-
2015
年
12
月英语
四级真题及答案第一套
Part
I
Writing
Directions: For this part, you are
allowed 30 minutes to write an essay
commenting
on
the
saying
‘
Learning
is
a
daily
experience
and
a
lifetime
mission
.”
You
can
cite
examples
to
illustrate
the
importance
of
lifelong
learning.
You
should
write
at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.
Part II
Listening Comprehension
Directions: In this
section, you will hear 8 short conversations and 2
long
conversations.
At
the
end
of
each
conversation,
one
or
more
questions
will
be
asked
about what was said.
Both the conversation and the questions will be
spoken only
once. After each question
there will be a pause. During the pause, you must
read
the
four
choices
marked
A),
B),
C)
and
D),
and
decide
which
is
the
best
answer.
Then
mark
the
corresponding
letter
on
Answer
Sheet
1
with
a
single
line
through
the
centre.
Section A
1.
They admire the courage
of space explorers.
They enjoyed the
movie on space exploration.
They were
going to watch a wonderful movie.
They
like doing scientific exploration very much.
2.
At a gift shop.
At a graduation ceremony.
In
the office of a travel agency.
In a
school library.
3.
He used
to work in the art gallery.
He does not
have a good memory.
He declined a job
offer form the art gallery.
He is not
interested in any part-time jobs.
4.
Susan has been invited to give a
lecture tomorrow.
He will go to the
birthday party after the lecture.
The
woman should have informed him earlier.
He will be unable to attend the
birthday party.
5.
Reward
those having made good progress.
Set a
deadline for the staff to meet.
Assign
more workers to the project.
Encourage
the staff to work in small groups.
6.
The way to the visitor’s
parking.
The rate for
parking in Lot C.
How far away the
parking lot is.
Where she can leave her
car.
7.
He regrets missing
the classes.
He plans to take the
fitness classes.
He is looking forward
to a better life.
He has benefited form
exercise.
8.
A. How to ?
work efficiency.
B. How to select
secretaries.
C. The responsibilities of
secretaries.
D. The secretaries in the
man’s company.
Conversation
1
9.
It is more difficult to
learn than English.
It is used by more
people than English.
It will be as
commonly used as English.
It will
eventually become a world language.
10.
It has words words from many languages,
Its popularity with the common people.
The influence of the British Empire.
The effect of the Industrial
Revolution,
11.
It includes
a lot of words form other languages.
It
has a growing number of newly coined words,
It can be easily picked up by overseas
travellers.
It is the largest among all
languages in the world.
Conversation 2
12.
To return some goods.
To apply for a job.
To place
an order.
To make a complaint.
13. He has become somewhat impatient
with the woman.
He is not familiar with
the
exact details of goods.
He has not worked in the sales
department for long.
He works on a
part-time basis for the company.
14.
It is not his responsibility.
It will be free for large orders.
It costs 15 more for express delivery.
It depends on a number of factors.
15.
Report the information
to her superior.
Pay a visit to the
saleswoman in charge.
Ring back when
she comes to a decision.
Make inquiries
with some other companies.
Section B
Directions:In
this
section,
you
will
hear
3
short
passages.
At
the
end
of
each
passage,
you
will
hear
some
questions.
Both
the
passage
and
the
questions
will
be
spoken
only
once.
After
you
hear
a
question,
you
must
choose
the
best
answer
from
the
four
choices
marked
A),
B),
C)
and
D
).
Then
mark
the
corresponding
letter
on
Answer
Sheet
I
with
a single line through the centre.
Passage 1
16.
No
one knows exactly where they were ??
No
one knows for sure when thy came into being.
No one knows for what purpose they were
?
No one knows what they will ?????
17.
Carry ropes across
rivers.
Measure the speed of wind.
Pass on secret messages.
Give warnings of danger.
18.
To protect houses against lightning.
To test the effects of the lightning
rod.
To find out the strength of silk
for kites.
To prove the lightning is
electricity.
Passage 2
19.
She enjoys teaching languages,
She can speak several languages,
She was trained to be an interpreter.
She was born with a talent for
languages.
20.
They acquire
an immunity to culture shock.
They
would like to live abroad permanently.
They want to learn as many foreign
languages as possible.
They have an
intense interest in cross-cultural interactions.
21.
She became an expert in
horse racing.
She got a chance to visit
several European countries.
She was
able to translate for a German sports judge.
She learned to appreciate classical
music.
22.
Taste the beef
and give her comment.
Take part in a
cooking competition.
Teach vocabulary
for food in ??
Give cooking lessons on
????
Passage 3
23.
He had only a third-grade education.
He once threatened to kill his teacher.
He grew up in a poor ?
He
often helped his ?
24.
Careless.
Stupid.
Brave.
Active.
25.
Write two book reports a
week.
Keep a diary.
Help
with housework.
Watch education??
Section
C
Directions:In
this
section,
you
will
hear
a
passage
three
times.
When
the
passage
is
read for the first time, you should listen
carefully for its general idea. When
the
passage
is
read
for
the
second
time,
you
are
required
to
fill
in
the
blanks
with
the
exact
words
you
have
just
heard.
Finally,
when
the
passage
is
read
for
the
third
time,
you
should
check
what
you
have
written.
When
you
look
up
at
the
night
sky,
what
do
you
see?
There
are
other…
besides
the
moon
and
stars.
One
of
the
most
27___
of the …Comets were
formed around the same time the Earth was formed.
…and other
frozen liquids and gases.
29___ these “dirty snow…” ju
st as the
planets do.
As
a
comet
get
closer
to
the
sun,
some
gases
in
it
begin
to
unfreeze…
particles
form
the
comet
to
form
a
huge
cloud.
As
the
comet
gets
…
wind
blows
the
cloud
behind
the
comet,
thus
forming
its
tail.
The
tail…
(模糊的
)
atmosphere
around
a
comet
are
32____ that can help… in
the night sky.
In any given year, about a dozen known
comets come close to … average person
can’t see them all, of course. Usually
there is only one … to be seen with 34___
eye. Comet Hale-
Bopp,
discovered… bright co
met. Its orbit
brought it 35___ close
to the Earth, …
But Hale
-
Bopp came a long
way an its earthly visit. It won’t be
back…or so.
Questions 36 to 45 are based on the
following passage.
Children do not think the
way adults do. For most of the first yearof life,
if
something is out of sight, it’s out
of mind. if you cover a baby’s__36__toy with
a piece of cloth, the baby thinks the
toy has disappeared andstops looking for it.
A
4-year-old
man__37__,
that
a
sister
has
more
fruitjuice
when
it
is
only
the
shapes
of the
glasses that differ, not the __38__ ofthe juice.
Yet children
are smart in their own way. Like good little
scientists,children
are always testing
their child-sized __39__ about how things your
child
throws
her
spoon
on
the
floor
for
the
sixth
time
as
you
try
tofeed
her,
and
you
say,
“That’s enough! I will
not pick up your spoon again!”the child will__40__
test
your
claim.
Are
you
serious?
Are
you
angry?
What
willhappen
if
she
throws
the
spoon
again?
She is not doing this to drive you__41__;rather,
she is learning that her
desires and
yours can differ, and thatsometimes those__42__
are important and
sometimes they are
not.
How and
why does children’s thinking change? In the 1920s,
Swisspsychologist
Jean Piaget proposed
that children’s cognitive abilities
unfold__43__,like the
blooming of a
flower, almost independent of what else is__44__
intheir lives.
Although
many
of
his
specific
conclusions
have
been__45__
ormodified
over
the
years,
his ideas inspired thousands of studies
byinvestigators all over the world.
A) advocate B) amount C)
confirmed
D) crazy E) definite F) differences
G)
favorite H) happening I) immediately
J) naturally K)
obtaining L) primarily
M) protest N) rejected O)
theories
Section B
Directions:In
this
section,
you
are
going
to
read
a
passage
with
ten
statements
attached
to
it.
Each
statement
contains
information
given
in
one
of
the
paragraphs.
Identify the paragraph from which the
information is derived. You may choose a
paragraph
more
than
once.
Each
paragraph
is
marked
with
a
letter.
Answer
the
question
by
marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet
2.
The Perfect
Essay
A) Looking back on too many yearsof
education, I can identify one truly
impossible
teacher.
She
cared
about
me,and
my
intellectual
life,
even
when
I
didn’t.
Her expectations
were highimpossibly so. She was an English
teacher. She was also
my mother.
B)
When
good
students
turn
in
anessay,
they
dream
of
their
instructor
returning
it
to
them
in
exactly
the
samecondition,
save
for
a
single
word
added
in
the
margin
of the
final page:”Flawless.” This dream came true for me
one afternoon in the
ninth grade.
Ofcourse, I had heard that genius could show
itself at an early age,
so I wasonly
slightly taken aback that I had achieved
perfection at the tender age
of14.
Obviously,
I
did
what
any
professional
writer
would
do;
I
hurried
off
tospread
the good news. I
didn’t get ver
y far. The first person I
told was mymother.
C) My mother, who is just
shy offive feet tall, is normally incredibly
soft-spoken, but on the rare
occasionwhen she got angry, she was terrifying. I
am
not sure if she was more upset bymy
hubris(
得意忘形
) or by the fact
that my
Englishteacher had let my ego
get so out of hand. In any event, my mother and
her
redpen
showed
me
how
deeply
flawed
a
flawless
essay
could
be.
At
the
time,
I
amsure
she
thought
she
was
teaching
me
about
mechanics,
transitions(
过渡
),
structure,
style
and
voice.
But
what
I
learned,
and
what
stuckwith
me
through
my
time
teaching
writing
at Harvard, was a deeper lesson
aboutthe nature of creative criticism.
D) Fist off, it
hurts. Genuinecriticism, the type that leaves a
lasting mark
on you as a writer, also
leavesan existential
imprint(
印记
) on you asa
person. I
have heard people say that a
writer should never take criticismpersonally. I
say
that we should never listen to
these people.
E) Criticism, at its best, isdeeply
personal, and gets to the heart of why we
write
the
way
we
do.
Theintimate
nature
of
genuine
criticism
implies
something
about
who is able togive it, namely, someone
who knows you well enough to show you how
your mentallife
is getting
in the way
of good writing.
Conveniently, they are also
thepeople
who
care
enough
to
see
you
through
this
painful
realization.
For
me
ittook
the
form
of
my
first,
and
I
hope
only,
encounter
with
writer’s
block—
I
wasnot
able
to
produce anything for three years.
F)
Franz
Kafka
once
said:”
Writingis
utter
solitude(独处
),
the
descentinto
the
cold
abyss(
深渊)
ofoneself.
“My
mother’s
criticism
had
shown
me
that
Kafka
is
right
about
the
coldabyss,
and
when
you
make
the
introspective
(
内省的
)
decent
that
writing
requires
you
are
out
always
pleased
by
whatyou
find.”
But,
in
the
years
that
followed,
her
sustained
tutoring
suggestedthat
Kafka
might
be
wrong
about
the
solitude.
I
was
lucky enough to find acritic and
teacher who was willing to make the journey of
writing with me.
“Itis a
thing of no great difficulty,” according to
Plutarch,
“to raise objectionsagainst
another man’s speech, it is a very easy matter;
but
to
produce
a
betterin
its
place
is
a
work
extremely
troublesome.”
I
am
sure
I
wrote
essays
in
thelater
years
of
hi
gh
school
without
my
mother’s
guidance,
but
I
can’t
recallthem. What I remember, however,
is how we took up the “extremely
troublesome”work of ongoing
criticism.
G)
There
are
two
ways
to
interpretPlutarch
when
he
suggests
that
a
critic
should
be able to
produce “a better inits place.” In a
straightforward sense, he could
mean
that a critic must bemore talented than the artist
she critiques(
评论
). My
mother
was
well
covered
on
this
count.
But
perhaps
Plutarch
issuggesting
something
slightly
different,
somet
hing
a
bit
closer
to
MarcusCicero’s
claim
that
one
should
“criticize
by
creation,
not
by
finding
fault.”Genuine
criticism
creates
a
precious
opening for an author to become better
onthis own terms
—
a process
that is often
extremely painful, but
also almostalways meaningful.
H) My mother
said she would helpme with my writing, but fist I
had myself. For
each assignment, I was
write thebest essay I could. Real criticism is not
meant to
find
obvious
mistakes,
so
ifshe
found
any
—
the
type
I
could
have
found
on
my
own
—
I
had
to
sta
rt
fromscratch.
From
scratch.
Once
the
essay
was
“flawless,”
she
would
take
an
eveningto
walk
me
through
my
errors.
That
was
when
true
criticism,
the
type
thatchanged me as a
person, began.
I) She criticized me when Iincluded
little-known references and professional
jargon(
行话
). She
had no patience for brilliant but irrelevant
figures ofspeech.
“Writers can’t
bluff(虚张声势) theirway through ignorance.” That was
news to
me
—
I
would need to find another way tostructure my
daily existence.
J)
She
trimmed
back
my
flowerylanguage,
drew
lines
through
my
exclamation
marks
and
argued
for
the
value
ofrestraint
in
expression.
“John,”
she
almost
whispered.
I learned in to
hearher:”I can’t hear you when you shout at me.”
So I stopped
shouting andbluffing, and
slowly my writing improved.
K)
Somewhere along the way I
setaside
my hopes of writing
that flawless essay.
But perhaps I
missed somethingimportant in my mother’s lessons
about creativity
and perfection.
Perhaps
thepoint of
writing the
flawless essay
was not to give up,
but
to
never
willinglyfinish.
Whitman
repeatedly
reworded
“Song
of
Myself”
between
1855
and
edly.
We
do
our
absolute
best
wiry
a
piece
of
writing,
and
come
as closeas we can to
the ideal. And, for the time being, we settle. In
critique,however, we are forced to
depart, to
give up the perfection
we thought we
hadachieved
for the chance of being even a little bit better.
This is the lesson
Itook from my
mother. If perfection were possible, it would not
be motivating.
46. The author was
advised against theimproper use of figures of
speech.
47. The
author’s mother taught
him
avaluable
lesson by
pointing
out lots of flaws
in his
seemingly perfect essay.
48.
A
writer
should
polish
his
writingrepeatedly
so
as
to
get
closer
to
perfection.
49.
Writers
may
experienc
e
periods
of
timein
their
life
when
they
just
can’t
produce
anything.
50. The author was not much
surprised whenhis school teacher marked his essay
as