2015年6月大学英语四级阅读模拟试题（五）

　　Passage Two

　　Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage.

Language is, and should be, a living thing, constantly enriched with new words and forms of expression. But there is a vital distinction between good developments, which add to the language, enabling us to say things we could not say before, and bad developments, which subtract from the language by rendering it less precise. A vivacious, colorful use of words is not to be confused with mere slovenliness. The kind of slovenliness in which some professionals deliberately indulge is perhaps akin to the cult (迷信) of the unfinished work, which has eroded most of the arts in our time. And the true answer to it is the same that art is enhanced, not hindered, by discipline. You cannot carve satisfactorily in butter.

The corruption of written English has been accompanied by an even sharper decline in the standard of spoken English. We speak very much less well than was common among educated Englishmen a generation or two ago.

The modem theatre has played a baneful (有害的) part in dimming our appreciation of language. Instead of the immensely articulate dialogue of, for example, Shaw (who was also very insistent on good pronunciation),audiences are now subjected to streams of barely literate trivia, often designed, only too well, to exhibit 'lack of communication', and larded (夹杂) with the obscenities (下流的话) and grammatical errors of the intellectually impoverished. Emily Post once advised her readers: "The theatre is the best possible place to hear correctly-enunciated speech. " Alas, no more. One young actress was recently reported to be taking lessons in how to speak badly, so that she should fit in better.

But the BBC is the worst traitor. After years of very successfully helping to raise the general standard of spoken English, it suddenly went into reverse. As the head of the Pronunciation Unit coyly (含蓄地) put it, "In the 1960s the BBC opened the field to a much wider range of speakers." To hear a BBC disc jockey talking to the latest ape-like pop idol is a truly shocking experience of verbal squalor. And the prospect seems to be of even worse to come. School teachers are actively encouraged to ignore little Johnny's incoherent grammar, atrocious spelling and haphazard punctuation, because worrying about such things might inhibit his creative genius.

61. The writer relates linguistic slovenliness to tendencies in the arts today in that they both __________.

A. occasionally aim at a certain fluidity

B. appear to shun perfection

C. from time to time show regard for the finishing touch

D. make use of economical short cuts

62. "Art is enhanced, not hindered, by discipline" (Lines 6～7, Paragraph 1 ) means __________.

A. an artist's work will be finer if he observes certain aesthetic standards

B. an unfinished work is bound to be comparatively inferior

C. the skill of certain artists conceals their slovenliness

D. artistic expression is inhibited by too many roles

63. Many modem plays, the author finds, frequently contain speech which__________.

A. is incoherent and linguistically objectionable

B. is far too ungrammatical for most people to follow

C. unintentionally shocks the audience

D. tries to hide the author's intellectual inadequacies

64. The author says that the standard of the spoken English of BBC__________.

A. is the worst among all broadcasting networks

B. has raised English-speaking up to a new level

C. has taken a turn for the worse since the 1960s

D. is terrible because of a few popular disc jockeys

65. Teachers are likely to overlook the linguistic lapses in their pupils since__________.

A. they find that children no longer respond to this kind of discipline nowadays

B. they fear the children may become less coherent

C. more importance is now attached to oral expression

D. the children may be discouraged from expressing their ideas

Passage Two

【参考译文】

语言是而且也应该是活的，不断有新的词汇和表达形式来使其丰富完善。但是发展有好有坏，两种发展有着很大区别。前者为语言注入新的东西，让我们能够表达出之前不能表达的东西，而后者就不一样了.它通过减弱语言的精准度而降低语言层次。对词汇灵活、生动的使用同对词汇邋遢、马虎的使用是不可混为一谈的。[61]有些语言工作者有意大量以邋遢、马虎的方式使用词汇，他们的这种做法同狂热地迷信艺术品不需要润饰的做法很相似，而艺术品不润饰的做法也逐渐毁掉了我们这个时代的艺术品。[62]对于这种见象。解决的方法同艺术创作是一样的：规则是对艺术的促进，而不是对艺术的阻碍。用黄油来雕刻永远也做不出令人满意的艺术品。

伴随着书面英语的惨淡现状，英语口语的水平更是大大降低了。我们现在说的口语要比一两代之前接受普通教育的英国人差很多。