2004年11月北京成人本科学位英语考试A卷（答案精析）

Part I  Reading Comprehension 
Passage 1  
Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following passage:  
In the United States, 30 percent of the adult population has a "weight problem".

Several modem studies, moreover, have shown that fatter people do not eat more on the average than thinner people. In fact, some investigations, such as the 1979 study of 3, 545 London office workers, report that, on balance, fat people eat less than slimmer people.  

Studies show that slim people are more active than fat people. A study by a research group at Stanford University School of Medicine found the following interesting facts:  

The more the men ran, the more body fat they lost.  

The more they ran, the greater amount of food they ate.  

(76) [Thus, those who ran the most ate the most, yet lost the greatest amount of body fat.]

[文章大意及重要词汇]

美国30%的成人（adult）都有“体重（weight）问题”。大多数人认为造成这一现象的原因很明显（obvious）他们吃的太胖了。但是这一观点却没有足够的科学证据（evidence）来支撑。回顾一下20世纪处的美国，当时的人们普遍比现在的人瘦，吃得比现在的人多，同时他们的体力劳动（physically）很辛苦、经常走路、很少使用机器、也不看电视。

现在许多研究也表明。从整体上（average）来看胖人比瘦人吃得要少。而1979年对伦敦3545个办公室人员的调查也恰恰证实了这一观点。

研究同时也表明瘦人比胖人运动量更大。美国斯坦福大学医学院的研究人员发现了下列有趣的事实：

运动量越大的人，消耗的体内脂肪越多。运动量越大的人，饭量越大。

因此（Thus），运动量最大的人吃得也最多，但同时消耗的体内脂肪也最多。

1. The physical problem that many adult Americans have is that__________.  
A. they are too slim         B. they work too hard  
C. they are too fat           D. they lose too much body fat
答案：C 细节题。答案在第一段第一句话,“In the United States, 30 percent of the adult population has a "weight problem许多美国成年人身体问题是他们太胖了"。 

2. According to the article, given 500 adult Americans, __________ people will have a "weight problem".  
A. 30       B. 50       C. 100       D. 150
答案：D计算题。答案在第一段第三句话,“In the United States, 30 percent of the adult population has a "weight problem"”做一个简单的剩法就得到答案。 

3. Is there any scientific evidence to support that eating too much is the cause of a "weight problem"?  
A. Yes, there is plenty of evidence.  
B. Of course, there is some evidence to show this is true.  
C. There is hardly any scientific evidence to support this.  
D. We don't know because the information is not given.
答案：C细节题。答案在第一段第二和第三句话,“To many people, the cause is obvious: they eat too much But scientific evidence does little to support this idea因此几乎没有任何科学家依据证明这一点”。

4. In comparison with the adult American population today, the Americans of the 1910s __________.  
A. ate more food and had more physical activities  
B. ate less food but had more activities  
C. ate less food and had less physical exercise  
D. had more weight problems 
答案：A细节题。答案在第一段。“Going back to the America of the 1910s, we find that people were thinner than today, yet they [ate more food.] In those days people [worked harder physically]” 题干中[worked harder physically]相当于答案中had more physical activities。

5. Modem scientific researches have reported to us that__________.  
A. fat people eat less food and are less active  
B. fat people eat more food than slim people and are more active  
C. fat people eat more food than slim people but are less active  
D. thin people run less, but have greater increase in food intake
答案：A细节题。答案在第一段。“Going back to the America of the 1910s, we find that people were thinner than today, yet they [ate more food.] In those days people [worked harder physically]” 题干中[worked harder physically]相当于答案中had more physical activities。

Passage 2  
Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following passage:  
By adopting a few simple techniques, parents who read to their children can greatly increase their children's language development. It is surprising but true. (77) [How parents talk to their children makes a big difference in the children's language development. If a parent encourages the child to actively respond to what the parent is reading, the child's language skills increase].  

A study was done with 30 three-year-old children and their parents. Half of the children participated in the experimental study; the other half acted as the control group. In the experimental group, the parents were given a two-hour training session in which they were taught to ask open-ended questions rather than yes-or-no questions. For example, the parent should ask, "What is the doggie doing?" rather than "Is the doggie running away?" (78) [The parents in the experimental group were also instructed in how to help children find answers, how to suggest alternative possibilities and how to praise correct answers].  

At the beginning of the study, the children did not differ in measures of language development, but at the end of one month, the children in the experimental group showed 5.5 months ahead of the control group on a test of verbal expression and vocabulary. Nine months later, the children in the experimental group still showed an advance of 6 months over the children in the control group.  

[文章大意及重要词汇]

父母通过有技巧（techniques）的朗读可以让孩子的语言能力得到迅速的发展（development）。这一事实虽令人吃惊，但却是真实的。父母和孩子谈话的方式对孩子的语言能力发展影响很大（makes a big difference）。如果父母鼓励孩子对其所朗读的内容做出积极反应（respond），孩子的语言能力就会有很大的提高。

我们在30个三岁的孩子和他们的父母中间做了一个实验。一半孩子属于实验（experimental）组，另一半是控制组。实验组的家长接受了一个两个小时的培训，要求他们问孩子们开放式的问题而不能问用“是”或者“不是”来回答的简单问题，如何引导他们思考其他选择的可能性以及如何表扬（praise）孩子的正确选择。

实验初期，孩子的语言能力发展并没有明显区别。一个月后，实验组的孩子们比控制组的孩子在语言表达和词汇量方面领先5.5个月。9个月后，实验组的孩子们仍然在这些方面比控制组的孩子领先（advance）6个月。

6. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?  
A. Children who talk a lot are more intelligent.  
B. Parents who listen to their children can teach them more.  
C. Active children should read more and be given more attention.  
D. Verbal ability can easily be developed with proper methods.
答案：D 推断题。答案在第一段。

7. What does "it" in line 2 can most probably be replaced by?
  A. Parents increasing children's language development  
B. Reading techniques being simple  
C. Parents reading to children  
D. Children's intelligence development
答案：A 词义题。根据上下文，it指父母能提高孩子的语言能力。

8. According to the author, which of the following questions is the best type to ask children about?  
A. Do you see the elephant?     B. Is the elephant in the cage?  
C. What animals do you like?    D. Shall we go to the zoo?  
答案：C推断题，答案在第二段，可以看出，父母应该问一些开放性的问题，而不是只需回答是或不是问题。

9. The difference between the control group and the experimental group was __________.  
A. the training that parents received  
B. the age of the children   可以看出，父母接受了两个小时的培训，而控制组的父母并没有此培训。
C. tile books that were read  
D. the number of the children 
答案：A细节题，答案在第二段，区别在于实验组里的家长接受了培训。

10. The best conclusion we can draw from the passage is that __________.  
A. parents should be trained to read to their children  
B. the more children read, the more intelligent they will become  
C. children's language skills increase when they are required to respond actively  
D. children who read actively seem six months older  
答案：C推断题，答案在第一段最后一句。选项C即为该句的同义改写。

Passage 3  
Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following passage:  
(79)[The agriculture revolution in the nineteenth century involved two things: the invention of labor-saving machinery and the development of scientific agriculture.] Labor-saving machinery naturally appeared first where labor was scarce. "In Europe", said Thomas Jefferson, "the object is to make the most of their land, labor being sufficient; here it is to make the most of our labor, land being abundant". It was in America, therefore, that the great advances in nineteenth-century agricultural machinery first came. At the opening of the century, with the exception of a crude(粗糙的) plow, farmers could have carried practically all of the existing agricultural tools on their backs. (80)[By 1860，most of the machinery in use today had been designed in an early form]. The most important of the early inventions was the iron plow. As early as 1890 Charles Newbolt of New Jersey had been working on the idea of a cast-iron plow and spent his entire fortune in introducing his invention. The farmers, however, would home none of it, claiming that the iron poisoned the soil and made the weeds grow. Nevertheless, many people devoted their attention to the plow, until in 1869, James Oliver of South Bend,  

Indiana, turned out the first chilled-steel plow. 

[文章大意及重要词汇]

19世纪的农业（agriculture）革命（revolution）包括两个部分：省力农业机械（machinery）的发明（invention）和科学农业的发展。省力机械通常在劳动力缺乏的地方首先出现。托马斯·杰弗逊说过“在欧洲是为了充分利用土地，那里劳动力非常充足（sufficient）；而这里则是为了充分利用劳动力，土地非常充足”。因此，19世纪农业机械首先在美国取得了巨大进步（advances）。19世纪处了粗糙的犁以外，农民几乎可以肩背所有存在的农具。到1860年人们就已经设计出许多今天仍在使用的机器的雏形。铁犁是早期发明中最重要的。早在1980年新泽西州的查尔斯· 纽波特已经开始致力于锻铁犁的研究，并把他的全部财富投入到其他发明的推广应用。但是，当时的农民都拒绝采用，他们认为铁会毒害（poison）土壤和导致杂草丛生。尽管如此（nevertheless），许多人仍然花大量的精力（attention）致力于研究，直到1869年，印第安纳州南本德市的詹姆斯·奥利弗研制出第一用冷却钢制造的犁。

11. The word "here" (Para. 1, Line 6) refers to__________.  
A. Europe                 B. America  
C. New Jersey              D. Indiana
答案：B语义题。根据上下文，这里的“here”指的是美国。

12. Which of the following statement is NOT true?  
A. The need for labor helped the invention of machinery in America.  
B. The farmer rejected Charles Newbolt's plow for fear of ruin of their fields.  
C. Both Europe and America had great need for farm machinery.  
D. It was in Indiana that the first chilled-steel plow was produced.
答案：C判断题。可采用逐项排除法，首先B和D比较容易定位，阅读原文后，肯定这两个选项是正确，接着排除A和C中的一个，根据题意可知A是正确的，C是错误的。

13. The passage is mainly about__________.  
A. the agriculture revolution  
B. the invention of labor-saving machinery  
C. the development of scientific agriculture  
D. the farming machinery in America
答案：B主旨题。文章的中心思想应当是：“节省劳动力的机器的发明”。

14. At the opening of the nineteenth-century, farmers in America__________.  
A. preferred light tools  
B. were extremely self-reliant (自给的)  
C. had many tools  
D. had very few tools
答案：D推断题。根据题意“At the opening of the century, with the exception of a crude(粗糙的) plow, farmers could have carried practically all of the existing agricultural tools on their backs.可见他们的农具很多”。 

15. It is implied but not stated in the passage that __________.  
A. there was a shortage of workers on American farms  
B. the most important of the early invention was the iron plow  
C. after 1869, many people devoted their attention to the plow  
D. Charles Newbolt had made a fortune by his cast-iron plow  
答案：A推断题。文章暗含的内容：“美国缺乏劳动力”。

Part II  Vocabulary and Structure   
16. The bridge was named __________ the hero who gave his life for the cause of the people.  
A. after                   B. for  
C. because of              D. before
答案：A固定搭配name after 以…为名。

17. There was a large crowd in the square __________ against the war.  
A. protecting               B. protesting  
C. preventing               D. promoting
答案：B固定搭配protest against 对某事提出抗议。

18. We have __________ to the government for a home improvement loan.  
A. arranged                B. approached  
C. applied                  D. appointed
答案：C固定搭配apply for 申请。