54.The automated assessment technology is sometimes used to double check the work of human graders.

55.Students find instant feedback helps improve their learning considerably.

Section C

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 Answe，.

Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.

Passage One

Questions 56 t0 60 are based on the following passage.

The endless debate about work—life balance often contains a hopeful footnote about stay at home dads.If American society and business won’t make it easier on future female leaders who choose to have children，there is still the ray of hope that increasing numbers of full—time fathers will.But based on today’s socioeconomic trends，this hope is，unfortunately，misguided.

It’s true that the number of men who have left work to do their thing as full—time parents has doubled in a decade，but it’s still very small：only 0.8%of married couples where the stay—at—horne father was out of the labor force for a year.Even that percentage is likely inflated by men thrust into their caretaker role by a downsizing.This is simply not a large enough group to reduce the social stigma(污名)and force other adjustments necessary to supporting men in this if onlywork more than their family.

Even shorter times away from work for working fathers are already difficult.A study found that 85%of new fathers take some time off after the birth of a child—but for all but a a week or two at most. Meanwhile，the average for women who take leave is more than lo weeks.

Such choices impact who moves up in the organization.While you’re away，someone else is doing your work，making your sales，taking care of your customers.That can’t help you at work.It can only hurt you.Women，of course，face the same issues of returning after a long absence.But with many more women than men choosing to leave the workforce entirely to raise families，returning from an extended parental leave doesn’t raise as many eyebrows as it does for men.

Women would make more if they didn’t break their earning trajectory(轨迹)by leaving the workforce，or if higher-paying professions were more family friendly.In the foreseeable future，Stay at home fathers may make all the difference for individual their presence won’t reduce the numbers of high potential women who are forced to choose between family and career.

56.What gives women a ray of hope to achieve work life balance?

A.More men taking an extended parental leave.

B.People’s changing attitudes towards family.

C.More women entering business management.

D.The improvement of their socioeconomic status.

57.Why does the author say the hope for more full—time fathers is misguided?

A.Women are better at taking care of children.

B.Many men value work more than their family.

C.Their number is too small to make a difference.

D.Not many men have the chance to stay at home.

58.Why do few men take a long parental leave?

A.A long leave will have a negative impact on their career.

B.They just have too many responsibilities to fulfill at work.

C.The economic loss will be too much for their family to bear.

D.They are likely to get fired if absent from work for too lon9.

59.What is the most likely reaction to men returning from an extended parental leave?

A.Jealousy.

B.Surprise

C.Admiration

D.Sympathy.

60.What does the author say about high-potential women in the not—too-distant future?

A.They will benefit from the trend of more fathers staying at home.

B.They will find high—paying professions a bit more family—friendly.

C.They are unlikely to break their career trajectory to raise a family.

D.They will still face the difficult choice between career and children.

Passage Two

Questions 61 tO 65 are based on the following passage.

Some of the world’s most significant problems never hit headlines.One example comes from agriculture.Food riots and hunger make news.But the trend lying behind these matters is rarely talked about.This is the decline in the growth in yields of some of the world’s major crops.A new study by the University of Minnesota and McGill University in Montreal looks at how decline is occurring.

The authors take a vast number of data points for the four most important crops：rice，wheat，corn and soyabeans(大豆).They find that on between 24% and 39% of all harvested areas，the improvement in yields that took place before the l980s slowed down in the l990s and 2000s.There are two worrying features of the slowdown.One is that it has been particularly sharp in the world’s most populous(人口多的)countries，India and China.Their ability to feed themselves has been an important source of relative stability both within the countries and on world food markets.

That self-sufficiency cannot be taken for granted if yields continue to slow down or reverse.Second，yield growth has been lower in wheat and rice than in coll and soyabeans.This is problematic because wheat and rice are more important as foods，accounting for around half of all calories consumed.Corn and soyabeans are more important as feed grains.The authors note that we have preferentially focused our crop improvement efforts on feeding animals and cars rather than on crops that feed people and are the basis of food security in much of the world.

The report qualifies the more optimistic findings of another new paper which suggests that the world will not have to dig up a lot more land for farming in order to feed 9 billion people in 2050，as the Food and Agriculture Organisation has argued. Instead，it says，thanks to slowing population growth，land currently ploughed up for crops might be able to revert(回返)to forest or wilderness.This could happen.The trouble is that the forecast assumes continued improvements in yields which may not actually happen

61.What does the author try to draw attention to?

A.Food riots and hunger in the world.

B.News headlines in the leading media.

C.The decline of the grain yield growth.

D.The food supply in populous countries.

62.Why does the author mention India and China in particular?

A.Their self-sufficiency is vital to the stability of world food markets.

B.Their food yields have begun to decrease sharply in recent years.

C.Their big populations are causing worldwide concerns.

D 1 Their food self-sufficiency has been taken for granted.

63.What does the new study by the two universities say about recent crop improvement efforts?

A. They fail to produce the same remarkable results as before the l980s.

B.They contribute a lot to the improvement of human food production.

C.They play a major role in guaranteeing the food security of the world.

D.They focus more on the increase of animal feed than human food grains.

64.What does the Food and Agriculture Organisation say about world food production in the coming decades?

A.The growing population will greatly increase the pressure on world food supplies.

B.The optimistic prediction about food production should be viewed with caution.

C. The slowdown of the growth in yields of major food crops will be reversed.

D.The world will be able to feed its population without increasing farmland.

65.How does the author view the argument of the Food and Agriculture Organisation?

A.It is built on the findings of a new study.

B.It is based on a doubtful assumption.

C.It is backed by strong evidence.

D. It is open to further discussion.

历年的四级真题都是非常有价值的资源，它可以帮助我们了解四级考试的内容、方向以及难易程度。而四级阅读部分又是四级考试的重点部分，那么四级阅读理解真题就值得我们反复去看了。这篇阅读理解真题就是如此，对于真题如果没有时间做题，可以直接去看去思考，但不可以不重视它的作用。