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2019年上半年大学英语四级阅读理解：Foxes and farmers
Foxes and farmers have never got on well. These small dog-like animals have long been accused of killing farm animals. They are officially classified as harmful and farmers try to keep their numbers down by shooting or poisoning them.
Farmers can also call on the services of their local hunt to control the fox population. Hunting consists of pursuing a fox across the countryside, with a group of specially trained dogs, followed by men and women riding horses. When the dogs eventually catch the fox they kill it or a hunter shoots it.
People who take part in hunting think of as a sport; they wear a special uniform of red coats and white trousers, and follow strict codes of behavior. But owning a horse and hunting regularly is expensive, so most hunters are wealthy.
It is estimated that up to 100,000 people watch or take part in fox hunting. But over the last couple of decades the number of people opposed to fox hunting, because they think it is brutal (残酷的), has risen sharply. Nowadays it is rare for a hunt to pass off without some kind of confrontation (冲突) between hunters and hunt saboteurs (阻拦者). Sometimes these incidents lead to violence, but mostly saboteurs interfere with the hunt by misleading riders and disturbing the trail of the fox’s smell, which the dogs follow.
Noisy confrontations between hunters and saboteurs have become so common that they are almost as much a part of hunting as the pursuit of foxes itself. But this year supporters of fox hunting face a much bigger threat to their sport. A Labour Party Member of the Parliament, Mike Foster, is trying to get Parliament toapprove a new law which will make the hunting of wild animals with dogs illegal. If the law is passed, wild animals like foxes will be protected under the ban in Britain.
练习题：
Choose correct answers to the question:
1. Rich people in Britain have been hunting foxes ________.
A. for recreation
B. in the interests of the farmers
C. to limit the fox population
D. to show off their wealth
2. What is special about fox hunting in Britain?
A. It involves the use of a deadly poison.
B. It is a costly event which rarely occurs.
C. The hunters have set rules to follow.
D. The hunters have to go through strict training.
3. Fox hunting opponents often interfere in the game ________.
A. by resorting to violence
B. by confusing the fox hunters
C. by taking legal action
D. by demonstrating on the scene
4. A new law may be passed by the British Parliament to ________.
A. prohibit farmers from hunting foxes
B. forbid hunting foxes with dogs
C. stop hunting wild animals in the countryside
D. prevent large-scale fox hunting
5. It can be inferred from the passage that ________.
A. killing foxes with poison is illegal
B. limiting the fox population is unnecessary
C. hunting foxes with dogs is considered cruel and violent
D. fox-hunting often leads to confrontation between the poor and the rich
1.[A] 事实细节题。根据第3段第1句的前半部分People who take part in hunting think of it as a sport可知，参加捕杀的人们把猎杀狐狸当成是一种运动，A与之相符。
2.[C] 事实细节题。根据第3段首句末尾说，凡是参加的人都要遵循严格的行为准则，C “猎手已建立起需要遵循的规则”与之相符，故选C。
3.[B] 事实细节题。第4段末句提到，在大部分情况下，阻拦者利用为骑马的人引错路和进行气味干扰来干涉捕猎，B与之相符，故选B。
4.[B] 事实细节题。文章倒数第2句提及，督促议会通过一项新法案,将带狗猎杀野生动物列为非法。而狐狸是野生动物的一种，故选B。
5.[C] 推断题。.根据第4段第2句后半部分可知，反对捕猎狐狸的人数在上升是因为他们认为捕猎狐狸是残酷的，故选C。
2019年上半年大学英语四级阅读理解：Most episodes
Most episodes of absent-mindedness forgetting where you left something or wondering why you just entered aroom-are caused by a simple lack of attention,says Schacter. “You’re supposed to remember something, butyou haven’t encoded it deeply.”
Encoding, Schacter explains, is a special way of paying attention to an event that has a major impact on recalling it later. Failure to encode properly can create annoying situations. If you put your mobile phonein a pocket, for example, and don’t pay attention to what you did because you’re involved in a conversation, you’ll probably forget that the phone is in the jacket now hanging in you wardrobe (衣柜). “Your memory itself isn’t failing you,” says Schacter. “Rather, you didn’t give your memory system the information it needed.”
Lack of interest can also lead to absent-mindedness. “A man who can recite sports statistics from 30 years ago,” says Zelinski, “may not remember to drop a letter in the mailbox.” Women have slightly better memories than men, possibly because they pay more attention to their environment, and memory relies on justthat.
Visual cues can help prevent absent-mindedness, says Schacter. “But be sure the cue is clear and available,” he cautions. If you want to remember to take a medication (药物) with lunch, put the pill bottle on the kitchen table—don’t leave it in the medicine chest and write yourself a note that you keep in a pocket.
Another common episode of absent-mindedness: walking into a room and wondering why you’re there. Most likely, you were thinking about something else. “Everyone does this from time to time,” says Zelinski. The best thing to do is to return to where you were before entering the room, and you’ll likely remember.
练习题：
Choose correct answers to the question:
1. Why does the author think that encoding properly is very important?
A. It helps us understand our memory system better.
B. It enables us to recall something form our memory.
C. It expands our memory capacity considerably.
D. It slows down the process of losing our memory.
2. One possible reason why women have better memories than men is that ________.
A. they have a wider range of interests
B. they are more reliant on the environment
C. they have an unusual power of focusing their attention
D. they are more interested in what’s happening around them
3. A note in the pocket can hardly serve as a reminder because ________.
A. it will easily get lost
B. it’s not clear enough for you to read
C. it’s out of your sight
D. it might get mixed up with other things
4. What do we learn from the last paragraph?
A. If we focus our attention on one thing, we might forget another.
B. Memory depends to a certain extent on the environment.
C. Repetition helps improve our memory.
D. If we keep forgetting things, we’d better return to where we were.
5. What is the passage mainly about?
A. The process of gradual memory loss.
B. The causes of absent-mindedness.
C. The impact of the environment on memory.
D. A way if encoding and recalling.
1.[B] 事实细节题。根据第2段第1句可知，encoding是关注某事的一种特殊方式，这影响到以后是否能回忆起这件事来，因此B正确。
2.[D] 事实细节题。根据第3段第3句，“女性比男性的记忆力稍强，这也许是因为她们对周围的环境更加注意，而记忆正是依靠这个”，故选D “她们对于周围发生的事更感兴趣”。
3.[C] 事实细节题。根据第4段首句中说到的“视觉线索可以防止遗忘某事”可知破折号之后的警告“不要把药瓶放在药箱里，然后写一张纸条装进口袋”正是为了防止药瓶、提示性信条离开了视线，故选C。
4.[A] 推断题。根据最后一段的前两句“心不在焉的另一个常见的情景是:走进房间,却不知为什么要进来。你很有可能是在想别的事”,可知本题答案为A。
5.[B] 主旨题。根据第1、3、5段的首句可以得出，本文主要讲的是精神不集中的原因，故选B。
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