大学英语四级（2013年12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷236及答案解析.doc

1、大学英语四级（2013 年 12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷 236及答案解析(总分：118.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、Writing(总题数：2，分数：4.00)1.Part I Writing（分数：2.00）_2.For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay on the following question. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words. Suppose you could change one impo

2、rtant thing about your college, what would you change? Give reasons and specific examples to support your answer.（分数：2.00）_二、Listening Comprehens(总题数：12，分数：50.00)3.Part II Listening Comprehension_4.Section A_A.She operated her aircraft single-handed.B.She followed Boeings commercial route.C.She drov

3、e an old aircraft sponsored by Boeing.D.She stopped occasionally to repair aircraft.A.She uploaded her pictures on twitter.B.She lost her temper several times.C.She argued heatedly with technicians.D.She left photographers behind halfway.A.It raised the food prices.B.It met huge rent rises.C.It attr

4、acted more diners.D.It gained more profit.A.It will cut down the rented space.B.It will turn to offering takeout instead.C.It will move to a place with cheaper rent.D.It will raise money from regular customers.A.It gained large amounts of money from oil.B.Its government raised the price of gasoline.

5、C.Citizens got benefits from its government.D.It joined the International Monetary Fund.A.The international oil price crashed.B.The Saudi king was discontent with some citizens.C.Unemployment rate increased dramatically.D.Many Saudis had no concept of saving gas.A.Export more oil.B.Start taxing its

6、people.C.Develop tourism industry.D.Reduce the number of immigrants.5.Section B_A.An apartment in the first floor.B.The nicest apartment downtown.C.A three-bedroom apartment.D.A two-bedroom apartment.A.He is the manager of the apartment.B.He is the womans husband.C.He is the owner of the apartment.D

7、.He is the womans agent.A.The water fee is rather high.B.The electric is free of charge.C.The stove must be renewed.D.Gas is included in the rent.A.She thinks the apartment is too small.B.It is the first apartment she has seen.C.She wants her husband to see it too.D.The rent is too high for her to a

8、fford.A.He is curious.B.He is warm-hearted.C.He is impatient.D.He is absent-minded.A.It is the energy needed to boil the water.B.It is the energy needed to cool down something.C.It is the energy required to raise the temperature of something.D.It is the energy controlled by the temperature and the w

9、eather.A.Waters specific heat is higher than that of the sand.B.Waters specific heat is lower than that of the sandC.Waters temperature changes faster than the sand.D.Water absorbs less energy than the sand to get hot.A.The man slept on physics class.B.The man was on holiday in San Diego.C.The woman

10、 was extremely interested in physics.D.The woman figured out the question finally.6.Section C_A.Many countries dislike it.B.All countries observe it.C.It began with the Americans.D.It began with the Romans.A.To show how happy they were.B.To drive away the evil spirits.C.To warn the thieves and robbe

11、rs.D.To sell their drums and sticks.A.Sing and dance in the square till midnight.B.Throw pieces of pottery against friends houses.C.Kiss each other when the clock strikes midnightD.Go from house to house and make noises.A.It is the favorite food of young people.B.It is the last food of the past year

12、.C.It brings good luck to people.D.It is good for peoples health.A.They are not allowed to drink coffee.B.They think coffee does no good to them.C.They think coffee is too expensive.D.They should not drink coffee when working.A.Sleeping problems.B.Stomach problems.C.Bad emotions.D.High blood pressur

13、e.A.It improves ones brain function.B.It increases ones blood flow.C.It cleans the water of the bodys cells.D.It keeps one away from depression.A.It is comfortable.B.It is best made.C.It causes no pollution.D.It makes less noise.A.Its battery is not powerful enough.B.Its battery is of enormous size.

14、C.It costs too much money.D.It breaks down easily.A.Improve the batteries of electric cars.B.Increase the number of electric cars.C.Design a new device for electric cars.D.Look for new ways to improve safety.三、Reading Comprehensio(总题数：8，分数：60.00)7.Part III Reading Comprehension_8.Section A_Official

15、health advice that said household chores help keep you active has been proved wrong by the research, which shows that the people who do the most housework are also the most overweight. A study of the physical activity habits of 4,563 adults, carried out by Professor Marie Murphy at the University of

16、 Ulster found that women and older people were particularly likely to list “ 1physical activity as a significant proportion of their moderate to 2physical activity“. Murphy said: “We found housework was reversely 3to leanness, which suggests that either people are overestimating the amount of modera

17、te-intensity physical activity they do through housework or are eating too much to 4for the amount of activity undertaken.“ Kevin Fenton, director of health and wellbeing at Public Health England, suggested the study could 5evidence that some people thought they were healthier than they actually wer

18、e. “At an individual level there may be a 6to overestimate the level of good behaviour were doing and this is reflected when people use food diaries, pedometers (计步器) or apps to measure more 7what they have achieved.“ he said. But he defended everyday tasks as genuinely useful. He added: “From an in

19、dividual 8, physical activities such as housework, doing the shopping and walking to collect children from school, can have 9impacts on physical and mental wellbeing. People who are even more active will often see greater benefits and it is important to recognise that healthy weight is just one of t

20、he potential 10of physical activity.“A) account E) domestic I) perspective M) relatedB) adjusted F) gentle J) positive N) tendencyC) causes G) objectively K) practically O) vigorousD) compensate H) outcomes L) reinforce（分数：20.00）填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_1

21、0.Section B_How science goes wrong Scientific research has changed the world. Now it needs to change itself.A A simple idea underlies science: “trust, but verify“. Results should always be subject to challenge from experiment. That simple but powerful idea has generated a vast body of knowledge. Sin

22、ce its birth in the 17th century, modern science has changed the world beyond recognition, and overwhelmingly for the better. But success can breed extreme self-satisfaction. Modern scientists are doing too much trusting and not enough verifying, damaging the whole of science, and of humanity.B Too

23、many of the findings are the result of cheap experiments or poor analysis. A rule of thumb among biotechnology venture-capitalists is that half of published research cannot be replicated (复制). Even that may be optimistic. Last year researchers at one biotech firm, Amgen, found they could reproduce j

24、ust six of 53 “milestone“ studies in cancer research. Earlier, a group at Bayer, a drug company, managed to repeat just a quarter of 67 similarly important papers. A leading computer scientist worries that three-quarters of papers in his subfield are nonsense. In 2000-10, roughly 80,000 patients too

25、k part in clinical trials based on research that was later withdrawn because of mistakes or improperness.What a load of rubbishC Even when flawed research does not put peoples lives at riskand much of it is too far from the market to do soit blows money and the efforts of some of the worlds best min

26、ds. The opportunity costs of hindered progress are hard to quantify, but they are likely to be vast. And they could be rising.D One reason is the competitiveness of science. In the 1950s, when modern academic research took shape after its successes in the Second World War, it was still a rarefied (小

27、众的) pastime. The entire club of scientists numbered a few hundred thousand. As their ranks have swelled to 6m-7m active researchers on the latest account, scientists have lost their taste for self-policing and quality control. The obligation to “publish or perish (消亡)“ has come to rule over academic

28、 life. Competition for jobs is cut-throat. Full professors in America earned on average $135,000 in 2012more than judges did. Every year six freshly minted PhDs strive for every academic post. Nowadays verification (the replication of other peoples results) does little to advance a researchers caree

29、r. And without verification, uncertain findings live on to mislead.E Careerism also encourages exaggeration and the choose-the-most-profitable of results. In order to safeguard their exclusivity, the leading journals impose high rejection rates: in excess of 90% of submitted manuscripts. The most st

30、riking findings have the greatest chance of making it onto the page. Little wonder that one in three researchers knows of a colleague who has polished a paper by, say, excluding inconvenient data from results based on his instinct. And as more research teams around the world work on a problem, it is

31、 more likely that at least one will fall prey to an honest confusion between the sweet signal of a genuine discovery and a nut of the statistical noise. Such fake correlations are often recorded in journals eager for startling papers. If they touch on drinking wine, or letting children play video ga

32、mes, they may well command the front pages of newspapers, too.F Conversely, failures to prove a hypothesis (假设) are rarely even offered for publication, let alone accepted. “Negative results“ now account for only 14% of published papers, down from 30% in 1990. Yet knowing what is false is as importa

33、nt to science as knowing what is true. The failure to report failures means that researchers waste money and effort exploring blind alleys already investigated by other scientists.G The holy process of peer review is not all it is praised to be, either. When a prominent medical journal ran research

34、past other experts in the field, it found that most of the reviewers failed to spot mistakes it had deliberately inserted into papers, even after being told they were being tested.If its broke, fix itH All this makes a shaky foundation for an enterprise dedicated to discovering the truth about the w

35、orld. What might be done to shore it up? One priority should be for all disciplines to follow the example of those that have done most to tighten standards. A start would be getting to grips with statistics, especially in the growing number of fields that screen through untold crowds of data looking

36、 for patterns. Geneticists have done this, and turned an early stream of deceptive results from genome sequencing (基因组测序) into a flow of truly significant ones.I Ideally, research protocols (草案) should be registered in advance and monitored in virtual notebooks. This would curb the temptation to man

37、ipulate the experiments design midstream so as to make the results look more substantial than they are. (It is already meant to happen in clinical trials of drugs.) Where possible, trial data also should be open for other researchers to inspect and test.J The most enlightened journals are already sh

38、owing less dislike of tedious papers. Some government funding agencies, including Americas National Institutes of Health, which give out $30 billion on research each year, are working out how best to encourage replication. And growing numbers of scientists, especially young ones, understand statisti

39、cs. But these trends need to go much further. Journals should allocate space for “uninteresting“ work, and grant-givers should set aside money to pay for it. Peer review should be tightenedor perhaps dispensed with altogether, in favour of post-publication evaluation in the form of appended comments

40、. That system has worked well in recent years in physics and mathematics. Lastly, policymakers should ensure that institutions using public money also respect the rules. K Science still commands enormousif sometimes perplexedrespect. But its privileged status is founded on the capacity to be right m

41、ost of the time and to correct its mistakes when it gets things wrong. And it is not as if the universe is short of genuine mysteries to keep generations of scientists hard at work. The false trails laid down by cheap research are an unforgivable barrier to understanding.（分数：20.00）(1).The major jour

42、nals reject more than 90% of the submitted manuscripts to ensure their exclusiveness.（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(2).The flawed research wastes not only money but also the energy of other talents.（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(3).Modern science began in the 17th century.（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(4).Some government funding agencies ha

43、ve already granted money to figure out how best to encourage replication.（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(5).Some clinical trials from 2000 to 2010 were later abandoned by reason of mistakes or improperness.（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(6).Registered and monitored research protocols would help to resist the temptation to manipu

44、late the experiments design.（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(7).The most enlightened journals are more willing to accept dull papers than before.（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(8).Knowing what is false and knowing what is true are equally important to science.（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(9).Science can gain respect only when it is basically

45、right and is able to correct mistakes.（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(10).“Publish or perish“ has become the dominant rule over academic life now.（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_11.Section C_As an opportunity to highlight womens contributions, International Womens Day has always served to commemorate (纪念) the cutting edge of the global womens movement, from demanding better working conditions in US sweatshop factories of the early 1900s, to voting rights, pay equality and, more recently, promoting womens leadership in politics and business.