1、2015 年 12 月英语四级真题及答案1.They admire the courage 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.2.At a gift shop.At a graduation ceremony.In the office of a travel agency.In a school library.3.He
2、 used to work in the art 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.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
3、 will be unable to attend the birthday party.5.Reward those having made good progress.Set a deadline for the staff to meet.Assign more workers to the project.Encourage the staff to work in small groups.6.The way to the visitors parking.The rate for parking in Lot C.How far away the parking lot is.Wh
4、ere she can leave her car.7.He regrets missing the classes.He plans to take the fitness classes.He is looking forward to a better life.He has benefited form exercise.8.A. How to ? work efficiency.B. How to select secretaries.C. The responsibilities of secretaries.D. The secretaries in the mans compa
5、ny.Conversation 19.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 eventually become a world language.10.It has words words from many languages,Its popularity with the common people.The influence of the British Empire.T
6、he effect of the Industrial Revolution,11.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 travellers.It is the largest among all languages in the world.Conversation 212.To return some goods.To apply for a job.To pla
7、ce an order.To make a complaint.13. He has become somewhat impatient with the woman.He is not familiar with the exact details of goods.He has not worked in the sales department for long.He works on a part-time basis for the company.14.It is not his responsibility.It will be free for large orders.It
8、costs 15 more for express delivery.It depends on a number of factors.15.Report the information to her superior.Pay a visit to the saleswoman in charge.Ring back when she comes to a decision.Make inquiries with some other companies.Section BPassage 116.No one knows exactly where they were ?No one kno
9、ws for sure when thy came into being.No one knows for what purpose they were ?No one knows what they will ?17.Carry ropes across rivers.Measure the speed of wind.Pass on secret messages.Give warnings of danger.18.To protect houses against lightning.To test the effects of the lightning rod.To find ou
10、t the strength of silk for kites.To prove the lightning is electricity.Passage 219.She enjoys teaching languages,She can speak several languages,She was trained to be an interpreter.She was born with a talent for languages.20.They acquire an immunity to culture shock.They would like to live abroad p
11、ermanently.They want to learn as many foreign languages as possible.They have an intense interest in cross-cultural interactions.21.She became an expert in horse racing.She got a chance to visit several European countries.She was able to translate for a German sports judge.She learned to appreciate
12、classical music.22.Taste the beef and give her comment.Take part in a cooking competition.Teach vocabulary for food in ?Give cooking lessons on ?Passage 323.He had only a third-grade education.He once threatened to kill his teacher.He grew up in a poor ?He often helped his ?24.Careless.Stupid.Brave.
13、Active.25.Write two book reports a week.Keep a diary.Help with housework.Watch education?Section CWhen you look up at the night sky, what do you see? There are other besides the moon and stars. One of the most 27_ of the Comets were formed around the same time the Earth was formed. and other frozen
14、liquids and gases. 29_ these “dirty snow” just as the planets do.As a comet get closer to the sun, some gases in it begin to unfreezeparticles form the comet to form a huge cloud. As the comet gets wind blows the cloud behind the comet, thus forming its tail. The tail(模糊的 ) atmosphere around a comet
15、 are 32_ that can help in the night sky.In any given year, about a dozen known comets come close to average person cant see them all, of course. Usually there is only one to be seen with 34_ eye. Comet Hale-Bopp, discovered bright comet. Its orbit brought it 35_ close to the Earth, But Hale-Bopp cam
16、e a long way an its earthly visit. It wont be backor so.Part III Reading 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 given in a word bank following the passage. Read the p
17、assage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified 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 36 to 45 are based on
18、 the following passage.Scholars of the information society are divided over whether social inequality decreases or increases in an information-based society, However, they generally agree with the idea that equality in the information society is 36 different from that of an industrial society. As in
19、formatization progresses in society, the cause and structural nature of social inequality changes as well.It seems that the information society 37 the quantity of Information available to the members of a society by revolutionizing the Ways of using and exchanging information. But such a view is a 3
20、8 analysis based on the quantity of information supplied by various forms of the mass media. A different 39 is possible when the actual amount of information 40 by the user is taken into account. In fact, the more information 41 throughout the entire society, the wider the gap becomes between “infor
21、mation haves“ and “information have-nots,“ leading to digital divide.According to recent studies, digital divide has been caused by three major 42 classy, sex, and generation. In terms of class, digital divide exists among different types of workers and between the upper and middle classes and the l
22、ower class. With 43 to sex, digital divide exists between men and women. The greatest gap, however, is between the Net-generation, 44 with personal computers and the Internet, and the older generation, 45 to an industrial society.注意： 此部分试题请在答题卡 2 上作答。Section BDirections: In this section, you are goi
23、ng 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 markin
24、g the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.Joy: A Subject Schools LackBecoming educated should not require giving up pleasure.A) When Jonathan Swift proposed, in 1729, that the people of Ireland eat their children, he insisted it would solve three problems at once: feed the hungry masses, reduce t
25、he population during a severe depression, and stimulate the restaurant business. Even as a satire (讽刺), it seems disgusting and shocking in America with its child-centered culture. But actually, the country is closer to his proposal than you might think.B) If you spend much time with educators and p
26、olicy makers, youll hear a lot of the following words: “standards,” “results,” “skills,” “self-control,” “accountability,” and so on. I have visited some of the newer supposedly “effective” schools, where children shout slogans in order to lean self-control or must stand behind their desk when they
27、cant sit still.C) A look at what goes in in most classrooms these days makes it abundantly clear that when people think about education, they are not thinking about what it feels like to be a child, or what makes childhood an important and valuable stage of life in its own right.D) Im a mother of th
28、ree, a teacher, and a developmental psychologist. So Ive watched a lot of children-talking, playing, arguing, eating, studying, and being young. Heres what Ive come to understand. The thing that sets children apart from adults is not their ignorance, nor their lack of skills. Its their enormous capa
29、city for joy. Think of a 3-year-old lost in the pleasures of finding out what he can and cannot sink in the bathtub, a 5-year-old beside herself with the thrill of putting together strings of nonsensical words with her best friends, or an 11-year-old completely absorbed in a fascinating comic strip.
30、 A childs ability to become deeply absorbed in something, and derive intense pleasure from that absorption, is something adults spend the rest of their lives trying to return to.E) A friend told me the following story. One day, when he went to get his 7-year-old son from soccer practice, his kid gre
31、eted him with a downcast face and a sad voice. The coach had criticized him for not focusing on his soccer drills. The little boy walked out of the school with his head and shoulders hanging down. He seemed wrapped in sadness. But just before he reached the car door, he suddenly stopped, crouching (
32、蹲伏) down to peer at something on the sidewalk. His face went down lower and lower, and then, with complete joy he called out, “Dad. Come here. This is the strangest bug Ive ever seen. It has, like, a million legs. Look at this. Its amazing.” He looked up at his father, his features overflowing with
33、all those legs. This is the coolest ever.”F) The traditional view of such moments is that they constitute a charming but irrelevant byproduct of youthsomething to be pushed aside to make room for more important qualities, like perseverance (坚持不懈), obligation, and practicality. Yet moments like this
34、one are just the kind of intense absorption and pleasure adults spend the rest of their lives seeking. Human lives are governed by the desire to experience joy. Becoming educated should not require giving up joy but rather lead to finding joy in new kinds of things: reading novels instead of playing
35、 with small figures, conducting experiments instead of sinking cups in the bathtub, and debating serious issues rather than stringing together nonsense words, for example. In some cases, schools should help children find new, more grown-up ways of doing the same things that are constant sources of j
36、oy: making art, making friends, making decisions.G) Building on a childs ability to feel joy, rather than pushing it aside, wouldnt be that hard. It would just require a shift in the education worlds mindset (思 维 模 式). Instead of trying to get children to work hard, why not focus on getting them to
37、take pleasure in meaningful, productive activity, like marking things, working with others, exploring ideas, and solving problems? These focuses are not so different from the things in which they delight.H) Before you brush this argument aside as rubbish, or think of joy as an unaffordable luxury in
38、 a nation where there is awful poverty, low academic achievement, and high dropout rates, think again. The more horrible the school circumstances, the more important pleasure is to achieving any educational success.I) Many of the assignments and rules teachers come up with, often because they are pr
39、essured by their administrators, treat pleasure and joy as the enemies of competence and responsibility. The assumption is that children shouldnt chat in the classroom because it hinders hard work; instead, they should learn to delay gratification (快乐) so that they can pursue abstract goals, like go
40、ing to college.J) Not only is this a boring and awful way to treat children, it makes no sense educationally. Decades of research have shown that in order to acquire skills and real knowledge in school, kids need to want to learn. You can force a child to stay in his or her seat, fill out a workshee
41、t, or practice division. But you cant force the child to think carefully, enjoy books, digest complex information, or develop a taste for learning. To make that happen, you have to help the child find pleasure in learningto see school as a source of joy.K) Adults tend to talk about learning as if it
42、 were medicine; unpleasant, but necessary and good for you. Why not instead think of learning as if it were foodsomething so valuable to humans that they have evolved to experience it as a pleasure?注意：此部分试题请在答题卡 2 上作答。46. It will not be difficult to make learning a source of joy if educators change
43、their way of thinking.47. What distinguishes children from adults is their strong ability to derive joy from what they are doing.48. Children in America are being treated with shocking cruelty.49. It is human nature to seek joy in life.50. Grown-ups are likely to think that learning to children is w
44、hat medicine is to patients.51. Bad school conditions make it all the more important to turn learning into a joyful experience.52. Adults do not consider childrens feeling when it comes to education.53. Administrators seem to believe that only hard work will lead children to their educational goals.
45、54. In the so-called “effective” schools, children are taught self-control under a set of strict rules.55. To make learning effective, educators have to ensure that children want to learn.Section CDirections: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinis
46、hed statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), 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 OneQuestion 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.When its five oclock, peopl
47、e leave their office. The length of the workday, for many workers, is defined by time. They leave when the clock tells them theyre done.These days, the time is everywhere: not just on clocks or watches, but on cell-phones and computers. That may be a bad thing, particularly at work. New research sho
48、ws on that clock-based work schedules hinder morale (士气) and creativity.Clock-timers organize their day by blocks of minutes and hours. For example: a meeting from 9 am to 10 a.m., research from 10 a.m. to noon, etc. On the other hand, task-timers have a list of things they want to accomplish. They
49、work down the list, each task starts when the previous task is completed. It is said that all of us employ a mix of both these types of planning.What, then, are the effects of thinking about time in these different ways? Does one make us more productive? Better at the tasks at hand? Happier? In experiments conducted by Tamar Avnet and Anne-Laure Sellier, they had participants organize different activitiesfrom project planning, holiday shopping, to yogaby time or to-do list to measure how they performed under “clock time“ vs “task tim
