2015年12月四级真题第2套.doc

2015年12月大学英语四级考试真题（第二套）Part I Writing (30 minutes)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 Listening Comprehension (25 minutes)Section A Directions: In this section, you will hear three news reports. At the end of each news report, you will hear two or three questions. Both the news report 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 1 with a single line through the centre.Questions 1 and 2 will be based on the following news item. 1. A) A celebration held for the US military history. B) A new museum being built for the history of American diplomacy. C) An enormous collection displayed in Washington D.C. D) A lecture hall under construction by American diplomats. 2. A) It occupies an area of 20,000 square kilometers. B) It is expected to take about three years construction. C) It will serve as an education area for diplomats. D) It will be featured in American military history. Questions 3 and 4 will be based on the following news item. 3. A) $20,000 every year. B) $5,100 every two years C) $ 510 every year. D) $ 200 every two years. 4. A) Too many conflicts occur on New York streets. B) It takes little to get an illegal food vending license.C) Vendors are allowed to work the street unlicensed. D) The number of legal permits is too limited. Questions 5 and 7 will be based on the following news item. 5. A) Buying machines. B) Removing manually. C) Applying poisons. D) Using animals. 6. A) To improve the weeding efficiency. B) To reduce manpower costs. C) To protect the environment. D) To help local farmers.7. A) She is a company owner. B) She is a cemetery official.C) She works for an insurance company. D) She works in an environmental sector.Section BDirections: In this section, you will hear two long conversations. At the end of each conversation, you will hear four questions. Both the conversation 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 1 with a single line through the centre.Conversation OneQuestions 8 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 8. A) From the wanted column. B) From some of her friends. C) From a telephone directory. D) From a television commercial.9. A) She received full-time education abroad. B) She graduated from an open university. C) She finished her secondary school. D) She studied in a vocational college.10. A) She is a shorthand-typist. B) She works as a tour guide. C) She is a policewoman.D) She teaches an evening class.11. A) Persuade the woman to be a policewoman. B) Find a suitable job for the woman.C) Help the woman to be a tour guide.D) Provide the woman with some formal education.Conversation TwoQuestions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 12. A) It provides him with career opportunities. B) It helps enlarge his customer network. C) It has been off and on for ten years D) It was interrupted for four years.13. A) Individualized service. B) Traditional setting. C) Home-made beer. D) Social games.14. A) The quality of beer. B) The atmosphere. C) The owner's attitude. D) The right location.15. A) It is a rather tough job. B) It is a profitable business. C) It helps old people kill time. D) It makes retirees feel useful.Section CDirections: In this section, you will hear three passage. 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 1 with a single line through the centre.Passage OneQuestions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard.16. A) It is becoming increasingly popular. B) It helps the user to escape reality. C) It gives rise to serious social instability. D) It hurts a person and those around them.17. A) They use drugs just for fun. B) They take drugs to get high. C) They use drugs as medicine.D) They keep drug use a secret.18. A) It is quite common in entertainment circles.B) It is the cause of various social problems.C) It is hard to get rid of.D) It is fatal to the user.Passage TwoQuestions 19 to 22 are based on the passage you have just heard.19. A) Taking up exercises after recovery.B) Producing tasty healthy frozen food.C) Finding new ways to cure heart disease.D) Going on a diet upon leaving the hospital.20. A) It was carefully tested with consumers.B) It was promoted by health organizations.C) It was disapproved by many diet experts.D) It was highly expected by the general public.21. A) Competitive price.B) Low expectations. C) Vigorous promotion.D) Unique ingredients.22. A) It was suggested by the firms vice-president.B) It matches the foods dark green packaging.C) It has a positive implication for consumers.D) It tricks the elders into impulse purchasing.Passage ThreeQuestions 23 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.23. A) It is practiced in most of the states.B) It will be abolished sooner or later.C) It has drawn a lot of criticism from overseas.D) It has to be approved by the Supreme Court.24. A) Whether the practice should be allowed to continue in future.B) Whether there should be a minimum age limit for execution.C) What type of criminals should receive it.D) What effect it might have on youngsters.25. A) The court sentenced him to life in prison for killing two friends.B) The governor changed his death sentence to life in prison.C) He was the first minor to be executed in South Carolina.D) He was sentenced to death for a crime he committed as a minor.Part 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 26 to 35 are based on the following passage.For many Americans, 2013 ended with an unusually bitter cold spell. Late November and December 26 early snow and bone-chilling temperatures in much of the country, part of a year when, for the first time in two 27 , 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 28 , and current data indicates that 2013 is likely to have been the fourth hottest year on record. Enjoy the snow now, because 29 are good that 2014 will be even hotter, perhaps the hottest year since records have been kept. Thats because, scientists are predicting, 2014 will be an El Niños Year. El Niños, Spanish for “the child”, 30 when surface ocean waters in the southern Pacific become abnormally warm. So large is the Pacific, covering 30% of the planets surface, that the 31 energy generated by its warming is enough to touch off a series of weather changes around the world. El Niños are 32 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 33 dry weather. Marine life may be affected too: E1 Niños can 34 the rising of the cold, nutrient-rich (营养丰富的) water that supports large fish 35 , and the unusually warm ocean temperatures can destroy coral (珊瑚).A) additional B) associated C) bore D) chancesE) communicatedF) decades G) experiences H) globallyI) logicallyJ) occursK) populationsL) realizeM) reduceN) saw O) specific Section BDirections: 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 questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2. How to Eat WellA Why do so many Americans eat tons of processed food, the stuff that is correctly called junk (垃圾) and should really carry warning labels?B Its not because fresh ingredients are hard to come by. Supermarkets offer more variety than ever, and there are over four times as many farmers markets in the U. S. as there were 20 years ago. Nor is it for lack of available information. There are plenty of recipes (食谱), how-to videos and cooking classes available to anyone who has a computer, smartphone or television. If anything, the information is overwhelming.C And yet we arent cooking. If you eat three meals a day and behave like most Americans, you probably get at least a third of your dally calories (卡路里) outside the home. Nearly two-thirds of us grab fast food once a week, and we get almost 25% of our dally calories from snacks. So were eating out or taking in, and we don't sit downor we do, but we hurry.D Shouldnt preparingand consumingfood be a source of comfort, pride, health, well-being, relaxation, sociability? Something that connects us to other humans? Why would we want to outsource (外包) this basic task, especially when outsourcing it is so harmful?E When I talk about cooking, Im not talking about creating elaborate dinner parties or three-day science projects. Im talking about simple, easy, everyday meals. My mission is to encourage green hands and those lacking time or money to feed themselves. That means we need modest, realistic expectations, and we need to teach people to cook food thats good enough to share with family and friends.F Perhaps a return to real cooking neednt be far off. A recent Harris poll revealed that 79% of Americans say they enjoy cooking and 30% “love it”; 14% admit to not enjoying kitchen work and just 7% wont go near the stove at all. But this doesnt necessarily translate to real cooking, and the result of this survey shouldnt surprise anyone: 52% of those 65 or older cook at home five or more times per week; only a third of young people do.G Back in the 1950s most of us grew up in households where Morn cooked virtually every night. The intention to put a home-cooked meal on the table was pretty much universal. Most people couldnt afford to do otherwise.H Although frozen dinners were invented in the 40s, their popularity didnt boom until televisions became popular a decade or so later. Since then, packaged, pre-prepared meals have been whats for dinner. The microwave and fast-food chains were the biggest catalysts (催化剂), but the big food companieswhich want to sell anything except the raw ingredients that go into cookingmade the home cook an endangered species.I Still, I find it strange that only a third of young people report preparing meals at home regularly. Isnt this the same crowd that rails against processed junk and champions craft cooking? And isnt this the generation who say theyre concerned about their health and the wellbeing of the planet? If these are truly the values of many young people, then their behavior doesnt match their beliefs.J There have been half-hearted but well-publicized efforts by some food companies to reduce calories in their processed foods, but the Standard American Diet is still the polar opposite of the healthy, mostly plantbased diet that just about every expert says we should be eating. Considering that the governments standards are not nearly ambitious enough, the picture is clear: by not cooking at home, were not eating the right things, and the consequences are hard to overstate.K To help quantify (量化) the costs of a poor diet, I recently tried to estimate this impact in terms of a most famous food, the burger (汉堡包). I concluded that the profit from burgers is more than offset (抵消) by the damage they cause in health problems and environmental harm.L Cooking real food is the best defensenot to mention that any meal youre likely to eat at home contains about 200 fewer calories than one you would eat in a restaurant.M To those Americans for whom money is a concern, my advice is simple: Buy what you can afford, and cook it yourself. The common prescription is to primarily shop the grocery store, since thats where fresh produce, meat and seafood, and dairy are. And to save money and still eat well you dont need local, organic ingredients; all you need is real food. Im not saying local food isnt better; it is. But there is plenty of decent food in the grocery stores.N The other sections you should get to know are the frozen foods and the canned goods. Frozen produce is still produce; canned tomatoes are still tomatoes. Just make sure youre getting real food without tons of added salt or sugar. Ask yourself, would Grandma consider this food? Does it look like something that might occur in nature? Its pretty much common sense: you want to buy food, not unidentifiable food like objects.O You dont have to hit the grocery store daily, nor do you need an abundance of skill. Since fewer than haft of Americans say they cook at an intermediate level and only 20% describe their cooking skills as advanced, the crisis is one of confidence. And the only remedy for that is practice. Theres nothing mysterious about cooking the evening meal. You just have to do a little thinking ahead and redefine what qualifies as dinner. Like any skill, cooking gets easier as you do it more; every time you cook, you advance your level of skills. Someday you wont even need recipes. My advice is that you not pay attention to the number of steps and ingredients, because they can be deceiving.P Time, I realize, is the biggest obstacle to cooking for most people. You must adjust your priorities to find time to cook. For instance, you can move a TV to the kitchen and watch your favorite shows while youre standing at the sink. No one is asking you to give up activities you like, but if youre watching food shows on TV, tr