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四级试卷答案解析

2020年12月四级阅读试卷答案解析

新东方西安大学事业部 朱国瑞 姬璇 尹天一

【前言】

本次阅读的难度正常，选词填空还是考察了词性和搭配的形式，大家多注意平时的词汇积累。

【真题】

Section A

When my son completes a task, I can't help but praise him. It'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, believing they are building their child’s self-confidence. However, over-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 fear of _30_ their parents.”

Does this mean we should do away with all the praise? Phillip says no. “The key to healthy praise is to focus on the process rather than the _31_. it is the recognition of a child’s attempt, or the process in which they achieved something, that is essential,” she says. “Parents should encourage their child to 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 s acknowledgement of the efforts te person has just _35_. children who receive person praise are more likely to feel shame after losing,” says Phillip.

choose

constant

disappointing

distinguish

exhausting

experienced

negative

outcome

pattern

plural

repeatedly

rewarded

separately

simply

undertaken

【解析】

26. B constant，填空左边是介词，右边是名词，那么空格部分应填写形容词；后面跟着as much as 尽可能多，意思是判断有频率相关的内容，所以constant持续的为正确答案；

G negative，填空左边是关词，右边是名词，填空只能填写形容词；前面有over+动词表示否定含义，所以negative否定为正确答案；

K repeatedly 填空左边是动词短语，右边是逗号，此处缺副词，根据后一句说到的“no valued”没有价值了，判断重复使用没有价值，所以K为正确答案;

L rewarded，固定搭配be rewarded with… 意为“被…奖励”；

C disappointing，填空左边是介词，右边是名词，必然填doing，短语fear of 害怕…，害怕让父母失望，符合本句含义；

H outcome，介词than后面加名词，比较的前面是过程process，所以后面搭配结果outcome;

I pattern，介词后between后加名词，表扬的方式；

D distinguish，介词to 加动词，填空后跟两者之间的关系，动词distinguish从意思和格式上符合；

N simply，动词后加副词，仅仅说 simply saying 比较符合；

O undertaken，has后要加完成时done的形式；

【真题】

Section B

Poverty is a story about us, not them

[A] Too often still, we think we know the poverty looks like. It’s the way we’ve been taught, the images we’ve been forced-fed 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 expansions, those familiar images are outdated, hurtful and counterproductive to focusing attention on solutions and building ladders of opportunity.

[C] Today’s faces of 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 counselor for young women of color in Philadelphia who want to be tech entrepreneurs — but who must work multiple jobs to stay afloat. 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（痕迹）） 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 Mothering Justice director Danielle 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 or 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. Taking into account economic need beyond that absolute measure, the Institute for Policy Studies found that 140 million people are poor or low-income. That’s almost half the U.S. population.

[G] Whatever 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 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 (不增长) for all but the very wealthy and temporary spells of financial instability are not uncommon.

[I] Negative images remain of who is living in poverty as well as what is needed to move out of it. The big American myth is that you can pull yourself up by your own effort 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 studied what sustains 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 Nat Kendall-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 Kendall-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 accompanying low-wage work ot structual discrimination based on race, gender, or ability. Assumptions 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 contry is spending too little on a”welfare”: 37 percent believe we are spending too much.

[N] “Poverty has been interchangeable with people of color -- 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 sympathy that is deserved and to understand deeply that the issue of poverty touches all of us.

【解析】

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

[E] That comment, says Mothering Justice director Danielle 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 or 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.

本题复现了原文中的woman of color和a single mom两组词。将一组难度稍大的Mothering Justice director Danielle Atkinson says 替换为了One legislative staffer assumed。

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

[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 (不增长) for all but the very wealthy and temporary spells of financial instability are not uncommon.

此题在H段复现了races，gender两个词。同时将原文中的geography在句子中改写成为regions；同时，将原文中的economic instability改写成了lack of financial security。

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

[M] According to the General Social Survey, 71 percent of respondents believe the country is spending too little on a “welfare”: 37 percent believe we are spending too much.

此题复现了原文中的according to，survey和welfare三组词。同时考察了我们快速阅读中数字的改写，将原文中的71percent改写成为the majority，将more than a third 改写为了37 percent。

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

[J] The FrameWorks Institute, a research group that focuses on public framing of issues, has studied what sustains 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 Nat Kendall-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.”

本题相对简单，题目中出现了大量的原文复现：a research group；who are struggling；lazy

made the decisions。只不过将原文中的have not made the right decision改写为wrong decision。

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

[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（痕迹）） 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.”

此题相对较简单，复现了原文中的mothers，to stay home，children，take care of，system等大量词汇。

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

[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. Taking into account economic need beyond that absolute measure, the Institute for Policy Studies found that 140 million people are poor or low-income. That’s almost half the U.S. population.

本题难度相对较大，只复现了原文中的poor和low两组词。将income替换成了pay。同时，此题又考察了数字的改写，将原文中的almost half of the U.S. population改写成了nearly 50% of Americans。

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

[N] “Poverty has been interchangeable with people of color -- 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.

此题复现了原文中的，Americans，overestimate和black三组词。将原文中的usually和routinely进行了改写替换，同时将recipients of public assistance programs替换成了receiving welfare benefits。

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

[I] Negative images remain of who is living in poverty as well as what is needed to move out of it. The big American myth is that you can pull yourself up by your own effort 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.

此题较难，文中只有own，themselves，impossible和American的复现。此题是由原文中的两句话The big American myth is that you can pull yourself up by your own effort and change a bad situation into a good one. 和The reality is that finding opportunity without help from families, friends, schools, and community is virtually impossible.共同整合出来。

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

[E] That comment, says Mothering Justice director Danielle 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 or 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.

此题难度相对较大，只复现了原文中的income inequality一词。对原文中poverty touches virtually all of us进行了改写。

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

[C] C段的段落首句，Today’s faces of income inequality and lack of opportunity look like all of us. 其中today对应nowadays，none of us can get away对应all of us.

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

[L] Those external factors include the difficulties accompanying low-wage work or structural discrimination based on race, gender, or ability. Assumptions 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.”

本题复现了原文中的Assumptions，poor和welfare三组词。将原文中的worse改写为了negative一词。

【真题】

Section C

Passage One

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 everybody studying? One widely accepted definition of boredom is "the distasteful experience of wanting, but being unable. to engage in satisfying activity.” 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 felings of boredom in a given situation. 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. 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 thoughts for 15 minutes. Researching this phenomenon, another team asked volunteers to watch boring, sad, or neutar films, during which they could self-administer elecric shocks. The bored volunteers shocked themselves more and harder than the sad or neutral ones did. 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 incentive 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.

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.

【解析】

根据题干中的关键词an accepted psychological definition和boredom可以定位到原文第二段第二句，关注句中转折处，即“人们广泛认为，无聊是一种烦人的体验，虽然想做些什么，但又不能去参加什么有趣的活动”，因此可以判断，选项A“当他们没机会做想做的事情时”为正确答案。

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

A) Determination

B) Mental deterioration

C) Concentration

D) Harmful conduct

【解析】

根据题干中的关键词boredom和lead to可以定位到原文第二段第一句，“无聊一直都和行为问题挂钩，其中就包括了危险驾驶、狂吃零食、过度饮酒、赌博成瘾等”，由此可判断选项D“有害行为”为正确答案。

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.

【解析】

根据题干中的关键词findings，one team of psychologists可以定位到原文第三段第三句，“一组心理学家发现，三分之二的男性和四分之一的女性宁愿接受自控式电击，也不愿意独自静坐15分钟”，因此可判断选项B“许多志愿者选择伤害自己也不愿意忍受无聊”为正确答案。

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.

【解析】

根据题干关键词boredom isn’t all bad 可定位至原文第四段第一句。题目要求解析原因，依据本段第二句，“通过鼓励自我反思和做白日梦这种行为，可以激发人们参与活动的想法”，由此可以判断选项B“可能会发展创新型思维”为正确答案。

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.

【解析】

根据题干关键词可以定位到原文尾段的最后一句，“慢慢看油漆变干，等热水沸腾，或者只是把耳机放在一边，你可能在这过程中想出下一个好点子”，由此可以判断选项D“给自己留一些时间去无聊”为正确答案。

Passage Two

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?

Forests are spreading in almost all Western countries, with fastest growth in places that historically had rather few tress. In 1990 28% of Spain was forested; 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 fertilising 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. 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. Nowadays forests are increasingly welcome because they suck in carbon pollution from the air. The justifications change; the 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 subsidised 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 environmentalists’ attention nowadays?

A) Rich countries are stripping 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.

【解析】

根据题干的关键词environmentalists可定位到原文第一段的第一句。“巴西和刚果等国的森林吸引了环境保护学家的关注”，紧接着下一句表示“南美和撒哈拉以南非洲正在经历大规模的森林退化”。由此可以判断选项B“许多发展中国家的森林正快速退化”为正确答案。

52. Which countries have the fastest forest growth?

A) Those that have newly achieved independence.

B) Those that at have the greatest demand for timber

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

D) Those that provide enormous government subsidies.

【解析】

根据题干的关键词the fastest forest growth可以定位到原文第二段的第一句，即“森林数量增长最快的地区在历史上树木的数量相对很少”，因此可以判断选项C“那些过去森林覆盖率最低的地区”为正确答案。

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.

【解析】

根据题干关键词encouraged forest growth historically可以定位到原文第三段第一句，即“有两个因素促进这种增长”，紧接着下一句“第一点是退耕还林”，以及本段第四句“第二点是政府的政策和补贴”，由此可知选项A“政府鼓励”为正确答案。

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.

【解析】

根据题干关键词increasing desire for forests可以定位至原文第三段最后一句，题干中的account for标志着本题考察因果关系，因此可以具体定位至最后一句中的because 后，“他们吸收空气中的碳污染”，由此可以判断选项C“它们改善空气质量的能力”为正确答案。

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) Forest destruction in the developing world will quickly slow down.

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

【解析】

根据题干关键词prospects of forestation可以定位至本文最后一段。本段第一句表示“西方国家的绿化行动并没能让所有人开心”，紧接着提到了农民抱怨植树补贴导致了农田减少，西班牙和葡萄牙等国遭遇森林火灾，还有一些国家只是不喜欢整齐划一的森林等。由此可知选项D“发达国家和发展中国家态度相反”为正确答案。

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