2020年12月英語四級(jí)真題試卷一(文字版)

1、2020 年 12 月英語四級(jí)真題試卷一（文字版）2020 年 12 月英語四級(jí)真題試卷一（文字版）Part I Writing ( 30 minutes)For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write anessay commenting on the saying “Learning is a dailyexperience and lifetime mission. ”You can cite examples toillustrate the importance of lifelong learning. You shouldwr

2、ite at least 120 words but no more than180 words.Part II Listening Comprehension ( 30 minutes)Section ADirections ： In this section, you will hear 8 shortconversations and 2 long conversations. At the end of eachconversation, one or more questions will be asked about whatwas said. Both the conversat

3、ion and the questions will bespoken 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 markthe corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single linethrough the centre.A) They adm

4、ire 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 use

5、d 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

6、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

7、 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 responsibilit

8、ies of secretaries.D) The secretaries in the man s company.Conversation OneQuestions 9 to 11 are based on the conversation you havejust 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 beco

9、me 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

10、 be easily picked up by overseas travelers.D) It is the largest among all languages in the world.Conversation 2Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you havejust 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 somewha

11、t 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)

12、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 BDirections ：In this section, you will hear 3 shortpassages. At the end of each pass

13、age, you will hear somequestions. Both the passage and the questions will be spokenonly once. After you hear a question, you must choose thebest answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D ).Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet I with asingle line through the centre.Passage On

14、eQuestions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have justheard.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)

15、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 TwoQuestions 19 to 22 are based on the passage you have justheard.1

16、9.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 asp

17、ossible.D) They have an intense interest in cross-culturalinteractions.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

18、 her comment.B) Take part in a cooking competition.C) Teach vocabulary for food in ?D) Give cooking lessons on ?Passage ThreeQuestions 23 to 25 are based on the passage you have justheard.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)

19、 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 CDirections ：In this section, you will hear a passagethree times. When the passage is read for the first time, youshould listen care

20、fully for its general idea. When thepassage is read for the second time, you are required to fillin the blanks with the exact words you have just heard.Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, youshould check what you have written.When you look up at the night sky, what do you see ？Ther

21、eare other bodies out there besides the moon and stars. One ofthe most of this is a comet. Comets were formed around thesame the earth was formed. They are made up of ice and otherfrozen liquids and gasses. these dirty snow balls begin toorbit the sun just as the planets do. As a comet gets closerto

22、 the sun, some gasses in it begin to unfreeze. They combinewith dust particles from the comet to form a huge cloud. Asthe comet gets even nearer to the sun and solar wind blowsthe cloud behind the comet thus forming its tail. The tailand generally fuzzy atmosphere around the comet are that canhelp t

23、his phenomenon in the night sky. In any given year ，about dozen known comets come close to the sun in theirorbits. The average person can t see them all of course.Usually there is only one or two a year bright enough to beseen with the _eye. Comet Hale-Bopp discovered in1995 was an unusually bright

24、comet. Its orbit bought it_to the earth within 122 million miles of it. ButHale-Bop p came a long way on its earthly visit. It won t beback for another 4 thousand years or so.Part Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)Section ADirections ： In this section, there is a passage with tenblanks. You are requ

25、ired to select one word for each blankfrom a list of choices givenin a word bank following the passage. Read the passagethrough carefully before making your choices. Each choice inthe bank is identified by a letter. Please mark thecorresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with asingle lin

26、e through the centre. You may not use any of thewords in the bank more than once.Questions 36 to 45 are based on the following passage.For many Americans, 2020 ended with an unusually bittercold spell. November and December 36 early snow and bone-chilling temperatures in much of the country, part of

27、 a yearwhen, for the first time in two 37 , record-cold days willlikely turn out to have outnumbered record-warm ones. But theU.S. was the exception; November was the warmest ever 38 ,and current data indicates that 2020 is likely to have beenthe fourth hottest year on record.Enjoy the snow now, bec

28、ause 39 are good that 2020 will beeven hotter, perhaps the hottest year since records have beenkept. That s because, scien tists are predicting, 2020 willbe an EI Niuo year.EI niuo, Spanish for “the child ”, 40 when surface oceanwaters in the southern Pacific become abnormally warm. Solarge is the P

29、acific, covering 30% of the planet s surface,that the 41 energy generated by its warming is enough totouch off a series of weather changes around the world. EINinos are 42 with abnormally dry conditions in Southeast Asiaand Australia. They can lead to extreme rain in parts ofNorth and South America,

30、 even as southern Africa 43 dryweather. Marine life may be affected too; EI Ninos can 44 therising of the cold, nutrient-rich （營養(yǎng)豐富的） water thatsupports large fish 45 ,and the unusually warm oceantemperatures can destroy coral( 珊瑚).注意：此部分試題請(qǐng)?jiān)诖痤}卡 2 上作答。Section BDirections ：In this section, you are go

31、ing to read apassage with ten statements attached to it. Each statementcontains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identifythe paragraph from which the information is derived. You maychoose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is markedwith a letter. Answer the question by marking the

32、corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.The Perfect EssayA) Looking back on too many years of education, I canidentify one truly impossible teacher. She cared about me,and my intellectual life, even when I didn t. Herexpectations were high impossibly so. She was an Englishteacher. She was also my mot

33、her.B) When good students turn in an essay, they dream oftheir instructor returning it to them in exactly the samecondition, save for a single word added in the margin of thefinal page. “Flawless. ” This dream came true for me oneafternoon in the ninth grade. Of course, I had heard thatgenius could

34、show itself at an early age, so I was onlyslightly taken aback that I had achieved perfection at thetender age of 14. Obviously, I did what and professionalwriter would do; I hurried off to spread the good news. Ididn t get very far. The first person I told was my mother.C) My mother, who is just sh

35、y of five feet tall, isnormally incredibly soft-spoken, but on the rare occasionwhen she got angry, she was terrifying. I am not sure if shewas more upset by my hubris （得意忘形） or by the fact that myEnglish teacher had let my ego get so out of hand. In andevent. My mother and her red pen showed me how

36、 deeply flaweda flaw less essay could be. At the time, I am sure shethought she was teaching me about mechanics, transitions （過渡）, structure, style and voice. But what I learned, andwhat stuck with me through my time teaching writing atHarvard, was a deeper lesson about the nature of creativecritici

37、sm.D) First off, it hurts. Genuine criticism, the type thatleaves a lasting mark on you as a writer, also leaves anexistential imprint （印記）on you as a person. I have heardpeople say that a writer should never take criticismpersonally. I say that we should never listen to these people.E) Criticism, a

38、t its best, is deeply personal, and getsto the heart of why we write the way we do. The intimatenature of genuine criticism implies something about who isable to give it, namely, someone who knows you well enough toshow you how your mental life is getting in the way of goodwriting. Conveniently, the

39、y are also the people who careenough to see you through this painful realization. For me ittook the form of my first, and I hope only, encounter withwriter s block I was not able to produce anything for threeyears.F) Franz Kafka once said; “Writing is utter solitude （獨(dú)處）, the descent into the cold a

40、byss （深淵）of oneself. ” Mymothers criticism had shown me that Kafka is right aboutthe cold abyss, and when you make the introspective （內(nèi)省的）descent that writing requires you are not always pleased bywhat you find. But, in the years that followed, her sustainedtutoring suggested that Kafka might be wro

41、ng about thesolitude, I was lucky enough to find a critic and teacher whowas willing to make the journey of writing with me. “It is athing of no great difficulty. ”according to Plutarch, “toraise objections against another man s speech. it is a veryeasy matter, but to produce a better in its place i

42、s a workextremely troublesome. ” I am sure I w rote essays in thelater years of high school without my mother s guidance, butI can t recall them. What I remember, however, is how shetook up the “extremely troublesome ”work of ongoing criticism.G) There are two ways to interpret Plutarch when hesugge

43、sts that a critic should be able to produce “a better inits place. ”In a straightforward sense, he could mean that acritic must be more talented than the artist she critiques（評(píng)論）.My mother was well covered on this count. Butperhaps Plutarch is suggesting something slightly different,something a bit

44、closer to Marcus Cicero s claim that oneshould “criticize by creation, not by finding fault. ”Genuinecriticism creates a precious opening for an author to becomebetter on his own terms a process that is often extremelypainful, but also almost always meaningful.H) My mother said she would help me wit

45、h my writing, butfirst I had to help myself. For each assignment, I was towrite the best essay I could. Real criticism is not meant tofind obvious mistakes, so if she found any the type I couldhave found on my own I had to start from scratch. Fromscratch. Once the essay was “flawless, ” she would ta

46、ke anevening to walk me through my errors. That was when truecriticism, the type that changed me as a person, began.I) She criticized me when I included little-knownreferences and professional jargon （行話）. She had nopatience for brilliant but irrelevant figures ofspeech. “Writers can t bluff （虛張聲勢(shì)）

47、their way throughignorance. ” That was news to me I would need to findanother way to structure my daily existence.J) She trimmed back my flowery language, drew linesthrough my exclamation marks and argued for the value ofrestraint in expression. “John, ” she almost whispered. Ileaned in to hear her

48、： “I can t hear you when you shout atme.” So I stopped shouting and bluffing, and slowly mywriting improved.K) Somewhere along the way I set aside my hopes ofwriting that flawless essay. But perhaps I missed somethingimportant in my mother s lessons about creativity andperfection. Perhaps the point

49、of writhing the flawless essaywas not to give up, but to never willingly finish. Whitmanrepeatedly 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 timebeing, we settle. In critique, ho

50、wever, we are forced todepart, to give up the perfection we thought we had achievedfor the chance of being even a little bit better. This is thelesson I took from my mother ： If perfection were possible,it would not be motivating.注意：此部分試題請(qǐng)?jiān)诖痤}卡 2 上作答。46. The author was advised against the improper us

51、e offigures of speech.47. The author s mother taught him a valuable lesson bypointing out lots of flaws in his seemingly perfect essay.48. A writer should polish his writing repeatedly so asto get closer to perfection.49. Writers may experience periods of time in their lifewhen they just can t produ

52、ce anything.50. The author was not much surprised when his schoolteacher marked his essay as “flawless ”.51. Criticizing someone s speech is said to be eas ierthan coming up with a better one.52. The author looks upon his mother as his mostdemanding and caring instructor.53. The criticism the author

53、 received from his motherchanged his as a person.54. The author gradually improved his writing by avoidingfancy language.55. Constructive criticism gives an author a good startto improve his writing.Section CPassage OneQuestions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.The wallet is heading for e

54、xtinction. As a day-to-dayessential, it will die off with the generation who read printnewspapers. The kind of shopping where you hand over notesand count out change in return now happens only in the mostminor of our retail encounters ，like buying a bar ofchocolate or a pint of milk from a comer sho

55、p. At the shopswhere you spend any real money, that money is increasinglyabstracted. And this is more and more true, the higher up thescale you go. At the most cutting-edge retail stores Victoria Beckham on Dover Street, for instance you dont goand stand at any kind of cash register when you decide

56、to pay.The staff are equipped with iPads to take your payment whileyou relax on a sofa.Which is nothing more or less than excellent service, ifyou have the money. But across society, the abstraction ofthe idea of cash makes me uneasy. Maybe I m just old -fashioned. But earning money isn t quick or e

57、asy for most ofus. Isn t it a bit weird that spending it should happen inhalf a blink ( 眨眼) of an eye? Doesn t a wallet that time-honoured Friday-night feeling of pleasing, promisingfatness represent something that matters?But I ll leave the economics to the experts. Whatbothers me about the death of the wallet is the change itrepresents in our physical environment. Everything about thelook and