四級英語閱讀文章
閱讀理解在大學英語四級中佔據總分的35%,對於學生四級整體成績的影響發揮著較為重要的作用。下面是小編帶來的，歡迎閱讀!
1
When one looks back upon the fifteen hundred years that are the life span of the English language, he should be able to notice a number of significant truths. The history of our language has always been a history of constant change—at times a slow, almost imperceptible change, at other times a violent collision between two languages. Our language has always been a living growing organism, it has never been static. Another significant truth that emerges from such a study is that language at all times has been the possession not of one class or group but of many. 『At one extreme it has been the property of the common, ignorant folk, who have used it in the daily business of their living, much as they have used their animals or the kitchen pots and pans.』 At the other extreme it has been the treasure of those who have respected it as an instrument and a sign of civilization, and who have struggled by writing it down to give it some permanence, order, dignity, and if possible, a little beauty.
As we consider our changing language, we should note here two developments that are of special and immediate importance to us. One is that since the time of the Anglo-Saxons there has been an almost complete reversal of the different devices for showing the relationship of words in a sentence. Anglo-Saxon ***old English*** was a language of many inflections. Modern English has few inflections. We must now depend largely on word order and function words to convey the meanings that the older language did by means of changes in the forms of words. Function words, you should understand, are words such as prepositions, conjunctions, and a few others that are used primarily to show relationships among other words. A few inflections, however, have survived. And when some word inflections come into conflict with word order, there may be trouble for the users of the language, as we shall see later when we turn our attention to such maters as WHO or WHOM and ME or I. The second fact we must consider is that as language itself changes, our attitudes toward language forms change also. 『The eighteenth century, for example, produced from various sources a tendency to fix the language into patterns not always set in and grew, until at the present time there is a strong tendency to restudy and re-evaluate language practices in terms of the ways in which people speak and write.』
2
Asked to name their favorite city, many Amerians would select San Francisco which began as a small Spanish outpost located on a magnificent bay.The town was little more than a village serving ranchers when the United States took possession of it in 1846 during the war with Mexico.
San Francisco sprang into a city overnight because of the nearby discovery of gold in 1848. A great rush to California took place. Wagon trains plodded their dangerous way across 2000 miles of prairie and mountains, while hundreds of sailing vessels made the equally hazardous trip around the Horn. The vessels disgorged thousands of passengers -- then the crews deserted their ship and hundreds of vessels were left to rot in the bay. Within two years, California had enough population to become a state and San Francisco was for many years the hub of that newly-arrived population.
The city's present popularity is due to an excellent climate, an easy style of living , good food, and numerous tourist attractions. The city is famous for its cable cars which "clang and bang" up the steep hills, and for its excellent seafood stals along the wharf. Most visitors arriving from nations in the Pacific Basin spend several days getting to know the town.
3
Personality is , to large extent, inherent --A-type parents usually bring about A-type offspring. But the environment must also have a profound effect, since if competition is improtant to the parents, it is likely to become a major factor lives of their children.
One place where children soak up A characteristics is school, which is, by its very nature, a highly competitive institution. Too many schools adopt the "win at all costs" moral standard and measure their success by sporting achievements. The current passion for making children compete against their classmates or against the clock produces a two-layer system, in which competitive A types seem in some way better than their B-type fellows. Being too keen to win can have dangerous that Pheidippides ,the first marathon runner, dropped dead seconds after saying:"Rejoice, we conquer!".
By far the worst form of competition in school is the disproportionate emphasis on examinations . It is a rare school that allows pupils to concentrate on those things they do well.The merits of competition by examination are somewhat questionable, but competition in the certain knowledge of failure is positively harmful.
Obviously, it is neither practical nor desirable that all A youngsters change into 'B's. The would needs types, and schools have an important duty to try to fit a child's personality to his possible future employment. It is top management.
4
The medical world is gradually realizing that the quality of the environment in hospitals may play a significant role in the process of recovery from illness.
As part of a nationwide effort in Britain to bring art out of the galleries and into public places, some of the country's most talented artists have been called in to transform older hospitals and to soften the hard edges of modern buildings. Of the 2,500 National Health Service hospitals in Britain, almost 100 now have significant collections of contemporary art in corridors, waiting areas and treatment rooms.
These recent initiatives owe a great deal to one artist, Peter Senior, who set up his studio at a Manchester hospital in northeastern England during the early 1970s. He felt the artist had lost his place in modern society, and that art should be enjoyed by a wider audience.
A typical hospital waiting room might have as many as 500 visitors each week. What better place to hold regular exhibitions of art? Senior held the first exhibition of his own paintings in the out-patients waiting area of the Manchester Royal Hospital in 1975. Believed to be Britain's first hospital artist, Senior was so much in demand that he was soon joined by a team of six young art school graduates.
The effect is striking. Now in the corridors and waiting rooms the visitor experiences a full view of fresh colors, playful images and restful courtyards.
The quality of the environment may reduce the need for expensive drugs when a patient is recovering from an illness. A study has shown that patients who had a view onto a garden needed half the number of strong pain killers compared with patients who had no view at all or only a brick wall to look at.