大学英语四级模拟阅读及答案

Passage One

It's official: Money can't buy happiness.

Sure, if a person is handed $10, the pleasure centres of his brain light up as if he were given food, sex, or drugs. But that initial rush does not translate into long-term pleasure for most people. Surveys have found virtually the same level of happiness between the very rich individuals on the Forbs 400 and the Maasai herdsmen of East Africa. Lottery winners return to their previous level of happiness after five years. Increases in income just don't seem to make people happier-and most negative life experiences likewise have only a small impact on long-term satisfaction.

"The relationship between money and happiness is pretty darned(非常)small," says Peter Ubel, a professor of medicine at the University of Michigan.

That's not to say that increased income doesn't matter at all. There is a very small correlation between wealth and happiness-accounting for about one percent of the happiness reported by people answering the surveys. And for some groups, that relationship may be considerably bigger. People who are poor seem to get much happier when their monetary prospects improve; so do the very sick. In these cases, Ubel speculates, people may be protected from negative circumstances by the extra cash. Another possibility is that the money brings an increase in status, which may have a greater impact on happiness.

Why doesn't wealth bring a constant sense of joy? "Part of the reason is that people aren't very good at figuring out what to do with the money," says George Loewenstein, an economist at Carnegie Melton University. People generally overestimate the amount of long-term pleasure they'll get from a given object.

Sometimes, Loewenstein notes, the way people spend their money can actually make them less happy. For example, people derive a great deal of pleasure from interacting with others. If the first thing lottery winners do is to quit their job and to move to a palatial(富丽堂皇的)but isolated estate where they don't see any neighbours, they could find themselves isolated and depressed.

1. The first sentence of the passage means_.

A. it is announced by government that money can't buy happiness

B. it is justified that money can't buy happiness

C. it is authoritative that money can't buy happiness

D. it is fair that money can't buy happiness

2. We can infer that if one is very sad at some time in his life,_.

A. he will be sad all his life

B. he will never be happy

C. he may be happy at other time

D. he may be influenced by the sadness all the time

3, According to Ubel,_.

A. money has much to do with happiness

B. increases in money may make people happy

C. money doesn't matter at all

D. money has no effect on happiness

4. Wealth doesn't assure one of long-term pleasure because_·

A. they don't know what to do with the money

B. they are not good at using the money

C. they generally expect more pleasure than money can bring

D. they are not content with the wealth

5. Lottery winners may not be happy—·

A. if they quit their job

B. if they move to a splendid house

C. if they spend a lot of money

D. if they are away from others

Answer ：CCBAD

Passage Two

Transplant surgeons work miracles. They take organs from one body and integrate them into another, granting the lucky recipient a longer, better life. Sadly, every year thousands of other people are less fortunate, dying while they wait for suitable organs to be found. The terrible constraint on organ transplantation is that every life extended depends on the death of someone young enough and healthy enough to have organs worth transplanting. Such donors are few. The waiting lists are long, and getting longer.

Freedom from this constraint is the dream of every transplant surgeon. So far attempts to make artificial organs have been disappointing: Nature is hard to mimic. Hence the renewed interest in trying to use organs from animals.

Doctors in India have just announced that they have successfully transplanted a heart from a pig into a person. Pressure to increase the number of such "xenotransplants"(异种移植)seem to be growing. In Europe and America, herds of pigs are being specially bred and genetically engineered for organ donation. During 1996 at least two big reports on the subject-one in Europe and one in America- were published. They agreed that xenotransplantation was permissible on ethical grounds, and cautiously recommended they be allowed.

The ethics of xenotransplantation are relatively unworrying. People already kill pigs both for food and for sport; killing them to save a human life seems, if anything, easier to justify. However, the science of xenotransplantation is much. less straightforward.

Import an organ from one animal to another and you may bring with it any number of infectious diseases. That much is well known. However, coping with this danger is not merely a matter of screening for obvious ills such as parasites. Many diseases that could harm humans may be both undetectable and harmless in their natural hosts. Diseases that have been dormant for years may suddenly become active if they find themselves in a new environment, such as a human recipient's body. After that, they may start to infect other people.

1. Despite transplant surgeons' work, every year many people die because_.

A. they are unlucky patients

B. organ transplantation is unreliable

C. there are not enough proper organs for transplantation

D. few people are willing to donate their organs after death

2. Which of the following is NOT a limitation of organ transplantation?

A. The organ donor must be young enough.

B. The organ donor must be healthy enough.

C. The organ donated must deserve transplanting.

D. The organ donated must be removed from one body.

3. Attempts to make artificial organs fail because_，

A. it is difficult to make artificial organs as natural as body organs

B. it is difficult to imitate the human world

C. the production process is complicated

D. the production is limited by nature

4. The danger of transplanting animal organs into humans is that_，

A. it is considered ethically wrong

B. it may bring diseases into human bodies

C. it brings parasites into human bodies

D. it does more harm than good to humans

5. The word "dormant" (Line 4, Para. 5) means_

A. hidden B. inactive C. potential

Answer ：CDABB

D. devil