2016年6月大学英语四级真题试卷（三）

Contrary to popular belief, older people generally do not want to live with their children. Moreover, most adult children【C1】___every bit as much care and support to their aging parents as was the case in the “good old days” , and most older people do not feel【C2】___.

About 80% of people 65 years and older have living children, and about 90% of them have【C3】______contact with their children. About 75% of elderly parents who don’t go to nursing homes live within 30 minutes of at least one of their children.

However,【C4】___having contact with children does not guarantee happiness in old age. In fact, some research has found that people who are most involved with their families have the lowest spirits. This research may be【C5】, however, as ill health often makes older people more【C6】and thereby increases contact with family members. So it is more likely that poor health, not just family involvement,【C7】___spirits.

Increasingly, researchers have begun to look at the quality of relationships, rather than at the frequency of contact, between the elderly and their children. If parents and children share interests and values and agree on childrearing practices and religious【C8】___, they are likely to enjoy each other’s company. Disagreements on such matters can【C9】cause problems. If parents are angered by their daughter’s divorce, dislike her new husband, and disapprove of how she is raising their grandchildren,【C10】___are that they are not going to enjoy her visits.

A)abandoned I)frequent

B)advanced J)fulfillment

C)biased K)grant

D)chances L)merely

E)commitment M)provide

F)dampens N)understandably

G)dependent O)unrealistically

H)distant

Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?

A)For many years I have studied global agricultural, population, environmental and economic trends and their interactions. The combined effects of those trends and the political tensions they generate point to the breakdown of governments and societies. Yet I, too, have resisted the idea that food shortages could bring down not only individual governments but also our global civilization.

B)I can no longer ignore that risk. Our continuing failure to deal with the environmental declines that are undermining the world food economy forces me to conclude that such a collapse is possible.

C)As demand for food rises faster than supplies are growing, the resulting food-price inflation puts severe stress on the governments of many countries. Unable to buy grain or grow their own, hungry people take to the streets. Indeed, even before the steep climb in grain prices in 2008, the number of failing states was expanding. If the food situation continues to worsen, entire nations will break down at an ever increasing rate. In the 20th century the main threat to international security was superpower conflict: today it is failing states.

D)States fail when national governments can no longer provide personal security, food security and basic social services such as education and health care. When governments lose their control on power, law and order begin to disintegrate. After a point, countries can become so dangerous that food relief workers are no longer safe and their programs are halted. Failing states are of international concern because they are a source of terrorists, drugs, weapons and refugees(难民), threatening political stability everywhere.

E)The surge in world grain prices in 2007 and 2008—and the threat they pose to food security—has a different, more troubling quality than the increases of the past. During the second half of the 20th century, grain prices rose dramatically several times. In 1972, for instance, the Soviets, recognizing their poor harvest early, quietly cornered the world wheat market. As a result, wheat prices elsewhere more than doubled, pulling rice and corn prices up with them. But this and other price shocks were event-driven— drought in the Soviet Union, crop-shrinking heat in the U. S. Corn Belt. And the rises were short-lived: prices typically returned to normal with the next harvest.

F)In contrast, the recent surge in world grain prices is trend-driven, making it unlikely to reverse without a reversal in the trends themselves. On the demand side, those trends include the ongoing addition of more than 70 million people a year, a growing number of people wanting to move up the food chain to consume highly grain-intensive meat products, and the massive diversion(转向)of U. S. grain to the production of bio-fuel.

G)As incomes rise among low-income consumers, the potential for further grain consumption is huge. But that potential pales beside the never-ending demand for crop-based fuels. A fourth of this year’s U. S. grain harvest will go to fuel cars.

H)What about supply? The three environmental trends—the shortage of fresh water, the loss of topsoil and the rising temperatures—are making it increasingly hard to expand the world’s grain supply fast enough to keep up with demand. Of all those trends, however, the spread of water shortages poses the most immediate threat. The biggest challenge here is irrigation, which consumes 70% of the world’s fresh water. Millions of irrigation wells in many countries are now pumping water out of underground sources faster than rainfall can refill them. The result is falling water tables(地下水位)in countries with half the world’s people, including the three big grain producers—China, India and the U. S.

I)As water tables have fallen and irrigation wells have gone dry, China’s wheat crop, the world’s largest, has declined by 8% since it peaked at 123 million tons in 1997. But water shortages are even more worrying in India. Millions of irrigation wells have significantly lowered water tables in almost every state.

J)As the world’s food security falls to pieces, individual countries acting in their own self-interest are actually worsening the troubles of many. The trend began in 2007, when leading wheat-exporting countries such as Russia and Argentina limited or banned their exports, in hopes of increasing local food supplies and thereby bringing down domestic food prices. Vietnam banned its exports for several months for the same reason. Such moves may eliminate the fears of those living in the exporting countries, but they are creating panic in importing countries that must rely on what is then left for export.

K)In response to those restrictions, grain-importing countries are trying to nail down long-term trade agreements that would lock up future grain supplies. Food-import anxiety is even leading to new efforts by food-importing countries to buy or lease farmland in other countries. In spite of such temporary measures, soaring food prices and spreading hunger in many other countries are beginning to break down the social order.

L)Since the current world food shortage is trend-driven, the environmental trends that cause it must be reversed. We must cut carbon emissions by 80% from their 2006 levels by 2020, stabilize the world’s population at eight billion by 2040, completely remove poverty, and restore forests and soils. There is nothing new about the four objectives. Indeed, we have made substantial progress in some parts of the world on at least one of these—the distribution of family-planning services and the associated shift to smaller families.

M)For many in the development community, the four objectives were seen as positive, promoting development as long as they did not cost too much. Others saw them as politically correct and morally appropriate. Now a third and far more significant motivation presents itself: meeting these goals may be necessary to prevent the collapse of our civilization. Yet the cost we project for saving civilization would amount to less than $200 billion a year,¹⁄₆of current global military spending. In effect, our plan is the new security budget.

Declining mental function is often seen as a problem of old age, but certain aspects of brain function actually begin their decline in young adulthood, a new study suggests.

The study, which followed more than 2,000 healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 60, found that certain mental functions—including measures of abstract reasoning, mental speed and puzzle-solving—started to dull as early as age 27.

Dips in memory, meanwhile, generally became apparent around age 37.

On the other hand, indicators of a person’s accumulated knowledge—like performance on tests of vocabulary and general knowledge—kept improving with age, according to findings published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging.

The results do not mean that young adults need to start worrying about their memories. Most people’s minds function at a high level even in their later years, according to researcher Timothy Salthouse.

“These patterns suggest that some types of mental flexibility decrease relatively early in adulthood, but that the amount of knowledge one has, and the effectiveness of integrating it with one’s abilities, may increase throughout all of adulthood if there are no diseases,” Salthouse said in a news release.

The study included healthy, educated adults who took standard tests of memory, reasoning and perception at the outset and at some point over the next seven years.

The tests are designed to detect subtle(细微的)changes in mental function, and involve solving puzzles, recalling words and details from stories, and identifying patterns in collections of letters and symbols.

In general, Salthouse and his colleagues found, certain aspects of cognition(认知能力)generally started to decline in the late 20s to 30s.

The findings shed light on normal age-related changes in mental function, which could aid in understanding the process of dementia(痴呆), according to the researchers.

“By following individuals over time,” Salthouse said,“we gain insight in cognition changes, and may possibly discover ways to slow the rate of decline. “

The researchers are currently analyzing the study participants’ health and lifestyle to see which factors might influence age-related cognitive changes.

The most important thing in the news last week was the rising discussion in Nashville about the educational needs of children. The shorthand(简写)educators use for this is “pre-K”—meaning instruction before kindergarten—and the big idea is to prepare 4-year-olds and even younger kids to be ready to succeed on their K-12 journey.

But it gets complicated. The concept has multiple forms, and scholars and policymakers argue about the shape, scope and cost of the ideal program.

The federal Head Start program, launched 50 years ago, has served more than 30 million children. It was based on concepts developed at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College by Susan Gray, the legendary pioneer in early childhood education research.

A new Peabody study of the Tennessee Voluntary Pre-K program reports that pre-K works, but the gains are not sustained through the third grade. It seems to me this highlights quality issues in elementary schools more than pre-K, and indicates longer-term success must connect pre-K with all the other issues related to educating a child.

Pre-K is controversial. Some critics say it is a luxury and shouldn’t be free to families able to pay. Pre-K advocates insist it is proven and will succeed if integrated with the rest of the child’s schooling. I lean toward the latter view.

This is, in any case, the right conversation to be having now as Mayor Megan Barry takes office. She was the first candidate to speak out for strong pre-K programming. The important thing is for all of us to keep in mind the real goal and the longer, bigger picture.

The weight of the evidence is on the side of pre-K that early intervention(干预)works. What government has not yet found is the political will to put that understanding into full practice with a sequence of smart schooling that provides the early foundation.

For this purpose, our schools need both the talent and the organization to educate each child who arrives at the schoolhouse door. Some show up ready, but many do not at this critical time when young brains are developing rapidly.