2025 年 12 月大学英语四级考试真题（第 1 套）

A)Five years ago, the city of Queens, New York, announced that it would be putting bike lanes onto a stretch of Skillman Ave — and removing 116 parking spots. Cyclists loved the plan, but local business owners got very angry. Taking out those parking spots, as they argued at protests and in letters to the city council, would ruin stores and restaurants along Skillman. "Parking here is already a nightmare," one shouted at a protest rally.

B)But the bike lanes were a done deal, and soon they were in place. Early this year, Jesse Coburn — an investigative writer with Streetsblog New York — wondered whether those predictions of economic collapse came true. So he asked the city's Department of Finance to give him a few years' worth of sales figures for that stretch of Skillman Ave. How had the businesses on that street fared?

C)Quite well, it turns out. In the year after the bike lanes arrived, businesses on Skillman saw sales rise by 12 percent, compared to 3 percent for Queens in general. What's more, that section of road saw new businesses open, while Queens overall had a net loss.

D)The thing is, the actual merchants along Skillman? They didn't believe it. When Coburn spoke to them and described what he'd found, only a few store owners admitted the lanes had helped. Many still insisted the lanes were killing their part of the city. And emotions ran hot: Someone scattered tacks (大头钉) on the bike lane.

E)This little story turns out to be a fascinating glimpse at the challenges cities face as they try to update their urban infrastructure — to clean up the air, reduce greenhouse emissions, and speed up travel by making towns more bike-friendly. There's a rising amount of data showing that installing bike lanes and making streets more pedestrian-friendly boosts the economic fortunes of a place. Removing cars and parking spots works. But the folks who run local businesses simply aren't convinced, even when their own street performs. Given that sort of mess, can political fights over bike lanes ever end?

F)In 2013, researchers at New York City's Department of Transportation studied seven stretches of road that had installed bike lanes or created pedestrian-friendly areas. The city analyzed the data for businesses along those routes and found that by the third year sales grew faster on five of the streets than in the district overall, on average — up to five times faster, in fact.

G)Beyond New York, a survey of research from 23 cities found that bike lanes and pedestrian-friendly design didn't hurt local retail and food stores. ("Fears of disastrous consequences for local businesses are unfounded," the researchers concluded.) More recent work has shown roughly the same.

H)The truth is that in fairly dense areas, bikes are more efficient at moving people around. You might lose one car driver's business — but you gain shoppers who now can arrive more easily on bikes. "Cyclists and pedestrians are consumers too," notes Professor Susan Handy. Plus, streets redesigned for bikes and pedestrians tend to become more pleasant places to hang around, so "in a lot of cases, that's created much nicer environments that are really good for those businesses."

I)Mom-and-pop shops are usually pretty quick at recognizing situations that will help their bottom lines. So why the blind spot here? Perhaps it's that attention focuses on horror stories — and some merchants do get hit when bike lanes come in.

J)I spoke to Cindy Hughes, a hairdresser (理发师) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She said business fell by at least 40 percent when the city removed nearby parking to put in a bike lane. The majority of her customers drive, with many coming from nearby towns. Only a very few have shifted to cycling, and even those almost certainly won't cycle in Boston's snowy winters. So while Hughes supports bike lanes — "cyclists deserve to be safe" — she sees the parking loss as an existential risk. "Look, 90 percent of my customers drive," she told me. "For our business, the bike lanes are way worse than Covid was."

K)For others, the pushback is cultural, says Henry Grabar, a writer for the Slate Magazine. Small business owners are frequently drivers who commute from other parts of the city by car, Grabar points out. They're also often longtime locals. "They tend to be people with deep roots in the city, who have hung around since before the neighborhood became what it is today," he adds. Driving around town in a car is so normal to them that cycling seems weird and unusual — despite its boost from Covid, when bike sales exploded by 75 percent.

L)Psychology beats all! Who knew, right? The fierce divide between store owners and bike-lane advocates seems similar to our larger culture wars over climate change. If we've learned anything about culture wars, it's that data isn't much good at changing minds.

M)When Janette Sadik-Khan was the head of New York City's Transportation Department back in the early 2000s, she oversaw a rollout (推出) of bike lanes — and got angry blowback from residents and business owners who claimed there weren't enough cyclists to justify installing lanes. Now, she notes ironically, the lanes are so full of activity that opponents have turned to claiming the problem is the opposite: There are too many cyclists getting in the way of cars.

N)N) Maybe bike lanes will always be charged with emotion, until enough of the public is finally concerned about climate change — and it seems reckless (鲁莽的) to not have them.

O)O) Crises, after all, have a way of opening people's eyes to possibilities. During Covid, restaurants and cafes lost so much business that cities nationwide began allowing them to build curbside seating areas where people could sit, safely, in the open air. It greatly reduced parking — but because, well, shop owners didn't see any way around it. Customers loved the outdoor seating so much that cities are making it permanent: A New York City study of several streets closed during Covid found storeowners making more than before, and diners enjoying the outdoor lifestyle. If data won't change minds, customers might.

All living organisms on Earth are exposed to a 24-hour day-night cycle. This cycle is the reason why people rest at night and are active during the day. Consequently, all human body functions also follow this daily rhythm, and the timing of behaviors like exercise or food intake can significantly influence your health. For example, eating at night can lead to weight gain over time because food intake at night leads to increased fat storage. Many drug targets in the body follow a 24-hour cycle, too. This means that the specific proteins a drug is designed to modify can react differently to the medicine over the course of a 24-hour time period. Because how the body responds to a drug can differ depending on the time it is taken, it logically follows that taking medicines at specific times could help increase their effectiveness and reduce unwanted side effects. When doctors prescribe medicine for people, they rarely consider the best time to take it. There are two main reasons for that oversight. First, many physicians are not aware that some drugs work better during a specific time of the day. And second, most drugs have not been studied for possible different effects during a 24-hour cycle. Therefore, patients are directed to take most drugs during the morning or evening primarily to ensure compliance. Over 50 years ago, researchers found that the cholesterol drug simvastatin is more effective at lowering cholesterol levels when taken at night rather than during the day. This is because the liver enzyme (酶) these drugs target is more active at night. Taking medicine at the wrong time can even cause harm. My colleagues and I wondered whether midazolam, the most common sedative (镇静剂) used in surgical procedures worldwide, might interfere with the internal clock that protects the heart at night. Currently, there are no guidelines regarding when midazolam should be administered. More research is needed to determine the best times to administer treatments for different diseases. I believe taking drug timing into account could help make treatments more effective and help more people worldwide.

Katharine Abraham, an economics professor, was chatting with her hairdresser (理发师) about retirement plans. The economist said she plans to continue working because she wants to. The hairdresser agreed but for a different reason: She needs the money. Both scenarios (情况) are contributing to a big increase in the number of people in the US working into their 70s. Over the past 20 years, the share of Americans working in their 70s has risen from less than 10% to nearly 15%. In addition to people being healthier and living much longer, economists say that a combination of financial considerations such as years of slow rise in real wages and a shift away from traditional pensions in the private sector are some of the reasons people delay retirement. The decline of manufacturing and the increase in the number of people working in less labor-intensive occupations also has contributed to the trend, says Abraham, who researches work and retirement decisions of older Americans. "Which matters more depends on what your history up until that point has been in the type of work you're doing," Abraham says. The overall trend is hitting Americans of all different levels of educational attainment, although the percentages vary by category. The share of Americans with bachelor's degrees who were working into their 70s reached nearly 20% in 2018. For those with a high school degree or less, the proportion of those working in their 70s had risen to around 10%, while those with some college education were in the middle at around 15%. Martin Neil Baily, an economist who is leading a research project on retirement security, notes that quitting a career can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness, particularly for men. He suggests that many college-educated workers are choosing to stay in the labor force more for social benefits than for financial reasons. They're also more likely to be in professional occupations where they tend to enjoy their work more. Workers in more physical jobs, meanwhile, may be more likely to look forward to retiring, Baily says, suggesting those who stay on are more likely doing so for financial reasons.