北京师范大学网络教育———大学英语四作业三及答案

第二部分：阅读理解（共10小题；每小题3分，满分30分）
Passage 1

    Betty and Harold have been married for years. But one thing still puzzles old Harold. How is it that he can leave Betty and her friend Joan sitting on the sofa, talking, go out to a ballgame, come back three and a half hours later, and they're still sitting on the sofa, talking?
     What in the world, Harold wonders, do they have to talk about?
     Betty shrugs. Talk? We're friends.
     Researching this matter called friendship, psychologist Lillian Rubin spent two years interviewing more than two hundred women and men. No matter what their age, their job, their sex, the results were completely clear. Women have more friendships than men, and the difference in the content and the quality of those friendships is "marked and unmistakable".
     More than two-thirds of the single men Rubin interviewed could not name a best friend. Those who could were likely to name a woman. Yet three-quarters of the single women had no problem naming a best friend, and almost always it was a woman. More married men than women named their wife/husband as a best friend, most trusted person, or the one they would turn to in time of emotional distress（情感危机）. "Most women," says Rubin, "identified at least one, usually more, trusted friends to whom they could turn in a troubled moment, and they spoke openly about the importance of these relationships in their lives".
     "In general," writes Rubin in her new book, "women's friendships with each other rest on shared emotions and support, but men's relationships are marked by shared activities." For the most part, Rubin says , interactions (交往) between men are emotionally controlled-a good fit with the social requirements of "manly behavior".
     "Even when a man is said to be a best friend," Rubin writes, "the two share little about their innermost feelings. Whereas a woman's closest female friend might be the first to tell her to leave a failing marriage, it wasn't unusual to hear a man say he didn't know his friend's marriage was in serious trouble until he appeared one night asking if he could sleep on the sofa." 

第四部分：完形填空（共10小题；每小题1分，满分10分）

    When I was about twelve, I suddenly developed a great passion for writing poetry. I 21 all my other hobbies, such as collecting stamps, and spent all my spare time reading poetry and writing it. This habit of writing poetry 22 every possible occasion soon got me into trouble at school. 23 a lesson did not interest me, I would take out my notebook and start writing poems in class. Of course I did this very cautiously, but it was not long 24 I got caught. One day while I was busy writing a poem during a geography lesson, I looked up to find the teacher standing over me, fuming with anger 25 I was not paying attention. He tore the poem up, with a warning 26 time in his class. All the same I was convinced that I had written a good poem, so that evening I wrote it out again 27 memory. Not long 28, I read about a poetry contest and I decided to send in my poem. Weeks later, long after I had given up hope, I got a letter 29 me I had won the first prize. Everyone at school was very impressed --- except the geography teacher, who watched me more carefully than ever. He was quite 30 that I was not going to write poetry in his lesson!