2020年12月大学英语四级阅读理解真题及答案

英语四级考试总共有四篇阅读理解，阅读理解部分由词汇理解（1篇）、长篇阅读（1篇）和仔细阅读（2篇）构成。词汇理解的篇章长度为200-250词；长篇阅读的篇章长度约1000词；仔细阅读的每篇长度为300-350词。阅读理解部分的分值比例为35% ，其中词汇理解占5%，长篇阅读占10%，仔细阅读占20%。考试时间40分钟。以下是希赛网英语四六级频道为大家搜集整理的2020年12月英语四级阅读理解真题及参考答案。

Part III 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.

When my son completes atask, I can't help but praise him. I's only natural to give praise where praise is due. right? But is there such a thing as too much praise? According to psychologist Katherine Phillip, children don't benefit from 26_____ praise as much as we' d like to think "Parents often praise, bclicv ing thoy are building thcir child's sclf confidencc. Howcvcr,ovcr-praising can have a 27_____effect," says Phillip "When we use the same praise 28_____，it may become empty and no longer valued by the child. It can also become an expectation that anything they do must be 29_____ with praise. This may lead to the child avoiding taking risks due to fearof 30_____ their parents"

Does this mean we should do away with all the praiso? Phillip says no."The key to healthy praisc is to focus on thc process rather than the 31_____. it is the recognition of a child's attcmpt, or the process in which they achieved something, that is essential,"she says "Parents should encourage

their child 10 take the risks needed to learn and grow”

So how do we break the 32_____ of praise we're all so accustomed to? Phillip says it's important to. 33_____between "person praise" and "process raise". "Person praise is 34_____ saying how great someone is. IT's a form personal approval. Process praise as acknowledgment of the efforts to person has just 35_____， Childrcn who receive pcrson praisc arc more likely to feel shame aner losing," says Phillip.

A) choose

B) constant

C) disappointing

D) distinguish

E) exhausting

F) experienced

G) negative

H) outcome

1) pattern

J) plural

K) rcpcatcdly

L) rewarded

M) separately

N) simply

答案

26. B. constant

27. G. negative

28. K repeatedly

29. L rewarded

30. C disappointing

31. H outcome

32. I .patterm

33. D .distinguish

34. N. simply

35 0. undertaken

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.

Poverty is a story about us, not them

[A] Too often still, we think we know what poverty looks like. It’s the way we’ve been taught, the images we’ve been force-fed for decades. The chronically homeless. The undocumented immigrant. The urban poor, usually personified as a woman of color, the “welfare queen” politicians still too often reference.

[B] But as income inequality rises to record levels in the United States, even in the midst of a record economic expansion, those familiar images are outdated, hurtful, and counterproductive to focusing attention on solutions and building ladders of opportunity.

[C] Today’s faces of income inequality and lack of opportunity look like all of us. It’s Anna Landre, a disabled Georgetown University student fighting to keep health benefits that allow her the freedom to live her life. It’s Tiffanie Standard, a mentor for young women of color in Philadelphia who want to be tech entrepreneurs – but who must work multiple jobs to stay afloat. It’s Sharon Penner, an artisan in rural Georgia, who worries about retirement security and health care options for senior gay women. It’s Charles Oldstein, a U.S. Air Force veteran in New Orleans who would still be on the street if the city hadn’t landed a zero tolerance policy for homeless among veterans. It’s Ken Outlaw, a welder in rural North Carolina whose dream of going back to school at a local community college was dashed by Hurricane Florence –just one of the extreme weather events that have tipped the balance for struggling Americans across the nation.

[D] If these are the central characters of our story about poverty, what layers of perceptions, myths, and realities must we unearth to find meaningful solutions and support? In pursuit of revealing this complicated reality, Mothering Justice, led by women of color, went last year to the state capital in Lansing, Michigan, to lobby on issues that affect working mothers. One of the Mothering Justice organizers went to the office of a state representative to talk about the lack of affordable childcare—the vestiges of a system that expected mothers to stay home with their children while their husbands worked. A legislative staffer dismissed the activist’s concerns, telling her “my husband took care of that—I stayed home.”

[E] That comment, says Atkinson, “was meant to shame” and relied on the familiar trope that a woman of color concerned about income inequality and programs that promote mobility must by definition be a single mom, probably with multiple kids. In this case, Mothering Justice activist happened to be married. And in most cases in the America of 2019, the images that come to mind when we hear the words poverty of income inequality fail miserably in reflecting a complicated reality: poverty touches virtually all of us. The face of income inequality, for all but a very few of us, is the one we each see in the mirror.

[F] How many of us are poor in the U.S.? It depends on who you ask. According to the Census Bureau, 38 million people in the U.S. are living below the official poverty thresholds (currently $20,231 for a family of three with two children). Taking into account economic need beyond that absolute measure, the Institute for Policy Studies found that 140 million people are poor or low-income, living below 200 percent of the Census’ supplemental measure of poverty. That’s almost half the U.S. population.

[G] No matter the measure, within that massive group, poverty is extremely diverse. We know that some people are more affected than others like children, the elderly, people live with disabilities, and people of color.

[H] But the fact that 4 in 10 Americans can’t come up with $400 in an emergency is a commonly cited statistic for good reason: economic instability stretches across race, gender, and geography. It even reaches into the middle classes, as real wages have stagnated for all but the very wealthy and temporary spells of financial instability are not uncommon.

[I] Negative caricatures remain of who is living in poverty as well as what is needed to move out of it. The iconic American myth is that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and change a bad situation into a good one. The reality is that finding opportunity without help from families, friends, schools, and community is virtually impossible. And the playing field is nothing close to level.

[J] The FrameWorks Institute, a research group that focuses on public framing of issues, has studies what props up stereotypes and narratives of poverty in the United Kingdom. “People view economic success and wellbeing in life as … a product of choice, willpower, drive, grit, and gumption,” says NatKendall-Taylor, CEO of FrameWorks. “When we see people who are struggling,” he says, those assumptions “lead us to the perception that people in poverty are lazy, they don’t care, and they haven’t made the right decisions.”

[K] Does this sound familiar? Similar ideas surround poverty in the U.S. And these assumptions wreak havoc on reality. “When people enter into that pattern of thinking,” says Kendal-Taylor, “it’s cognitively comfortable to make sense of issues of poverty in that way. It creates a kind of cognitive blindness –all of the factors external to a person’s drive and choices that they’ve made become invisible and fade from view.”

[L] Those external factors include the difficulties concomitant with low-wage work or structural discrimination based on race, gender, or ability. Assumption get worse when people who are poor use government benefits to help them survive. There is a great tension between “the poor” and those who are receiving what has become a dirty word: “welfare.”

[M] According to the General Social Survey, 71 percent of respondents believe the country is spending too little on “assistance to the poor.” On the other hand, 22 percent think we are spending too little on “welfare”; 37 percent believe we are spending too much.

[N] “Poverty has been interchangeable with people of color—but specifically black women and black mothers,” says Atkinson of Mothering Justice. It’s true that black mothers are more affected by poverty than many other groups, yet they are disproportionately the face of poverty. For example, Americans routinely overestimate the share of black recipients of public assistance programs.

[O] In reality, most people will experience some form of financial hardship at some point in their lives. Indeed, people tend to dip in and out of poverty, perhaps due to unexpected obstacles like losing a job, or when hours of a low-wage job fluctuate.

[P] Something each of us can do is to treat each other with the dignity and compassion that is deserved and to understand deeply that the issue of poverty touches all of us.

36. One legislative staffer assumed that a woman of color who advocated affordable childcare must by a single mother.

37. People from different races, genders, and regions all suffer from a lack of financial security.

38. According to a survey, while the majority believe too little assistance given to the poor, more than a third believe too much is spent on welfare.

39. A research group has found that Americans who are struggling are thought to be lazy as they have made the wrong decision.

40. Under the old system in American, a mother was supposed to stay home and take care of her children.

41. …found that nearly 50% of Americans are poor or receive low pay.

42. Americans usually overestimate the number of blacks receiving welfare benefits.

43. It is impossible for Americans to lift themselves out of poverty entirely on their own.

44. Nowadays, it seems none of us can get away from income inequality.

45. Assumptions about poor people become even more negative when they live on welfare.

【答案】

36. E 37. H 38. M 39. J 40. D 41. F 42. N 43. I 44. C 45. L

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 Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.

Passage One

Questions 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.

Boredom has, paradoxically, become quite interesting to academics lately. In early May, London’s Boring Conference celebrated seven years of delighting in dullness. At this event, people flocked to talks about weather, traffic jams, and vending-machine sounds, among other sleep-inducing topics.

What, exactly, is everyone studying? [46] One widely accepted psychological definition of boredom is “the distasteful experience of wanting, but being unable, to engage in satisfying activities.” But how can you quantify a person’s boredom level and compare it with someone else’s?

In 1986, psychologists introduced the Boredom Proneness Scale, designed to measure an individual’s overall tendency to feel bored. By contrast, the Multidimensional State Boredom scale, developed in 2008, measures a person’s feelings of boredom in a given situation.

[47]Boredom has been linked to behavior issues including inattentive driving, mindless snacking, excessive drinking, and addictive gambling. In fact, many of us would choose pain over boredom.

[48]One team of psychologists discovered that two-thirds of men and a quarter of women would rather self-administer electric shocks than sit alone with their thought for 15 minutes. Researching this phenomenon, another team asked volunteers to watch boring, sad, or neutral films, during which they could self-administer electric shocks. The bored volunteers shocked themselves more and harder than the sad or neutral one did.

[49]But boredom isn’t all bad. By encouraging self-reflection and daydreaming, it can spur activity. An early study gave participants abundant time to complete problem-solving and word-association exercises. Once all the obvious answers were exhausted, participants gave more and more inventive answers to combat boredom. A British study took these findings one step further, asking subjects to complete a creative challenge (coming up with a list of alternative uses for a household item). One group of subjects did a boring activity first, while the others went straight to the creative task. Those whose boredom pumps had been primed were more productive.

[50] In our always-connected world, boredom may be a hard-to-define state, but it is a fertile one. Watch paint dry or water boil, or at least put away your smartphone for a while, and you might unlock your next big idea.

46. When are people likely to experience boredom, according to an accepted psychological definition?

A) When they don’t have the chance to do what they want

B) When they don’t enjoy the materials they are studying

C) When they experience something unpleasant

D) When they engage in some routine activities

47. What does the author say boredom can lead to?

A) Determination

B) Mental deterioration

C) Concentration

D) Harmful conduct

48. What is the findings of one team of psychologists in their experiment?

A) Volunteers prefer watching a boring movie to sitting alone deliberating.

B) Many volunteers choose to hurt themselves rather than endure boredom.

C) Male volunteers are more immune to the effects of boredom than females.

D) Many volunteers are unable to resist boredom longer than fifteen minutes.

49. Why does the author say boredom isn’t all bad?

A) It stimulates memorization.

B) It may promote creative thinking.

C) It allows time for relaxation.

D) It may facilitate independent learning.

50. What does the author suggests one do when faced with a challenging problem?

A) Stop idling and think big.

B) Unlock one’s smartphone.

C) Look around oneself for stimulation.

D) Allow oneself some time to be bored.

答案：46. A 47. D. 48. B. 49. B. 50. D

Passage Two

Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.

(51)Forests in countries like Brazil and the Congo get a lot of attention from environmentalists, and it is easy to see why. South America and sub-Saharan Africa are experiencing deforestation on an enormous scale: every year almost 5 million hectares are lost. But forests are also changing in rich Western countries. They are growing larger, both in the sense that they occupy more and that the trees in them and bigger. What is going on?

(52) Forests are spreading in almost all Western countries, with fastest growth in places that historically had rather few trees. In 1990 28% of Spain was forests; now the proportion is 37%. In both Greece and Italy, the growth was from 26% to 32% over the same period. Forests are gradually taking more and in America and Australia. Perhaps most astonishing is the trend in Ireland. Roughly 1% of that country was forested when it became independent in 1922. Forests cover 11% of the land, and the government wants to push the proportion to 18% by the 2040s.

Two things are fertilizing this growth. The first is the abandonment of farmland, especially in high, dry places where nothing grows terribly well. When farmers give up trying to earn a living from farming or herding trees simply move in. The second is government policy and subsidy. (53) Throughout history, governments have protected and promoted forests for diverse reasons, ranging from the need for wooden warships to a desire to promote suburban house-building. (54) Nowadays forests are increasingly welcome because they suck in carbon pollution from the air. The justification change; desire for more trees remains constant.

The greening of the West does not delight everyone. Farmers complain that land is being taken out of use by generously subsidized tree plantations. Parts of Spain and Portugal suffer from terrible forest fires. Others simply dislike the appearance of forests planted in neat rows. They will have to get used to the trees, however. The growth of Western forests seems almost as unstoppable as deforestation elsewhere.

51. What is catching environmentalist’s attention nowadays?

A) Rich countries are striping poor ones of their resources.

B) Forests are fast shrinking in many developing countries.

C) Forests are eating away the fertile farmland worldwide.

D) Rich countries are doing little to address deforestation.

52. Which countries have the fastest forest growth?

A) Those that have newly achieved independence.

B) Those that have the greatest demand for timber.

C) Those that used to have the lowest forest coverage.

D) Those that provide enormous government subsidies.

53. What has encouraged forest growth historically?

A). The government’s advocacy.

B). The use of wood for fuel.

C). The favorable climate.

D) The green movement.

54. What account for our increasing desire for forests?

A) Their unique scenic beauty.

B) Their use as fruit plantation.

C) Their capability of improving air quality.

D) Their stable supply of building materials.

55. What does the author conclude about the prospects of forestation?

A) Deserts in sub-Saharan Africa will diminish gradually.

B) It will play a more and more important role in people’s lives.

C) Forests destruction in the developing world will quickly slow down.

D) Developed and developing countries are moving in opposite direction.

答案：51 B. 52. C 53. A 54. C. 55. D.