2015年12月大學(xué)英語四級真題及解析

1、1CET4 2015/122015 年 12 月英語四級 (CET4) 真題試卷Part IWriting( 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 le

2、ast 120 words but no morethan180words.Part IIListening Comprehension( 30 minutes)Section ADirections: In this section, you will hear 8 short conversat ions 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

3、 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.They admire the co

4、urage 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.2CET4 2015/12A) At a gift shop.At a graduation ceremony.In the office of a travel agency.In a school library.A) He used to work in the art

5、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.A) 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 att

6、end the birthday party.5.A) Reward those having made good progre ss.Set a deadline for the staff to meet.Assign more workers to the project.Encourage the staff to work in small groups.A) The way to the visitors parking.The rate for parking in Lot C.How far away the parking lot is.Where she can leave

7、 her car.A) He regrets missing the classes.He plans to take the fitness classes.3CET4 2015/12He is looking forward to a better life.He has benefited form exercise.8.A) How to ? work efficiency.How to select secretaries.The responsibilities of secretaries.The secretaries in the mans company.Conver sa

8、t ion OneQuestions 9 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard.9.A) 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 eventuallybec ome a world language.10.A) It has words words from many languages,Its popul

9、arity with the common people.The influence of the British Empire.The effect of the Industrial Revolution.11.A) 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 travelers.It is the largest among all languages in the w

10、orld.4CET4 2015/12Conversation 2Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.12.A) To return some goods.To apply for a job.To place an order.To make a complaint.A) He has become somewhat impatient with the woman.He is not familiar with the exact details of goods.He has not wo

11、rked in the sales department for long.He works on a part-time basis for the company.A) 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.A) Report the information to her superior.Pay a visit to the saleswoman in c

12、harge.Ring back when she comes to a decision.Make inquiries with some other companies.Section B5CET4 2015/12Directions: 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 hea

13、r 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 OneQuestions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard.A) No one knows exactly where they were

14、 ?No one knows for sure when thy came into being.No one knows for what purpose they were ?No one knows what they will ?A) Carry ropes across rivers.Measure the speed of wind.Pass on secret messages.Give warnings of danger.A) To protect houses against lightning.To test the effects of the lightning ro

15、d.To find out the strength of silk for kites.To prove the lightning is electricity.Passage Two6CET4 2015/12Questions 19 to 22 are based on the passage you have just heard.19.A) She enjoys teaching languages.She can speak several languages.She was trained to be an interpreter.She was born with a tale

16、nt for languages.20. A) 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.A) Shebec ame an expert in horse racing.She got a chance to visit seve

17、ral European countries.She was able to translate for a German sports judge.She learned to appreciate classical music.A) Taste the beef and give her comment.Take part in a cooking competition.Teach vocabulary for food in ?Give cooking lessons on ?Passage ThreeQuestions 23 to 25 are based on the passa

18、ge you have just heard.7CET4 2015/12A) He had only a third-grade education.He once threatened to kill his teacher.He gre w up in a poor ?He often helped his ?24.A) Careless.Stupid.Brave.Active.25.A) Write two book reports a week.Keep a diary.Help with housework.Watch education?Section CDirections: I

19、n 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

20、 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 otherbodies out there besides the moon and stars. One of the mostof this is a comet. Comets were formed around the same the earth was formed. They are made up of ice and

21、other frozen8CET4 2015/12liquids 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 thesun and

22、solar wind blows the cloud behind the comet thus forming its tail. The tail and generally fuzzy atmosphere around the comet arethat can helpthisphenomenon in the night sky. In any given year，about dozen known comets come close to the sun in their orbits. The average person cant see them all of cours

23、e. Usually there isonly one or two a year bright enough to be seen with theeye. CometHale-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 wont be back for another 4 thousand

24、 years or so.PartReading Comprehension(40 minutes)Section ADirections: 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 givenin a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choic

25、es. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark thecorresponding letter for each item onAnswer Sheet 2with 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.9CET4 2015/12For many Ameri

26、cans, 2013 ended with an unusually bitter cold spell. November and December36early snow and bone-chilling temperatures in much of the country, part of a year when, for the first time in two37, record-cold days will likely turn out to have outnumbered record-warm ones. But the U.S. was the exception;

27、 November was thewarmest ever38, and current data indicates that 2013 is likely to have been the fourth hottest year on record.Enjoy the snow now,bec ause39are good that 2014 will be even hotter, perhaps the hottest year since records have been kept. Thats because, scientists are predicting, 2014 wi

28、ll be an EI Niuo year.EI niuo, Spanish for“the child ”,40when surface ocean waters in the southern Pacific become abnormally warm. So large is the Pacific, covering 30% of the planets surface, that the41energy generated by its warming is enough to touch off a series ofweather changes around the worl

29、d. EI Ninos are42with abnormally dry conditions in Southeast Asia and Australia. They can lead to extreme rain in parts of North and South America, even as southern Africa43dry weather. Marine life may be affected too; EINinos can44the rising of the cold, nutrient-rich（營養(yǎng)豐富的）water that supports larg

30、e fish45,and the unusually warm ocean temperatures can destroy coral(珊瑚 ).注意：此部分試題請在答題卡2 上作答。10CET4 2015/12Section 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 paragr

31、aph 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 EssayLooking back on too many years of education, I can identify one truly impossibletea

32、cher. She cared about me, and my intellectual life, even when I didnt. Her expectations were high impossibly so. She was an English teacher. She was also my mother.When good students turn in an essay, they dream of their instructor returning it to them in exactly the same condition, save for a singl

33、e word added in the margin of the final page. “Flawless. ”This dream came true for me one afternoon in the ninth grade. Of course, Ihad heard that genius could show itself at an early age, so I was only slightly taken abackthat I had achieved perfection at the tender age of 14. Obviously, I did what

34、 and11CET4 2015/12professional writer would do; I hurried off to spread the good news. I didnt get very far. The first person I told was my mother.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 n

35、ot sure if she was more upsetby my hubris（得意忘形） or by the fact that my English teacher had let my ego get so outof 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

36、（過渡） , structure, style and voice. But what I learned, and whatstuck with me through my time teaching writing at Harvard, was a deeper lesson about thenature of creative criticism.First off, it hurts. Genuine criticism, the type that leaves a lasting mark on you as awriter, also leaves an existentia

37、l imprint（印記） 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.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

38、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, a

39、nd Ihope only, encounter with writers block I was not able to produce anything for three years.12CET4 2015/12Franz Kafka once said;“Writing is utter solitude（獨處） , the descent into the cold abyss（深淵） of oneself. ”My mother s criticism had shown me that Kafka is right about the cold abyss, and when y

40、ou make the introspective（內(nèi)省的）descent that writing requires you are not always pleased by what you find. But, in the years that followed, her sustained tutoringsuggested that Kafka might be wrong about the solitude, I was lucky enough to find a criticand teacher who was willing to make the journey o

41、f writing with me.“It is a thing of no gre at difficulty. ”according to Plutarch,“to raise objections against another mans speech. it is a very easy matter, but to produce a better in its place is a work extremelytroublesome.”I am sure I wrote essays in the later years of high school without mymothe

42、r s guidance, but I cant recall them. What I remember, however, is how she took up the “extremely troublesome”work of ongoing criticism.There are two ways to interpret Plutarch when he suggests that a critic should be ableto produce “a better in its place.”In a straightforward sense, he could mean t

43、hat a criticmust be more talented than the artist she critiques（評論） .My mother was well covered on this count. But perhaps Plutarch is suggesting something slightly different, something a bitcloser to Marcus Ciceros claim that one should“criticize by creation, not by finding fault.”Genuine criticism

44、 creates a precious opening for an author tobec ome better on his own terms a process that is often extremely painful, but also almost always meaningful.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

45、criticism is not meant to findobvious mistakes, so if she found any the type I could have found on my own I had to13CET4 2015/12start 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 thatchanged m

46、e as a person, began.She criticized me when I included little-known references and professional jargon（行話）.She had no patience for brilliant but irrelevant figures of speech.“Writers can t bluff （虛張聲勢） their way through ignorance.”That was news to me I would need to find another way to structure my

47、daily existence.She trimmed back my flowery language, drew lines through my exclamation marks andargued 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 imp

48、roved.Somewhere along the way I set aside my hopes of writing that flawless essay. But perhaps I missed something important in my mothers lessons about creativity and perfection. Perhaps the point of writhing the flawless essay was not to give up, but tonever willingly finish. Whitman repeatedly rew

49、orked“song of Myself”between 1855 and 1891. Repeatedly. We do our absolute best with a piece of writing, and come as close aswe 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

50、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：此部分試題請在答題卡2 上作答。14CET4 2015/12The author was advised against the improper use of figures of speech.The authors mother taught him a valuable lesson by pointing out lots

51、 of flaws in his seemingly perfect essay.A writer should polish his writing repeatedly so as to get closer to perfection.Writers may experience periods of time in their life when they just cant produce anything.The author was not much surprised when his school teacher marked his essay as“flawless ”.

52、Criticizing someones speech is said to be easier than coming up with a better one.The author looks upon his mother as his most demanding and caring instructor.The criticism the author received from his mother changed his as a person.The author gradually improved his writing by avoiding fancy languag

53、e.Constructive criticism gives an author a good start to improve his writing.Section CPassage OneQuestions 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 thegeneration who read print newspapers. The kind of shopping w

54、here you hand over notes15CET4 2015/12and 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 ismore a

55、nd more true, the higher up the scale you go. At the most cutting-edge retail stores VictoriaBec kham on Dover Street, for instanceyou don t go and stand at any kind of cash register when you decide to pay. The staff are equipped with iPads to take yourpayment while you relax on a sofa.Which is noth

56、ing 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 Im justold-fashioned. But earning money isnt quick or easy for most of us. Isnt it a bit weird that spending it should happen in half a blink (眨眼 ) of an eye

57、? Doesnt a wallet thattime-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 f

58、eelof 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 printedcinema tickets is the very opposite of what our world isbec oming. The opposite of a wallet is a smartphone of an iPad. The round

59、ed edges, cool glass, smooth andunknowable as pebble (鵝卵石 ). Instead of digging through pieces of paper and peering16CET4 2015/12into 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.What is happening to

60、the wallet?It is disappearing.C) it is becoming costly.It is being fattened.D) It is changing in style.How are business transactions done in big modern stores?Individually.C) In the abstract.Electronically.D) Via a cash register.What makes the author feel uncomfortable nowadays?Saving money isbec om