学习一生四级英语阅读理解真题
在平平淡淡的日常中，我们都不可避免地要接触到试题，借助试题可以更好地检查参考者的学习能力和其它能力。你知道什么样的试题才算得上好试题吗？以下是精心整理的四级英语阅读理解真题，希望能够帮助到大家。
四级英语阅读理解真题 1
阅读题
What is the nature of the scientifi c attitude, the attitude of the man or woman who studies and applies physics, chemistry, geology, engineering, medical or any other science? We all know that science plays an important role in the societies in which we live. Many people believe, however, that our progress depends on two different aspects of science. The fi rst of these is the application of the machines and products that scientists and technologists develop. New drugs, faster and safer means of transport, new systems of applied knowledge are some examples of this aspect of science.
The second aspect is the application of the special methods of thought and action that scientists use in their work. What are these special methods of thinking and acting? First of all, it seems that a successful scientist is full of curiosity — he wants to fi nd out how and why the universe works. He usually directs his attention towards problems which he notices have no satisfactory explanation, and his curiosity makes him look for underlying relationships even if the data available seem to be unconnected. Moreover, he thinks he can improve the existing conditions, whether of pure or applied knowledge, and enjoys trying to solve the problems which this involves.
He is a good observer, accurate, patient and objective and applies persistent and logical thought to the observations he makes. He utilizes the facts he observes to the full extent. For example, trained observers obtain a very large amount of information about a star mainly from the accurate analysis of the simple lines that appear in a spectrum.
He is skeptical — he does not accept statements which are not based on the most complete evidence available — and therefore rejects authority as the sole basis for truth.
Furthermore, he is not only critical of the work of others, but also of his own. Since he knows that man is the least reliable of scientifi c instruments and that a number of factors tend to disturb objective investigation.
Lastly, he is highly imaginative since he often has to look for relationships in data, which are not only complex but also frequently incomplete. Furthermore, he needs imagination if he wants to make hypotheses of how processes work and how events take place.
These seem to be some of the ways in which a successful scientist or technologist thinks and acts.
81. Many people believe that science helps society to progress through .
A. applied knowledge B. more than one aspect
C. technology only D. the use of machines
82. Which of the following statements is INCORRECT about curiosity?
A. It gives the scientist confi dence and pleasure in work.
B. It gives rise to interest in problem that are unexplained.
C. It leads to efforts to investigate potential connections.
D. It encourages the scientists to look for new ways of acting.
83. According to the passage, a successful scientist would not .
A. easily believe in unchecked statements
B. easily criticize others' research work
C. always use his imagination in work
D. always use evidence from observation
84. What does the passage mainly discuss?
A. Application of technology.
B. Progress in modern society.
C. Scientists' way of thinking and acting.
D. How to become a successful scientist.
85. What is the author's attitude towards the topic?
A. Critical. B. Objective. C. Biased. D. Unclear.
参考答案
81. B。细节类。第一段第四行：“Many people believe, however, that our progress depends on two different aspects of science.”，社会的进步依靠于科学的两个不同方面。所以选B。
82. A。细节类。第三段作者阐述了什么是科学家必须具备的好奇心，可用排除法。
83. A。细节类。第五段“He is skeptical — he does not accept statements which are not based on the most complete evidence available.”，科学家常常对于没有建立在充分证据上的论断持怀疑态度。
84. C。主旨类。文章第三段“What are these special methods of thinking and acting?”是全文的主题句。文章解释了科学家的思考和行为方式。
85. B。态度类。文章客观描述了科学家的思考和行为方式，没有加入个人的主观评价。
四级英语阅读理解真题 2
阅读题
Graduation speeches are a bit like wedding toasts. A few are memorable. The rest tend to trigger such thoughts as, “Why did I wear such uncomfortable shoes?”
But graduation speeches are less about the message than the messenger. Every year a few colleges and universities in the US attract attention because they've managed to book high-profile speakers. And, every year, the media report some of these speakers' wise remarks.
Last month, the following words of wisdom were spread:
“You really haven't completed the circle of success unless you can help somebody else move forward.” (Oprah Winfrey, Duke University).
“There is no way to stop change; change will come. Go out and give us a future worthy of the world we all wish to create together.” (Hillary Clinton, New York University).
“This really is your moment. History is yours to bend.” (Joe Biden, Wake Forest University). Of course, the real “get” of the graduation season was first lady Michelle Obama's appearance at the University of California, Merced. “Remember that you are blessed,” she told the class of 2009, “Remember that in exchange for those blessings, you must give something
back... As advocate and activist Marian Wright Edelman says, 'Service is the rent we pay for living ... it is the true measure, the only measure of success'.”
Calls to service have a long, rich tradition in these speeches. However, it is possible for a graduation speech to go beyond cliche and say something truly compelling. The late writer David Foster Wallace's 2005 graduation speech at Kenyon College in Ohio talked about how to truly care about other people. It gained something of a cult after it was widely circulated on the Internet. Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs' address at Stanford University that year, in which he talked about death, is also considered one of the best in recent memory.
But when you're sitting in the hot sun, fi dgety and freaked out, do you really want to be lectured about the big stuff ? Isn't that like trying to maintain a smile at your wedding reception while some relative gives a toast that amounts to “marriage is hard work”? You know he's right; you just don't want to think about it at that particular moment. In fact, as is the case in many major life moments, you can't really manage to think beyond the blisters your new shoes are causing.
That may seem anticlimactic. But it also gets to the heart of one of life's greatest, saddest truths: that our most “memorable” occasions may elicit the fewest memories. It's probably not something most graduation speakers would say, but it's one of the fi rst lessons of growing up.
91. According to the passage, most graduation speeches tend to recall ______ memories.
A. great B. trivial C. unforgettable D. unimaginative
92. “But graduation speeches are less about the message than the messenger” is explained ______.
A. in the fi nal paragraph. B. in the last but one paragraph.
C. in the fi rst paragraph. D. in the same paragraph.
93. The graduation speeches mentioned in the passage are related to the following themes EXCEPT ______.
A. death. B. success. C. service. D. generosity.
94. It is implied in the passage that at great moments people fail to ______.
A. remain clear-headed. B. keep good manners.
C. remember others' words. D. recollect specifi c details.
95. What is “one of the first lessons of growing up”?
A. Attending a graduation ceremony.
B. Listening to graduation speeches.
C. Forgetting details of memorable events.
D. Meeting high-profile graduation speakers.
参考答案
91. B。推理类。第一段“Graduation speeches are a bit like wedding toasts. A few are memorable. The rest tend to trigger such thoughts as, ‘Why did I wear such uncomfortable shoes?'”，毕业演讲有点像婚礼上的致辞，有些片段是难忘的，但是其余的时刻总让我们回想起当时的细节，比如我为什么要穿这双不舒服的鞋呢。
92. D。推理类。“Every year a few colleges and universities in the US attract attention because they've managed to book high-profile speakers. And, every year, the media report some of these speakers' wise remarks.”，在毕业演讲上，演讲者比演讲内容还要重要。每年都有些大学请来高调的演讲者。
93. D。细节类。文章中举了几个有名的毕业演讲，关于死亡、成功、为社会服务。可用排除法。
94. C。推理类。倒数第二段“You know he's right; you just don't want to think about it at that particular moment.”，在重要的时刻，当大人物演讲时，你知道他说的是正确的，但往往记不住他到底说了些什么。
95. C。细节类。最后一段“our most‘memorable'occasions may elicit the fewest memories.”，成长中的第一课包括，我们往往会遗忘重要时刻的细节。
四级英语阅读理解真题 3
Trees should only be pruned when there is a good and clear reason for doing so and , fortunately,the number of such reasons is small. Pruning involves the cutting away of obergrown and unwanted branches, and the inexperienced gardener can be encouraged by the thought that more damage results from doing it unnecessarily than from leaving the tree to grow in its own way.
First, pruning may be done to make sure that trees have a desired shape or size. The object may be to get a tree of the right height, and at the same time to help the growth of small side branches which will thicken its appearance or give it a special shape. Secondly, pruning may be done to make the tree healthier. You may cut diseaed or dead wood, or branches that are rubbing against each other and thus cause wounds. The health of a tree may be encouraged by removing branches that are blocking up the centre and so preventing the free movement of air.
One result of pruning is that an open wound is left on the tree and this provides an easy entry for disease, but itis a wound that will heal. Often there is a race between the healing and the desease as to whether the tree will live or die, so that there is a period when the tree is at risk. It should be the aim of every gardener to reduce which has been pruned smooth and clean, for healing will be slowed down by roughness. You should allow the cut surface to dry for a few hurs and then paint it with one of the substances available from garden shops produced especially for this purpose. Pruning is usually without interference from the leaves and also it is very unlikely that the cuts yu make will bleed. If this does happen,it is, of course,impossible to paint them properly.
1.．Why should pruning be done?
A．To make the tree grow taller. B．To improve the shape of the tree.
C．to get rid of the small ranches . D．To make the small branches thicker.
2.．Trees become unhealthy if the gardener__________.
A. giving a tree a special shape and adefinite height
B. removing small side branches and making atree look less thick
C. allowing too many branches to grow in themiddle
D. having a tree surrounded by many othertrees
3.．Why is a special material painted on the tree?
A．To help a wound to dry. B．to cover a rough surface.
C．To make a wound smooth. D．To prevent disease entering a wound.
4.．A good gardener prunes a tree _________ .
A．several times throughout the year B．as quickly as possible
C．occasionally when necessary D．regularly every winter
5.．What was the author's purpose when writingthis passage?
A．To discuss different methods of pruning.
B．To introduce some common knowledge of pruning.
C．To explain how trees developdisease.
D．To give practical instruction for pruning atree.
四级英语阅读理解真题 4
Passage Three
Method of Scientific Inquiry
Why the inductive and mathematical sciences, after their first rapid development at the culmination of Greek civilization, advanced so slowly for two thousand years—and why in the following two hundred years a knowledge of natural and mathematical science has accumulated, which so vastly exceeds all that was previously known that these sciences may be justly regarded as the products of our own times—are questions which have interested the modern philosopher not less than the objects with which these sciences are more immediately conversant. Was it the employment of a new method of research, or in the exercise of greater virtue in the use of the old methods, that this singular modern phenomenon had its origin? Was the long period one of arrested development, and is the modern era one of normal growth? Or should we ascribe the characteristics of both periods to so-called historical accidents—to the influence of conjunctions in circumstances of which no explanation is possible, save in the omnipotence and wisdom of a guiding Providence?
The explanation which has become commonplace, that the ancients employed deduction chiefly in their scientific inquiries, while the moderns employ induction, proves to be too narrow, and fails upon close examination to point with sufficient distinctness the contrast that is evident between ancient and modern scientific doctrines and inquiries. For all knowledge is founded on observation, and proceeds from this by analysis, by synthesis and analysis, by induction and deduction, and if possible by verification, or by new appeals to observation under the guidance of deduction—by steps which are indeed correlative parts of one method; and the ancient sciences afford examples of every one of these methods, or parts of one method, which have been generalized from the examples of science.
A failure to employ or to employ adequately any one of these partial methods, an imperfection in the arts and resources of observation and experiment, carelessness in observation, neglect of relevant facts, by appeal to experiment and observation—these are the faults which cause all failures to ascertain truth, whether among the ancients or the moderns; but this statement does not explain why the modern is possessed of a greater virtue, and by what means he attained his superiority. Much less does it explain the sudden growth of science in recent times.
The attempt to discover the explanation of this phenomenon in the antithesis of “facts” and “theories” or “facts” and “ideas”—in the neglect among the ancients of the former, and their too exclusive attention to the latter—proves also to be too narrow, as well as open to the charge of vagueness. For in the first place, the antithesis is not complete. Facts and theories are not coordinate species. Theories, if true, are facts—a particular class of facts indeed, generally complex, and if a logical connection subsists between their constituents, have all the positive attributes of theories.
Nevertheless, this distinction, however inadequate it may be to explain the source of true method in science, is well founded, and connotes an important character in true method. A fact is a proposition of simple. A theory, on the other hand, if true has all the characteristics of a fact, except that its verification is possible only by indirect, remote, and difficult means. To convert theories into facts is to add simple verification, and the theory thus acquires the full characteristics of a fact.
1. The title that best expresses the ideas of this passage is
[A]. Philosophy of mathematics. [B]. The Recent Growth in Science.
[C]. The Verification of Facts. [C]. Methods of Scientific Inquiry.
2. According to the author, one possible reason for the growth of science during the days of the ancient Greeks and in modern times is
[A]. the similarity between the two periods.
[B]. that it was an act of God.
[C]. that both tried to develop the inductive method.
[D]. due to the decline of the deductive method.
3. The difference between “fact” and “theory”
[A]. is that the latter needs confirmation.
[B]. rests on the simplicity of the former.
[C]. is the difference between the modern scientists and the ancient Greeks.
[D]. helps us to understand the deductive method.
4. According to the author, mathematics is
[A]. an inductive science. [B]. in need of simple verification.
[C]. a deductive science. [D]. based on fact and theory.
5. The statement “Theories are facts” may be called.
[A]. a metaphor. [B]. a paradox.
[C]. an appraisal of the inductive and deductive methods.
[D]. a pun.
Vocabulary
1. inductive 归纳法
induction n.归纳法
2. deductive 演绎法
deduction n.演绎法
3. culmination 到达顶/极点
4. conversant （with） 熟悉的，精通的
5. exercise 运用，实行，执行仪式
singular 卓越的，非凡的，独一无二的
6. conjunction 结合，同时发生
7. omnipotence 全能，无限权/威力
8. Providence （大写）指上帝，天道，天令
9. commonplace 平凡的，陈腐的
10. inquiry 调查，探究（真理，知识等）
11. doctrine 教义，学说，讲义
12. correlative 相互关联的
13. antithesis 对立面，对偶（修辞学中），对句
14. coordinate 同等的，并列的
15. subsist 生存，维持生活
16. attribute 特征，属性
17. connote 意味着，含蓄（指词内涵）
难句译注
1. Why the inductive and mathematical sciences, after their first rapid development at the culmination of Greek civilization, advanced so slowly for two thousand years are questions which have interested the modern philosopher not less than the objects with which these sciences are more immediately conversant.
[结构简析] 破折号后面的内容（见难句译注2）先撇开。这样便于理解，整个句子是主谓表结构，前面一个问题句作主语，question后跟一个定语从句，和not less than连接的表语。
[参考译文] 为什么归纳发和数学科学，在希腊文明达到顶点时首先快速发展后，两千年内进展缓慢，现在哲学家对这个问题的兴趣不亚于对这些科学很熟悉研究的对象。
2. …—and why in the following two hundred years a knowledge of natural and mathematical science has accumulated, which so vastly exceeds all that was previously known that these sciences may be justly regarded as the products of our own times—…
[参考译文] 问什么在后来的二百年中自然科学数理科学积累起来，它们广泛的超越了过去已知的一切，所以就把这些科学视为我们时代的产品。
3. arrested development 停滞发展（被制止了的发展）。
4. Or should we ascribe the characteristics of both periods to so-called historical accidents—to the influence of conjunctions in circumstances of which no explanation is possible, save in the omnipotence and wisdom of a guiding Providence?
[参考译文] 或者我们是否应当把两个阶段的特点归因于所谓的历史的偶然性（意外事件）——归因于客观环境中相似（结合）的影响。这一点除非以指导一切的上帝的智慧和无限权利来解释，否则难以解说清楚。
写作方法与文章大意
这是篇议论文，论及科学探索的方法，总体是因果写法，具体分析又是对比写法。作者采用问答方式探究为什么希腊文明顶峰之后两千年，科技发展缓慢，而最近两百年又迅速发展超越前人，其原因在哪里?是采用新，旧方法所致，历史之偶然性，还是上天安排。
然后以现代用归纳法，古代用演绎法太狭隘说明科学总是在观察，实验，检验，证实中前进。但事实难以解释慢和快的现象。最后以“对立”——事实和理论对立古代重视事实来解释。然这两者是对立的统一。真正的理论就是事实。事实，构成之间具逻辑联系，就具有理论的一切正面特性。这种区分虽不足以解释科学研究中真正方法，但奠定了良好的'基础，含有真正方法中的重要特性。
答案详解
1. D. 科学研究/探索的方法。文章一开始就提出问题，为什么从希腊文化顶峰时期后两千年来归纳法和数学科学发展如此缓慢，而后的两百年又超越了前人，是应用新，旧方法关系还是其它（见难句译注1，2）。第二段讲埃及古代在科学探索中运用了演绎推理法，而现在应用了归纳法。这种解释太狭隘，经仔细审核，难以很清晰地点明古代和现代科学教义和探究上明显的差别。因为一切知识都基于观察，通过分析，综合，或综合分析，归纳演绎推理，有可能的话，经过校正或经由演绎指导下再观察而向前推进。第三段进一步阐明不用这些方法观察，实验;忽略相关事实，推理不慎;不能答出理论的结论，再用实验或观察来检验等或用得不全，不论在古代还是现代都会失败。但这不能说明为什么现代科学具有较高的功效，通过什么方式方法，超越了前人，更不用说说明最近科学突飞猛进的原因。第四，五段涉及事实和理论的关系。
A. 数学的哲学，文内没有提。 B. 近来科学的发展。 C. 事实的验证，只是最后两段提及验证方法之作用。
2. B. 是上天的安排，这是作家在用方***等失败后得出的结论。见难句译注4，第一段最后一句话。
A. 两个阶段的相似性。 . 两者都试*应用归纳法。 D. 由于演绎法的衰落。
3. A. 后者需要证实。答案在第四，五段，死段试*在事实的对立面和理论，或事实和思想中发现上述现象的解释看起来有饿太狭隘，也会因模糊不清遭批评。因为，对立面不全面，事实和理论不是同类的事物。理论，如果是真正的理论，就是事实——一种特殊类别的事实，一般复杂，但仍是事实。而事实，从词的狭义来说，如果很复杂，如果各成分中存在着逻辑的联系，就具有理论的一切主要特征。第五段第二句，事实是一个提议，通过运用知识的源泉和经验而证实的提议直接而又简单。而理论，若是真理论，就有事实的一切特性（除非其证实只能通过非直接的，遥远的和困难的方式方法），把理论转成事实必须用简单的核实，理论因此具有事实的一切特性。
B. 前者简单。 C. 是现代科学家和古希腊的差异。 D. 帮助我们了解演绎法，三项都不对。
4. C. 是推理演绎科学，这个问题常识就能回答。
A. 归纳法科学。 B. 需要简单证实。 D. 基于事实和理论。
5. B. 是一个悖论，见第四，五段注释。
A. 比喻。 C. 对归纳法和演绎法的赞扬。 D. 双关语。
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