2012年12月大学英语四级真题试卷（第3套）

Suffering in silence

Despite a law designed to protect them, many people with disabling conditions are unaware of their rights. Carole Concha-Bell tells of her experiences.

Being diagnosed with a disabling condition is always a shock. Learning to live without the guarantee of health is like having to unlearn a previous life. The implications for your working life may seem intimidating.

There is the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), of course. But does it really provide the protection in the workplace that parliament intended? Are employers merely paying lip service to the DDA? Or are they even aware of an employer’s legal duties and responsibilities?

In my experience, it is the latter. I have received little support from employers to whom I have revealed my condition. This has often left me feeling at a disadvantage and wondering why I bothered doing so in the first place.

I had been struggling with illness long before I was diagnosed. In practical terms the diagnosis did little to aid me. Of course, it enabled me to understand my body, my limitations and set me on a course to stabilise my symptoms. But it brought a new dilemma. Where I had previously struggled to work while ill, ignorant of why my body was misbehaving, I now had a name for my daily struggle: Lupus (狼疮). This is a chronic (慢性的) auto-immune disorder that can affect virtually any system in the body. It also leaves a huge, dark question hanging over my head when seeking employment: should I tell my employers I have a condition? It is a dilemma that continues to be a root cause of anxiety both for myself and for thousands of other UK employees.

The rocky road to my unfortunate enlightenment about work and disability began just after graduation when I’d set my sights on a career in communications and landed my dream job with a respected public relations consultancy (咨询公司) in Bristol. But while I was learning the art of media relations, my body wasn’t quite making it in health terms. I often went to work with swollen limbs and fevers. At my first and last performance review, my boss was amazed that, despite my many capabilities, I hadn’t quite taken control of my responsibilities. A few months later, my contract wasn’t renewed and I plunged further into new depths of ill health.

However, I was determined not to be beaten and returned to the interview trail. My next job was in publishing. But despite a shining performance at the interview, I felt like a fraud. How long would it be before I sank into ill health and depression again?

The job was to end with a monumental bang when I became so poorly I could no longer function. A few feverish weeks in bed ended in specialist appointment, where I was diagnosed with Lupus and rushed into hospital for fear that it may have attacked my internal organs.

The next 12 months were filled with confusion. I had no idea about benefits, felt alienated (被视为另类) by the medical establishment and lived off my savings until I was broke. I realised I needed help from my family and moved to London.

As soon as I felt better, I marched into a marketing recruitment consultancy and, within 10 minutes, I had impressed the interviewer enough to be offered a job with the agency. We agreed on a decent salary and I told him I had arthritis (关节炎) and would need to work a four-day week.

Things went well at the start but soon the client meetings began to fall on my day off, and I rarely left the office on time. I began to slip both in health and professional terms. The 10-hour days crashed around my head; no amount of make-up could disguise my ill health as I battled against the odds to prove to myself that I could still make it in the business world. I often cried on the bus on the way back from work.

Not long before my contract was due to be made permanent, I was called to the boss’s office and given the “talk” about how my performance was slipping, how awful I looked. I felt too weak to fight back and agreed to leave. No attempts to offer adjustments to my job, such as being able to work from home, were ever made. I had a case for unfair dismissal under the DDA, but was ignorant of this at the time.

An estimated 10 million people in the UK, or 17% of the population, qualify for disability status under the DDA. I have encountered a number of them: the liver-diseased boss; the co-worker with a heart condition; and my asthmatic (哮喘的) trainee-teacher friend. None had disclosed (透露) their conditions to employers, and all were feeling the strain of not doing so.

To access your rights under the DDA and to request “ reasonable adjustments” to your working conditions or your workplace requires disclosure. I had warned my former employer about my condition but it served little purpose. They were ignorant about their obligations to their disabled staff.

However, there are plenty of forward-thinking organisations that have inclusive recruitment policies; are more likely to employ a worker with a disability; and are more aware of their legal duties. The public sector out-performs the private, but not always the voluntary, according to studies for the Disabilities Rights Commission.

I decided to give the voluntary sector a go and was surprised to be offered flexible working conditions and other solutions to meet my needs as an employee. But given the choice, I would still prefer a career in the private sector, which for me is more dynamic, has more attractive salaries and offers better prospects than the voluntary or public sectors.

Despite the advances of the DDA, there will always be an army of workers who will soldier on, maybe aware of their rights but choosing to remain silent for personal reasons. It is important, though, to recognise the significance of the act, the protection it affords and the obligations that employers have to us as employees and as human beings.

Americans today have different eating habits than they had in the past. There is a wide【B1】___of food available. They have a broader【B2】of nutrition (营养), so they buy more fresh fruit and【B3】than ever before. At the same time, Americans【B4】___increasing quantities of sweets and sodas.

Statistics show that the way people live【B5】___the way they eat. American lifestyles have changed. There are now growing numbers of people who live alone,【B6】parents and children, and double-income families. These changing lifestyles are【B7】for the increasing number of people who must【B8】meals or sometimes simply go without them. Many Americans have less time than ever before to spend preparing food.【B9】___. Moreover, Americans eat out nearly four times a week on average.

It is easy to study the amounts and kinds of food that people consume.【B10】___. This information not only tells us what people are eating, but also tells us about the changes in attitudes and tastes.【B11】___. Instead, chicken, turkey and fish have become more popular. Sales of these foods have greatly increased in recent years.

So many people use the cell phone so frequently every day. But【S1】___little is certain about the health effects of its use. Manufacturers【S2】that cell phones meet government standards for safe radio-frequency radiation emission, but enough studies are beginning to document a possible【S3】in rare brain tumors (肿瘤), headaches and behavioral disorders in children to cause concern. So far, the evidence isn’t【S4】on whether the use of cell phones【S5】to any increased risk of cancer. In a new trial, researchers asked 47 volunteers to【S6】in a project to measure glucose (葡萄糖) consumption in the brain by scanning the brain to see how cells use energy. For both 50-minute scans, the volunteers had a cell phone【S7】to each ear. During the first scan, the devices were turned off, but for the second scan, the phone on the right ear was【S8】on and received a recorded-message call, although the volume was muted (消音) so the noise wouldn’t bias the results. The results of the second scan showed that the【S9】of the brain nearest to the device had higher rates of glucose consumption than the rest of the brain. The study shows that cell phones can change brain activity, and【S10】___a whole new avenue for scientific inquiry, though it doesn’t say anything about whether cell-phone radiation can cause cancer.

A) conclusive I) mission

B) contributes J) participate

C) derive K) particular

D) expresses L) provides

E) fixed M) regions

F) immensely N) surprisingly

G) increase O) switched

H) maintain

It’s no secret that some of the resolutions that many of us vowed to pursue in the new year—eat healthy, lose weight, quit smoking, save more money—have already fallen by the wayside.

Many of them are likely the same resolutions that we abandoned last January. And it’s a good thing for those who sell health club memberships, quit-smoking programs and other products that help us think we can improve our lives.

Many gyms see new memberships double in January, making up for the third of their members who do not renew each year.

And many who sign up in January will be no-shows by February.

” If I try one quick fix and it doesn’t work, I may be more likely to try the next quick fix,“. Lisa Lahey, who coaches executives how to sustain behavior change, told The Times.

The Biggest Loser Resort at Fitness Ridge doesn’t offer any quick fixes, just a 12-hour schedule full of exercise, a 1,200-calories-a-day diet and a fee of $2,000 a week. The resort teaches its clients that “ weight management” is a combination of fitness, diet and emotional health.

” Given my recent weight gain, and the fact that I was turning 50,” Jennifer Conlin wrote in The Times, “I wanted to start a program that would make 2012 the year I finally got in shape. “

“For years, the advice to the overweight people has been that we simply need to eat less and exercise more,” Tara Parker-Pope wrote. “ While there is truth to this guidance, it fails to take into account that the human body continues to fight against weight loss long after dieting has stopped. This translates into a sobering (令人清醒的) reality: once we become fat, most of us, despite our best efforts, will probably stay fat. “

Of course this revelation (揭示) , if proven true by further study, is not good news for the weight-loss industry. But chances are it won’t have much impact on the human tendency to resolve to get to the gym more and avoid chocolate cake when the clock strikes midnight on December 31.

When University of California-Berkeley released a study this month showing alarmingly high teacher turnover (人员流动) rates at Los Angeles charter schools, I wasn’t surprised.

That’s not a slam at local charter schools. It’s just that the study echoed something I’d observed many times, starting with my niece.

Bright and cheerful, my niece longed to teach high-needs children. She started out in the San Francisco public schools, where she was assigned to the district’s toughest elementary school. Fifth-graders threw chairs across the room—and at her. Parents refused to show up for conferences.

She wasn’t willing to deal with this level of indifference and teacher abuse, so she switched to a highly regarded charter elementary school in the Bay Area where she poured her energy into her job and it showed. Her students’ test scores were as high as those in a nearby wealthy school district, despite the obstacles these children faced.

Yet by her fourth year, my niece was worn out, depleted (耗尽) of the energy it took to work with a classroom of sweet but deeply needy children who pleaded to stay in her classroom when it was time to leave. The principal’s offer of a $ 10,000 raise couldn’t stop her from giving notice. She went to work at that wealthy school district next door—for less money.

Over the years, I’ve met many impassioned (充满激情的) teachers at charter schools, only to call them the next year and find they’ve left. The authors of the Berkeley study theorize that the teachers leave because of the extraordinary demands: long hours, intense involvement in students’ complicated lives, continual searches for new ways to raise scores. Even the strongest supporters of the reform movement concede that the task of raising achievement among disadvantaged students is hard work.

It’s unlikely that we can build large-scale school reform on a platform of continual new demands on teachers—more time, more energy, more devotion, more responsibility—even if schools find ways to pay them better. This is the bigger challenge facing schools. We need a more useful answer to the Berkeley study than “ Yeah, it’s really hard work. “

Like many of the protesters at Occupy Wall Street in New York, Amanda Vodola is young, underemployed and loaded with student debt. She spends her days running around, helping【C1】___the movement, and her evenings waiting tables at a restaurant in Brooklyn. Last spring, she graduated from Fordham University【C2】a degree in English. “I grew up with this narrative that to get a good job I need to go to school,” she says. But the job she has “ is not enough to pay the bills. ” And the bills she’s【C3】most about are the ones tied to that narrative: the $ 30,000 she【C4】___in college loans.

In November, when their six-month grace period runs【C5】___, Vodola and millions of other students who graduated in May have to start【C6】their loans. Repayment requirements for private loans kick in regardless of whether【C7】have found jobs. Since employment rates for recent college graduates have【C8】in the past two years, as have starting salaries, the【C9】of a sharp rise in student-loan delinquencies (到期未付) has led some economists to【C10】that this could be the next financial crisis, rippling (波及) into the wider economy. Total US student-loan debt, which exceeded credit-card debt【C11】the first time last year, is on track to【C12】$ 1, 000 billion this year. That’s a nearly 8%【C13】___over last year.

But neither these【C14】___nor the voices of students,【C15】by debt, at protests in cities and on campuses【C16】the nation are likely to keep the families of high school seniors【C17】seeing a brand-name education as a【C18】to a better life. They’ve long been told that higher education is an【C19】in the future—even as the costs of college has【C20】___538% over the past 30 years.