2023年考研外语考前密押卷4.docx

考研外语考前密押卷4一、Use of English1> The cellphone, a device we have lived with for more than a decade, offers a good example of a popular technology s unforeseen side effects. More than one billion are (1)use around the world, and when asked, their (2) say they love their phones for the safety and convenience (3)provide. People also report that they are (4)in their use of their phones. One opinion survey (5)that 98 percent of Americans say they move away from (6)when talking on a wireless phone in public" (7)86 percent say they ' never' or 'rarely' speak (8) wireless phones when conducting (9)with clerks or bank tellers. Clearly, there exists a (10) between our reported cellphone behavior, and our actual behavior.Cellphone users that is to say, most of us are (11) instigators and victims of this form, of conversational panhandling, and it (12) a cumulatively negative effect on social space. As the sociologist Erving Guttmann observed in another (13), there is something deeply disturbingtheme.A. there are dual messages for the psychological consequencesB. one should sacrifice himself for the interest of the commonwealthC. people would stay in an unhappy marriageD. the individual is glad to do unpleasant work at low wagesWhich of the following is NOT true with the enjoy yourself” message?A. It is a different kind of personality from others.B. It is one that is self-centered.C. I like to do what makes me feel good.D. I live my dreams today, not tomorrow.From the last paragraph we may infer that.A. there is a fear of being sucked in and dragged down by our consumer cultureB. pleasure-seeking and blind acquisition is popular in our societyC. one should not default on one"s billsD. American society is not as secure as people assume6、The 1920s was the decade of advertising. The advertisingmen went wild: everything from salt to household coal was being nationally advertised. Of course, ads had been around for a long time. But something new was happening, in terms of both scale and strategy. For the first time, business began to use advertising as a psychological weapon against consumers. Without their product, the consumer would be left unmarried, fall victim to a terrible disease, or be passed over for a promotion. N/Is developed an association between the product and one s very identity. Eventually they came to promise everything and anything-from self-esteem to status, friendship, and love.This psychological approach was a response to the economic dilemma business faced. Americans in the middle classes and above (to whom virtually all advertising was targeted) were no longer buying to satisfy basic needs-such as food, clothing and shelter. These had been met. Advertisers had to persuade consumers to acquire things they most certainly did not need. In other words, production would have to create the wants it sought to satisfy”. This is exactly what manufacturers tried to do. The normally conservative telephone company attempted to transform, the plain telephone into a luxury, urging families to buy all the telephones that they can convenientlyuse, rather than the smallest amount they can get along with”.One ad campaign targeted fifteen phones as the style, for a wealthy home.Business clearly understood the nature of the problem. According to one historian: "Business had learned as never before the importance of the final consumer. Unless he or she could be persuaded to buy, and buy extravagantly, the whole stream of new cars, cigarettes, women's make-up, and electric refrigerators would be dammed up at its outlets.But would the consumer be equal to her/his task as the foundation of private enterprise? A top executive of one American car manufacturer stated the matter bluntly: business needs to create a dissatisfied consumer; its mission is "the organized creation of dissatisfaction”. This executive led the way by introducing annual model changes for his company's cars, designed to make the consumer unhappy with what he or she already had. Other companies followed his lead. Economic success now depended on the promotion of qualities like waste and self-indulgence.The campaign to create new and unlimited wants did not go unchallenged. Trade unions and those working for social reform, understood the long-term consequences of materialism for mostAmericans: it would keep them locked in capitalism's trap. The consumption of luxuries required long hours at work. Business was explicit in its resistance to increases in free time, preferring consumption as the alternative to taking economic progress in the form, of leisure. In effect, business offered up the cycle of work-and-spend.The 1920s' advertising men went wild.A. about salt and household coalB.over their ads scale and strategyC. about a psychological weaponD. to develop an association between the product and the consumerA typical example of "create the wants it sought to satisfy” is.A. acquiring things they most certainly did not needB. transforming the plain telephone into a luxuryC. fifteen phones as the style, for a wealthy homeD. buying all the telephones that they can conveniently use 8、The importance of the final consumer lies in.A. the potential buying powerB. the nature of the problemC. changing the products into capitalD. the demands for various merchandisesBusiness needs to create a dissatisfied consumer because it.A. promotes competitionB.helps improve productionC.puts higher standard on the manufacturerD.pushes forward product renovationAccording to the passage, the term "inaterialisnT refers to.A. a theory that physical matter is the only realityB. a doctrine that the only values lie in material well-beingC. a doctrine that economic or social change is materially causedD. a focus on material rather than intellectual or spiritual things9、 You may fall prey to a nonviolent but frightening and fast-growing crime: identity theft. It happens to at least 500, 000 new victims each year, according to government figures.And it happens very easily because every identification number you have Social Security, credit card, driver's license, telephone is a key that unlocks some storage of money or goods, says a fraud program manager of the US Postal Service. So if you throw away your credit card receipt and I get it and use the number on it, I'm not becoming you, but to the credit card company I've become your account. One major problem, experts say, is that the Social Security Number (SSN)-originally meant only for retirement benefit and tax purposes一has become the universal way to identify people. It is used as identification by the military, colleges and in billions of commercial transactions.Yet a shrewd thief can easily snatch your SSN, not only by stealing your wallet, but also by taking mail from your box, going through your trash for discarded receipts and bills or asking for it over the phone on some pretext.Using your SSN, the thief applies for a credit card in your name, asking that it be sent to a different address than yours, and uses it for multiple purchases. A couple of months later the credit card company, or its debt collection agency, presses you for payment.You don't have to pay the debt, but you must clean up yourdamaged credit record. That means getting a police report and copy of the erroneous contract, and then using them to clear the fraud from your credit report, which is held by a credit bureau. Each step can require a huge amount of effort.In the Collins' case, the clearance of the erroneous charges from their record required three years of poring over records and $6,000 in solicitor's fees. In the meantime, they were denied a loan to build a vacation home, forced to pay cash for a new heating and cooling system, hounded by debt collectors, and embarrassed by the spectacle of having their home watched by investigators looking for the missing car.Of course, thousands of people are caught and prosecuted for identity theft. But it was only last year that Congress made identity theft itself a federal crime. That law set up a special government office to help victims regain their lost credit and to streamline police efforts by tracking cases on a national scale.Consumer advocates say this may help but will not address the basic problems, which, they believe, are causing the outbreak in identity theft: industry's rush to attract more customers by issuing instant credit, inadequate checking of identity, and too few legal protections for consumers personal information.Which of the following may least make you fall prey to a nonviolent crime?A.Your Social Security Number.B.Your credit card receipt.C. Your driver's license.D.Your telephone.The most commonly used trick for a shrewd thief is.A.peeping into commercial transactionsB.seizing your SSNC. taking mail from your boxD.asking you over the phoneIf the thief applies for a credit card in your name, you.A.shouldn，t bother it at allB.had better pay for your carelessnessC.should get a report from the policeD. have to spend much effort to tackle itThe Collins' case impress that.A. the clearance of the erroneous charges is not easyB.they could not apply a loan to build a vacation homeC. they have to pay cash for almost everythingD. it is embarrassed to clean up the damaged credit record 15、The best title for the passage may be.A.Stolen Identity: A New EpidemicB. Guard against Identity TheftC. How to Keep Your Identity SafeD.Be Cautious of Using Your SSN16、By the mid-sixties, blue jeans were an essential part of the wardrobe of those with a commitment to social struggle. In the American Deep South, black farmers and grandchildren of slaves still segregated from whites, continued to wear jeans in their mid-nineteenth-century sense; but now they were joined by college students-black and white-in a battle to overturn deeply embedded race hatred. The clothes of the workers became a sacred bond between them. The clothing of toil came to signify the dignity of struggle.In the student rebellion and the antiwar movement that followed, blue jeans and work shirts provided a contrast to the uniforms of the dominant culture. Jeans were the opposite of high fashion, the opposite of the suit or military uniform.With the rise of the women's movement in the late 1960s, thepolitical significance of dress became increasingly explicit;Rejecting orthodox sex roles, blue jeans were a woman's weapon against uncomfortable popular fashions and the view that women should be passive. This was the cloth of action; the cloth of labor became the badge of freedom.If blue jeans were for rebels in the 1960s and early 1970s, by the 1980s they had become a foundation of fashion-available in a variety of colors, textures, fabrics, and fit. These simple pants have made the long journey z/from workers' clothes to cultural revolt to status symbol. On television, in magazine advertising, on the sides of buildings and buses, jeans call out to us. Their humb1e past is obscured; practical roots are incorporated into a new aesthetic. Jeans are now the universal symbol of the individual and Western democracy. They are the costume of liberated women, with a fit tight enough to restrict like the harness of old-but with the look of freedom and motion.In blue jeans, fashion reveals itself as a complex world of history and change. Yet looking at fashions, in and of themselves, reveals situations that often defy understanding. Our ability to understand a specific fashion-the current one of jeans, for example-shows us that as we try to make sense ofabout people who are (14)contact in social situations because they are blatantly refusing to (15) to the norms of their immediate environment. Placing a cellphone call in public instantly transforms the strangers around you (16) unwilling listeners who must cede to your use of the public (17) a decidedly undemocratic effect for so democratic a technology. Listeners don't always passively (18) this situation: in recent years, people have been pepper-sprayed in movie theaters, (19)from concert halls and deliberately rammed with cars as a result of (20) behavior, on their cellphones.A. ofB. forC. inD. by2、A. mastersB. ownersC. holdersD. inventors3、(3)A. they it, our confusion intensifies. It is a fashion whose very essence is contradiction and confusion.To pursue the goal of understanding is to move beyond the actual cloth itself, toward the more general phenomenon of fashion and the world in which it has risen to importance. Exploring the role of fashion within the social and political history of industrial America helps to reveal the parameters and possibilities of American society. The ultimate question is whether the development of images of rebellion into mass-produced fashions has actually resulted in social change.In the eyes of college students in the mid-nineteenth-century blue jeans symbolized.A.a commitment to social struggleB.a struggle for segregationC.the dignity of struggleD. military uniformWhat is the most striking feature of jeans in the women's movement?A.The cloth of action.B.The orthodox sex roles.C.Their political significance.D. The weapon against uncomfortable popular fashions.By saying /zjeans call out to us，(Lines 1-2, Para. 5) the author implies that.A. jeans summon us into actionB.jeans challenge us to a duelC. jeans ask us to get out of homeD. jeans become an eye-catching fashionAccording to the author jeans are a fashion that.A. causes the change of world historyB. is beyond our understandingC. makes no economic sense at allD. causes contradiction and confusion among peopleFrom the last paragraph we may conclusion that.A. it is difficult to understand the blue jeansB.jeans are a fashion revolutionC. jeans help reveal the background of the social changes in the U. S.D.jeans help shape the characteristics of American society19、 Part B (10 points)You are going to read an article which is followed by a list of examples or headings. Choose the most suitable one from the list A-F for each numbered position (41-45). There may be certain extra which you do not need to use. (10 points) A. Periodicals in initial stageB. The function of periodicalsC. Newspapers and other periodicals onlineD. The introduction of reviewsE. Features of periodicalsF. The emergence of modern periodicalsPeriodicals refer to publications released on a regular basis that may include news, feature articles, poems, fictional stories, or other types of writing. Many periodicals also include photographs and drawings. Periodicals that are aimed at a general audience, such as weekly news roundups or monthly special-interest publications, are also called magazines. Those with a more narrow audience, such as publications of scholarly organ