2011年英语专业四级考试真题及答案解析

(1) We have a crisis on our hands. You mean global warning? The world economy? No, the decline of reading. People are just not doing it anymore, especially the young. Who’s responsible? Actually, it’s more like, what is responsible? The Internet, of course, and everything that comes with it — Facebook, Twitter ( 推 特 ). You can write your own list. (2) There’s been a warning about the imminent death of literate civilization for a long time. In the 20th century, first it was the movies, then radio, then television that seemed to spell doom for the written world. None did. Reading survived; in fact it not only survived, it has flourished. The world is more literate than ever before — there are more and more readers, and more and more books. (3) The fact that we often get our reading material online today is not something we should worry over. The electronic and digital revolution of the last two decades has arguably shown the way forward for reading and for writing. Take the arrival of e-book readers as an example. Devices like Kindle make reading more convenient and are a lot more environmentally friendly than the traditional paper book. (4) As technology makes new ways of writing possible, new ways of reading are possible. Interconnectivity allows for the possibility of a reading experience that was barely imaginable before. Where traditional books had to make do with photographs and illustrations, an e-book can provide readers with an unlimited number of links: to texts, pictures, and videos. In the future, the way people write novels, history, and philosophy will resemble nothing seen in the past. (5) On the other hand, there is the danger of trivialization. One Twitter group is offering its followers single-sentence-long “digests” of the great novels. War and Peace in a sentence? You must be joking. We should fear the fragmentation of reading. There is the danger that the high-speed connectivity of the Internet will reduce our attention span — that we will be incapable of reading anything of length or which requires deep concentration. (6) In such a fast-changing world, in which reality seems to be remade each day, we need the ability to focus and understand what is happening to us. This has always been the function of literature and we should be careful not to let it disappear. Our society needs to be able to imagine the possibility of someone utterly in tune with modern technology but able to make sense of a dynamic, confusing world. (7) In the 15th century, Johannes Guttenberg’s invention of the printing press in Europe had a huge impact on civilization. Once upon a time the physical book was a challenging thing. We should remember this before we assume that technology is out to destroy traditional culture.

(1) I know when the snow melts and the first robins (知更鸟) come to call, when the laughter of children returns to the parks and playgrounds, something wonderful is about to happen. (2) Spring cleaning. (3) I’ll admit spring cleaning is a difficult notion for modern families to grasp. Today’s busy families hardly have time to load the dishwasher, much less clean the doormat. Asking the family to spend the weekend collecting winter dog piles from the melting snow in the backyard is like announcing there will be no more Wi-Fi. It interrupts the natural order. (4) “Honey, what say we spend the weekend beating the rugs, sorting through the boxes in the basement and painting our bedroom a nice lemony yellow?” I say. (5) “Can we at least wait until the NBA matches are over?” my husband answers. (6) But I tell my family, spring cleaning can’t wait. The temperature has risen just enough to melt snow but not enough for Little League practice to start. Some flowers are peeking out of the thawing ground, but there is no lawn to seed, nor garden to tend. Newly wakened from our winter’s hibernation ( 冬 眠), yet still needing extra blankets at night, we open our windows to the first fresh air floating on the breeze and all of the natural world demanding “Awake and be clean!” (7) Biologists offer a theory about this primal impulse to clean out every drawer and closet in the house at spring’s first light, which has to do with melatonin, the sleepytime hormone (激素) our bodies produce when it’s dark. When spring’s light comes, the melatonin diminishes, and suddenly we are awakened to the dusty, virus-filled house we’ve been hibernating in for four months. (8) I tell my family about the science and psychology of a good healthy cleaning at spring’s arrival. I speak to them about life’s greatest rewards waiting in the removal of soap scum from the bathtub, which hasn’t been properly cleaned since the first snowfall. (9) “I’ll do it,” says the eldest child, a 21-year-old college student who lives at home. (10) “You will? Wow!” I exclaim. (11) Maybe after all these years, he’s finally grasped the concept. Maybe he’s expressing his rightful position as eldest child and role model. Or maybe he’s going to Florida for a break in a couple of weeks and he’s being nice to me who is the financial-aid officer. (12) No matter. Seeing my adult son willingly cleaning that dirty bathtub gives me hope for the future of his 12-year-old brother who, instead of working, is found to be sleeping in the seat of the window he is supposed to be cleaning. (13) “Awake and be clean!” I say.

(1) These days lots of young Japanese do omiai, literally, “meet and look.” Many of them do so willingly. In today’s prosperous and increasingly conservative Japan, the traditional omiai kekkon, or arranged marriage, is thriving. (2) But there is a difference. In the original omiai, the young Japanese couldn’t reject the partner chosen by his parents and their middleman. After World War II, many Japanese abandoned the arranged marriage as part of their rush to adopt the more democratic ways of their American conquerors. The Western ren’ai kekkon, or love marriage, became popular; Japanese began picking their own mates by dating and falling in love. (3) But the Western way was often found wanting in an important respect: it didn’t necessarily produce a partner of the right economic, social, and educational qualifications. “Today’s young people are quite calculating,” says Chieko Akiyama, a social commentator. (4) What seems to be happening now is a repetition of a familiar process in the country’s history, the “Japanization” of an adopted foreign practice. The Western ideal of marrying for love is accommodated in a new omiai in which both parties are free to reject the match. “Omiai is evolving into a sort of stylized introduction,” Mrs. Akiyama says. (5) Many young Japanese now date in their early twenties, but with no thought of marriage. When they reach the age — in the middle twenties for women, the late twenties for men — they increasingly turn to omiai. Some studies suggest that as many as 40% of marriages each year are omiai kekkon. It’s hard to be sure, say those who study the matter, because many Japanese couples, when polled, describe their marriage as a love match even if it was arranged. (6) These days, doing omiai often means going to a computer matching service rather than to a nakodo. The nakodo of tradition was an old woman who knew all the kids in the neighbourhood and went around trying to pair them off by speaking to their parents; a successful match would bring her a wedding invitation and a gift of money. But Japanese today find it’s less awkward to reject a proposed partner if the nakodo is a computer. (7) Japan has about five hundred computer matching services. Some big companies, including Mitsubishi, run one for their employees. At a typical commercial service, an applicant pays $80 to $125 to have his or her personal data stored in the computer for two years and $200 or so more if a marriage results. The stored information includes some obvious items, like education and hobbies, and some not-so-obvious ones, like whether a person is the oldest child. (First sons, and to some extent first daughter, face an obligation of caring for elderly parents.)

(1) Cordia Harrington was tired of standing up all day and smelling like French fries at night. She owned and operated three McDonald’s shops in Illinois, but as a divorced mother of three boys, she yearned for a business that would provide for her children and let her spend more time with them. (2 ) Her lucky moment came, strangely enough, after she was nominated in 19 9 2 to be on the McDonald’ s bun committee. “The company picked me up in a corporate jet to see bakeries around the world,” she recalls. “Every time I went to a meeting, I love it. This was global!” (3) The experience opened her eyes to business possibilities. When McDonald’s decided it wanted a new bun supplier, Harrington became determined to win the contract, even though she had no experience running a bakery. (4) Harrington studied the bakery business and made sure she was never off executives’ radar. “If you have a dream, you can’t wait for people to call you,” she says. “So I’d visit a mill and send them photos of myself in a baker’s hat and jacket, holding a sign that say ‘I want to be your baker.’ ” After four years and 32 interviews, her persistence paid off. (5) Harrington sealed the deal with a handshake, sold her shops, and borrowed $13.5 million. She was ready to build the fastest, most automated bakery in the world. (6) The Tennessee Bun Company opened ahead of schedule in 1997, in time for a slump in U.S. fast-food sales for McDonald’s. Before Harrington knew it, she was down to her last $20,000, not enough to cover payroll. And her agreement with McDonald’s required that she sell exclusively to the company. “I cried myself to sleep many nights,” she recalls. “I really did think, I am going to go bankrupt.” (7) But Harrington worked out an agreement to supply Pepperidge Farm as well. “McDonald’s could see a benefit if our production went up and prices went down, and no benefit if we went out of business,” she says. “That deal saved us.” (8) Over the next eight years, Harrington branched out even more: She started her own trucking business, added a cold-storage company, and now has three bakeries producing fresh buns and frozen dough — all now known as the Bun Companies. Speed is still a priority: It takes 11 people at the main bakery to turn out 60 ,0 0 0 buns an hour for clients across 40 states, South America, and the Caribbean. (9) Grateful for the breaks she’s had, Harrington is passionate about providing opportunities to all 230 employees. “Financial success is the most fun when you can give it away,” she says. (10) The current economy is challenging. Some of her clients’ sales have declined, but she’s found new clients and improved efficiencies to help sustain the company’s double-digit growth. (11) Cordia Harrington doesn’t have to stand on her feet all day anymore. Two of her three sons now work for her. And she’s remarried — her husband, Tom, is now her CFO. (12) “This is more than a job,” says Harrington. “It’s a mission. I’ m always thinking, how can we best serve our employees? If we support them, they’ll do their best to look after our clients. That’s how it works here.”