2023年专四阅读详解与其诅咒黑暗不如燃起蜡烛

星期3 Wednesday
Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness. 与其诅咒黑暗，不如燃起蜡烛。

Text A
Half a dozen radio stations about the face of the globe crackled sparks of electricity from capital and into millions of humble homes; peace came through the air and was simultaneous over all the face of the earth. The great ceremony on the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay was anticlimax.
The greatest fleet in the world lay amidst the greatest ruins in the world under a dark and cheerless covering of clouds. The USS Iowa was on one side of the Missouri, the USS South Dakota on the other. A tattered flag with thirty-one stars was hung on one of the turrets of the battleship —the flag of the infant republic, which Commodore Perry brought with him to the same bay almost a hundred years before. Above the mainmast fluttered the battle flag of the Union of today. The deck was crowded with the American technicians. There were a Russian with a red band about his cap and a Tass newsreel man who insisted on crawling in among the main actors to get his shots; there was a Canadian general who spoiled his part and signed on the wrong line; there was a carefully tailored Chinese general from Chungking.
Half a dozen Japanese were piped over the side of the Missouri, but for the purpose of history and in every man’s memory there were only two —the general, Umezu, and the statesman, Shingemitsu. Umezu was dressed in parade uniform, all his ribbons glistening, and his eyes blank, but you could see the brown pockmarks on his cheeks swelling and falling in emotion.
Shingemitsu was dressed in a tall silk hat and a formal morning coat as if he were attending a wedding or a funeral. He had a wooden leg, and he limped along the deck; when he began to climb to the veranda deck where the peace was to be signed, he clutched the ropes and struggled up with infinite pain and discomfort.
Shingemitsu and Umezu were brought forward, and, after a few carefully chosen words beautifully spoken by General MacArthur, they signed their names to a document marking an end to the Japanese Empire. When they had signed, the generals and admirals of all the other nations put their signatures to the document, and peace, if peace it was, had come.
1. The document was signed on
[A] the USS Iowa. [B] the USS South Dakota.
[C] the battleship Missouri. [D] didn’t mention.
2. In the second paragraph, “A tattered flag with thirty-one stars” is of
[A] USS. [B] the infant USA.
[C] today’s USA. [D] the greatest fleet.
3. When portraying Umezu and Shingemitsu, the author focused on all the following EXCEPT
[A] facial expression. [B] appearance.
[C] motions. [D] inner activity.
4. By saying “and peace, if peace it was, had come”, the author implied that
[A] he valued the signature ceremony.
[B] he was sure of the peace coming.
[C] he suspected that the signature meant the real end of war.
[D] he believed the signature ceremony would bring peace.
Text B
Left unfettered(无拘无束的), Anthony Konieczka, 9 years old, would happily thumb away at his Game Boy Advance or PlayStation 2 from the minute he gets up to the moment he crawls into
bed, 14 bleary-eyed(睡眼惺忪的)hours later.
Anthony’s basement is stocked with traditional toys — board games, puzzles, art supplies —and as far as he is concerned, they are relics of Christmases past. His sister Michaely, 6 years old, still likes dressing her Barbies. But once she starts playing Game Boy it’s hard to get her away.
Play patterns like this could grab another Christmas for the toy department. Through September, toy sales were down 5% compared with the first nine months of last year, according to the NDP Group. Meanwhile, the video-game industry is heading for another record year. Thanks to hot new games like Halo 2 for the Xbox, the industry is light-years ahead of the toy business when it comes to buzz. With distractions such as instant messaging, cell phone games and iPods angling for kids’ minds and allowances, the digital revolution is making life miserable for the toy industry.
While some hard-to-find toys emerge every holiday season, toymakers are heading into this one without a monster hit. Indeed, there has not been a Furby-style frenzy in years. Of 10 toy segments only two, arts and crafts and dolls, have generated sales growth over a recent 12 month period. Some of the weakest categories like construction sets and action figures are the ones aimed at boys, who suffer the most blisters from the video games. Analysts expect one of the top stocking stuffers this season to be not a traditional toy but the new generation of Nintendo’s Game Boy, the DS, which hit stores last week.
The deeper issue is that shifts in play patterns are forcing toymakers to fight for shelf space in a tightening market. Boys in particular seem to be abandoning traditional toys at earlier ages in favor of consumer electronics, trendy video games, PC software and the Internet. The notion that kids are growing more sophisticated and tech-savvy (懂技术的), a trend called “age compression”, has bedeviled toy companies for at least a decade. Action figures, for instance, used to be considered healthy for boys up to age 12. Now the items are mainly marketed to boys 4 to 6. A recent study found that nearly half of the U.S children start on video games at 4 to 5 years old —and 20% at age 3 or younger.
Toy companies, of course, have long seen this coming. Mattel attempted to get into educational software in the late 1990s, spending $3.6 million to buy the Learning Company. But it turned out to be a blunder and led to more than $400 million in losses. Later on Mattel got back to building basic brands like Barbie and Hot Wheels. But Bar bie’s sales slump may also be a victim of kids growing older at younger ages.
Several of the toys expected to sell well this season are, in fact, those that incorporate video gaming and DVD technologies. Mattel’s Fisher-Price introduced a game system called InteracTV this year, featuring DVDs with characters like Dora the explorer. Hasbro came out with a portable color video player called VideoNow and has been putting classic games like Battleship and Yahtzee into hand-held electronic format.
5. At the beginning of the passage, the author implies that
[A] video games are designed only for boys.
[B] girls are usually not interested in video games.
[C] both Anthony and Michaely are good at playing PlayStation 2.
[D] children would not like to stop playing Game Boy once they start.
6. We learn from the passage that in this holiday season
[A] it is hard to find traditional toys in the market.
[B] toymakers are planning to design monster toys.
[C] no hit toys will come onto the market.
[D] Furby will become popular among children.
7. The sales of construction sets are decreasing because
[A] they are not healthy toys for children.
[B] they are very weak and easily broken.
[C] they are hard to find on shelves of toy stores.
[D] they are aimed at boys who are easily attracted by the video games.
8. What has been bothering toymakers for almost ten years?
[A] The Internet addiction.
[B] The trend of age compression.
[C] The sales of action figures.
[D] The new generation of Game Boy.
9. It is predicted that in this season the popular toys would be
[A] hot new game Halo 2 for the Xbox.
[B] arts and crafts and dolls.
[C] action figures designed for boys aged from 4 to 6.
[D] toys that integrate video gaming with DVD technologies.
Text C
Space is a dangerous place, not only because of meteors(流星) but also because of rays from the Sun and other stars.
Radiation is the greatest known danger to explorers in space. Doses of radiation are measured in units called “rem”. We all receive radiation here on the Earth from the Sun, f rom cosmic rays and from radioactive minerals. The “normal” dose of radiation that we receive each year is about 100 millirem; it varies according to where you live, and this is a very rough estimate. Scientists have reason to think that a man can put up with far more radiation than this without being damaged; the figure of 60 rem has been agreed on. The trouble is that it is extremely difficult to be sure about radiation damage — a person may feel perfectly well, but the cells of his or her sex organs may be damaged, and this will not be discovered until the birth of children or even grandchildren.
Early space probes showed that radiation varies in different parts of space around the Earth. It also varies in time because, when great spurts of gas shoot out of the Sun, they are accompanied by a lot of extra radiation. Some estimates of the amount of radiation in space, based on various measurements and calculations, are as low as 10 rem per year, while others are as high as 5 rem
per hour! Mission to the Moon have had to cross the Van Allen belts of high radiation and, during the outward and return journeys, the Apollo 8 crew accumulated a total dose of about 200 millirem per man. It was hoped that there would not be any large solar flares during the times of Apollo moon walks because the walls of the lunar excursion modules (LEMs) were not thick enough to protect the men inside, though the command modules did give reasonable protection. So far, no dangerous doses of radiation have been reported, but the Gemini(双子座)orbits and the Apollo missions have been quite short. We simply do not know yet how men are going to get on when they spend weeks and months outside the protection of the atmosphere, working in a space laboratory or in a base on the Moon. Drugs might help to decrease the damage done by radiation, but no really effective ones have been found so far. At present, radiation seems to be the greatest physical hazard to space travelers, but it is impossible to say just how serious the hazard will turn out to be in the future.
10. What make space a dangerous place?
[A] The radioactive meteors.
[B] The Sun and other stars.
[C] Rays from the earth.
[D] Rem.
11. According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true?
[A] The “normal” dose of radiation we rec eive is generally accepted as safe.
[B] Scientists are certain that 60 rem of radiation won’t damage man.
[C] Harm of radiation is not likely to be seen immediately.
[D] We don’t know exactly the seriousness of radiation damage.
12. Missions to the moon are dangerous to the explorers because
[A] they have to cross the high radioactive area.
[B] solar flares may damage the LEMs.
[C] they have to stay in space for a long time.
[D] they will probably run into meteors.
13. How will men effectively protect themselves when they spend long periods in space?
[A] By taking special drugs.
[B] By wearing special suits.
[C] By using a protective blanket.
[D] No effective solution has been found yet.
14. The example of Apollo is to show
[A] the Apollo mission was very successful.
[B] protection from space radiation is no easy job.
[C] astronauts don’t care about radiation damage.
[D] radiation is not a threat to well-protected space explorers.
15. The best title for this passage would be
[A] The Atmosphere and Our Environment
[B] Research on Radiation
[C] Effects of Space Radiation
[D] Important Protection against Radiation
Text D
A simple computer program that teaches children to distinguish between sounds can dramatically boost their listening skills. It can allow them to progress by the equivalent of two years in just a few weeks, the game’s creator claims.
The game, called Phonomena, was devised by David Moore of the University of Oxford, U.K., as an aid for children with language problems, but he says his latest trials also show that it can help any child. Other experts, however, are reserving judgment until independent tests are carried out.
Phonomena is designed to improve children’s ability to distinguish between different
phonemes(音素), the basic sounds that form the building blocks of language. Up to a fifth of all children are thought to have problems hearing the differences between some sounds, says Moore, who heads the U.K. Medical Research Council’s Institute of Hearing Research.
In the game, children have to distinguish between pairs of phonemes such as the “i” sound from the word “bit” and the “e” from “bet”. They are played one phoneme followed by two more examples, and asked which one matches the first sound. As the game progresses, the phonemes are gradual ly “morphed”(改变) to make them more and more similar, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish between them.
With 44 phonemes in English, there are potentially more than 1,000 different pairs, but the game concentrates on just 22 pairs of the commonest and most similar-sounding phonemes.
In the latest trials, 18 children aged between eight and ten played the game three times a week for four weeks. Their language abilities were compared before and after exposure to the game using a standard listening test.
The team found a dramatic improvement in their language abilities, with listening ages up by an average 2.4 years compared with 12 children who did not play the game. In earlier trials on children with learning difficulties, the speech and language therapists who tested the game reported similar improvements.
But Ted Wragg, an expert in education at the U.K’s University of Exeter, warns that such trials can produce misleading results. The improvements could be due to the efforts and attention of teachers and therapists, rather than the game itself. There is a history in education of people and companies making claims about learning products that do not stand up to scrutiny, he says.
It is a bit like teaching someone to catch a ball, Moore adds. “Sensor y performance is no different from motor performance. As far as we know, the neural processes driving them both are the same.” And just as playing catch improves hand-eye coordination in other tasks, Moore thinks the phoneme training boosts children’s gene ral language skills.
The advantage of using computers, he says, is each game can be tailored to a child’s abilities.
An oxford-based company called MindWeavers has been set up to commercialize the game.
Similar computer0based language tools already exist, such as those developed by Scientific Learning of Oakland, California. But these are geared exclusively towards children with speech and language problems and involve intensive training.
“We don’t believe you need to do this Draconian(严酷的) amount of training for it to do good,” says Moore. He is also exploring the use of phoneme training as an aid to adults learning a foreign language.
16. At first, the Phonomena game is designed for
[A] adults.
[B] disabled children.
[C] children with language problems.
[D] all children.
17. We can infer from the passage that in the game
[A] one fifth of the children have difficult distinguishing between sounds.
[B] children are asked to tell the differences between similar sounds.
[C] the phonemes are becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish.
[D] 44 phonemes in English are involved.
18. In Ted Wrag g’s opinion,
[A] the trial results are not reliable and reasonable.
[B] the game is helpful to children with language problems.
[C] the trial results are accurate.
[D] the trial results show that the game is useless.
19. What is the advantage of using computers in Phonomena game?
[A] It can provide customized service.
[B] It can provide multimedia service.
[C] Children can play the game at home.
[D] It can improve child’s ability.
20. What’s the limitation of the existing computer-based language tools?
[A] They are designed exclusively for children.
[B] They require too much training.
[C] They are too harsh.
[D] They do nothing good to language skills.
语境词汇
Text A
1. crackle sparks of electricity <喻>通过电波传递
2. anticlimax n.令人扫兴的结尾
3. tatter v.扯碎，使变破烂：a tattered flag 一面破旧的国旗
4.mainmast n.主桅
5. pipe v.召集，召唤
6. the veranda deck 舰艇上的游廊
7. clutch v.抓住，抓紧
Text B
1. thumb v.以拇指摆弄n. 大拇指
2. blister n.水泡，气泡v.使起水泡
3. angle v.谋取；垂钓n.角；角度，观点
4. hit n.成功的尝试；击中v.打（击）
5. frenzy n.狂乱；极度的激动
6. trendy a.时髦的，流行的n.新潮人物,穿着时髦的人
7. bedevil vt.使苦恼；折磨
8. slump n.经济衰退；消沉v.倒下，陷落；下跌
Text C
1. radiation n.放射，辐射；放射物，放射线
2. cosmic n.宇宙的；广大的，无限的
3. probe n.太空探测器；探查v.查究，调查
4. spurt n.喷射；忽然的加速、增强vi.喷出，涌出
5. accumulate v.积累，聚集；增长
6. excursion n.郊游，远足，游览
Text D
1. distinguish vt.＆vi.区分，辨别
2. phoneme n.音素，音位
2. exposure n.暴露，揭露；曝光，曝光时间
3. scrutiny n.细察，详审
4. sensory a.知觉的，感觉的，感觉器官的
5. tailor vt.使合适，修改n.裁缝
6. exclusively ad.仅仅，专门地；排他地，独占地
难句突破
Text A
1. There were a Russian with a red band about his cap and a Tass newsreel man who insisted on crawling in among the main actors to get his shots; there was a Canadian general who flubbed his part and signed on the wrong line; there was a carefully tailored Chinese general from Chungking. 【分析】并列复合句。

本句由三个并列的there be句型构成：在第一个分句中，介词短语with…作定语，who引导定语从句修饰a Tass newsreel man；第二个分句中who引导的定语从句修饰general。

【译文】有一位戴着红箍帽子的俄国人和一位执意要挤到重要人物之中拍摄镜头的塔斯社新
闻片摄制者；有位加拿大将军做得不得体，把名字签错了地方；尚有一位穿着考究的来自重庆的中国将军。

2. Umezu was dressed in parade uniform, all his ribbons glistening, and his eyes blank, but you could see the brown pockmarks on his cheeks swelling and falling in emotion.
【分析】并列句。

but连接两个转折关系的并列分句：在第一个分句中，all… and blank为两个并列的独立主格结构，在句中作随着状语；第二个分句的谓语结构是see sb/sth doing sth。

【译文】梅津美治郎身着阅兵制服，几条绶带闪闪发光，眼神空洞而茫然，然而可以看出他两颊上黝黑的麻子随着情绪起伏不定。

Text B
1. Analysts expect one of the top stocking stuffers this season to be not a traditional toy but the new generation of Ninte ndo’s Gam e Boy, the DS, which hit stores last week.
【分析】复合句。

句子主干部分看起来较为复杂，其实就是Sb expect sth to be sth结构；not…but连接两个并列成分，做be的表语；the DS作the new…Boy的同位语；which引导非限制性定语从句，修饰the DS。

【译文】分析师们预计，这个圣诞节最流行的礼物之一将不再是传统的玩具，而是任天堂公司上周刚刚投放市场的、“游戏小子”的新一代产品——DS游戏机。

2. The notion that kids are growing more sophisticated and tech-savvy, a trend called “age compression”, has bedeviled toy companies for at least a decade.
【分析】复合句。

句子主干为The notion has bedeviled toy companies。

that引导同位语从句，对the notion进行解释说明；a trend…作前面that从句的同位语，其中called “age compression”是过去分词短语作后置定语，修饰trend。

【译文】孩子们的口味越来越刁，对技术也越来越懂行，这种趋势被称作“年龄压缩”。

玩具制造公司为此寝食不安至少已达2023之久。

Text C
1. The trouble is that it is extremely difficult to be sure about radiation damage — a person may
feel perfectly well, but the cells of his or her sex organs may be damaged, and this will not be discovered until the birth of children or even grandchildren.
【分析】复合句。

that引导表语从句，从句中，it是形式主语，真正的主语是to be sure …；破折号后的内容是对trouble的补充说明，由but和and连接的三个并列分句组成。

【译文】问题是要拟定辐射伤害非常困难——一个人也许感觉身体极为健康，但他或她的性器官细胞也许已受到损害了，而这要一直到生下畸形的子女甚至孙子才会被发现。

2. It was hoped that there would not be any large solar flares during the times of Apollo moon walks because the walls of the lunar excursion modules (LEMs) were not thick enough to protect the men inside, though the command modules did give reasonable protection.
【分析】复合句。

it是形式主语，真正的主语是that引导的主语从句；该主语从句中包含because引导因素状语从句；在因素状语从句中，又嵌套一个though引导的让步状语从句。

【译文】当时人们希望在阿波罗号进行月球行走时不会出现大的太阳耀斑，由于尽管指挥舱能起到一定的保护作用，但是登月舱壁的厚度局限性以保护里面的宇航员。

Text D
1. Up to a fifth of all children are thought to have problems hearing the differences between some sounds, says Moore, who heads the UK Medical Research Council’s Institute of Hearing Research.
【分析】复合句。

该句的主干结构是children are thought to have problems。

have problems (in) doing sth是固定搭配；says Moore是插入成分；who引导非限制性定语从句，修饰Moore。

【译文】摩尔是英国医学研究委员会听力研究所的负责人，他说，据估计多达1/5的儿童对分辨某些语音都有困难。

2. As the game progresses, the phonemes are gradu ally “morphed” to make them more and more similar, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish between them.
【分析】复合句。

as引导时间状语从句，主句是the phonemes…similar。

making it…是现在分词短语作随着状语，其中，it是形式宾语，真正的宾语是to distinguish between them。

【译文】随着游戏的进行，例子中包含的音素逐渐变得越来越相似，使分辨它们的难度也逐渐加大。

Text A
Text B
Text C
Text D。