2016年12月英语四级阅读理解备考练习及答案(十二)
Questions 61-65 are based on the following passage.Language is, and should be, a livingthing, constantly enriched with new
words and forms of expression. Butthere isa vital distinction between good
developments, which add to the language,enabling us to say things wecould not
say before, and bad developments, whichsubtract from the language by rendering
it less precise. Avivacious, colorfuluse of words is not to be confused with
mere slovenliness. The kind ofslovenliness in whichsome professionals
deliberately indulge is perhaps akin tothe cult ( 迷信. of theunfinished work,
which haseroded most of the arts in our time. And the trueanswer to it is the
same that art is enhanced, not hindered, bydiscipline. Youcannot carve
satisfactorily in butter.
The corruption of written English hasbeen accompanied by an even sharper
decline in the standard of spoken English. We speak very much less well than
wascommon among educated Englishmen a generation or two ago.
The modem theatre has played a baneful (有害的) part in dimming our
appreciation oflanguage. Instead ofthe immensely articulate dialogue of, for
example, Shaw(who was also very insistent on good pronunciation.,audiences are
now subjectedto streams of barely literate trivia, often designed, only too
well, toexhibit'laek ofcommunication', and larded (夹杂. with theobscenities
(下流的话. and grammatical errors of theintellectually impoverished. Emily Post once
advised her readers: "Thetheatre is the best possible place to hear
correctly-enunciated speech. "Alas, no more. One young actress was recently
reported to be taking lessons inhow to speakbadly, so that she should fit in
better.
But the BBC is the worst traitor. Aideryears of very successfully helping
to raise the general standard ofspokenEnglish, it suddenly went into reverse. As
the head of the Pronunciation Unitcoyly (含蓄地. put it, "In the1960s the BBC
opened thefield to a much wider range of speakers." To hear a BBC disc
jockeytalking to thelatest ape-like pop idol is a truly shocking experience of
verbalsqualor. And the prospect seems to be of evenworse to come. School
teachers areactively encouraged to ignore little Johnny's incoherent
grammar,atrociousspelling and haphazard punctuation, because worrying about such
thingsmight inhibit his creative genius.
61、The writer relateslinguistic slovenliness to tendencies in the arts
today in that they both_________
A.occasionally aim at acertain fluidity
B.appear to shunperfection
C.from time to time showregard for the finishing touch
D.make use of economical shortcuts
62、"Art is enhanced, nothindered, by discipline" (Lines 6-7, Paragraph 1 )
means_________
A.an artist's work will befiner if he observes certain aesthetic
standards
B.an unfinished work is boundto be comparatively inferior
C.the skill of certain artistsconceals their slovenliness
D.artistic expression isinhibited by too many rules
63、Many modem plays, theauthor finds, frequently contain speech which
_________
A.is incoherent andlinguistically objectionable
B.is far too ungrammatical formost people to follow
C.unintentionally shocks theaudience
D.tries to hide the author'sintellectual inadequacies
64、The author says that thestandard of the spoken English of BBC
_________
A.is the worst among allbroadcasting networks
B.has taken a turn for theworse since the 1960s
C.has raised English-speakingup to a new level
D.is terrible because of a fewpopular disc jockeys
65、Teachers are likely tooverlook the linguistic lapses in their pupils
since_________
A.they find that children nolonger respond to this kind of discipline
nowadays
B.they fear the children maybecome less coherent
C.more importance is nowattached to oral expression
D.the children may bediscouraged from expressing their ideas
答案解析：
61-65 BAACD
页:
[1]