2025年英语专业四级考试真题及答案解析

(1)Six months before she died, my grandmother moved into an old people's home and I visited her there. She was sitting in the living room with about fifteen other residents, mostly women, half of them asleep. The room was clean and warm, with flowers and pictures, and the care assistants were kind and cheerful. A talk show was on the television, and the only other sound was snoring and embarrassing digestive noises. People only moved when they needed to be helped to the bathroom. It was depressing. Gran talked a lot about how much she missed seeing her grandchildren, but I knew from my sister that they hated going to visit her there and, to be perfectly honest, I couldn't wait to get away myself. (2)So I was interested to read a newspaper article about a new concept in old people's homes. The idea is simple, but revolutionary: combining a residential home for the elderly with a nursery school in the same building. The children and the residents eat lunch together and share activities such as music, painting, gardening and caring for the pets which the residents are encouraged to keep. In the afternoons, the residents enjoy reading or telling stories to the children and, if a child is feeling sad or tired, there is always a kind lap to sit on and a cuddle. There are trips out and birthday parties too. (3)The advantages are enormous for everyone concerned. The children are happy because they get a lot more individual attention and respond well because someone has time for them. They also learn that old people are not different or frightening in any way. And of course, they see illness and death and learn to accept them. The residents are happy because they feel useful and needed. They are more active and more interested in life when the children are around and they take more interest in their appearance too. And the staff are happy because they see an improvement in the physical and psychological health of the residents. (4)Nowadays there is less and less contact between the old and the young. There are many reasons for this, including the breakdown of the extended family, working parents with no time to care for ageing relations, families that have moved away and smaller flats with no room for grandparents. But the result is the same: increasing numbers of children without grandparents and old people who have no contact with children. And more old people who are lonely and feel useless, along with more and more families with young children who desperately need more support. It's a major problem in many societies. (5)That's why inter-generational programs, designed to bring the old and the young together, are growing in popularity all over the world, supported by UNESCO and other local and international organizations. There are examples of successful initiatives all over the world. Using young people to teach IT skills to older people is one obvious example. Using old people as volunteer assistants in schools is another, perhaps reading with children who need extra attention. There are schemes which involve older people visiting families who are having problems, maybe looking after the children for a while to give the tired mother a break. Or“adopt a grandparent” schemes in which children write letters or visit a lonely old person in their area. There are even holiday companies that specialize in holidays for children and grandparents together. One of the successful schemes pairs young volunteers with old people who are losing their sight. The young people help with practical things such as helping with online shopping, and the older people can pass on their knowledge and experience to their young visitors. For example, a retired judge may be paired with a teenager who wants to study law. Lasting friendships often develop. (6)But it isn't only the individuals concerned who gain from inter-generational activities. The advantages to society are enormous too. If older people can understand and accept the youth of today, and vice versa, there will be less conflict in a community. In a world where the number of old people is increasing, we need as much understanding and tolerance as possible. Modern society has isolated people into age groups and now we need to rediscover what“community”really means. And we can use the strengths of one generation to help another. Then perhaps getting old won’t be such a depressing prospect after all.

(1)My father's youngest brother, Uncle Chul, shared the Lee's famously bad reaction to liquor, which was to turn beet-red in the face, grow dizzy and finally get sick. In spite of this, he was always happy to stay up late at family gatherings. After a few glasses of whisky he would really loosen up, and, with the notable exception of my mother, we all appreciated his rough language and stories. Only when Mother came in from the kitchen would his talk soften, for he knew he had always fallen short in her eyes. If they were ever alone together, say in the kitchen, after dinner, he would use the most decorous(得体的)voice in asking for a glass or a fresh bucket of ice, and even offer to help load the dishwasher or run an errand to the store. (2)On one of those nights we sped off, both happy for a break in the long evening. He asked me about school, what sports I was playing, but the conversation inevitably turned toward my parents, and particularly my mother—how much she had invested in me, that I was her great hope. I thought it was odd that he was speaking this way, like my other relatives, and I answered with some criticism of her—that she was too anxious and overbearing. He stared at me and, with a hard solemnity I had not heard from him before, said that my mother was one of the finest people one could ever know. He kept a grip on the wheel and in the ensuing quiet of the drive I could sense how he must have both admired and despised her. In many respects, my mother was an unrelenting woman. She tended to measure people by the mark of a few principles of conduct: ask no help from anyone, always plan for the long run and practice(her own variation of)the golden rule, which was to treat others much better than oneself. (3)In her mind, Uncle Chul sorely lacked on all these accounts. In the weeks following our drive, my father would be deciding whether to lend him $10,000 to start a business. As always after dinner, my parents sat in the kitchen and spoke in Korean, under the light of a fluorescent ring. My mother, in many ways the director of the family, questioned my uncle's character and will. Hadn't he performed poorly in school, failed to finish college?Hadn't he spent most of his youth perfecting his skills as a black belt in tae kwon do(跆拳道)and his billiards game?Wasn't he a gambler in spirit? (4)My father could defend him only weakly. Uncle Chul had a history of working hard only when reward was well within sight, like cash piled high on the end of a pool table. His older brothers were all respected professionals and academics. My father was a doctor, a psychiatrist who had taught himself English in order to practice in Vancouver. Uncle Chul had left Korea after a series of failed ventures and odd jobs, and found himself broke with a wife and new baby. How valuable were his tae kwon do trophies now?What could he possibly do in this country? (5)My parents argued fiercely and my father left the kitchen. But as was my mother's way, she kept on pushing her side of the issue, thinking aloud. My father was throwing away his hard-earned money on the naive wish that his little brother had magically changed. Uncle Chul was a poor risk and even now was complaining about his present job, hauling and cleaning produce for a greengrocer. He would get to the store at 4 a.m.to prepare vegetables for the day's selling. While he shared a sofa bed with his nephew in his older brother's tiny apartment, his wife and infant daughter were still in Seoul, waiting for him to make enough money to send for them.

(1)Deep in the jungles of Colombia there is a kind of flower that attracts bees with its unique perfume. In Venezuela there is a flower people collect for its large white or yellow petals. Few people ever find it, though, since it only blooms for a few days. There is a small pink and yellow flower that only grows in a very specific part of the state of Florida. It also only grows on trees, and wind or birds may spread its seeds. These flowers are some of the most rare and delicate species in all of nature. They are all types of orchids (兰花). (2)For hundreds of years orchids have been prized discoveries of collectors and adventurers hoping to find new and exotic breeds of the flower. In her book The Orchid Thief, author Susan Orlean tells how in the 1800s orchids became popular in Europe, which made them very valuable. Many “orchid hunters”set out to find and bring back new types of orchids to sell. However, many of the men who went looking for the mysterious orchids met with tragedy instead. (3)While the plants have long been valued for their beauty, they may be even more important to science and our understanding of co-evolution. Unlike plants that can self-pollinate (自传花粉), orchids need very specific insects or birds to spread their pollen(花粉).The process by which insects, the wind, or birds spread the pollen of different flowers is called pollination. Pollen is a powder produced by plants that contains their genetic material. In order for the plants to reproduce, the pollen must be physically moved to the flower’s stigma(柱头), which contains an egg. Now the fertilized egg can become a seed. Birds and insects can pollinate plants by touching many different flowers and spreading the pollen around. (4)Orchids evolved to attract insects and birds. Because there are many different species of orchid, there are also many different ways the orchids attract their pollinators. Orlean explains that“many species look so much like their favorite insects that the insect mistakes them for kin [other insects], and when it lands on the flower to visit, pollen sticks to its body...Another orchid imitates the shape of something that a pollinating insect likes to kill…Other species look like the mate of their pollinator, so the insect tries to mate with one orchid and then another..and spreads pollen from flower to flower each hopeless time.” (5)Other orchids don't use their shape at all, but rather produce specialized scents to attract specific insects, such as bees, beetles or flies. Some orchids smell like cake, some like chocolate, and some like rotting meat. All these smells may seem weird, but they exist to lure creatures to their pollen and help the orchids survive. The strategies to attract insects and spread their flowers' pollen go on and on. Each family of orchids has a unique kind of insect or bird that visits their flowers, as well as its own way of attracting them. It has worked, too. According to NOVA, a science television series,“orchid species number more than 25,000 worldwide.”That is more kinds of species than any other flower on the planet, and new ones are still being found. (6)Orchids and the insects that pollinate them are one of the most amazing examples of evolution. Though their degree of co-dependence varies, as it is apparent that at least some orchids are more reliant on their pollinators than the pollinators are on the orchids, the degree of evolutionary specialization is still very impressive. Research suggests that certain species of orchid evolved specifically to attract orchid bees, which collect a wide variety of scents from various plants in preparation for mating. In another case, an orchid mimics a female's smell and appearance-and the male pollinator gets nothing out of the bargain whatsoever. By tricking the insects that collect its pollen, the orchid has survived since the time of the dinosaurs.