6月英语四级阅读第115篇：爱美没商量

点击查看》》6月英语四级阅读汇总
Pots Of Promise
Medieval noblewomen swallowed arsenic and dabbed on bats blood to improve their complexions; 18 th century Americans prized the warm urine of young boys to erase their freckles; Victorian ladies removed their ribs to give themselves a wasp waist. The desire to be beautiful is as old as civilization, as is the pain that it can cause.
The pain has not stopped the passion from creating a 160 billion-a-year global industry,encompassing make -up, skin and hair care, fragrances, cosmetic surgery, health clubs and diet pills. Americans spend more each year on beauty than they do on education.
Such spending is not mere vanity. Being pretty — or just not ugly —
confers1 enormous genetic and social advantages. Attractive people ( both men and women) are judged to be more intelligent and sexy; they earn more and they are more likely to marry.
Basic instinct keeps the beauty industry powerful. In medieval times, recipes for homemade cosmetics were kept in the kitchen right beside those used to feed the family.
But it was not until the start of the 20 th century, when mass production coincided with mass exposure to an idealized standard of beauty ( through photography, magazines and movies) that the industry first took off.
In 1909, Eugene Schueller founded the French Harmless Hair Coloring Co.,
which later became L'Oreal2— today's industry leader. Two years later, a Hamburg pharmacist, developed the first cream to bind oil and water. Today, it sells in 150 countries as Nivea, the biggest personal-care brand in the world.
But it was the great rivalry between two women in America that made the industry what it is today. Elizabeth Arden opened the first modern beauty salon in 1910 , followed a few years later by Helena Rubinstein, a Polish immigrant. The two took cosmetics out of household pots and pans and into the modern era . Both thought beauty and health were interlinked. They combined facials with diets and exercise classes in a holistic approach that the industry is now returning to.
The emerging beauty industry played on3 the fear of looking ugly as much as on the pleasure of looking beautiful, drawing on the new science of psychology to convince women that an inferiority complex4 could be cured by a dab of lipstick.
练习题：
Ⅰ. Matching:
1. In medieval time ( ) .
2. In 1910 ( ) .
3. In 1909 ( ) .
4. In 1911 ( ) .
A. Swallow arsenic to improve their complexion.
B. Recipes for homemade cosmetics were kept in the kitchen.
C. Eugene Schueller found the French Harmless Hair Coloring Co.
D. A Hamburg Pharmacist developed the first cream that now sells to 150
countries.
E. Elizabeth Arden opened the first modern beauty salon.
Ⅱ. Questions:
1. What are the advantages of being pretty according to the passage ?
2. What’s your opinion about beauty? Is it really so important?
》》
英语四级作文模板分类记：提出问题类
模版1
It is quite natural for ________to ponder over the question of whether to _______________.
Many _________will choose not to______________,generally for three reasons.On the one hand,___________.On the other hand,______________.Most importantly,__________.Nevertheless, oher people adopt a completely different view,thinking that_____________.
Moreover, they further argue that___________.
From what we have discussed above,we can draw the conclusion that the question quite depends on personal choice.In my own eyes,________.
模版2
When taking about whether _____________,we will be most surprised to fnd that the present situation is utterly complicated,For one thing ,__________.For another,_________.
Three factors,in my point of view,account for this phenomenon.First and foremost,________.Secondly,____________.Last but not least,____________.
As far as I am concerned,I firmly believe that____________,only when_____________.
模版3
A national debate has sprung up on_____________.Many people welcome it with applause and enthusiasm,believing that___________.
However, those who strongly oppose the _________are not among the minority.They hold that______________.Moreover,____________.In aword,______________.
From my perspective,________should be____________.On the one hand,personally I would argue that_____________.On the other hand,____________.In conclusion,____________.。