2014年12月英语四级真题：阅读--信息匹配汇总及答案

[A] On a train last Thursday, I sat opposite a man who was so fat he filled more than one seat. He was pale and disfigured and looked sick to death, which he probably was: obesity(肥胖的)leads to many nasty ways of dying. Looking around the carriage, I saw quite a few people like him, including a couple of fatty children with swollen checks pressing against their eyes. These people are part of what is without exaggeration an epidemic(流行病)of obesity.

[B] But it is quite unnecessary: there is a simple idea- far from new- that could spare millions of such people a lifetime of chronic(长期的)ill health, and at the same time save the National Health Service(NHS)at least ￡14 billion a year in England and Wales. There would, you might think, be considerable public interest in it. This simple idea is that sugar is as good- or as bad- as poison and should be avoided. It is pure, white and deadly, as Professor John Yudkin described it 40 years ago in a revolutionary book of that name. The subtitle was How Sugar Is Killing Us.

[C] In its countless hidden forms, in ready meals, junk food and sweet drinks, sugar leads to addiction(瘾), to hormonal upsets to the appetite, to metabolic(新陈代谢的)malfunctions and obesity and from there to type 2 diabetes(糖尿病)and its many horrible complication. If people really grasped that, they would try to kick the habit, particularly as Britain is the ― fat man of Europe. They might even feel driven to support government measures to prevent people from consuming this deadly stuff. Yet so far this idea has met little but resistance.

[D] It is not difficult to imagine the vested interests(既得利益集团)lined up against any sugar control- all the food and drink manufacturers, processors, promoters and retailers who make such easy pickings out of the magic powers of sugar. Then there are the liberals, with whom I would normally side, who protest that government regulation would be yet another instance of interference in our lives.

[E]That is true, but people should realize that you cannot have a welfare state without a nanny state(保姆国家), to some degree. If we are all to be responsible for one another’s health insurance, through socialized medicine, then we are all closely involved in one another’s health, including everyone’s eating and drinking. That has already been admitted, finally, with smoking. But it has yet to be admitted with overeating, even though one in four adults in this country is obese and that number is predicted to double by the year 2050.Quite apart from anything else, obesity will cripple the NHS.

[F]Recently, though, there have been signs that the medical establishment is trying to sound the alarm. Last month the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges(AMRC)published a report saying that obesity is the greatest public health issue affecting the UK and urging government to do something.

[G]The report offers 10 recommendations, of which the first is imposing a tax of 20 percent on sugary drinks for at least a year, on top of the existing 20 percent value-added tax. That at least would be an excellent start. The amounts of sugar in soft drinks are horrifying, and turn straight to fat. As Professor Terence Stephenson, head of the AMRC, has said, sugary soft drinks are ―the ultimate bad food. You are just consuming neat sugar. Your body didn’t evolve to handle this kind of thing.

[H]Precisely. The risks of eating too much fat or salt(which are very different)pale into insignificant compared with the harm done by sugar. And it is everywhere.

[I]It is difficult to buy anything in a supermarket, other than plain, unprepared meat, fish or vegetables, that doesn’t have a large amount of sugar in it. This has come about because the prevailing scientific views of the 1960s and 1970s ignored the evidence about sugar, and instead saw fat as the really serious risk, both to the heart and other organs, as well as the cause of obesity.

[J]The fashion was to avoid fat. But finding that food with much of its fat removed is not very appetizing, food producers turned to sugar as a magic alternative flavor enhancer, often in the forms of syrups(糖浆)that had recently been developed from corn, and put it generously into most prepared foods and soft drinks.

[K]This stuff is not just fattening. It is addictive. It interferes with the body’s metabolism, possibly via the activity of an appetite-controlling hormone. There’s plenty of evidence for this, for those who will accept the truth.

[L]Theoretically, people ought to make ―healthy choices and avoid overeating. But sugar additives are not easy to identify and are hard to avoid. So the snacking, over-drinking and over eating that makes people fat is not really their own fault: obesity is in large part something that is being done to them. It should be stopped, or rather the government should stop it.

[M]Going round my local supermarket, I am constantly astonished that it is still legal to sell all the poisons stacked high on the shelves. The problem is that they are worse than useless. They are poisonous. They are known to be addictive. They are known to make people obese. And giving small children sweet drinks or bottles of fake juice all day long is nothing less than child abuse.

[N]Clearly, the sale of such stuff ought to be illegal. I hate to think of yet more government regulation. But a bit of tax on sweet soda and a little more health education, a bit of cooking in schools and banning vending machines(自动售货机)here and there — as suggested try the AMRC report — is not going to achieve very much. Labelling is quite inadequate. What is needed is legislation banning high levels of sugary syrups used in foods and drinks.

[O]In June 2012, the then minister for public health said the government was not scared of the food industry and had not ruled out legislation, because of the costs of obesity to the NHS. However, nothing has happened yet. Why not have another Jammie Dodger biscuit and forget about it.

46、Avoiding over-consumption of sugar can improve people’s health as well as save medical expenses. 47、Laws should be passed to make it illegal to produce overly sweet foods or drinks. 48、Giving small children sweet juices to drink all the time is equal to child abuse. 49、Looking around, the author found obesity quite widespread.

50、The number of obese people is expected to increase quickly in the next few decades.

51、If people really understood the horrible consequences of sugary foods and drinks, they would support government measures against sugar consumption.

52、It would be a very good beginning to improve an additional tax on sugary drinks.

53、The government has not yet taken any action to regulate sugar consumption although it indicated its intention to do so some time ago.

54、Sugar is far more harmful to health than fat and salt.

55、Consumers of sweet foods are not really to blame because they cannot tell what food is sugary.

46—50 BNMAE 51—55 CGCHL

2. Growing Up Colored

[A] You wouldn't know Piedmont anymore—my Piedmont, I mean—the town in West Virginia where I learned to be a colored boy.

[B] The 1950s in Piedmont was a time to remember, or at least to me. People were always proud to be from Piedmont—lying at the foot of a mountain, on the banks of the mighty Potomac. We know God gave America no more beautiful location. I never knew colored people anywhere who were crazier about mountains and water, flowers and trees, fishing and hunting. For as long as anyone could remember, we could outhunt, outshoot, and outswim the white boys in the valley.

[C] The social structure of Piedmont was something we know like the back of our hands. It was an immigrant town; white Piedmont was Italian and Irish, with a handful of wealthy WASPs (盎格鲁撒克逊人的白人新教徒) on East Hampshire Street, and “ethnic” neighborhoods of working-class people everywhere else, colored and white.

[D] For as long as anyone can remember. Piedmoent's character has been completely bound up with the Westvaco paper mill: its prosperous past and doubtful future. At first glance, the town is a typical dying mill center. Many once beautiful buildings stand empty, evidencing a bygone time of spirit and pride. The big houses on East Hampshire Street are no longer proud, as they were when I was a kid.

[E] Like the Italians and the Irish, most of the colored people migrated to Piedmont at the turn of the 20th century to work at the paper mill, which opened in 1888. All the colored men at the paper mill worked on “the platform”—loading paper into tricks until the craft unions were finally integrated in 1968. Loading is what Daddy did every working day of his life. That's what almost every colored grown—up I knew did.

[F] Colored people lived in three neighborhoods that were clearly separated. Welcome to the Colored Zone, a large stretched banner could have said. And it felt good in there, like walking around your house in bare feet and underwear, or

snoring (打制) night out loud on the couch in front of the TV—enveloped by the comforts of home, the warmth of those you love.

[G] Of course, the colored world was not so much a neighborhood as a condition of existence. And though our own world was seemingly self-contained, it impacted on the white world of Piedmont in almost every direction. Certainly, the borders of our world seeped to be impacted on when some white man or woman showed up where he or the did not belong, such as at the black Legion Hall. Our space was violated when one of them showed up at a dance or a party. The rhythms would be off. The music would sound not quite right. Everybody would leave early.

[I] “It's no disgrace to be colored,”the black entertainer Bert Williams famously observed early in the century, “but it is awfully inconvenient.” For most of my childhood, we couldn't eat in restaurants or sleep in hotels, we couldn't use certain bathrooms or try on clothes in stores. Mama insisted that we dress up when we went to shop. She was carefully dressed when she went to clothing stores, and wore white pads called shields under her arms so her dress or blouse would show no sweat. “We'd like to try this on,” she'd say carefully, uttering her words precisely and properly. “We don't buy clothes we can't try on,” she'd say when they declined, and we'd walk out in Mama's dignified (有尊严的) manner. She preferred to shop where we had an account and where everyone knew who she was.

[J] At the Cut-Rate Drug Store, no one colored was allowed to sit down at the counter or tables, with one exception: my father. I don't know for certain why Carl Dadisman, the owner, wouldn't stop Daddy from sitting down. But I believe it was in part because Daddy was so light-colored, and in part because, during his shift at the phone company, be picked up orders for food and coffee for the operators. Colored people were supposed to stand at the counter, get their food to go, and leave. Even when Young Doc Bess would set up the basketball team with free Cokes after one of many victories, the colored players had to stand around and drink out of paper cups while the white players and cheerleaders set down in comfortable chairs and drank out of glasses.

[K] I couldn't have been much older than five or six as I sat with my father at the Cut-Rate one afternoon, enjoying ice cream. Mr. Wilson, a stony-faced Irishman, walked by.“Hello, Mr. Wilson,” my father said. “Hello, George.”

[L] I was genuinely puzzled. Mr. Wilson must have confused my father with somebody else, but who? There weren't any Georges among the colored people in Piedmont. “Why don't you tell him your name, Daddy?” I asked loudly. “Your name isn't George.”

“He knows my name, boy,” my father said after a long pause. “He calls all colored people George.”

[M] I knew we wouldn't talk about it again; even at that age, I was given to understand that there were some subjects it didn't do to worry to death about. Now that I have children, I realize that what distressed my father wasn't so much the Mr. Wilsons of the world as the painful obligation to explain the racial facts of life to someone who hadn't quite learned them yet. Maybe Mr. Wilson couldn't hurt my father by calling him George; but I hurt him by asking to know why. 注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。

46. The author felt as a boy that his life in a separated neighborhood was casual and cozy. 47. There is every sign of decline at the paper mill now.

48. One reason the author's father could sit and eat at the drug store was that he didn't look that dark. 49. Piedmont was a town of immigrants from different parts of the world.

50. In spite of the awful inconveniences caused by racial prejudice, the author's family managed to live a life of dignity. 51. The author later realized he had caused great distress to his father by asking why he was wrongly addressed. 52. The author took pride in being from Piedmont because of its natural beauty. 53. Colored people called white people by the business they did.

54. Colored people who lived in Piedmont did heavy manual jobs at the paper mill.

55. The colored people felt uneasy at the presence of the whites in their neighborhoods.

KEY: 46. F 47. D 48. J 49. C 50. I 51. M 52. B 53. H 54. E 55. G

3. In Hard Economy for All Ages, Older Isn’t Better—It’s Brutal

[A] Young graduates are in debt, out of work and on their parents' couches. People in their 30s and 40s can't afford to buy homes or have children. Retirees are earning near-zero interest on their savings.

[B] In the current listless (缺乏活力的) economy, every generation has a claim to having been most injured. But the Labor Department's latest jobs snapshot and other recent data reports present a strong case for crowning baby boomers (二战后生育高峰期出生的人) as the greatest victims of the recession and its dreadful consequences.

[C] These Americans in their 50s and early 60s — those near retirement age who do not yet have access to Medicare and Social Security — have lost the most earnings power of any age group, with their household incomes 10 percent below what they made when the recovery began three years ago, according to Sentier Research, a data analysis company. Their retirement savings and home values fell sharply at the worst possible time: just before they needed to cash out. They are supporting both aged parents and unemployed young-adult children, earning them the unlucky nickname \"Generation Squeeze.\"

[D] New research suggests that they may die sooner, because their health, income security and mental well-being were battered (重创) by recession at a crucial time in their lives. A recent study by economists at Wellesley College found that people who lost their jobs in the few years before becoming qualified for Social Security lost up to three years from their life expectancy (预期寿命), largely because they no longer had access to affordable health care.

[E] Unemployment rates for Americans nearing retirement are far lower than those for young people, who are recently out of school, with fewer skills and a shorter work history. But once out of a job, older workers have a much harder time finding another one. Over the last year, the average duration of unemployment for older people was 53 weeks, compared with 19 weeks for teenagers, according to the Labor Department's jobs report released on Friday.

[F] The lengthy process is partly because older workers are more likely to have been laid off from industries that are downsizing, like manufacturing. Compared with the rest of the population, older people are also more likely to own their own homes and be less mobile than renters, who can move to new job markets.

[G] Older workers are more likely to have a disability of some sort, perhaps limiting the range of jobs that offer realistic choices. They may also be less inclined, at least initially, to take jobs that pay far less than their old positions.

[H] Displaced boomers also believe they are victims of age discrimination, because employers can easily find a young, energetic worker who will accept lower pay and who can potentially stick around for decades rather than a few years. [I] In a survey by the center of older workers who were laid off during the recession, just one in six had found another job, and half of that group had accepted pay cuts. Fourteen percent of the re-employed said the pay in their new job was less than half what they earned in their previous job. \"I just say to myself: 'Why me? What have I done to deserve this?' \" said John Agati, 56, of Norwalk, Conn., whose last full-time job, as a merchandise buyer and product developer, ended four years ago when his employer went out of business. That position paid $90,000, and his rsum lists stints at companies like American Express, Disney and USA Networks. Since being laid off, though, he has worked a series of part-time, low-wage, temporary positions, including selling shoes at Lord & Taylor and making sales calls for a limo company.

[J] The last few years have taken a toll not only on his family's finances, but also on his feelings of self-worth. \"You just get sad,\" Mr. Agati said. \"I see people getting up in the morning, going out to their careers and going home. I just wish I was doing that. Some people don't like their jobs, or they have problems with their jobs, but at least they're working. I just wish I was in their shoes.\" He said he cannot afford to go back to school, as many younger people without jobs have done. Even if he could afford it, economists say it is unclear whether older workers like him benefit much from more education.

[K] \"It just doesn't make sense to offer retraining for people 55 and older,\" said Daniel Hamermesh, an economics professor at the University of Texas in Austin. \"Discrimination by age, long-term unemployment, the fact that they're now at the end of the hiring queue, the lack of time horizon just does not make it sensible to invest in them.\"

[L] Many displaced older workers are taking this message to heart and leaving the labor force entirely. The share of older people applying for Social Security early spiked during the recession as people sought whatever income they could find. The penalty they will pay is permanent, as retirees who take benefits at age 62 will receive 30 percent less in each month's check for the rest of their lives than they would if they had waited until full retirement age (66 for those born

after 1942).

[M] Those not yet eligible for Social Security are increasingly applying for another, comparable kind of income support that often goes to people who expect never to work again: disability benefits. More than one in eight people in their late 50s is now on some form of federal disability insurance program, according to Mark Duggan, chairman of the department of business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

[N]The very oldest Americans, of course, were battered by some of the same ill winds that tormented those now nearing retirement, but at least the most senior were cushioned by a more readily available social safety net. More important, in a statistical twist, they may have actually benefited from the financial crisis in the most fundamental way: prolonged lives. [O] Death rates for people over 65 have historically fallen during recessions, according to a November 2011 study by economists at the University of California, Davis. Why? The researchers argue that weak job markets push more workers into accepting relatively undesirable work at nursing homes, leading to better care for residents.

46. Greater mobility puts younger people at an advantage in seeking new jobs.

47. Many of the older workers laid off during the recession had to accept lower pay in their new jobs. 48. Those who has their jobs shortly before retirement age live a shorter-than-average life. 49. Seniors at nursing homes could benefit from the weak job market.

50. Age discrimination in employment makes it pointless retraining older workers.

51. According to recent reports and data analyses, boomers suffer most from the weak economy.

52. Unemployed boomers are at a disadvantage in job-hunting because employers tend to hire younger workers. 53. People in their fifties and early sixties bear the heaviest family burdens.

54. People who take benefits from Social Security before official retirement age will get much less for the rest of their lives.

55. Older workers' choice of jobs can be limited because of disability.

key: 46-50 F I D O K 51-55 B E C L G