2014年12月英语四级真题试卷

2014年12月英语四级真试卷 2014年12月英语四级真题试卷，第三套， Part ? Writing (30minutes) Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay about a campus activity that has benefited you most. You should state the reasons and write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words. 注意:此部分试题在答题卡1上 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ Part II Listening Comprehension (30minutes) Section A 1. A) He was ordered to clear the apartment by his mother last time. B) He has not cleared the apartment since his mother’s visit. C) He has cleared the apartment several times since his mother’s visiting. D) He asked his mother to clear the apartment last time. 2. A) They might as well catch the coming bus. B) They will also miss the next bus. C) They might as well take the next bus. D) They hurry up to catch the coming bus. 3. A) She asked for a sick leave because of neck pain. B) Mrs. Smith will take over her work for several days. C) She has to do extra work for a few days. D) Mrs. Smith was too busy to take over her work. 4. A) Change her job. B) Sell her cafeteria. C) Plant flowers. D) Wash dishes. 5. A) He remembered to take the package to the post office. B) He was told to have something wrong with his mind. C) He is a deliver man working in the post office. D) He failed to do what he promised to do. 6. A) The woman has a rule to select horror films. B) The woman does not like horror films. C) The woman cares much for horror films. D) The woman like the film the man mentioned. 7. A) The speakers disagree with each other about love. B) Love in the woman’s eye is happy and sweet. C) The speakers share a common view on love. D) Love hurts the man from time to time. 8. A) Preparations for a forum. B) Preparations for an interview. C) Preparations for a banquet. D) Preparations for making chairs. Questions 9 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 9. A) England. B) Scandinavia. C) South America. D) Scotland. 10. A) More women will stay at home. B) More women will run for higher posts. C) Marriages will be abolished. D) More women will work outside the family. 11. A) Spending more time improving women’s income. B) Spending more time changing men’s attitudes. C) Spending more time improving marriage quality. D) Spend more time changing women’s attitudes. Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 12. A) In a restaurant. B) In a meeting room. C) In an office. D) In a factory. 13. A) He is a salesman of J.R. Motors. B) He is the boss of the restaurant. C) He is the Managing Director of J.R. Motors. D) He is the managing director of the big factory. 14. A) To get a good export agent. B) To expand the factory. C) To get a good import agent. D) To design a new product. 15. A) His family background. B) His reputation. C) His designing talent. D) His determination. Section B Passage One Questions 16 to 18 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 16. A) How being an identical twin influences one’s identity. B) How twins are born and have the same identity. C) Why many identical twins make different choices. D) Why many identical twins don’t live near each other. 17. A) They didn’t meet each other for 4 months. B) They grew up in different surroundings. C) They were separated when they are 39 years old. D) They all have two wives and two daughters. 18. A) They want to find out the relationship between environment and biology. B) They want to find out the connection between hobby and personalities. C)They want to find out the connection between surroundings and personality characteristics. D) They want to find out the connection between communication and talents. Passage Two Questions 19 to 21 are based on the passage you have just heard. 19. A) It isn’t one of the cheapest ways of having a holiday. B) It is the most comfortable ways of spending a holiday. C) It is the most popular ways of having a holiday. D) It is an inexpensive way of spending a holiday. 20. A) It is the frame tent for two people. B) It consists of an inner and an outer tent. C) It is the kind of the outer tent with a ground sheet. D) It is comfortable with windows, kitchens and sitting rooms. 21. A) A ground sheet. B) A bedroom extension. C) A kitchen extension. D) A water-proof sheet. Passage Three Questions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard. 22. A) It covers 179 square miles. B) It is larger than New York City. C) It is located between France and Italy. D) It only covers 197 square miles. 23. A) Travelers were easy to reach the country. B) The living way of the people changed quickly. C) It has a small number of farmer population. D) It was cut off from the rest of the world. 24. A) The investment of tourism from its neighboring countries. B) The lowest import fees for tourists cheapest shopping. C) The building of roads connecting it with neighboring countries. D) The permission to visit so many ancient buildings. 25. A) They work in foreign business. B) They work in the tourist industry. C) They farm and raise sheep. D) They work in transportation industry. Section C Don’t take many English courses, they won’t help you get a decent job. Sign up for management classes, so you will be ready to join the family business when you graduate. Sound __26__? Many of us have heard suggestions like these __27__ by parents or others close to us. Such comments often seem quite reasonable. Why then? Should suggestions like these be taken with __28__? The reason is they relate to the decisions you should make. You are the one who must 29 their consequences. One of the worst reasons to follow a particular path in life is that other people want you to. Decisions that affect your life should be your decisions. Decisions you make after you’ve considered various __30__ and chosen the path that suits you best. Making your own decisions does not mean that you should __31__ the suggestions of others. For instance, your parents do have their own unique experiences that may make their advice helpful and having __32__ in a great deal of your personal history. They may have a clear view of your strength and weaknesses. Still, their views are not necessarily accurate. They may still see you as a child __33__ caring and protection. Or they may see only your strength, or in some unfortunate cases they may __34__ only your flaws and shortcomings. People will always be giving your advice, ultimately though, you have to make your own __35__. Part III Reading Comprehension (40minntes) Questions 36 to 45 are based on the following passage. One principle of taxation, called the benefit principle, states that people should pay taxes based on the benefits they receive from government services. This principle tries to make public goods similar to __36__ goods. It seems reasonable that a person who often goes to the movies pays more in __37__ for movie tickets than a person who rarely goes. And __38__ a person who gets great benefit from a public good should pay more for it than a person who gets little benefit. The gasoline tax, for instance, is sometimes __39__ using the benefits principle. In some states, __40__ from the gasoline tax are used to build and maintain roads. Because those who buy gasoline are the same people who use the roads, the gasoline tax might be viewed as a __41__ way to pay this government service. The benefits principle can also be used to argue that wealthy citizens should pay higher taxes than poorer ones, __42__ because the wealthy benefit more from public services. Consider, for example, the benefits of police protection from __43__. Citizens with much to protect get greater benefit from police than those with less to protect. Therefore, according to the benefits principle, the wealthy should __44__ more than the poor to the cost of __45__ the police force. The same argument can be used for many other public services, such as fire protection, national defense, and the court system. A) adapt B) contribute C) exerting D) expenses E) fair F) justified G) maintaining H) private I) provided J) revenues K) similarly L) simply M) theft N) total O) wealth Section B Growing Up Colored [A] You wouldn't know Piedmont anymore—my Piedmont, I mean—the town in West Virginia where I learned to be a colored boy. [B] The 1950s in Piedmont was a time to remember, or at least to me. People were always proud to be from Piedmont—lying at the foot of a mountain, on the banks of the mighty Potomac. We knew God gave America no more beautiful location. I never knew colored people anywhere who were crazier about mountains and water, flowers and trees, fishing and hunting. For as long as anyone could remember, we could outhunt, outshoot, and outswim the white boys in the valley. [C] The social structure of Piedmont was something we knew like the back of our hands. It was an immigrant town; white Piedmont was Italian and Irish, with a handful of wealthy WASPs (盎格鲁 撒克逊裔的白人新教徒) on East Hampshire Street, and "ethnic" neighborhoods of working-class people everywhere else, colored and white. [D] For as long as anyone can remember, Piedmont's character has been completely bound up with the Westvaco paper mill: its prosperous past and doubtful future. At first glance, the town is a typical dying mill center. Many once beautiful buildings stand empty, evidencing a bygone time of spirit and pride. The big houses on East Hampshire Street are no longer proud, as they were when I was a kid [E] Like the Italians and the Irish, most of the colored people migrated to Piedmont at the turn of the 20th century to work at the paper mill, which opened in 1888. All the colored men at the paper mill worked on "the platform"—loading paper into trucks until the craft unions were finally integrated in 1968. Loading is what Daddy did every working day of his life. That's what almost every colored grown-up I knew did. [F] Colored people lived in three neighborhoods that were clearly separated. Welcome to the Colored Zone, a large stretched banner could have said. And it felt good in there, like walking around your house in bare feet and underwear, or snoring right out loud on the couch in front of the TV—enveloped by the comforts of home, the warmth of those you love. [G] Of course, the colored world was not so much a neighborhood as a condition of existence. And though our own world was seemingly self-contained, it impacted on the white world of Piedmont in almost every direction. Certainly, the borders of our world seemed to be impacted on when some white man or woman showed up where he or she did not belong, such as at the black Legion Hall. Our space was violated when one of them showed up at a dance or a party. The rhythms would be off. The music would sound not quite right: attempts to pat the beat off just so. Everybody would leave early. [H] Before 1955, most white people were just shadowy presences in our world, vague figures of power like remote bosses at the mill or tellers at the bank. There were exceptions, of course, the white people who would come into our world in ritualized, everyday ways we all understood. Mr. Mail Man, Mr. Insurance Man, Mr. White-and-Chocolate Milk Man, Mr. Landlord Man, Mr. Police Man: we called white people by their trade, like characters in a mystery play. Mr. Insurance Man would come by every other week to collect premiums on college or death policies, sometimes 50 cents or less. [I] "It's no disgrace to be colored," the black entertainer Bert Williams famously observed early in the century, "but it is awfully inconvenient." For most of my childhood, we couldn't cat in restaurants or sleep in hotels, we couldn't use certain bathrooms or try on clothes in stores. Mama insisted that we dress up when we went to shop. She was carefully dressed when she went to clothing stores, and wore white pads called shields under her arms so her dress or blouse would show no sweat. "We'd like to try this on," she'd say carefully, uttering her words precisely and properly. "We don't buy clothes we can't try on," she'd say when they declined, and we'd walk out in Mama's dignified (有尊严的) manner. She preferred to shop where we had an account and where everyone knew who she was. [J] At the Cut-Rate Drug Store, no one colored was allowed to sit down at the counter or tables, with one exception: my father. I don't know for certain why Carl Dadisman, the owner, wouldn't stop Daddy from sitting down. But I believe it was in part because Daddy was so light-colored, and in part because, during his shift at the phone company, he picked up orders for food and coffee for the operators. Colored people were supposed to stand at the counter, get their food to go, and leave. Even when Young Doc Bess would set up the basketball team with free Cokes after one of many victories, the colored players had to stand around and drink out of paper cups while the white players and cheerleaders sat down in comfortable chairs and drank out of glasses. [K] I couldn't have been much older than five or six as I sat with my father at the Cut-Rate one afternoon, enjoying two scoops of caramel ice cream. Mr. Wilson, a stony-faced, brooding Irishman, walked by. "Hello, Mr. Wilson," my father said. "Hello, George." [L] I was genuinely puzzled. Mr. Wilson must have confused my father with somebody else, but who? There weren't any Georges among the colored people in Piedmont. "Why don't you tell him your name, Daddy?" I asked loudly. "Your name isn't George." "He knows my name, boy," my father said after a long pause. "He calls all colored people George." [M] I knew we wouldn't talk about it again; even at that age, 1 was given to understand that there were some subjects it didn't do to worry to death about. Now that I have children, I realize that what distressed my father wasn't so much the Mr. Wilsons of the world as the painful obligation to explain the racial facts of life to someone who hadn't quite learned them yet. Maybe Mr. Wilson couldn't hurt my father by calling him George; but I hurt him by asking to know why. 注意:此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。 46. The author felt as a boy that his life in a separated neighborhood was casual and cozy. 47. There is every sign of decline at the paper mill now. 48. One reason the author's father could sit and eat at the drug store was that he didn't look that dark. 49. Piedmont was a town of immigrants from different parts of the world. 50. In spite of the awful inconveniences caused by racial prejudice, the author's family managed to live a life of dignity. 51. The author later realized he had caused great distress to his father by asking why he was wrongly addressed. 52. The author took pride in being from Piedmont because of its natural beauty. 53. Colored people called white people by the business they did. 54. Colored people who lived in Piedmont did heavy manual jobs at the paper mill. 55. The colored people felt uneasy at the presence of the whites in their neighborhood. Section C Passage One Questions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage. Children are a delight. They are our future. But sadly, hiring someone to take care of them while you go to work is getting more expensive by the year. Earlier this month, it was reported that the cost of enrolling an infant or small kid at a childcare center rose 3% in 2012, faster than the overall cost of living. There are now large strips of the country where daycare for an infant costs more than a tenth of the average married couple's income. This is not necessarily a new trend, but it is a somewhat puzzling one. The price of professional childcare has been rising since the 1980s. Yet during that time, pay for professional childcare workers has stood still. Actually caregivers make less today, in real terms, than they did in 1990. Considering that labor costs are responsible for up to 80% of a daycare center's expenses, one would expect flat wages to have meant flat prices. So who's to blame for higher childcare costs? Childcare is a carefully regulated industry. States lay down rules about how many children each employee is allowed to watch over, the space care centers need per child, and other minute details. And the stricter the regulations, the higher the costs. If it has to hire a caregiver for every two children, it can't really achieve any economies of scale on labor to save money when other expenses go up. In Massachusetts, where childcare centers must hire one teacher for every three infants, the price of care averaged more than $16,000 per year. In Mississippi, where centers must hire one teacher for every five infants, the price of care averaged less than $5,000. Unfortunately, I don't have all the daycare-center regulations handy. But I wouldn't be surprised if as the rules have become more elaborate, prices have risen. The tradeoff (交换) might be worth it in some cases; after all, the health and safety of children should probably come before cheap service. But certainly, it doesn't seem to be an accident that some of the cheapest daycare available is in the least regulated South 56. What problem do parents of small kids have to face? A) The ever-rising childcare prices. B) The budgeting of family expenses. C) The balance between work and family. D) The selection of a good daycare center. 57. What does the author feel puzzled about? A) Why the prices of childcare vary greatly from state to state. B) Why increased childcare prices have not led to better service. C) Why childcare workers' pay has not increased with the rising childcare costs. D) Why there is a severe shortage of childcare professional in a number of states. 58. What prevent childcare centers from saving money? A) Steady increase in labor costs. B) Strict government regulations. C) Lack of support from the state. D) High administrative expenses. 59. Why is the average cost of childcare in Mississippi much lower than in Massachusetts? A) The overall quality of service is not as good. B) Payments for caregivers there are not as high. C) Living expenses there are comparatively low. D) Each teacher is allowed to care for more kids. 60. What is the author's view on daycare service? A) Caregivers should receive regular professional training. B) Less elaborate rules about childcare might lower costs. C) It is crucial to strike a balance between quality and costs. D) It is better for different states to learn from each other. Passage Two Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage. Alex Pang's amusing new book The Distraction Addiction addresses those of us who feel panic without a cellphone or computer. And that, he claims, is pretty much all of us. When we're not online, where we spend four months annually, we're engaged in the stressful work of trying to get online. The Distraction Addiction is not framed as a self-help book. It's a thoughtful examination of the danger of our computing overdose and a historical overview of how technological advances change consciousness. A "professional futurist", Pang urges an approach which he calls "contemplative (沉思的) computing." He asks that you pay full attention to "how your mind and body interact with computers and how your attention and creativity are influenced by technology." Pang's first job is to free you from common misconception that doing two things at once allows you to get more done. What is commonly called multitasking is, in fact, switch-tasking, and its harmful effects on productivity are well documented. Pang doesn't advocate returning to a preinternet world. Instead, he asks you to "take a more ecological (生态的) view of your relationships with technologies and look for ways devices or media may be making specific tasks easier or faster but at the same time making your work and life harder." The Distraction Addiction is particularly fascinating on how technologies have changed certain field of labor—often for the worse. For architects, computer-aided design has become essential but in some ways has cheapened the design process. As one architect puts it, "Architecture is first and foremost about thinking... and drawing is a more productive way of thinking" than computer-aided design. Somewhat less amusing are Pang's solutions for kicking the Internet habit. He recommends the usual behavior-modification approaches, familiar to anyone who has completed a quit-smoking program. Keep logs to study your online profile and decide what you can knock out, download a program like Freedom that locks you out of your browser, or take a "digital Sabbath (安息日)" ; "Unless you're a reporter or emergency-department doctor, you'll discover that your world doesn't fall apart when you go offline." 61. Alex Pang's new book is aimed for readers who ________. A) find their work online too stressful B) go online mainly for entertainment C) are fearful about using the cellphone or computer D) can hardly tear themselves away from the Internet 62. What does Alex Pang try to do in his new book? A) Offer advice on how to use the Internet effectively. B) Warn people of the possible dangers of Internet use. C) Predict the trend of future technological development. D) Examine the influence of technology on the human mind. 63. What is the common view on multitasking? A) It enables people to work more efficiently. B) It is in a way quite similar to switch-tasking. C) It makes people's work and life even harder. D) It distracts people's attention from useful work. 64. What does the author think of computer-aided design? A) It considerably cuts down the cost of building design. B) It somewhat restrains architects' productive thinking. C) It is indispensable in architects' work process. D) It can free architects from laborious drawing. 65. What is Ales Pang's recommendation for Internet users? A) They use the Internet as little as possible. B) They keep a record of their computer use time. C) They exercise self-control over their time online. D) They entertain themselves online on off-days only. Part IV Translation (30 minutes) Directions:For this part，you are allowed 30 minutes to translate a passage from Chinese into English( 中国的互联网社区是全世界发展最快的，2010年，中国约有4.2亿网民，而且人数还在迅速 增长。互联网的日渐流行带来了重大的社会变化。中国网民往往不同于美国网民。美国网民 更多的是受实际需要的驱使，用互联网为工具发电子邮件、买卖商品、做研究、旅程或 付款。中国网民更多是出于社交原因使用互联网，因而更广泛的使用论坛、博客、聊天室等 等。 注意:此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。 答案解析 【作文】 A Campus Activity that Benefited Me Most University provides many interesting activities to enrich our life on campus. In the past two years, I attended a couple of student societies such as mountain-climbing club and literature society. The most beneficial activity I participated is attending English Comer. First, attending English Comer offers a great opportunity to draw my attention away from busy studies so that 1 can relax, since the Comer is held in a square. As a college student, most of my time is killed in the classroom and library. At the Corner, I can talk in English with my peers on topics of our interest, so it's a relaxation in tedious school life. Second, joining English Corner significantly improved my oral English as well as English listening comprehension. It's the most efficient way for me to practice spoken English because mine is far better now than before. Third, it is a terrific way of socializing. I can get to know unacquainted students, and make friends with them. Therefore, it is safe to conclude that, attending English Corner has benefited me most among campus activities. 1-8:BDCCCBAA 9-11:CBD 12-15:BCBC 16-18:ADC 19-21:ADA 22-25:CDAB 26. land on 27. sharp 28. fill in for 29. probably 30. resemble 31. focuses on 32. specialize 33. timing 34. invented 35. figured out 36-45:HNKFJ ELMBG 46-55:FDJCI MBHEG 56-65:ACBDB DDABC Translation The Internet community in China develops fastest in the world. China has about 420 million netizens in 2010, and the number is still growing rapidly. The increasing popularity of Internet has produced a significant social changc. The Chinese netizens are often different from the American netizens. Driven by practical needs, American netizens often use the Internet to send emails, buy and sell goods, do research, plan trips or pay for the bills. While Chinese netizens use the Internet more out of social reasons, therefore, the Internet is more widely used in forums, blogs, chat rooms, and so on.