阅读理解Questions 31 to 40 are based on the following passage. 【真题来源：2016年6月大学英语四级真题（第一套）PartⅢ，Section A，第26-35题】 Physical activity does the body good, and theres growing evidence that it helps the brain too

阅读理解The earliest controversies about the relationship between photography and art centered on whether photographs fidelity to appearances and dependence on a machine allowed it to be a fine art as distinct from merely a practical art. Throughout the nineteenth century, the defense of photography was identical with the struggle to establish it as a fine art. Against the charge that photography was a soulless, mechanical copying of reality, photographers asserted that it was instead a privileged way of seeing, a revolt against commonplace vision, and no less worthy an art than painting.Ironically, now that photography is securely established as a fine art, many photographers find it pretentious or irrelevant to label it as such. Serious photographers variously claim to be finding, recording, impartially observing, witnessing events, exploring themselves—anything but making works of art. They are no longer willing to debate whether photography is or is not a fine art. except to proclaim that their own work is not involved with art. It shows the extent to which they simply take for granted the concept of art imposed by the triumph of Modernism: the better the art, the more subversive it is of the traditional aims of art.Photographers disclaimers of any interest in making art tell us more about the harried status of the contemporary notion of art than about whether photography is or is not art. For example, those photographers who suppose that, by taking pictures, they are getting away from the pretensions of art as exemplified by painting remind us of those Abstract Expressionist painters who imagined they were getting away from the intellectual austerity of classical Modernist painting by concentrating on the physical act of painting. Much of photographys prestige today derives from the convergence of its aims with those of recent art, particularly with the dismissal of abstract art implicit in the phenomenon or Pop painting during the 1960s. Appreciating photographs is a relief to sensibilities tired of the mental exertions demanded by abstract art. Classical Modernist painting—that is, abstract art as developed in different ways by Picasso, Kandinsky, and Matisse—presupposes highly developed skills of looking and a familiarity with other paintings and the history of art. Photography, like Pop painting, reassures viewers that art is not hard; photography seems to be more about its subjects than about art.Photography, however, has developed all the anxieties and self-consciousness of a classic Modernist art. Many professionals privately have begun to worry that the promotion of photography as an activity subversive of the traditional pretensions of art has gone so far that the public will forget that photography is a distinctive and exalted activity——in short, an art.

阅读理解How did the author feel when her kids became more independent?

阅读理解Passage 4 Once they‟ve discovered that moon rhymes with June, poets throughout the ages have seemingly forgotten everything else about our neighboring heavenly body and proceeded to write countless lines about the moonwithout checking the facts

阅读理解 By 2012, transcontinental freight traffic will have risen 50 percent as a result of European expansion and much of that will have to cross the enormous obstacle of the Alps. Right now the only practical way for most heavy traffic to get through is by truck and tunnel. And while that could change if safer and cleaner rail lines were opened, the chances are that they won't happen anytime soon. Several private trucking companies have adapted quickly and creatively to the demands of European unification. Some of the bigger truckers trace cargoes with the GPS and sophisticated computers. And if trucks also bring more road hazards and pollution, at present there is no alternative. Right now only 10 percent of European merchandise moves by rail, compared with more than 45 percent in the United States. Delays are so common that the average speed for freight is about 18 km an hour. The railways have had trouble passing a heritage of national resistance and open warfare between Europe's countries. The result is what another European Commission report calls 'a mosaic of badly interconnected national systems'. Language barriers remain a problem, requiring crew changes at some borders. Switching systems and signals differ. And efficiency is more of a dream than a goal. Europe's railroads still have to deal with 'phantom trains' that run so late that they combine with others and disappear from the railroad's records. In an era when many companies depend on a 'just-in time' inventories to make a profit, railroads are rarely on time at all. Yet there is little official enthusiasm for changing the system, the reality is that governments have helped create the imbalance between road and rail in Europe—and government action will likely be needed to fix it. The French emphasis on using rail to move people instead of goods, for instance, has helped cripple freight service. 'All the investments went to passenger traffic,' says Denis Doute, director of freight services for the French rail company SNCF. Freight trains have had to find 'windows' to run in between passenger trains, unlike those in the United States, which often travel on separate tracks. The further development of the freight network requires massive investments to modernize existing infrastructure and open new ones. However, the political will to fund that kind of investment is lacking, which means the citizens will have to hold their noses for a while longer.

阅读理解Questions 1 to 10 are based on the following passage

阅读理解What did the author think was the main reason for his unemployment?

阅读理解Science is a dominant theme in our culture

阅读理解The author raises three questions in Paragraph 2 mainly to__________．

阅读理解A Karen Christiansen in Madison, Wisconsin, is licking stamps and addressing envelopes

阅读理解No poem should ever be discussed or “analyzed”, until it has been read aloud by someone, teacher orstudent. Better still, perhaps, is the practice of reading it twice, once at the beginning of thediscussion and once at the end, so the sound of the poem is the last thing one hears of it.All discussions of poetry are, in fact, preparations for reading it aloud, and the reading of the poem is,finally, the most telling “interpretation” of it, suggesting tone, rhythm, and meaning all at once.Hearing a poet read the work in his or her own voice, on records or on films, is obviously a specialreward. But even those aids to teaching cannot replace the student and teacher reading it or, best ofall, reciting it.I have come to think, in fact, that time spent reading a poem aloud is much more important than“analyzing” it, if there isn’t time for both. I think one of our goals as teachers of English is to havestudents love poetry. Poetry is “a criticism of life”, and “a heightening of life”. It is “an approach tothe truth of feeling”, and it “can save your life”. It also deserves a place in the teaching of languageand literature more central than it presently occupies.I am not saying that every English teacher must teach poetry. Those who don’t like it should not beforced to put that dislike on anyone else. But those who do teach poetry must keep in mind a fewthings about its essential nature, about its sound as well as its sense, and they must make room in theclassroom for hearing poetry as well as thinking about i

阅读理解 'There is one and only one social responsibility of business,' wrote Milton Friedman, a Nobel prize-winning economist, 'That is, to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.' But even if you accept Friedman's premise and regard corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies as a waste of shareholders' money, things may not be absolutely clear-cut. New research suggests that CSR may create monetary value for companies—at least when they are prosecuted for corruption. The largest firms in America and Britain together spend more than $15 billion a year on CSR, according to an estimate by EPG, a consulting firm. This could add value to their businesses in three ways. First, consumers may take CSR spending as a 'signal' that a company's products are of high quality. Second, customers may be willing to buy a company's products as an indirect way to donate to the good causes it helps. And third, through a more diffuse 'halo effect,' whereby its good deeds earn it greater consideration from consumers and others. Previous studies on CSR have had trouble differentiating these effects because consumers can be affected by all three. A recent study attempts to separate them by looking at bribery prosecutions under America's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). It argues that since prosecutors do not consume a company's products as part of their investigations, they could be influenced only by the halo effect. The study found that, among prosecuted firms, those with the most comprehensive CSR programmes tended to get more lenient penalties. Their analysis ruled out the possibility that it was firms' political influence, rather than their CSR stand, that accounted for the leniency: Companies that contributed more to political campaigns did not receive lower fines. In all, the study concludes that whereas prosecutors should only evaluate a case based on its merits, they do seem to be influenced by a company's record in CSR. 'We estimate that either eliminating a substantial labour-rights concern, such as child labour, or increasing corporate giving by about 20% results in fines that generally are 40% lower than the typical punishment for bribing foreign officials,' says one researcher. Researchers admit that their study does not answer the question of how much businesses ought to spend on CSR. Nor does it reveal how much companies are banking on the halo effect, rather than the other possible benefits, when they decide their do-gooding policies. But at least they have demonstrated that when companies get into trouble with the law, evidence of good character can win them a less costly punishment.

阅读理解To which of the following would the author most probably agree?

阅读理解Being told I would be expected to talk here, I inquired what sort of talk I ought to make

阅读理解Passage 2 Between 1977 and 1981, three groups of American women, numbering 27 in all, between the ages of 35 and 65,were given month-long tests to determine how they would respond to conditions resembling those aboard the space shuttle

阅读理解Passage One When Tony Wagner, the Harvard education specialist, describes his job today, he says hes a translator between two hostile tribes the education world and the business world, the people who teach our kids and the people who give them jobs

阅读理解 In the last ten years, the Internet has opened up incredible amounts of information to ordinary citizens. But using the Internet can be like walking into a library where the books are all lying on the floor in piles. While tools like Google allow some structured search, much of the data from such searches is outdated or of questionable value. Some Web enthusiasts, have taken up the task of organizing information through a democratic means that only the Interne t allows: an encyclopedia of the people, by the people, and completely free to copy and distribute. This 'people's encyclopedia' of the Web—a free site called Wikipedia—has provided a unique solution by inviting individuals to participate in the process of rationalizing and updating Web content. At the heart of this movement are wikis, Web sites that allow users to directly edit any Web page with one click of the mouse. Wikipedia—the largest example of these collaborative efforts—is a functioning, user-contributed online encyclopedia that has become a popular and highly regarded reference in just three years of existence. The goal of Wikipedia was to create an encyclopedia that could be shared and copied freely while encouraging people to change and improve the content. Each and every article has an 'Edit this page' button, allowing anyone, even anonymous passers-by, to add or delete any content on the page. It seems like a recipe for disaster and chaos, but it has produced surprisingly credible content that has been evaluated and revised by the thousands of international visitors to the site. For many, it finally realizes the original concept of World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee—an online environment where people not only browse content, but freely and actively exchange information. The Wikipedia project was started by Jimmy Wales, head of Internet startup Bomis. corn, after his original project for a volunteer, but strictly controlled, free encyclopedia ran out of money and resources after two years. Editors with PhD degrees were at the helm of the project then, but it produced only a few hundred articles. Not wanting the content to languish, Wales placed the pages on a wiki website in January 2001 and invited any Internet visitor to edit or add to the collection. The site became a runaway success in the first year and gained a loyal following, generating over 20,000 articles and spawning over a dozen language translations. After two years, it had 100,000 articles, and in April 2004, it exceeded 250,000 articles in English and 600,000 articles in 50 other languages. Over 2,000 new articles are added each day across all the various languages. And according to website rankings at Alexa. com, it has become more popular than traditional online encyclopedias such as Britannica. com and is one of the top 600 most heavily visited websites on the Internet.

阅读理解With obesity now affecting 29% of the population in England, and expected to rise to 35% by 2030, should we now recognise it as a disease? Obesity, in which excess body fat has accumulated to such an extent that health may be adversely affected, meets the dictionary definition of disease, argues Professor John Wilding. He points out that more than 200 genes influence weight. "Thus body weight is strongly influenced by biology—it is not an individual’s fault if they develop obesity." Yet the widespread view is that obesity is self-induced and that it is entirely the individual’s responsibility to do something about it. Recognising obesity as a chronic disease with severe complications rather than a lifestyle choice "should help reduce the stigma (耻辱) and discrimination experienced by many people with obesity," he adds. Professor Wilding disagrees that labelling a high proportion of the population as having a disease removes personal responsibility or may overwhelm health services, pointing out that other common diseases, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, require people to take action to manage their condition. He suggests that most people with obesity will eventually develop complications. "But unless we accept that obesity is a disease, we are not going to be able to tackle it," he concludes. But Dr. Richard Pile, a physician with a special interest in diabetes, argues that adopting this approach "could actually result in worse outcomes for individuals and society." He believes that the dictionary definition of disease "is so vague that we can classify almost anything as a disease" and says the question is not whether we can, but whether we should, and to what end. If labelling obesity as a disease was harmless then it wouldn’t really matter, he writes. But labelling obesity as a disease "risks reducing autonomy, disempowering and robbing people of the intrinsic (内在的) motivation that is such an important enabler of change." What’s more, making obesity a disease "may not benefit patients, but it will benefit healthcare providers and the pharmaceutical (制药的) industry when health insurance and clinical guidelines promote treatment with drugs and surgery," he warns.

阅读理解Passage B The tourist trade is booming

阅读理解An application letterthe letter you write to apply for a jobwill probably be the most important kind of letter you will ever write