1、英语四级考试阅读真题及2021 年 12 月英语四级考试阅读真题及答案2021 年 12 月英语四级考试阅读真题及答案Part III Reading Comprehension (40 minutes) Section ADirections ：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
2、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.For decades, Americans
3、have taken for granted the XXXXdevelopment of new technologies. The innovations( 创新 )XXXX opment during World War II and afterwards were(36)_ to the prosperity of the nation in the second half of the 20th century. Those innovations, upon which virtually all aspects of(37)_ society now depend, were p
4、ossible because the United States then(38)_ the world in mathematics and science education. Today, however, despite increasing demandfor workers with strong skills in mathematics and science, the(39)_ of degrees awarded in science, math, andengineering are decreasing. The deeling in degree productio
5、n in what are called the STEM disciplines(science, technology, engineering, and math.)seems to be(40)_related to thecomparatively weak performance by U.S. schoolchildren on international assessments of math and science. Many students entering college have weak skills in mathematics. According to the
6、 2005 report of the Business Higher Education Forum, 22percent of college freshmen must take remediat( 补习的)math(41)_, and less than half of the students who plan to major in science or engineering(42)_complete a major in those fields.The result has been a decrease in the number of American college g
7、raduates who have the skills, (43)_ inmathematics, to power a workforce that can keep the countryat the forefront( 前言 )of innovation and maintain its standard of living. With the(44)_ performance of American studentsin math and science has come increased competition from students from other countrie
8、s that have strongly supported education in these areas. Many more students earn(45)_ inthe STEM disciplines in developing countries than in the United States.Section BDirections ：In this section ，you are going to read apassage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information
9、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. Ban sugary drinks that will add fuel to the obe
10、sity warAOn a train last Thursday, I sat opposite a man who was so fat he filled more than one seat. He was pale anddisfigured and looked sick to death, which he probably was obesity( 肥胖的 )leads to many nasty ways of dying. Looking around the carriage, I saw quite a few people like him, including a
11、couple of fatty children with swollen checks pressing against their eyes. These people are part of what is without exaggeration an epidemic( 流行病 )of obesity.：B But it is quite unnecessary ： there is a simple idea-far from new- that could spare millions of such people alifetime of chronic( 长期的 )ill h
12、ealth, and at the same timesave the National Health Service(NHS)at least 14 billion ayear in England and Wales. There would, you might think, beconsiderable public interest in it. This simple idea is thatsugar is as good- or as bad- as poison and should be avoided. It is pure, white and deadly, as P
13、rofessor John Yudkin described it 40 years ago in a revolutionary book of that name. The subtitle was How Sugar Is Killing Us.C In its countless hidden forms, in ready meals, junkfood and sweet drinks, sugar leads to addiction( 瘾), tohormonal upsets to the appetite, to metabolic( 新陈代谢的)malfunctions
14、and obesity and from there to type 2 diabetes( 糖尿病 )and its many horrible complication. If people really grasped that, they would try to kick the habit,particularly as Britain is the fat man of Europe . Theymight even feel driven to support government measures to prevent people from consuming this d
15、eadly stuff. Yet so far this idea has met little but resistance.D It is not difficult to imagine the vestedinterests( 既得利益集团 )lined up against any sugar control-all the food and drink manufacturers, processors, promoters and retailers who make such easy pickings out of the magic powers of sugar. The
16、n there are the liberals, with whom I would normally side, who protest that government regulation would be yet another instance of interference in our lives.EThat is true, but people should realize that youcannot have a welfare state without a nanny state( 保姆国家to some degree. If we are all to be res
17、ponsible for oneanother s health insurance, through socialized medicine,then we are all closely involved in one another s health,),including everyo nes eating and drinking. That has already been admitted, finally, with smoking. But it has yet to be admitted with overeating, even though one in four a
18、dults inthis country is obese and that number is predicted to double by the year 2050.Quite apart from anything else, obesity will cripple the NHS.FRecently, though, there have been signs that the medical establishment is trying to sound the alarm. Lastmonth the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges(AMR
19、C)published a report saying that obesity is the greatest public healthissue affecting the UK and urging government to do something.GThe report offers 10 recommendations, of which thefirst is imposing a tax of 20 percent on sugary drinks for at least a year, on top of the existing 20 percent value-ad
20、ded tax. That at least would be an excellent start. The amounts of sugar in soft drinks are horrifying, and turn straight tofat. As Professor Terence Stephenson, head of the AMRC, hassaid, sugary soft drinks are the ultimate bad food. You arejust consuming neat sugar. Your body didn t evolve to hant
21、his kind of thing. dleHPrecisely. The risks of eating too much fat orsalt(which are very different)pale into insignificantcompared with the harm done by sugar. And it is everywhere.IIt is difficult to buy anything in a supermarket, other than plain, unprepared meat, fish or vegetables, that doesnt h
22、ave a large amount of sugar in it. This has come about because the prevailing scientific views of the 1960s and 1970s ignored the evidence about sugar, and instead saw fat as the really serious risk, both to the heart and other organs, as well as the cause of obesity.JThe fashion was to avoid fat. B
23、ut finding that food with much of its fat removed is not very appetizing, food producers turned to sugar as a magic alternative flavorenhancer, often in the forms of syrups( 糖浆 )that had recently been developed from corn, and put it generously into most prepared foods and soft drinks.KThis stuff is
24、not just fattening. It is addictive. Itinterferes with the body s metabolism, possibly via theactivity of an appetite- controlling hormone. There s plenty of evidence for this, for those who will accept the truth.LTheoretically, people ought to make healthychoices and avoid overeating. But sugar add
25、itives are not easy to identify and are hard to avoid. So the snacking, over-drinking and over eating that makes people fat is notreally their own fault ： obesity is in large part something that is being done to them. It should be stopped, or ratherthe government should stop it.MGoing round my local
26、 supermarket, I am constantly astonished that it is still legal to sell all the poisons stacked high on the shelves. The problem is that they are worse than useless. They are poisonous. They are known to be addictive. They are known to make people obese. And giving small children sweet drinks or bot
27、tles of fake juice all day long is nothing less than child abuse.NClearly, the sale of such stuff ought to be illegal. I hate to think of yet more government regulation. But a bit of tax on sweet soda and a little more health education, a bitof cooking in schools and banning vending machines(机)here
28、and there as suggested try the AMRC report自动售货 isnot going to achieve very much. Labelling is quite inadequate. What is needed is legislation banning high levels of sugary syrups used in foods and drinks.OIn June 2021, the then minister for public health said the government was not scared of the foo
29、d industry and had not ruled out legislation, because of the costs of obesity to the NHS. However, nothing has happened yet. Why not have another Jammie Dodger biscuit and forget about it.46、Avoiding over-consumption of sugar can improvepeople s health as well as save medical expenses. 47 、 Lawsshou
30、ld be passed to make it illegal to produce overly sweetfoods or drinks. 48 、Giving small children sweet juices todrink all the time is equal to child abuse. 59 、Lookingaround, the author found obesity quite widespread.50、The number of obese people is expected to increase quickly in the next few deca
31、des.51、If people really understood the horrible consequences of sugary foods and drinks, they would support government measures against sugar consumption.52、It would be a very good beginning wo improve an additional tax on sugary drinks.53、The government has not yet taken any action to regulate suga
32、r consumption although it indicated its intention to do so some time ago.54、 Sugar is far more harmful to health than fat and salt.55、Consumers of sweet foods are not really to blame because they cannot tell what food is sugary.Section CDirections ：There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some
