提高英语专四阅读能力的三大步骤
一提到如何提高英语专四阅读水平，人们自然想到的答案是：多读。这当然没错，熟能生巧是世人皆知的道理。但，读也要讲求质量。盲目无绪地乱读未必就能提高阅读水平。不少学生感到委屈，自己读了不少文章，学了不少所谓技巧，可阅读水平老提不高。另一方面，不少教师也对如何上好阅读课感到很茫然，不知道在阅读课上应当讲些什么。如果仅仅是把文章翻译过来，那就成了翻译课。如一味讲技巧，一则阅读本身并无太多技巧可循，二则易把学生引向投机取巧的歧途。
阅读到底该如何学习呢?其实，要回答这个问题，还得从我们的母语学习谈起。我们在小学就把常用的汉字基本学完了，可我们初、高中还得学习语文。那我们在中学语文课上学了什么呢?这个问题恐怕还一时不好回答。但至少敢肯定，我们的阅读和写作水平提高了。我们没有意识到自己母语水平在潜移默化中逐渐提升。
学习母语如此，学习英语也是如此。我们在掌握基本语言后，必须学会脱离语言本身，我们首先要理解文章整体而非个别词句。文章的体裁、内容可能千差万别，但文章是人写出来的，那就必定有一定逻辑。词句都不过是表象，而把握作者的意图才是解题之关键。专四考试在向能力测试转
变，我们也必须摈弃单纯强调应试技巧的老路。要想快速扎实提高阅读能力，我们可从以下三个方面努力：
一、养成二次阅读习惯，培养逻辑推理能力
很多书上要求学生学会分析文章的结构，其实就是要求学生提高逻辑推理能力。在平时练习中，学生做完阅读，唯一可做就是对答案，事实上，纠正答案后对文章的再次阅读往往至关重要。第一遍读文章时，我们应当模拟考试的紧张气氛，尽量高质快速。但，对完答案后，我们有充足的时间再次阅读文章。第二次阅读文章我们的目的不在是获取信息，而是把握文章的布局安排，分析作者的意图。我们必须带着思考再次阅读文章，问问自己以下问题：
如果自己写同样题目或题材的文章，会采取何种文章布局?如我们自己设想的布局与作者不同，那么具体不同之处在何处?这篇文章与以前读过的同体裁文章相比，有何特点?
也许有人会说，这样的训练不就成了精读课了吗?如果时间允许，二次阅读成了精读，又有何不可?讲求速度的范读是应试而用，要想真正培养逻辑推理能力，提高阅读水平，还非精读不可。文章的是永远读不完的，如果想着去读200篇各种模拟阅读题，倒不如踏踏实实读50篇历年真题。另外，地道的文章分析多了，对自己写文章布局谋篇也不无好处。
二、自己学写长句，克服长难句障碍
几乎每一篇阅读，总有一两句长难句。有许多同学这样分析那样分析，可就分析不出什么名堂。听力好的同学不一定发音好，可发音好的同学一定听力好。同样，能写出长难句的人当然不会怕什么长难句。
同学们应当做的是找一本好的语法书，认认真真学习句子结构那部分。英语的句子主干往往并不复杂，只是其粘着修饰成分过多。我们一开始应当学会如何写出简单的基本句型，然后再通过附加各种从句、插入语、非谓语形式，来逐步扩充句子结构。
分析长难句与扩充句子正好是反其道而行之，我们必须一步步“砍”去插入语、各种从句、非谓语形式，来获得句子主干。所以只要“欲简之必先扩之”，我们与其寻求各种长难句分析法，不如先学会自己写长句。
三、文章归类阅读，考前复习有奇效
阅读文章成千上万，如何从有限中把握规律才是关键。阅读文章总是按照每套试题四篇文章分布，于是众多学子也就按部就班。可是如果我们把自己读过的所有文章按照主题分类，比如分为校园类、医学类、家庭类、环境类等等，到了考前，再按类别复习这些文章，我们不仅能系统掌握某一
类别文章常用的词汇，也能把握该类文章的结构特点和出题规律。
最好的方法是，我们一开始就制定分类标准，每做完一篇文章就在其标题后或首句前注明文章的类别，这样到了考前，归纳起来就容易多了。
Passage one At the age of twelve years, the human body is at its most vigorous. It has yet to reach its full size and strength, and its owner his or her full intelligence; but at this age the likelihood of death is least. Earlier, we were infants and young children, and consequently more vulnerable; later, we shall undergo a progressive loss of our vigor and resistance which, though imperceptible at first, will finally become so steep that we can live no longer, however well we look after ourselves, and however well society, and our doctors, look after us. This decline in vigor with the passing of time is called ageing. It is one of the most unpleasant discoveries which we all make that we must decline in this way, that if we escape wars, accidents and disease we shall eventually "die of old age", and that this happens at a rate which differs little from person to person, so that there are heavy odds in favor of our dying between the ages of sixty-five and eighty. Some of us will die sooner, a few will live longer--on into a ninth or tenth decade. But the chances are against it, and there is a virtual limit on how long we can hope to remain alive, however lucky and robust we are. Normal people tend to forget this process unless and until they are reminded of it. We are so familiar with the fact that man ages, that people have for years assumed that the process of losing vigor with time, of becoming more likely to die the older we get, was something self-evident, like the cooling of a hot kettle or the wearing-out of a pair of shoes. They have also assumed that all animals, and probably other organisms such as trees, or even the universe itself, must in the nature of things "wear out". Most animals we commonly observe do in fact age as we do, if given the chance to live long enough; and mechanical systems like a wound watch, or the sun, do in fact an out of energy in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics (热力学) (whether the whole universe does so is a moot point at present). But these are not analogous to what happens when man ages. A run-down watch is still a watch and can be rewound. An old watch, by contrast, becomes so worn and unreliable that it eventually is not worth mending. But a watch could never repair itself--it does not consist of living parts, only
2017年专四英语阅读基础训练题 2017年专四英语阅读基础训练题 Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.以下是小编为大家搜索整理的2017年专四英语阅读基础训练题，希望能给大家带来帮助!更多精彩内容请及时关注我们应届毕业生考试网! The case for college has been accepted without question for more than a generation. All high school graduates ought to go, says conventional wisdom and statistical evidence, because college will help them earn more money, become "better" people, and learn to be more responsible citizens than those who don' t go. But college has never been able to work its magic for everyone. And now that close to half our high school graduates are attending, those who don' t fit the pattern are becoming more numerous, and more obvious. College graduates are selling shoes and driving taxis; college students interfere with each other' s experiments and write false letters of recommendation in the intense competition for admission to graduate school. Other find no stimulation in their studies, and drop out—often encouraged by college administrators. Some observers say the fault is with the young people themselves—they are spoiled and they are expecting too much. But that is a condemnation of the students as a whole, and doesn' t explain all campus unhappiness. Others blame the state of the world, and they are partly right. We have been told that young people have to go to college because our economy can' t absorb an army of untrained eighteen-year-olds. But disappointed graduates are learning that it can no longer absorb an army of trained twenty-two-year-olds, either. Some adventuresome educators and watchers have openly begun to suggest that college may not be the best, the proper, the only place for every young person after the completion of high school. We may have been looking at all those surveys and statistics upside down, it seems, and through the rosy glow of our own remembered college experiences. Perhaps college doesn' t make people intelligent, ambitious, happy, liberal, or quick to learn things—may it is just the other way around, and intelligent, ambitious, happy, liberal, quick-learning people are merely the ones who have been attracted to college in the first place. And perhaps all those successful college graduates would have been successful whether they had gone to college or not. This is heresy to those of us who have been brought up to believe that if a little schooling is good, more has to be much better. But contrary evidence is beginning to mount up. 1.According to the author, ___.
PART Ⅱ READING COMPREHENSION ［25 MIN.］ In this section there are four passages followed by fifteen questions or unfinished statements, each with four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the correct answer.Mark your choice on your ANSWER SHEET. TEXT A As many as one thousand years ago in the Southwest, the Hopi and Zuni Indians of North America were building with adobe－sun baked brick plastered with mud. Their homes looked remarkably like modern apartment houses. Some were four stories high and contained quarters for perhaps a thousand people, along with storerooms for grain and other goods. These buildings were usually put up against cliffs, both to make construction easier and for defense against enemies. They were really villages in themselves, as later Spanish explorers must have realized since they called them “pueblos”, which is Spanish for town.The people of the pueblos raised what are called “the three sisters”—corn, beans, and squash. They made excellent pottery and wove marvelous baskets, some so fine that they could hold water. The Southwest has always been a dry country, where water is scarce. The Hopi and Zuni brought water from streams to their fields and gardens through irrigation ditches. Water was so important that it played a major role in their religion. They developed elaborate ceremonies and religious rituals to bring rain. The way of life of less settled groups was simpler and more strongly influenced by nature. Small tribes such as the Shoshone and Ute wandered the dry and mountainous lands between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. They gathered seeds and hunted small animals such as small rabbits and snakes. In the Far North the ancestors of today’s Inuit hunted seals, walruses, and the great whales. They lived right on the frozen seas in shelters called igloos built of blocks of packed snow. When summer came, they fished for salmon and hunted the lordly caribou. The Cheyenne, Pawnee, and Sioux tribes, known as the Plains Indians, lived on the grasslands between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River. They hunted bison, commonly called the buffalo. Its meat was the chief food of these tribes, and its hide was used to make their clothing and covering of their tents and tipis. 16. What does the passage mainly discuss? A. The architecture of early American Indian buildings. B. The movement of American Indians across North America. C. Ceremonies and rituals of American Indians. D. The way of life of American Indian tribes in early North America. 17. It can be inferred from the passage that the dwellings of the Hopi and Zuni were ___ A. very small B. highly advanced C. difficult to defend D. quickly constructed TEXT B Most earthquakes occur within the upper 15 miles of the earth’s surface. But earthquakes can and do occur at all depths to about 460 miles. Their number decreases as the depth increases. At about 460 miles one earthquake occurs only every few years. Near the surface earthquakes may run as high as 100 in a month, but the yearly average does not vary much. In comparison with the total number of earthquakes each year, the number of disastrous earthquakes is very small.[JP] The extent of the disaster in an earthquake depends on many factors. If you carefully build a toy house with an erect set, it will still stand no matter how much you shake the table. But if you build a toy house with a pack of cards, a slight shake of the table will make it fall. An earthquake in Agadir, Morocco, was not strong enough to be recorded on distant instruments, but it completely destroyed the city. Many stronger earthquakes have done
英语专业四级考试阅读理解训练（一） Passage One Computers monitor everything in Singapore from soil composition to location of manholes. At the airport, it took just 15 seconds for the computerized immigration system to scan and approve my passport. It takes only one minute to be checked into a public hospital. By 1998, almost every household will be wired for interactive cable TV and the Internet, the global computer network. Shoppers will be able to view and pay for products electronically. A 24-hour community telecomputing network will allow users to communicate with elected representatives and retrieve information about government services. It is all part of the government’s plan to transform the nation into what it calls the ―Intelligent Island‖. In so many ways, Singapore has elevated the concept of efficiency to a kind of national ideology. For the past ten years, Singapore’s work force was rated the best in the world—ahead of Japan and the U. S. –In terms of productivity, skill and attitude by the Business Environment Risk Intelligence service. Behind the ―Singapore miracle‖ is a man Richard Nixon described as one of ―the ablest leaders I have met,‖ one who, ―in other times and other places, might have attained the world stature of a Churchill.‖ Lee Kuan Yew led Sing apore’s struggle for independence in the 1950s, serving as Prime Minister from 1959 until 1990. Today (1995), at 71, he has nominally retired to the office of Senior Minister, where he continues to influence his country’s future. Lee offered companies tax breaks, political stability, cheap labor and strike-free environment. Nearly 90 percent of Singaporean adults now own their own homes and thanks to strict adherence to the principle of merit, personal opportunities abound. ―If you’ve got talent and work hard, you can be anything here,‖ says a Malaysian-born woman who holds a high-level civil-service position. Lee likes to boast that Singapore has avoided the ―moral breakdown‖ of Western countries. He attributes his nation’s success to strong family ties, a reliance on education as the engine of advancement and social philosophy that he claims is superior to America’s. In an interview with Reader’s Digest, he said that the United States has ―lost its bearings‖ by emphasizing individual rights at the expense of society. ―An ethical society,‖ he said, ―is one which matches human rights with responsibilities.‖ 1. What characterizes Singapore’s advancement is its___. A. computer monitoring B. work efficiency C. high productivity D. value on ethics 2. Fr om Nixon’s perspective, Lee is___. A. almost as great as Churchill B. not as great as Churchill C. only second to Churchill in being a leader D. just as great as Churchill 3. In the last paragraph, ―lost its bearings‖ may mean___. A. become impatient B. failed to find the right position C. lost its foundation D. grown band-mannered 4. ―Y ou can be anything here‖（Paragraph 5）may be paraphrased as___. A. Y ou can hope for a very bright prospect. B. Y ou may be able to do anything needed. C. Y ou can choose any job as you like. D. Y ou will become an outstanding worker. 5. In Singapore, the concept of efficiency___. A. has been emphasized throughout the country. B. has become an essential quality for citizens to aim at. C. is brought forward by the government in order to compete with America. D. is known as the basis for building the ―Intelligent Island.‖
PART V READING COMPREHENSION [25 MIN] In this section there are four passages followed by questions or unfinished statements, each with four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer.Mark your answers on Answer Sheet Two. TEXT A Inundated by more information than we can possibly hold in our heads, we're increasingly handing off the job of remembering to search engines and smart phones. Google is even reportedly working on eyeglasses that could one day recognize faces and supply details about whoever you're looking at. But new research shows that outsourcing our memory —and expecting that information will be continually and instantaneously available — is changing our cognitive habits. Research conducted by Betsy Sparrow, an assistant professor of psychology at Columbia University, has identified three new realities about how we process information in the Internet age. First, her experiments showed that when we don't know the answer to a question, we now think about where we can find the nearest Web connection instead of the subject of the question itself. A second revelation is that when we expect to be able to find information again later on, we don't remember it as well as when we think it might become unavailable. And then there is the researchers' final observation: the expectation that we'll be able to locate information down the line leads us to form a memory not of the fact itself but of where we'll be able to find it. But this handoff comes with a downside. Skills like critical thinking and analysis must develop in the context of facts: we need something to think and reason about, after all. And these facts can't be Googled as we go; they need to be stored in the original hard drive, our long-term memory. Especially in the case of children, "factual knowledge must precede skill," says Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology, at the University of Virginia — meaning that the days of drilling the multiplication table and memorizing the names of the Presidents aren't over quite yet. Adults, too, need to recruit a supply of stored knowledge in order to situate and evaluate new information they encounter. You can't Google context. Last, there's the possibility, increasingly terrifying to contemplate, that our machines will fail us. As Sparrow puts it, "The experience of losing our Internet connection becomes more and more like losing a friend." If you're going to keep your memory on your smart phone, better make sure it's fully charged. 81. Google's eyeglasses are supposed to ______ A.improve our memory B.function like memory C.help us see faces better D.work like smart phones
People have been painting pictures for at least30,000 years. The earl iest pictures were painted bypeople who hunted animals. They used to paintpictures of the animals they wanted to catch and of this ki nd have been found on the walls ofcaves in France and Spain. No on e knows why theywere painted there. Perhaps the painters thoughtthat their pictures would help them to catch theseanimals. Or perhaps huma n beings have always wanted to tell stories in pictures. About 5,000 years ago, the Egyptians and other people in the Near E ast began to use picturesas kind of writing. They drew simple pictur es or signs to represent things and ideas, and also torepresent the sounds of their language. The signs these people used became a kin d Egyptians used to record information and to tell stories by putt ing picture writingand pictures together. When an important person die d, scenes and stories from his life werepainted and carved on the w alls of the place where he was buried. Some of these pictures areli ke modern comic strip stories. It has been said that Egypt is the home of the comic, for the Egyptians, pictures still had magic pow er. So they did not try to make their way ofwriting simple. The or dinary people could not understand it. By the year 1,000 BC, people who lived in the area around the Medi terranean Sea haddeveloped a simpler system of writing. The signs the y used were very easy to write, and therewere fewer of them than i n the Egyptian system. This was because each sign, or letter,represen ted only one sound in their language. The Greeks developed this syst em and formedthe letters of the Greek alphabet. The Romans copied th e idea, and the Roman alphabet isnow used all over the world. These days, we can write down a story, or record information, withou t using pictures. But westill need pictures of all kinds: drawing, p hotographs, signs and diagrams. We find themeverywhere: in books and newspapers, in the street, and on the walls of the places where wel ive and work. Pictures help us to understand and remember things mor e easily, and they canmake a story much more interesting.? 1. Pictures of animals were painted on the walls of caves in France and Spain because ?___ ___?.?
2017年英语专四阅读理解练习试题及答 案 There are many theories about the beginning of drama in ancient Greece. The one most widely accepted today is based on the assumption that drama evolved from ritual. The argument for this view goes as follows. In the beginning, human beings viewed the natural forces of the world, even the seasonal changes, as unpredictable, and they sought through various means, to control these unknown and feared powers. Those measures which appeared to bring the desired results were then retained and repeated until they hardened into fixed rituals. Eventually stories arose which explained or veiled the mysteries of the rites. As time passed some rituals were abandoned, but the stories, later called myths, persisted and provided material for art and drama. Those who believed that drama evolved out of ritual also argue that those rites contained the seed of theater because music, dance, masks, and costumes were almost always used.
The case for college has been accepted without question for more than a generation. All high school graduates ought to go, says conventional wisdom and statistical evidence, because college will help them earn more money, become “better” people, and learn to be more responsible citizens than those who don’t go. But college has never been able to work its magic for everyone. And now that close to half our high school graduates are attending, those who don’t fit the pattern are becoming more numerous, and more obvious. College graduates are selling shoes and driving taxis; college students interfere with each other’s experiments and write false letters of recommendation in the intense competition for admission to graduate school. Others find no stimulation in their studies, and drop out—often encouraged by college administrators. Some observers say the fault is with the young people themselves—they are spoiled and they are expecting too much. But that is a condemnation of the students as a whole, and doesn’t explain all campus unhappiness. Others blame the state of the world, and they are partly right. We have been told that young people have to go to college because our economy can’t absorb an army of untrained eighteen-year-olds. But disappointed graduates are learning that it can no longer absorb an army of trained twenty-two-year-olds, either. Some adventuresome educators and watchers have openly begun to suggest that college may not be the best, the proper, the only place for every young person after the completion of high school. We may have been looking at all those surveys and statistics upside down, it seems, and through the rosy glow of our own remembered college experiences. Perhaps college doesn’t make people inte lligent, ambitious, happy, liberal, or quick to learn things—maybe it is just the other way around, and intelligent, ambitious, happy, liberal, quick-learning people are merely the ones who have been attracted to college in the first place. And perhaps all those successful college graduates would have been successful whether they had gone to college or not. This is heresy to those of us who have been brought up to believe that if a little schooling is good, more has to be much better. But contrary evidence is beginning to mount up. 1. According to the author, ___. A. people used to question the value of college education. B. people used to have full confidence in higher education. C. all high school graduates went to college. D. very few high school graduates chose to go to college. 2. In the 2nd paragraph, “those who don’t fit the pattern” refers to___. A. high school graduates who aren’t suitable for college education B. college graduates who are selling shoes and driving taxis C. college students who aren’t any better for their higher education D. high school graduates who failed to be admitted to college 3. The dropout rate of college students seems to go up because___. A. young people are disappointed with the conventional way of teaching at college B. many people are required to join the army C. young people have little motivation in pursuing a higher education D. young people don’t like the intense competition for admission to graduate school 4. According to the passage, the problems of college education partly originate in the fact that___. A. society cannot provide enough jobs for properly trained graduates B. High school graduates do not fit the pattern of college education C. Too many students have to earn their own living D. College administrators encourage students to drop out 5. In this passage the author argues that___. A. more and more evidence shows college education may not be the best thing for high school graduates B. College education is not enough if one wants to be successful C. College education benefits only the intelligent, ambitious, and quick-learning people D. Intelligent people may learn quicker if they don’t go to college