2004年11月北京成人本科学位英语考试A卷

Part I  Reading Comprehension 
Passage 1  
Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following passage:  
In the United States, 30 percent of the adult population has a "weight problem". To many people, the cause is obvious: they eat too much. But scientific evidence does little to support this idea. Going back to the America of the 1910s, we find that people were thinner than today, yet they ate more food. In those days people worked harder physically, walked more, used machines much less and didn't watch television.  

Several modem studies, moreover, have shown that fatter people do not eat more on the average than thinner people. In fact, some investigations, such as the 1979 study of 3, 545 London office workers, report that, on balance, fat people eat less than slimmer people.  

Studies show that slim people are more active than fat people. A study by a research group at Stanford University School of Medicine found the following interesting facts:  

The more the men ran, the more body fat they lost.  

The more they ran, the greater amount of food they ate.  

(76) [Thus, those who ran the most ate the most, yet lost the greatest amount of body fat.]

[文章大意及重要词汇]

美国30%的成人（adult）都有“体重（weight）问题”。大多数人认为造成这一现象的原因很明显（obvious）他们吃的太胖了。但是这一观点却没有足够的科学证据（evidence）来支撑。回顾一下20世纪处的美国，当时的人们普遍比现在的人瘦，吃得比现在的人多，同时他们的体力劳动（physically）很辛苦、经常走路、很少使用机器、也不看电视。

现在许多研究也表明。从整体上（average）来看胖人比瘦人吃得要少。而1979年对伦敦3545个办公室人员的调查也恰恰证实了这一观点。

研究同时也表明瘦人比胖人运动量更大。美国斯坦福大学医学院的研究人员发现了下列有趣的事实：

运动量越大的人，消耗的体内脂肪越多。运动量越大的人，饭量越大。

因此（Thus），运动量最大的人吃得也最多，但同时消耗的体内脂肪也最多。

1. The physical problem that many adult Americans have is that__________.  
A. they are too slim         B. they work too hard  
C. they are too fat           D. they lose too much body fat
答案：C 细节题。答案在第一段第一句话,“In the United States, 30 percent of the adult population has a "weight problem许多美国成年人身体问题是他们太胖了"。 

2. According to the article, given 500 adult Americans, __________ people will have a "weight problem".  
A. 30       B. 50       C. 100       D. 150
答案：D计算题。答案在第一段第三句话,“In the United States, 30 percent of the adult population has a "weight problem"”做一个简单的剩法就得到答案。 

3. Is there any scientific evidence to support that eating too much is the cause of a "weight problem"?  
A. Yes, there is plenty of evidence.