历年四级真题解析.doc

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1、 历年四级真题解析 Part I Writing (30 minutes) Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay on the importance of speaking ability and how to develop it. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words. _ _ _ Part Reading Comprehension (40 minutes) Section A Dire

2、ctions: 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

3、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. Neon (霓虹) is to Hong Kong as red phone booths are to London and fog is to San Francisco. When night falls, red and blue and other colors 2

4、6 a hazy (雾蒙蒙的) glow over a city lit up by tens of thousands of neon signs. But many of them are going dark, 27 by more practical, but less romantic, LEDs (发光二极管). Changing building codes, evolving tastes, and the high cost of maintaining those wonderful old signs have businesses embracing LEDs, whi

5、ch are energy 28 , but still carry great cost. To me, neon represents memories of the past, says photographer Sharon Blance, whose series Hong Kong Neon celebrates the citys famous signs. Looking at the signs now I get a feeling of amazement, mixed with sadness. Building a neon sign is an art practi

6、ced by 29 trained on the job to mold glass tubes into 30 shapes and letters. They fill these tubes with gases that glow when 31 . Neon makes orange, while other gases make yellow or blue. It takes many hours to craft a single sign. Blance spent a week in Hong Kong and 32 more than 60 signs; 22 of th

7、em appear in the series that capture the signs lighting up lonely streetsan 33 that makes it easy to admire their colors and craftsmanship. I love the beautiful, handcrafted, old-fashioned 34 of neon, says Blance. The signs do nothing more than 35 a restaurant, theater, or other business, but do so

8、in the most striking way possible. A) alternative B) approach C) cast D) challenging E) decorative F) efficient G) electrified H) identify I) photographed J) professionals K) quality L) replaced M) stimulate N) symbolizes O) volunteers Section B Directions: In this section, you are going to read a p

9、assage 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 correspo

10、nding letter on Answer Sheet 2. New Jersey School District Eases Pressure on StudentsBaring an Ethnic Divide A) This fall, David Aderhold, the chief of a high-achieving school district near Princeton, New Jersey, sent parents an alarming 16-page letter. The school district, he said, was facing a cri

11、sis. Its students were overburdened and stressed out, having to cope with too much work and too many demands. In the previous school year, 120 middle and high school students were recommended for mental health assessments and 40 were hospitalized. And on a survey administered by the district, studen

12、ts wrote things like, I hate going to school, and Coming out of 12 years in this district, I have learned one thing: that a grade, a percentage or even a point is to be valued over anything else. B) With his letter, Aderhold inserted West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District into a national d

13、iscussion about the intense focus on achievement at elite schools, and whether it has gone too far. At follow-up meetings, he urged parents to join him in advocating a whole child approach to schooling that respects social-emotional development and deep and meaningful learning over academics alone.

14、The alternative, he suggested, was to face the prospect of becoming another Palo Alto, California, where outsize stress on teenage students is believed to have contributed to a number of suicides in the last six years. C) But instead of bringing families together, Aderholds letter revealed a divide

15、in the district, which has 9,700 students, and one that broke down roughly along racial lines. On one side are white parents like Catherine Foley, a former president of the Parent-Teacher-Student Association at her daughters middle school, who has come to see the districts increasingly pressured atm

16、osphere as opposed to learning. My son was in fourth grade and told me, Im not going to amount to anything because I have nothing to put on my resume, she said. On the other side are parents like Mike Jia, one of the thousands of Asian-American professionals who have moved to the district in the pas

17、t decade, who said Aderholds reforms would amount to a dumbing down of his childrens education. What is happening here reflects a national anti-intellectual trend that will not prepare our children for the future, Jia said. D) About 10 minutes from Princeton and an hour and a half from New York City

18、, West Windsor and Plainsboro have become popular bedroom communities for technology entrepreneurs, researchers and engineers, drawn in large part by the public schools. From the last three graduating classes, 16 seniors were admitted to MIT. It produces Science Olympiad winners, classically trained

19、 musicians and students with perfect SAT scores. E) The district has become increasingly popular with immigrant families from China, India and Korea. This year, 65 percent of its students are Asian-American, compared with 44 percent in 2023. Many of them are the first in their families born in the U

20、nited States. They have had a growing influence on the district. Asian-American parents are enthusiastic supporters of the competitive instrumental music program. They have been huge supporters of the districts advanced mathematics program, which once began in the fourth grade but will now start in

21、the sixth. The change to the program, in which 90 percent of the participating students are Asian-American, is one of Aderholds reforms. F) Asian-American students have been eager participants in a state program that permits them to take summer classes off campus for high school credit, allowing the

22、m to maximize the number of honors and Advanced Placement classes they can take, another practice that Aderhold is limiting this school year. With many Asian-American children attending supplementary instructional programs, there is a perception among some white families that the elementary school c

23、urriculum is being sped up to accommodate them. G) Both Asian-American and white families say the tension between the two groups has grown steadily over the past few years, as the number of Asian families has risen. But the division has become more obvious in recent months as Aderhold has made chang

24、es, including no-homework nights, an end to high school midterms and finals, and an initiative that made it easier to participate in the music program. H) Jennifer Lee, professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, and an author of the Asian American Achievement Paradox, says misun

25、derstanding between first-generation Asian-American parents and those who have been in this country longer are common. What white middle-class parents do not always understand, she said, is how much pressure recent immigrants feel to boost their children into the middle class. They dont have the sam

26、e chances to get their children internships (实习职位) or jobs at law firms, Lee said. So what they believe is that their children must excel and beat their white peers in academic settings so they have the same chances to excel later. I) The issue of the stresses felt by students in elite school distri

27、cts has gained attention in recent years as schools in places like Newton, Massachusetts, and Palo Alto have reported a number of suicides. West Windsor-Plainsboro has not had a teenage suicide in recent years, but Aderhold, who has worked in the district for seven years and been chief for the last

28、three years, said he had seen troubling signs. In a recent art assignments, a middle school student depicted (描绘) an overburdened child who was being scolded for earning an A, rather than an A+ , on a math exam. In the image, the mother scolds the student with the words, Shame on you! Further, he sa

29、id, the New Jersey Education Department has flagged at least two pieces of writing on state English language assessments in which students expressed suicidal thoughts. J) The survey commissioned by the district found that 68 percent of high school honor and Advanced Placement students reported feeli

30、ng stressed about school always or most of the time. We need to bring back some balance, Aderhold said. You dont want to wait until its too late to do something. K) Not all public opinion has fallen along racial lines. Karen Sue, the Chinese-American mother of a fifth-grader and an eighth-grader, be

31、lieves the competition within the district has gotten out of control. Sue, who was born in the United States to immigrant parents, wants her peers to dial it back. Its become an arms race, an educational arms race, she said. We all want our kids to achieve and be successful. The question is, at what

32、 cost? 36. Aderhold is limiting the extra classes that students are allowed to take off campus. 37. White and Asian-American parents responded differently to Aderholds appeal. 38. Suicidal thoughts have appeared in some students writings. 39. Aderholds reform of the advanced mathematics program will

33、 affect Asian-American students most. 40. Aderhold appealed for parents support in promoting an all-round development of children, instead of focusing only on their academic performance. 41. One Chinese-American parent thinks the competition in the district has gone too far. 42. Immigrant parents be

34、lieve that academic excellence will allow their children equal chances to succeed in the future. 43. Many businessmen and professionals have moved to West Windsor and Plainsboro because of the public schools there. 44. A number of students in Aderholds school district were found to have stress-induc

35、ed mental health problems. 45. The tension between Asian-American and white families has increased in recent years. Section C 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),

36、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 and 50 are based on the following passage. For thousands of years, people have known that the best way to understand a concept is to exp

37、lain it to someone else. While we teach, we learn, said Roman philosopher Seneca. Now scientists are bringing this ancient wisdom up-to-date. Theyre documenting why teaching is such a fruitful way to learn, and designing innovative ways for young people to engage in instruction. Researchers have fou

38、nd that students who sign up to tutor others work harder to understand the material, recall it more accurately and apply it more effectively. Student teachers score higher on tests than pupils whore learning only for their own sake. But how can children, still learning themselves, teach others? One

39、answer: They can tutor younger kids. Some studies have found that first-born children are more intelligent than their later-born siblings (兄弟姐妹). This suggests their higher IQs result from the time they spend teaching their siblings. Now educators are experimenting with ways to apply this model to a

40、cademic subjects. They engage college undergraduates to teach computer science to high school students, who in turn instruct middle school students on the topic. But the most cutting-edge tool under development is the teachable agenta computerized character who learns, tries, makes mistakes and asks

41、 questions just like a real-world pupil. Computer scientists have created an animated (动画的) figure called Bettys Brain, who has been taught about environmental science by hundreds of middle school students. Student teachers are motivated to help Betty master certain materials. While preparing to tea

42、ch, they organize their knowledge and improve their own understanding. And as they explain the information to it, they identify problems in their own thinking. Feedback from the teachable agents further enhances the tutors learning. The agents questions compel student tutors to think and explain the

43、 materials in different ways, and watching the agent solve problems allows them to see their knowledge put into action. Above all, its the emotions one experiences in teaching that facilitate learning. Student tutors feel upset when their teachable agents fail, but happy when these virtual pupils su

44、cceed as they derive pride and satisfaction from someone elses accomplishment. 46. What are researchers rediscovering through their studies? A) Senecas thinking is still applicable today. B) Better learners will become better teachers. C) Human intelligence tends to grow with age. D) Philosophical t

45、hinking improves instruction. 47. What do we learn about Bettys Brain? A) It is a character in a popular animation. B) It is a teaching tool under development. C) It is a cutting-edge app in digital games. D) It is a tutor for computer science students. 48. How does teaching others benefit student t

46、utors? A) It makes them aware of what they are strong at. B) It motivates them to try novel ways of teaching. C) It helps them learn their academic subjects better. D) It enables them to better understand their teachers. 49. What do students do to teach their teachable agents? A) They motivate them

47、to think independently. B) They ask them to design their own questions. C) They encourage them to give prompt feedback. D) They use various ways to explain the materials. 50. What is the key factor that eases student tutors learning? A) Their sense of responsibility. B) Their emotional involvement. C) The learning strategy acquired. D) The teaching experience gained. Passage Two Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage. A new batch of young wome