2015年12月大学英语四级考试真题及解析(卷一)
Part I Writing ( 30 minutes)
For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on the saying “Learning is a daily experience and 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 ( 30 minutes)
Section A
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.
1.A) They admire the courage of space explorers.
B) They enjoyed the movie on space exploration.
C) They were going to watch a wonderful movie.
D) They like doing scientific exploration very much.
2. A) At a gift shop.
B) At a graduation ceremony.
C) In the office of a travel agency.
D) In a school library.
3. A) He used to work in the art gallery.
B) He does not have a good memory.
C) He declined a job offer form the art gallery.
D) He is not interested in any part-time jobs.
4.A) Susan has been invited to give a lecture tomorrow.
B) He will go to the birthday party after the lecture.
C) The woman should have informed him earlier.
D) He will be unable to attend the birthday party.
5.A) Reward those having made good progress.
B) Set a deadline for the staff to meet.
C) Assign more workers to the project.
D) Encourage the staff to work in small groups.
6. A) The way to the visitor’s parking.
B) The rate for parking in Lot C.
C) How far away the parking lot is.
D) Where she can leave her car.
7. A) He regrets missing the classes.
B) He plans to take the fitness classes.
C) He is looking forward to a better life.
D) 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 One
Questions 9 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
9.A) It is more difficult to learn than English.
B) It is used by more people than English.
C) It will be as commonly used as English.
D) It will eventually become a world language.
10.A) It has words words from many languages,
B) Its popularity with the common people.
C) The influence of the British Empire.
D) The effect of the Industrial Revolution.
11.A) It includes a lot of words form other languages.
B) It has a growing number of newly coined words,
C) It can be easily picked up by overseas travelers.
D) It is the largest among all languages in the world.
Conversation 2
Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
12.A) To return some goods.
B) To apply for a job.
C) To place an order.
D) To make a complaint.
13. A) He has become somewhat impatient with the woman.
B) He is not familiar with the exact details of goods.
C) He has not worked in the sales department for long.
D) He works on a part-time basis for the company.
14. A) It is not his responsibility.
B) It will be free for large orders.
C) It costs 15 more for express delivery.
D) It depends on a number of factors.
15.A) Report the information to her superior.
B) Pay a visit to the saleswoman in charge.
C) Ring back when she comes to a decision.
D) 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 One
Questions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard.
16. A) No one knows exactly where they were ??
B) No one knows for sure when thy came into being.
C) No one knows for what purpose they were ?
D) No one knows what they will ?????
17. A) Carry ropes across rivers.
B) Measure the speed of wind.
C) Pass on secret messages.
D) Give warnings of danger.
18. A) To protect houses against lightning.
B) To test the effects of the lightning rod.
C) To find out the strength of silk for kites.
D) To prove the lightning is electricity.
Passage Two
Questions 19 to 22 are based on the passage you have just heard.
19. A) She enjoys teaching languages.
B) She can speak several languages.
C) She was trained to be an interpreter.
D) She was born with a talent for languages.
20. A) They acquire an immunity to culture shock.
B) They would like to live abroad permanently.
C) They want to learn as many foreign languages as possible.
D) They have an intense interest in cross-cultural interactions.
21.A) She became an expert in horse racing.
B) She got a chance to visit several European countries.
C) She was able to translate for a German sports judge.
D) She learned to appreciate classical music.
22. A) Taste the beef and give her comment.
B) Take part in a cooking competition.
C) Teach vocabulary for food in ??
D) Give cooking lessons on ????
Passage Three
Questions 23 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.
23. A) He had only a third-grade education.
B) He once threatened to kill his teacher.
C) He grew up in a poor ???
D) He often helped his ???
24.A) Careless.
B) Stupid.
C) Brave.
D) Active.
25.A) Write two book reports a week.
B) Keep a diary.
C) Help with housework.
D) 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 bodies out there besides the moon and stars. One of the most of this is a comet. Comets were formed around the same the earth was formed. They are made up of ice and other frozen liquids and gasses. these dirty snow balls begin to orbit the sun just as the planets do. As a comet gets closer to the sun, some gasses in it begin to unfreeze. They combine with dust particles from the comet to form a huge cloud. As the comet gets even nearer to the sun and solar wind blows the cloud behind the comet thus forming its tail. The tail and generally fuzzy atmosphere around the comet are that can help this phenomenon in the night sky. In any given year， about dozen known comets come close to the sun in their orbits. The average person can’t see them all of course. Usually there is only one or two a year bright enough to be seen with the _________eye. Comet Hale-Bopp discovered in 1995 was an unusually bright comet. Its orbit bought it _________to the earth within 122 million miles of it. But Hale-Bopp came a long way on its earthly visit. It won’t be back for another 4 thousand years or so.
Part Ш Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)
Section A
Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.
Questions 36 to 45 are based on the following passage.
For many Americans, 2013 ended with an unusually bitter cold spell. November and December 36 early snow and bone-chilling temperatures in much of the country, part of a year when, for the first time in two 37 , record-cold days will likely turn out to have outnumbered record-warm ones. But the U.S. was the exception; November was the warmest ever 38 , and current data indicates that 2013 is likely to have been the fourth hottest year on record.
Enjoy the snow now, because 39 are good that 2014 will be even hotter, perhaps the hottest year since records have been kept. That’s because, scientists are predicting, 2014 will be an EI Niuo year.
EI niuo, Spanish for “the child”, 40 when surface ocean waters in the southern Pacific become abnormally warm. So large is the Pacific, covering 30% of the planet’s surface, that the 41 energy generated by its warming is enough to touch off a series of weather changes around the world. EI Ninos are 42 with abnormally dry conditions in Southeast Asia and Australia. They can lead to extreme rain in parts of North and South America, even as southern Africa 43 dry weather. Marine life may be affected too; EI Ninos can 44 the rising of the cold, nutrient-rich(营养丰富的)water that supports large fish 45 ,and the unusually warm ocean temperatures can destroy coral(珊瑚).
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
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 years of education, I can identify one truly impossible teacher. She cared about me, and my intellectual life, even when I didn’t. Her expectations were high—impossibly so. She was an English teacher. She was also my mother.
B) When good students turn in an essay, they dream of their instructor returning it to them in exactly the same condition, 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. Of course, I had heard that genius could show itself at an early age, so I was only slightly taken aback that I had achieved perfection at the tender age of 14. Obviously, I did what and professional writer would do; I hurried off to spread the good news. I didn’t get very far. The first person I told was my mother.
C) My mother, who is just shy of five feet tall, is normally incredibly soft-spoken, but on the rare occasion when she got angry, she was terrifying. I am not sure if she was more upset by my hubris(得意忘形)or by the fact that my English teacher had let my ego get so out of hand. In and event. My mother and her red pen showed me how deeply flawed a flaw less essay could be. At the time, I am sure she thought she was teaching me about mechanics, transitions(过渡), structure, style and voice. But what I learned, and what stuck with me through my time teaching writing at Harvard, was a deeper lesson about the nature of creative criticism.
D) First off, it hurts. Genuine criticism, the type that leaves a lasting mark on you as a writer, also leaves an existential imprint(印记)on you as a person. I have heard people say that a writer should never take criticism personally. I say that we should never listen to these people.
E) Criticism, at its best, is deeply personal, and gets to the heart of why we write the way we do. The intimate nature of genuine criticism implies something about who is able to give it, namely, someone who knows you well enough to show you how your mental life is getting in the way of good writing. Conveniently, they are also the people who care enough to see you through this painful realization. For me it took the form of my first, and I hope only, encounter with writer’s block—I was not able to produce anything for three years.
F) Franz Kafka once said; “Writing is utter solitude(独处), the descent into the cold abyss(深渊)of oneself.” My mother’s criticism had shown me that Kafka is right about the cold abyss, and when you make the introspective(内省的)descent that writing requires you are not always pleased by what you find. But, in the years that followed, her sustained tutoring suggested that Kafka might be wrong about the solitude, I was lucky enough to find a critic and teacher who was willing to make the journey of writing with me. “It is a thing of no great difficulty.”according to Plutarch, “to raise objections against another man’s speech. it is a very easy matter, but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome.” I am sure I wrote essays in the later years of high school without my mother’s guidance, but I can’t recall them. What I remember, however, is how she took up the“extremely troublesome”work of ongoing criticism.
G) There are two ways to interpret Plutarch when he suggests that a critic should be able to produce“a better in its place.”In a straightforward sense, he could mean that a critic must be more talented than the artist she critiques(评论).My mother was well covered on this count. But perhaps Plutarch is suggesting something slightly different, something a bit closer to Marcus Cicero’s claim that one should“criticize by creation, not by finding fault.”Genuine criticism creates a precious opening for an author to become better on his own terms—a process that is often extremely painful, but also almost always meaningful.
H) My mother said she would help me with my writing, but first I had to help myself. For each assignment, I was to write the best essay I could. Real criticism is not meant to find obvious mistakes, so if she found any—the type I could have found on my own—I had to start from scratch. From scratch. Once the essay was“flawless,” she would take an evening to walk me through my errors. That was when true criticism, the type that changed me as a person, began.
I) She criticized me when I included little-known references and professional jargon(行话). She had no patience for brilliant but irrelevant figures of speech.“Writers can’t bluff(虚张声势)their way through ignorance.” That was news to me—I would need to find another way to structure my daily existence.
J) She trimmed back my flowery language, drew lines through my exclamation marks and argued for the value of restraint in expression.“John,” she almost whispered. I leaned in to hear her: “I can’t hear you when you shout at me.” So I stopped shouting and bluffing, and slowly my writing improved.
K) Somewhere along the way I set aside my hopes of writing that flawless essay. But perhaps I missed something important in my mother’s lessons about creativity and perfection. Perhaps the point of writhing the flawless essay was not to give up, but to never willingly finish. Whitman repeatedly reworked“song of Myself” between 1855 and 1891. Repeatedly. We do our absolute best with a piece of writing, and come as close as 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 had achieved for the chance of being even a little bit better. This is the lesson I took from my mother: If perfection were possible, it would not be motivating.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
46. The author was advised against the improper use of figures of speech.
47. The author’s mother taught him a valuable lesson by pointing out lots of flaws in his seemingly perfect essay.
48. A writer should polish his writing repeatedly so as to get closer to perfection.
49. Writers may experience periods of time in their life when they just can’t produce anything.
50. The author was not much surprised when his school teacher marked his essay as“flawless”.
51. Criticizing someone’s speech is said to be easier than coming up with a better one.
52. The author looks upon his mother as his most demanding and caring instructor.
53. The criticism the author received from his mother changed his as a person.
54. The author gradually improved his writing by avoiding fancy language.
55. Constructive criticism gives an author a good start to improve his writing.
Section C
Passage One
Questions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.
The wallet is heading for extinction. As a day-to-day essential, it will die off with the generation who read print newspapers. The kind of shopping-where you hand over notes and count out change in return—now happens only in the most minor of our retail encounters，like buying a bar of chocolate or a pint of milk from a comer shop. At the shops where you spend any real money, that money is increasingly abstracted. And this is more and more true, the higher up the scale you go. At the most cutting-edge retail stores—Victoria Beckham on Dover Street, for instance—you don’t go and stand at any kind of cash register when you decide to pay. The staff are equipped with iPads to take your payment while you relax on a sofa.
Which is nothing more or less than excellent service, if you have the money. But across society, the abstraction of the idea of cash makes me uneasy. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned. But earning money isn’t quick or easy for most of us. Isn’t it a bit weird that spending it should happen in half a blink (眨眼) of an eye? Doesn’t a wallet—that time-honoured Friday-night feeling of pleasing, promising fatness—represent something that matters?
But I’ll leave the economics to the experts. What bothers me about the death of the wallet is the change it represents in our physical environment. Everything about the look and feel of a wallet—the way the fastenings and materials wear and tear and loosen with age, the plastic and paper and gold and silver, and handwritten phone numbers and printed cinema tickets—is the very opposite of what our world is becoming. The opposite of a wallet is a smartphone of an iPad. The rounded edges, cool glass, smooth and unknowable as pebble (鹅卵石). Instead of digging through pieces of paper and peering into corners, we move our fingers left and right. No more counting out coins. Show your wallet, if you still have one. It may not be here much longer.
56. What is happening to the wallet?
A) It is disappearing. C) it is becoming costly.
B) It is being fattened. D) It is changing in style.
57. How are business transactions done in big modern stores?
A) Individually. C) In the abstract.
B) Electronically. D) Via a cash register.
58. What makes the author feel uncomfortable nowadays?
A) Saving money is becoming a thing of the past.
B) The pleasing Friday-night feeling is fading.
C) Earning money is getting more difficult.
D) Spending money is so fast and easy.
59. Why does the author choose to write about what’s happening to the wallet?
A) It represents a change in the modern world.
B) It has something to do with everybody’s life.
C) It marks the end of a time-honoured tradition.
D) It is the concern of contemporary economists.
60.What can we infer from the passage about the author?
A) He is resistant to social changes.
B) He is against technological progress.
C) He feels reluctant to part with the traditional wallet.
D) He fells insecure in the ever-changing modern world.
Passage Two
Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage.
Everybody sleeps,but what people stay up late to catch—or wake up early in order not to miss—varies by culture.
From data collected,it seems the things that cause us to lose the most sleep,on average,are sporting events,time changes,and holidays.
Around the world, people changed sleep patterns thanks to the start or end of daylight savings time. Russians, for example, began to wake up about a half-hour later each day after President Vladimir Putin shifted the country permanently to “winter time”starting on October 26.
Russia’s other late nights and early mornings generally correspond to public holidays. On New Year’s Eve, Russians have the world’s latest bedtime, hitting the hay at around 3:30 am.
Russians also get up an hour later on International Women’s Day, the day for treating and celebrating female relatives.
Similarly, Americans’ late nights late mornings, and longest sleeps fall on three-day weekends.
Canada got the least sleep of the year the night it beat Sweden in the Olympic hockey(冰球)final.
The World Cup is also chiefly responsible for sleep deprivation(剥夺), The worst night for sleep in the U.K. was the night of the England-Italy match on June 14. Brits stayed up a half-hour later to watch it, and then they woke up earlier than usual the next morning thanks to summer nights, the phenomenon in which the sun barely sets in northern countries in the summertime. That was nothing, though, compared to Germans, Italians, and the French, who stayed up around an hour and a half later on various days throughout the summer to watch the Cup.
It should be made clear that not everyone has a device to record their sleep patterns, in some of these nations, it’s likely that only the richest people do. And people who elect to track their sleep may try to get more sleep than the average person. Even if that’s the case, though, the above findings are still striking, If the most health-conscious among us have such deep swings in our shut-eye levels throughout the year, how much sleep are the rest of us losing?
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
61. What does the author say about people’s sleeping habits?
A) They are culture-related C)They change with the seasons.
B) They affect people’s health. D)They vary from person to person.
62.What do we learn about the Russians regarding sleep?
A) They don’t fall asleep until very late.
B) They don’t sleep much on weekends.
C) They get less sleep on public holidays.
D) They sleep longer than people elsewhere.
63.What is the major cause for Europeans’ loss of sleep?
A) The daylight savings time.
B) The colorful night life.
C) The World Cup.
D) The summertime.
64.What is the most probable reason for some rich people to use a device to record their patterns?
A) They have trouble falling asleep.
B) They want to get sufficient sleep.
C) They are involved in a sleep research.
D) They want to go to bed on regular hours.
65. What does the author imply in the last paragraph?
A) Sleeplessness does harm to people’s health.
B) Few people really know the importance of sleep.
C) It is important to study our sleep patterns.
D) Average people probably sleep less than the rich.
Part IV Translation ( 30 minutes)
Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to translate a passage from Chinese into English. You should write your answer on Answer Sheet 2.
云南省的丽江古镇是中国著名的旅游目的地之一。那里的生活节奏比大多数中国的城市都要缓慢。丽江到处都是美丽的自然风光，众多的少数民族同胞提供了各式各样，丰富多彩的文化让游客体验。历史上，丽江还以“爱之城”而闻名。当地人中流传着许多关于人生，为爱而死的故事。如今，在中外游客眼中，这个古镇被视为爱情和浪漫的天堂。(paradise)
答案解析：
Part I Writing
【“活到老，学到老”参考范文】
As an old saying goes, “ Learning is a daily experience and a lifetime mission”. Apparently, the meaning of this saying is that if we truly desire to learn something, we are supposed to devote our life to it.
There are several reasons accounting for this viewpoint. Firstly, learning itself is an actually complicated and painful matter, and as a result, it is advisable for us to commit much more time even our whole life to it. Additionally, it is exceedingly obvious that we are easy to forget what we learned, and accordingly, the significance of lifetime learning cannot be ignored. For example, memorizing vocabulary is commonly the first step of preparing for an English test.
To sum up, lifelong learning lays a solid foundation to the development of ourselves, and only when we realize the significance of lifetime learning can we understand the essence of learning.
Part II Listening Comprehension (略)
Part Ш Reading Comprehension
Section A
【选词填空】
36. G favorite
37 M protest
38. B amount
39. D theories
40. I immediately
41. D crazy
42. F difference
43. J naturally
44. H happening
45. C confirmed
Section B
【快速阅读】
46. I She criticized me when I included little-known...
47. C My mother, who is just shy of five feet tall...
48. K Somewhere along the way i set aside my hopes...
49. E Criticism, at its best, is deeply personal,and gets to the ....
50. B When good students turn in an essay, they dream of ....
51. E Criticism, at its best, is deeply personal,and gets to the ....
52. F Franz Kafka once said: “writing is utter solitude...
53. H My mother said she would help me with my writing...
54. I She criticized me when I included little-known references...
55. H My mother said she would help me with my writing...
【仔细阅读】
56 . Its success is hard to copy anywhere else
57. Lack of the right kind of talents.
58. Its location is not as attractive to rich people
59. It is an old city...
60. They can do more than...
61. It may prevent your business and career from advancing.
62. Encourage people to disagree and argue.
63. To find out ...
64. They take care ...
65. Acknowledge ...
Section C
Part IV Translation
【原文】
云南省的丽江古镇是中国著名的旅游目的地之一。那里的生活节奏比大多数中国的城市都要缓慢。丽江到处都是美丽的自然风光，众多的少数民族同胞提供了各式各样，丰富多彩的文化让游客体验。历史上，丽江还以“爱之城”而闻名。当地人中流传着许多关于人生，为爱而死的故事。如今，在中外游客眼中，这个古镇被视为爱情和浪漫的天堂。(paradise)
【参考译文】
Lijiang, an ancient town in Yunan province, is one of the famous tourist attractions in China. The life tempo there is slower than that of majority of cities in China. There is natural scenery everywhere in Lijiang. A substantial number of minority peoples provide various and colorful cultures for tourists to experience. Lijiang has also been known as the “City of Love” in history. Plenty of legends about people born for love and died for love circulate among the local people. Currently, this ancient town is regarded as the paradise of love and romance in the eyes of both Chinese and foreign visitors.
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