2023年四川大学英语考试考前冲刺卷（4）.docx

2023年四川大学英语考试考前冲刺卷（4）本卷共分为1大题50小题，作答时间为180分钟，总分100分，60分及格。一、单项选择题（共50题，每题2分。每题的备选项中，只有一个最符合题意） 1.According to reports in major news outlets, a study published last week included a startling discovery: the nations Jewish population is in shrinking. The study, the National Jewish Population Survey, found 5.2 million Jews living in the United States in 2000, a drop of 5 percent, or 300,000 people, since a similar study in 1990Whats truly startling is that the reported decline is not true. Worse still, the sponsor of the $6 million study, United Jewish Communities, knows it. Both it and the authors have openly admitted their doubts. They have acknowledged in interviews that the population totals for 2000 and 1990 were reached by different methods and are not directly comparable. The survey itself also cautions readers, in a dauntingly technical appendix, that judgment calls by the researchers may have led to an undercount. When the research director and project director were asked whether the data should be construed to indicate a declining Jewish population, they flatly answered no. In addition, other survey researchers interviewed pointed to other studies with population estimates as high as 6.7 million. Despite all this, the two figures5.2 million now, 5.5 million thenare listed by side in the survey, leaving the impression that the population has shrunk. The result, predictably, has been a rash of headlines trumpeting the illusionary decline, in turn touching off jeremiads by rabbis and. moralists condemning the religious laxity behind it. Whether out of ideology, ego, incompetence or a combination of all three, the respected charity has invented a crisis. United Jewish Communities is the coordinating body for a national network of Jewish philanthropies with combined budgets of $2 billion. Its population surveys carry huge weight in shaping community policy. This is not the first time the survey has set off a false alarm. The last one, conducted by a predecessor organization, found that 52 percent of American Jews who married between 1985 and 1990 did so outside the faith. That number was a fabrication produced by including marriages in which neither party was Jewish by anyones definition, including the researchers. Its publication created a huge stir, inspiring anguished sermons, books and conferences. It put liberals on the defensive, emboldened conservatives who reject full integration into society and alienated ordinary folks by the increasingly xenophobic tone of Jewish communal culture. The new survey, to its credit, retracts that figure and offers the latest survey has spawned a panic created by the last one. So why did the organization flawed figures once again Some scholars who have studied the survey believe the motivation then came partly out of a desire to shock straying Jews into greater observance. Its too early to tell if thats the case this time around. What is clear is the researchers did their job with little regard to how their data could be misconstrued. They used statistical models and question formats that, while internally sound, made the new survey incompatible with the previous one. For example, this time the researchers divided the population of 5.2 million into two groups"highly involved" Jews and "people of Jewish background" and posed most questions only to the first group. As a result, most findings about belief and observance refer only to a subgroup of American Jews, making comparisons to the past impossible. We cant afford to wait a decade before these figures are revised. The false population decline must be corrected before it further sours communal discourse. The United Jewish Communities owes it to itself and its public to step forward and state plainly what it knows to be true: American Jews are not disappearing.When the author is talking about the Jewish Population Survey, he seems _.Ato believe the shrinking of the Jews in AmericaBto support the rejection of full integration into societyCto blame United Jewish CommunitiesDto be willing to tolerate the fault of United Jewish Communities 2.It is difficult for an agency as old as J. Walter Thompson, which will turn 140 next year, to record some firsts at so venerable an age. But it will do just that with a rare changing of the guard. Thompson, which works for blue-chip advertisers like Diageo, Ford Motor, Kellogg, Merrill Lynch, Nestl6, Pfizer and Reckitt Benckiser, will announce today that Bob Jeffrey, president for its North American operations, will be promoted to chief executive, effective Jan. 1. Mr. Jeffrey, in being named the ninth chief executive of Thompson since 1864, succeeds Peter ASchweitzer, who will become chairman, a post that is now vacant. Mr. Schweitzer, 64, will also relinquish his duties as worldwide president to Michael Madel, now president for the Thompson operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Mr. Jeffrey, 50, will become the first Thompson chief executive to have spent most of his advertising career outside the agency. He joined Thompson five years ago as president of the flagship New York office; he came from the agency now known as Lowe & Partners Worldwide, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, where he had been executive vice president and managing director for the San Francisco office. Mr. Jeffrey, who was also a founder of the Goldsmith/Jeffrey agency in New York, was promoted to his current post in 2001. Mr. Madel, 53, will be the first Thompson worldwide president to be based outside New York, in this case London. Mr. Madel, who joined Thompson in 1990, adds responsibilities for the Asian-Pacific operations to the duties of his current post, to which he was promoted in 1997. The changes come as Thompson, the largest agency in the United States in revenueand No. 4 globally, behind Dentsu, McCann-Erickson Worldwide Advertising and BBDO Worldwideconfronts some daunting challenges. While Thompson has recently gained additional assignments from clients like Pfizer, the agency has also lost some accounts from prominent marketers including the Miller Brewing Company division of SAB-Miller and Sun Microsystems. Thompson has had to shake up the ranks of senior managers at offices in cities like Chicago, Detroit and San Francisco to help reassure clients. The agency stumbled in efforts to develop an entertainment marketing division, dismantling a unit based in New York named Content JWT in favor of handling those tasks out of the Detroit office. And Thompson, like many large agencies, is deemed in need of improving its creative output, particularly as clients must deal with rapidly changing marketing and media trend. The challenges include the rise of the finicky youthful consumer cohort known as Generation Y and the need to develop alternatives to traditional ad forms as consumers zip, zap and fast-forward television commercials. One task facing Mr. Jeffrey is to take the J. Walter Thompson creative product to an even higher level. Another is to ensure that communications solutions for clients are coordinated across all disciplines as effective as possible. This referred to the Thompson offerings in areas as disparate as advertising, entertainment marketing, interactive marketing, direct marketing and health care advertising. Mr. Jeffrey, in a separate interview, acknowledged the scale and scope of what he would face. "If you watch the movie Catch Me if You Can set in the 1960s, you see the prominent brands are Pan Am and T.W.A.," Mr. Jeffrey said. "Forty years later, look at the airline industry. If you look at the ad industry, you could prognosticate something similar," he added. "If we dont get our acts together, that could be us.It can be inferred from the passage that Bob Jeffrey _.Ahas spent most of his advertising career in J. Walter ThompsonBbecame president for North American operations of Thompson five years agoCis facing serious challenges to promote Thompsons business to a higher levelDwill be conservative in his future measures to satisfy such youngsters as Generation Y 3.Teenagers are under a lot of pressure to be thin. They are led to believe that the only way they can be accepted and fit in, is if they are thin. They resort to starving, vomiting and eating only diet foods to try and be thin. Television is a big influence on them. They watch shows like Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place and feel they need to look as thin as the actresses on these shows. Society is brainwashing young people into believing that being thin is important and necessary. Diet commercials are constantly appearing on our television screens telling us that once we lose the weight, we will be happy. While your standing in the check out line at the grocery store you are surrounded by magazines claiming to have the newest and best diet. Each month another new diet appears claiming to be the diet to end all diets. Whatever happened to last months diets that claimed the same thing Dieting has become an obsession in North America. We spend billions of dollars each year trying to look the way society tells us we need to look. If diets really worked, then why are there so many of them The reason a new diet pops up each month, is because lasts months diets did not work. You know, the ones that claimed to really work. The truth of the matter is that DIETS DONT WORK. The diet and fashion industries are not totally to blame for societys obsession with thinness. We are the ones keeping them in business. We buy into the idea that we can attain the "ideal" body image. We allow ourselves to believe the lies being thrown at us constantly. We buy their magazines, diet books and products, hoping that this time they will work. We are throwing away our hard earned money trying to live up to the standards that society has set for us. Its unfortunate, but in todays society, people have forgotten that its whats inside a person that counts, not whats on the outside. We need to start loving and accepting each other for who we are, not what we look like. Next time you decide that you are going to start another diet because you feel you are too fat, stop, sign up for a self-esteem class instead. That would be money well spent. If we learn to love and accept ourselves, we will also begin to-love our bodies, no matter what size we are. Once again, I would like to stress the fact that diets dont work. Eating three healthy meals a day, a few snacks and doing moderate exercise, will allow your body to go to its natural set point. Its important to remember that no food will make you fat, as long as its eaten in moderation. Stop buying those fashion magazines and diet products, and stop believing all the lies being told to you by the fashion and diet industries. Instead, focus on learning to love and accept yourself. No number on a scale and fitting into a smaller dress size will not make you happy. Happiness can only come from within.The content of the passage can be best described as _.AnarrativeBargumentativeCdescriptiveDexpository 4.Summer is winding down, but its still not too late to put the top down and hit the road. For those of us who cant spring for a Corvette or a BMW, heres some good news: Two of the coolest convertibles on the road are also more affordableVolkswagens New Beetle and Chryslers PT Cruiser. Both start at about $20,000, seat four, and get between 22 and 24 miles per gallon from their four- cylinder engines. Each has fully insulated cloth tops with rear windows made of real glass, which makes them comfortable to use in winter. Front-wheel drive helps make them safer to drive over snow and ice. Both also offer high-performance turbocharged models starting at about $25,000Both have bulging fenders and cool, retro personalities. Beyond that, theyre very different. The PT Cruiser focuses on practicality, while the Beetle is more fun to drive. That fun comes from the cars chassis, suspension, and overall structure. Crank the steering into a turn and the car follows like an eager puppy. The engine isnt powerful, but loves to rev, so you can downshift to accelerate. The New Beetle Convertible has developed an unfortunate reputation as a "chick car" for its cute looks and the lack of power in the standard model. But for an extra $1,600, VW offers its turbocharged version, with a 150 horsepower, 1.8 liter engine, which gives the car some snap. Even so, the convertible top eliminates what little practicality the New Beetle hatchback offers. To fit the folding top, the back seat Was narrowed and angled so upright its uncomfortable. And the folded top sits above a tiny trunk, with only five cubic feet of capacity and accessible through a smaller porthole. Weekend trippers had better not have kids or plan to rough it with more than a backpack or two. Interior storage is also minuscule. As with the New Beetle hatchback, the windshield is disconcertingly far away, and the wipers clear only a small slit of a view in front. Compared with the profile of the hatchback, however, the convertible sports a top thats lower and a little less cartoonlike. The PT Cruiser, on the other hand, looks its sinister best with the top up. Peeling the top off reveals its cutesy "roll hoop". (Chrysler denies the hoop offers rollover protection and calls it a light bar.) But the Cruiser, like its four-door brethren, offers all the year-round practicality the original Beetle convertible did in its day. The back seat is comfortable for two people, and the trunk is roomy. Unfortunately, its also hard to access because the big trunk lid gets in the way when open. So instead of standing to load or unload the car, you have to squat or kneel. But the storage space is huge the biggest Ive seen in any convertible. And the back seats fold forward in case you need to carry some long cargo. The interior offers four cup holders and several large storage bins. The 220-horsepower turbocharged engine in the GT model makes the Cruiser seriously quick, which backs up its hot-rod looks. But after that, the driving experience falls apart. Like its hot-rod inspirations, the Cruiser is best on a straight, smooth road. Over bumps, its floppy chassis wobbles like jello. On the highway, the Cruiser I tested needed continual corrections to stay in its lane. The manual shifter on the GT proved sloppy; it was hard to be sure which gear the car was about to engage. Several times I hit fifth gear when aiming for third. Chrysler apparently anticipated this problem, as a brief warning chimes to let you know when youre in reverse. Neither the PT Cruiser convertible nor the New Beetle is perfect. But for fun in the sun or even the fall what could be better Both cars brought constant waves, smiles, and stories from p