2014年英语专业四级考试真题及答案解析

(1) After breakfast the boys wandered out into the playground. Here the day-boys were gradually assembling. They were sons of the local clergy, of the officers at the depot, and of such manufacturers or men of business as the old town possessed. Presently a bell rang, and they all trooped into school. This consisted of a large, long room at opposite ends of which two undermasters conducted the second and third forms, and of a smaller one, leading out of it, used by Mr. Watson, who taught the first form. To attach the preparatory to the senior school these three classes were known officially, on speech days and in reports, as upper, middle, and lower second. Philip was put in the last. The master, a red-faced man with a pleasant voice, was called Rice; he had a cheerful manner with boys, and the time passed quickly. Philip was surprised when it was a quarter to eleven and they were let out for ten minutes’ rest. (2) The whole school rushed noisily into the playground. The new boys were told to go into the middle, while the others stationed themselves along opposite walls. They began to play Pig in the Middle. The old boys ran from wall to wall while the new boys tried to catch them; when one was seized and the new boys tried to catch them: when one was seized and the mystic words said—one, two, three, and a pig for me—he became a prisoner and, turning sides, helped to catch those who were still free. Philip saw a boy running past and tried to catch him but his limp gave him no chance; and the runners, taking their opportunity, made straight for the ground he covered. Then one of them had the brilliant idea of imitating Philip’s clumsy run. Other boys saw it and began to laugh; then they all copied the first; and they ran round Philip, limping comically, screaming with shrill laughter. They lost their heads with the delight of their new amusement, and choked with helpless merriment. One of them tripped Philip up and he fell, heavily as he always fell, and cut his knee. They laughed all the louder when he got up. A boy pushed him from behind, and he would have fallen again if another had not caught him. The game was forgotten in the entertainment of Philip’s deformity. Philip was completely scared. He could not make out why they were laughing at him. His heart beat so that he could hardly breathe, and he was more frightened than he had ever been in his life. He stood still stupidly while the boys ran round him, mimicking and laughing; they shouted to him to try and catch them; but he did not move. He did not want them to see him run any more. He was using all his strength to prevent himself from crying.

(1) For parents who send their kids off to college saying, “These will be the best years of your life,” it would be very appropriate to add, “If you can handle the stress of college life.” (2) Freshmen are showing up already stressed out, according to the latest research study that reported students’ emotional health levels at their lowest since the survey started in 1985. While in school, more students are working part-time and near-full-time jobs. At graduation, only 29 percent of seniors have jobs lined up. (3) Pressure to excel often creates stress, and many students are not learning how to effectively handle this stress. Let me share five facts that I believe every college student should know about stress. (4) First, stress can make smart people do stupid things. Stress causes what brain researchers call “cortical inhibition” . In simple terms, stress hinders a part of the brain responsible for decision-making and reaction time and can adversely affect other mental abilities as well. (5) Second, the human body doesn’t discriminate between a big stressful event and a little one. Any stressful experience will create about 1,400 biochemical events in your body. If any amount of stress is left unchecked, many things can occur within the body, including premature aging, impaired cognitive function and energy drain. (6) Third, stress can become your new pattern. When you regularly experience negative feelings and high amounts of stress, your brain recognizes this as your normal state. This then becomes the new pattern, or baseline for your emotional state. (7) Fourth, stress can be controlled. Countless studies demonstrate that people can restructure their emotional state using emotion-refocusing techniques. These techniques help you recognize how you are feeling and shift to a more positive emotional, mental and physical state. (8) One technique involves slowing your thoughts and focusing on your heartbeat, breathing slowly and deeply, and focusing on the positive feeling that you receive. (9) Finally, stress can be lessened if you love what you study. Barbara Frederickson, a leading international authority on the importance of positive emotions, says humans are genetically programmed to seek positive emotions such as love and joy. It is suggested to choose a major or career path you love and enjoy. Otherwise, you could end up fighting against your own biology.

(1) For anyone who doubts that the texting revolution is upon us, consider this: The average 13- to 17- year-old sends and receives 3 , 3 3 9 texts a month— more than 1 0 0 per day, according to the Nielsen Co., the media research firm. Adults are catching up. People from age 45 to 54 sent and received 323 texts a month in the second quarter of 2010, up 75% from a year ago, Nielsen says. (2) Behind the texting explosion is a fundamental shift in how we view our mobile devices. That they are phones is increasingly beside the point. (3) Part of what’s driving the texting surge among adults is the popularity of social media. Sites like Twitter, with postings of no more than 140 characters, are creating and reinforcing the habit of communicating in micro-bursts. (4) Economics has much to do with texting’s popularity. Text messages cost carriers less than traditional mobile voice transmissions, and so they cost users less. Sprint Nextel has reconceived its Virgin Mobile brand to cater to heavy texters in a difficult economy. For $25 per month, users get unlimited texting, email, social networking and 30 0 talk minutes; for another $1 5, they get an additional 900 talk minutes. The name of the brand’ s new wireless plan: “Beyond Talk.” (5) Texting’s rise over conversation is changing the way we interact, social scientists and researchers say. We are now inclined to text to relay difficult information. We stare at our phone when we want to avoid eye contact. Rather than make plans in advance, we engage in what researchers have named “micro-coordination”—”I’ll txt u in 10 mins when I know wh/resrnt.” (6) Texting saves us time, but it steals from quiet reflection. “When people have a mobile device and have even a little extra time, they will communicate with someone in their life,” says Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. (7) And the phone conversation will never be completely out. Deal makers and other professionals still spend much of the day on the phone. Researchers say people are more likely to use text-based communication at the preliminary stages of projects. The phone comes into play when there are multiple options to consider or important decisions to be made.

(1) The healthy adolescent boy or girl likes to do the real things in life, to do the things that matter. He would rather be a plumber’s mate and do a real job that requires doing than learn about hydrostatics sitting at a desk, without understanding what practical use they are going to be. A girl would rather look after the baby than learn about child care. Logically should learn about things before doing and that is presumably why the experts enforce this in our educational system. But it is not the natural way—nor, I venture to think, the best way. The adolescent wants to do things first for only then does he appreciate the problems involved and want to learn more about them. (2) They do these things better in primitive life, for there the adolescent boy joins his father in making canoes and going out fishing or hunting. He is serving his apprenticeship in the actual accomplishments of life. It is not surprising that anthropologists（ 人 类 学 家 ） find that the adolescents of primitive communities do not suffer from the same neurotic（ 神 经 质 的 ） “ difficulties” as those of civilized life. This is not, as some assume, because they are permitted more freedom, but because they are given more natural outlets for their native interests and powers and allowed to grow up freely into a full life of responsibility in the community. (3) In the 19th century this was recognized in the apprenticeship system, which allowed the boy to go out with the master carpenter or thatcher, to engage in the actual work of carpentry or roof-mending, and so to learn his trade. In some agricultural colleges at the present time young men have to do a year’s work on a farm before their theoretical training at college. The great advantage of this system is that it lets the apprentice see the practical problems before he sets to work learning how to solve them, and he can therefore take a more intelligent interest in his theoretical work. (4) Since more knowledge of more things is now required in order to cope with the adult world, the period of growing-up to independence takes much longer than it did in a more primitive community, and the responsibility for such education, which formerly was in the hands of the parents, is now necessarily undertaken by experts at school. But that should not make us lose sight of the basic principle, namely the need and the desire of the adolescent to engage responsibility in the real pursuits of life and then to learn how—to learn through responsibility, not to learn before responsibility.