1、2017年12月四级阅读（第一套）Passage OneQuestions 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.That people often experience trouble sleeping in a different bed in unfamiliar surrounding is a phenomenon known as the “first-night” effext. If a person stays in the same room the following night they tend to sleep mo
2、re soundly. Yuka Sasaki and her colleagues at Brown University set out to investigate the origins of this effect.Dr. Sasaki knew the first-night effect probably has something to do with how humans evolved. The puzzle was that benefit would be gained from it when performance might be affected the fol
3、lowing day. She also knew from previous work conducted on birds and dolphins that these animals put half of their brains to sleep at a time so that they can rest while remaining alert enough to avoid predators（捕食者）. This led her to wonder if people might be doing the same thing. To take a closer loo
4、k, her team studied 35 healthy people as they slept in the unfamiliar environment of the universitys Department of Psychological Sciences. The participants each slept in the department for two nights and were carefully monitored with techniques that looked at the activity pf their brains. Dr. Sasaki
5、 found, as expected, the participants slept less well on their first night than they did on their second, taking more than twice as long to fall asleep and sleeping less overall. During deep sleep, the participants brains behaved in a similar manner seen in birds and dolphins. On the first night onl
6、y, the left hemispheres（半球） of their brains did not sleep nearly as deeply as their right hemispheres did. Curious id the left hemispheres were indeed remaining awake to process information detected in the surrounding environment, Dr. Sasaki re-ran the experiment while presenting the sleeping partic
7、ipants with a mix of regularly timed beeps（蜂鸣声） of the same tone and irregular beeps of a different tone during the night. She worked out that, if the left hemisphere was staying alert to keep guard in a strange environment, then it would react to the irregular beeps by stirring people from sleep an
8、d would ignore the regularly timed ones. This is precisely what she found.46. What did researchers find puzzling about the first-night effect?A) To what extent it can trouble people. C) What circumstances may trigger it.B) What role it has played in evolution. D) In what way it can be beneficial.47.
9、 What do we learn about Dr. Yuka Sasaki doing her research?A) She found birds and dolphins remain alert while asleep.B) She found birds and dolphins sleep in much the same way.C) She got some idea from previous studies on birds and dolphins.D) She conducted studies on birds and dolphins sleeping pat
10、terns.48. What did Dr. Sasaki do when she first did her experiment?A) She monitored the brain activity of participants sleeping in a new environment.B) She recruited 35 participants from her Department of Psychological Sciences.C) She studied the differences between the two sides of participants bra
11、ins.D) She tested her findings about birds and dolphins on human subjects.49. What did Dr. Sasaki find about the participants in her experiment?A) She analyzed the negative effect of irregular tones on brains.B) She recorded participants adaptation to changed environment.C) She exposed her participa
12、nts to two different stimuli.D) She compared the responses of different participants.50. What did Dr. Sasaki find about the participants in her experiment?A) They tended to enjoy certain tones more than others.B) They tended to perceive irregular beeps as a threat.C) They felt sleepy when exposed to
13、 regular beeps.D) They differed in their tolerance of irregular tones.Passage TwoQuestions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.Its time to reevaluate how women handle conflict at work. Being overworked or over-committed at home and on the job will not get you where you want to be in life. It
14、 will only slow you down and hinder your career goals. Did you know women are more likely than men to feel exhausted? Nearly twice as many women than men ages 18-44 reported feeling “very tired” or “exhausted”, according to a recent study. This may not be surprising given that this is the age range
15、when women have children. Its also the age range when many women are trying to balance careers and home. One reason women may feel exhausted is that they have a hard time saying “no.” Women want to be able to do it allvolunteer for school parties or cook delicious mealsand so their answer to any req
16、uest is often “Yes, I can.” Women struggle to say “no” in the workplace for similar reasons, including the desire to be liked by their colleagues. Unfortunately, this inability to say “no” may be hurting womens health as well as their career. At the workplace, men use conflict as a way to position t
17、hemselves, while women often avoid conflict or strive to be the peacemaker, because they dont want to be viewed as aggressive or disruptive at work. For example, theres a problem that needs to be addressed immediately, resulting in a dispute over who should be the one to fix it. Men are more likely
18、to face that dispute from the perspective of what benefits them most, whereas women may approach the same dispute from the perspective of whats the easiest and quickest way to resolve the problemeven if that means doing the boring work themselves. This difference in handling conflict could be the de
19、ciding factor on who gets promoted to a leadership position and who does not. Leaders have to be able to delegate and manage resources wiselyincluding staff expertise. Shouldering more of the workload may not earn you that promotion. Instead, it may highlight you inability to delegate effectively.51
20、. What does the author say is the problem with women?A) They are often unclear about the career goals to reach.B) They are usually more committed at home than on the job.C) They tend to be over-optimistic about how far they could go.D) They tend to push themselves beyond the limits of their ability.
21、52. Why do working women of child-bearing age tend to feel drained of energy?A) They struggle to satisfy the demands of both work and home.B) They are too devoted to work and unable to relax as a result.C) They do their best to cooperate with their workmates.D) They are obliged to take up too many r
22、esponsibilities.53. What may hinder the future prospects of career women?A) Their unwillingness to say “no”.B) Their desire to be considered powerful.C) An underestimate of their own ability.D) A lack of courage to face challenges.54. Men and women differ in their approach to resolving workplace con
23、flicts in that_A) women tend to be easily satisfiedB) men are generally more persuasiveC) men tend to put their personal interests firstD) women are much more ready to compromise55. What is important to a good leader?A) A dominant personality. C) The courage to admit failure.B) The ability to delega
24、te. D) A strong sense of responsibility.2017年12月四级阅读（第二套）Passage OneQuestions 46 and 50 are based on the following passage.Aging happens to all of us, and is generally thought of as a natural part of life. It would seem silly to call such a thing a “disease.” On the other hand, scientists are increa
25、singly learning that aging and biological age are two different things, and that the former is a key risk factor for conditions such as heart disease, cancer and many more. In that light, aging itself might be seen as something treatable, the way you would treat high blood pressure or a vitamin defi
26、ciency. Biophysicist Alex Zhavoronkov believes that aging should be considered a disease. He said that describing aging as a disease creates incentives to develop treatments.“It unties the hands of the pharmaceutical (制药的) industry so that they can begin treating the disease and not just the side ef
27、fects,” he said. “Right now, people think of aging as natural and something you cant control,” he said. “IN academic circles, people take aging research as just an interest area where they can try to develop interventions. The medical community also takes aging for granted, and can do nothing about
28、it except keep people within a certain health range.” But if aging were recognized as a disease, he said, “It would attract funding and change the way we do health care. What matters is understand that aging is curable.”“It was always known that the body accumulates damage,” he added. “The only way
29、to cure aging is to find ways to repair that damage. I think of it as preventive medicine for age-related conditions.” Leonard Hayflick, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, said the idea that aging can be cured implies the human lifespan can be increased, which some researche
30、rs suggest is possible. Hayflick is not among them. “Therere many people who recover from cancer, stroke, or heart disease. But they continue to age, because aging is separate from their disease,” Hayflick said. “Even if those causes of death were eliminated, life expectancy would still not go much
31、beyond 92 years.”46. What do people generally believe about aging?A) It should cause not alarm whatsoever.B) They just cannot do anything about it.C) It should be regarded as a kind of disease.D) They can delay it with advances in science.47. How do many scientists view aging now?A) It might be prev
32、ented and treated. C) It results from a vitamin deficiency.B) It can be as risky as heart disease. D) It is an irreversible biological process.48. What does Alex Zhavoronkov think of “describing aging as a disease”?A) It will prompt people to take aging more seriously.B) It will greatly help reduce
33、the side effects of aging.C) It will free pharmacists from the conventional beliefs about aging.D) It will motivate doctors and pharmacists to find ways to treat aging.49. What do we learn about the medical community?A) They now have a strong interest in research on aging.B) They differ from the aca
34、demic circles in their view on aging.C) They can contribute to peoples health only to a limited extent.D) They have ways to intervene in peoples aging process.50. What does Professor Leonard Hayflick believe?A) The human lifespan cannot be prolonged.B) Aging is hardly separable from disease.C) Few p
35、eople can live up to the age of 92.D) Heart disease is the major cause of aging.Passage TwoQuestions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.Female applicants to postdoctoral positions in geosciences were nearly half as likely to receive excellent letters of recommendation, compared with their m
36、ale counterparts. Christopher Intagliata reports. As in many other fields, gender bias is widespread in the sciences. Men score higher starting salaries, have more mentoring (指导), and have better odds of being hired. Studies show theyre also perceived as more competent than women in STEM (Science, T
37、echnology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields. And new research reveals that men are more likely to receive excellent letters of recommendation, too.“Say, you know, this is the best student Ive ever had,” says Kuheli Dutt, a social scientist and diversity officer at Columbia Universitys Lamont cam
38、pus. “Compare those excellent letters with a merely good letter: The candidate was productive, or intelligent, or a solid scientist or something thats clearly solid praise, but nothing that singles out the candidate as exceptional or one of a kind.” Dutt and her colleagues studied more than 1,200 le
39、tters of recommendation for postdoctoral positions in geoscience. They were all edited for gender and other identifying information, so Dutt and her team could assign them a score without knowing the gender of the student. They found that female applicants were only half as likely to get outstanding
40、 letters, compared with their male counterparts. That includes letters of recommendation from all over the world, and written by, yes, men and women. The findings are in the journal Nature Geoscience. Dutt says they were not able to evaluate the actual scientific qualifications of the applicants usi
41、ng the data in the files. But she says the results still suggest women in geoscience are at a potential disadvantage from the very beginning of their careers starting with those less than out-standing letters of recommendation. “Were not trying to assign blame or criticize anyone or call anyone cons
42、ciously sexist. Rather, the point is to use the results of this study to open up meaningful dialogues on implicit gender bias, be it at a departmental level or an institutional level or even a discipline level.” Which may lead to some recommendations for the letter writers themselves.51. What do we
43、learn about applicants to postdoctoral positions in geosciences?A)There are many more men applying than women.B)Chances for women to get the positions are scarce.C)More males than females are likely to get outstanding letters of recommendation.D) Male applicants have more interest in these positions
44、 than their female counterparts.52. What do studies about men and women in scientific research show?A) Women engaged in postdoctoral work are quickly catching up.B) Fewer women are applying for postdoctoral positions due to gender bias.C) Men are believed to be better able to excel in STEM disciplin
45、es.D) Women who are keenly interested in STEM fields are often exceptional.53. What do the studies find about the recommendation letters for women applicants? A) They are hardly ever supported by concrete examples. B) They contain nothing that distinguishes the applicants. C) They provide objective
46、information without exaggeration. D) They are often filled with praise for exceptional applicants.54. What did Dutt and her colleagues do with the more than 1,200 letters of recommendation? A) They asked unbiased scholars to evaluate them. B) They invited women professionals to edit them. C) They as
47、signed them randomly to reviewers. D) They deleted all information about gender.55. What does Dutt aim to do with her study? A) Raise recommendation writers awareness of gender bias in their letters. B) Open up fresh avenues for women post-doctors to join in reaserach work. C) Alert women researcher
48、s to all types of gender bias in the STEM disciplines. D) Start a public discussion on how to raise womens status in academic circles.2017年12月英语四级阅读（第三套）46-50 BBACD46. What do we learn from the passage about cities in sub-Saharan Africa?B）They are growing fast without becoming richer定位：第一段第二句及第四句。第二句Whats indisputable is that its growing very quickly对应growing fast, 第四句sub-Saharan Africa are not getting richer the way cities in t
