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2013.12 英语四级考试真题试卷（第三套）
Part If Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)
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
letter for 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 to 45 are based on the following passage.
To get a sense of how women have progressed in science,take a quick tour of the physics department at the
University of California, Berkeley. This is a storied
Place ，the 36 of some of the most important discoveries in modern science--starting with Ernest Lawrence's invention of
the cyclotron (回旋加速器) in 1931. A generation ago, female faces were 37 and, even today, visitors walking
through the first floor of LeConte Hall will see a full corridor of exhibits 38 the many distinguished physicists who
made history here,39 all of them white males
But climb up to the third floor and you'll see a 40 display. There, among the photos of current faculty members and
students, are portraits of the41 head of the department, Marjorie Shapiro, and four other women whose research 42
everything from the mechanics of the universe to the smallest particles of matter. A sixth woman was hired just two weeks
ago. Although they're still only about
10 percent of the physics faculty, women are clearly a presence here. And the real
43 may be in the smaller photos to the right: graduate and undergraduate students, about 20 percent of them female.
Every year Berkeley sends its fresh female physics PhDs to the country's top universities. That makes Shapiro optimistic,
but also
44 .
getting better as 45 as I would like
A) circumstance
B) confidence
C) covers
D) current
E) deals
F)different K) presently
G)exposing L) rare
H) fast M) realistic
I)honoring N) site
J)hope O) virtually
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 SHEET2.
ls College a Worthy Investment?
A) Why are we spending so much money on college? And why are we so unhappy about it? We all seem to agree that a
college education is wonderful, and yet strangely we worry when we see families investing so much in this supposedly
essential good. Maybe it's time to ask a question that seems almost sacrilegious (大不敬的): is all this investment in
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college education really worth it?
B) The answer, I fear, is no. For an increasing number of kids, the extra time and money spent pursuing a college diploma
will leave them worse off than they were before they set foot on campus.
C) For my entire adult life, a good education has been the most important thing for middle-class households. My parents
spent more educating my sister and me than they spent on their house, and they're not the only ones.., and, of course, for
an increasing number of families, most of the cost of their house is actually the cost of living in a good school district.
Questioning the value of a college education seems a bit like questioning the value of happiness, or fun.
D) The average price of all goods and services has risen about 50 percent. But the price of a college education has nearly
doubled in that time. Is the education that today's students are getting twice as good? Are new workers twice as smart? Have
they become somehow massively more expensive to educate?
E) Perhaps a bit. Richard Vedder, an Ohio University economics professor, says, and I gee college costs
rising faster than inflation up to the mid一1980s by l percent a year．Now l see them risin9 3 t0 4 percent a year over
inflation．What has happened? The federal government has started dropping money out of airplanes．”Aid has increased，
subsidized(补贴的)loans have become available．And “the universities have gotten the money．”Economist Bryan Caplan。
who is writing a book about education，agrees：‘‘It’s a giant waste of resources that will continue as long as the subsidies
continue．’’
F)Promotional literature for colleges and student loans often speaks of debt as an “investment in yourself．”But an
investment is supposed to generate income to pay off the loans．More than half of all recent graduates are unemployed or in
jobs that do not require a degree．and the amount of student— loan debt carried by households has increased more than five
times since l999．These graduates were
told that a diploma was all they needed to succeed，but it won’t even get them out of the spare bedroom at Mom and
Dad’s．For many。the most visible result of their four years is the loan payments，which now average hundreds of dollars a
month on loan balances in the tens of thousands．
G)It’s true about the money一一sort of．College graduates now make 80 percent more than people who have only a
high．school diploma．and though there are no precise estimates，the wage premium(高出的部分)for , in outstanding school
seems to be even higher．But that’s not true of every student．It’s very easy to spend four years majoring in English literature
and come out no more employable than you were
before you went in．Conversely，chemical engineers straight out of school can easily make almost four times the wages of
an entry—level high—school graduate．
H)James Heckman，the Nobel Prize-winning economist，has examined how the returns on education break down for
individuals with different backgrounds and levels of ability．“Even with these high prices．you’re still finding a high return
for individuals who are bright and motivated．”he says．On the other hand，“if you’re not college ready，then the answer is
n0，it's not worth it．”Experts tend to
agree that for the average student，college is still worth it today。but they also agree that the rapid increase in price is eating
up more and more of the potential return．For borderline students· tuition(学费)rise can push those returns into negative
territory．
I)Everyone seems to agree that the government，and parents，should be rethinking how we invest in higher education and
that employers need to rethink the increasing use of college degrees as crude screening tools for jobs that don’t really
require college skills．“Employers seeing a surplus of college graduates and looking to fill jobs are just adding that
requirement。”says vedder．“In fact ·a college
degree becomes a job requirement for becoming a bar—tender．”
J)We have started to see some change on the finance side．A law passed in 2007 allows many students to cap their loan
payment at lo percent of their income and forgives any balance after 25 years．But of course，that doesn’t control the cost of
education；it just shifts it to taxpayers．it also encourages graduates to choose lower—paying careers，which reduces the
financial return to education still further． “You’re subsidizing people to become priests and poets and so forth。”says
Heckman．“You may think that’s a good thin9。or you may not．”Either way it will be expensive for the government．
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