英语四级 2024年6月·第3套 Part Ⅲ Section C (1) 阅读理解（四选一）试卷排版
英语四级2024年6月·第3套 Part Ⅲ Section C (1) 阅读理解（四选一）：共 5 题、占整卷 20%（710 分制折算约 142 分）、卷面选文共 348 个英文单词。本页按真题原卷版式还原该模块卷面（不含解析）；逐题解析在「题目解析」页，全文逐句精读在「原文精读」页；本模块真题可免费下载 PDF/Word，入口见上方本题行。
试卷原卷
真题卷第3套(2024-06) • 英语四级
Part Ⅲ Section C (1)
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.
Passage One
Questions 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.
It may sound surprising, but you don't have to be interested in fashion, or even in history, to enjoy Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History. I happen to be interested in both, and ended up enjoying the book for completely different reasons.
Richard Thompson Ford is a law professor, and you probably won't forget that for even one page. His carefully reasoned arguments, packed with examples, sound almost like reading a court opinion, only maybe wordier. You will probably never think of fashion as a trifle again.
Ford's thesis is that the best way to understand what particular fashions meant in any given era is to look at the restrictions placed on them. Through this lens, he shows us that the first laws passed in the 1200s to ensure that only the nobility were allowed to wear certain fabrics, colors and ornaments reflected the rise of the middle class, who were now able to imitate some of these fashions. The status of the upper classes was threatened; fashion was a tool to preserve it.
Ford takes the reader through the evolution of fashion while examining the underlying motivations of status, sex, power, and personality, which, he assumes, influenced all innovations in fashion in the past and which continue to influence us today. His writing is more than a little dense—dense with research, clauses, and precise adjectives and nouns. But there's also humor and enough interesting episodes to make the writing appealing. No one is spared his sharp analysis: not the easy targets of 19th century women's crippling(伤害身体的) fashions nor the modern uniforms of Silicon Valley T-shirts
But the greatest strength of this book (on fashion!) is its intellectual profoundness. Ford asks us to question unconscious beliefs, to realize that we almost never do so, to understand that the simplest choices are charged with meaning, and yet that meaning can and does change all the time. Consider the fact that a 1918 catalog insisted that boys and girls be dressed in the appropriate color. We believe our thinking today is evolved; Ford shows us it's not.
46.
What does the author think of the book Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History?
A)It is read by people for entirely different reasons.
B)It is meant for those interested in fashion history.
C)It makes enjoyable as well as informative reading.
D)It converts fashion into something for deliberation.
47.
How can people best understand a particular fashion in an era, according to Ford?
A)By examining the restraints imposed on it.
B)By looking at what the nobility were wearing.
C)By glancing at its fabrics, colors and ornaments.
D)By doing a survey of the upper and middle classes
48.
What was the aim of the first laws passed regarding fashion in the 1200s?
A)To facilitate the rise of the middle class.
B)To loosen restrictions on dress codes.
C)To help initiate some novel fashions
D)To preserve the status of the nobles.
49.
What does the author think of Ford's writing?
A)It uses comparison and contrast in describing fashions of different eras.
B)It makes heavy reading but is not lacking in humor or appeal.
C)It is filled with interesting episodes to spare readers intolerable boredom.
D)It is characteristic of academics in presenting arguments.
50.
What does the author say is the greatest strength of Ford's book?
A)Plentiful information.
B)Meaningful choices.
C)Evolved thinking.
D)Intellectual depth
选文出处：本文选自2021年3月6日刊登在 The Free Lance–Star（弗吉尼亚州《自由枪骑兵星报》，fredericksburg.com）上的一篇由 Wendy Migdal 撰写、标题为“Book review: 'Dress Codes' will change the way you think about fashion”（《书评：〈着装规范〉将改变你对时尚的看法》）的文章。