1、大学英语四级（2013 年 12月考试改革适用）-试卷 194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 entitled Marks or Abilities by commenting on the saying, “Experience without learning is better than learning without experie
2、nce. “ You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.（分数：2.00）_二、Listening Comprehens(总题数：12，分数：50.00)3.Part II Listening Comprehension_4.Section A_A.It is a kind of VOCs that mainly comes from building materials.B.It can make people blind at high concentrations.C.It is the principl
3、e constituent of air fresheners.D.It can cause nervous system problems at high concentrations.A.Work out all the details on the nail salon solution.B.Conduct a new experiment in a nail salon.C.Find out a truely green solution of air pollution.D.Test more houseplants on their air cleaning ability.A.0
4、.91.B.0.004.C.0.19.D.0.04.A.They are changing all the time.B.They are as important as long-term trends.C.They are relatively stable.D.They are not so important as long-term trends.A.NASAs next target for New Horizons.B.NASAs study of 2014 MU69.C.The naming of 2014 MU69.D.The study schedule of New Ho
5、rizons.A.It is as red as Pluto.B.It is as red as Mars.C.It is redder than Pluto but not as red as Mars.D.It is redder than Mars but not as red as Pluto.A.Using observations collected by the Hubble Space Telescope.B.Using the materials that astronaut Amanda Zangari collected from it.C.Using observati
6、ons collected by New Horizons spacecraft.D.Using the materials that NASAs space probe collected from it.5.Section B_A.Editor and writer.B.Editor and reader.C.Editor and publisher.D.Colleagues.A.Astonished.B.Excited.C.Doubtful.D.Anxious.A.To talk about the payment.B.To share the good news.C.To make a
7、n appointment.D.To discuss the publication date.A.He needs to receive an important guest.B.He has to answer another phone call.C.He needs to leave the office soon.D.He has to attend a meeting right now.A.He has to meet an important client.B.He has to attend an important meeting.C.He has to attend a
8、business discussion.D.He has to sign an important contract.A.Help him buy some medicine.B.Change the time of the meeting.C.Send some documents to him.D.Send the cat in his office away.A.He has got a fever.B.He is allergic to drugs.C.He is allergic to cats.D.He has got the flu.A.Make an appointment w
9、ith the doctor.B.Go to see the doctor directly.C.Find the root cause of the mans allergy.D.Go to have a meeting in the mans company.6.Section C_A.They hire only retired workers.B.They do all the work themselves.C.They close the hotel during low seasons.D.They try to keep down the cost of extra staff
10、.A.Staff training.B.Bookkeeping.C.Cleaning and washing-up.D.Gardening and flower arranging.A.They have their hotel beautifully decorated.B.They provide delicious food.C.They make their guests feel at home.D.They give parties regularly for their visitors.A.For the research for the US military.B.For t
11、he research for a handful of universities.C.For the research for some government facilities.D.For the provision of information to its users.A.60 million.B.14 million.C.84 million.D.28 million.A.Conveniences brought to consumers through the use of the Internet.B.Implications of the increasing commerc
12、ial use of the Internet.C.Security risks posed by the commercial use of the Internet.D.Advantages of Internet banking over traditional banking.A.They have unwritten regulations.B.They never punish the violators.C.They have the promising prospects.D.They have strict rules.A.He will be perceived as a
13、successful person.B.He will be less likely to get promotion.C.He will be more successful.D.He will be perceived as a shameless climber.A.Try to modify it.B.Criticize it directly.C.Dont judge it.D.Shoot it down.A.He who creates the idea deserves the credit himself.B.It doesnt matter if a business own
14、er borrows his employees idea.C.You can borrow other peoples idea if you work as a team.D.The victim will forget soon if you borrow his idea.三、Reading Comprehensio(总题数：8，分数：60.00)7.Part III Reading Comprehension_8.Section A_For centuries, boys were top of the class. But these days, thats no longer t
15、he 1 . A new study by the OECD, examined how 15-year-old boys and girls performed at reading, mathematics and science. Boys still score somewhat better at maths, and in science the genders are 2 equal. But when it comes to the students who really 3 , the difference is obvious: boys are 50% more like
16、ly than girls to fall 4 of basic standards in all three areas. Why are girls performing better at school than their male classmates? First, girls read more than boys. Reading 5 is the basis upon which all other learning is built. When boys dont do well at reading, their performance in other school s
17、ubjects 6 too. Second, girls spend more time on homework. Researchers suggest that doing homework 7 by teachers is linked to better performance in maths, reading and science. Boys, it 8 , spend more of their free time in the virtual world: they are 17% more likely to play online games than girls eve
18、ry day. They also use the Internet more. Third, peer pressure plays a 9 . A lot of boys decide early on that they are just too cool for school which means theyre more likely to be 10 in class. Teachers mark them down for this. In anonymous(匿名的)tests, boys perform better. In fact, the gender gap in r
19、eading drops by a third when teachers dont know the gender of the pupil they are marking.A)appears I)proficiencyB)case J)roleC)distinguishes K)roughlyD)dramatically L)setE)engaged M)shortF)experience N)struggleG)lazy O)suffers H)noisy（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:_
20、填空项 1:_填空项 1:_10.Section B_Green Burials: Thinking Outside the BoxA)When Bonnie Ramey buried her husband two years ago, she knew she didnt want to have a typical funeral ceremony at a landscaped cemetery plot. “The commercialization of funerals is getting out of control,“ she said. “ They get you at
21、 your weakest point. In my opinion, theyre just ripping off the dead. “ Bonnie and her husband, Charles, both nature lovers, spent many hours hiking through the wooded Appalachian foothills surrounding their home in rural South Carolina. So after Charles died, Bonnies choice of burial spots was an e
22、asy onedown the road from her house is Memorial Ecosystems, one of the only places in the United States devoted to environmentally sensitive or “green“ burials. Simple Living, Simple DyingB)The ideas behind “green“ burials are simple. Bodies are not embalmed(对尸体进行防腐处理). Elaborate caskets made of met
23、al or rare tropical hardwoods are replaced with fabric burial shrouds or simple, biodegradable(生物所能分解的)coffins made of wood or cardboard. Concrete grave liners or vaults that prevent the ground above the coffin from settling are avoided. Perhaps most significantly, in place of carefully trimmed ceme
24、tery grounds, native plants and wildflowers are allowed to flourish, turning the burial ground into a nature preserve. “It preserves the land and the habitat for the animals,“ said Ramey. “Our habitat is going quickly, and if we dont preserve it, we wont have any. “ Though there are over 200 green c
25、emeteries in Great Britain, the movement is unknown in the United States. South Carolina, Florida, California and Texas have the only four green cemeteries currently operating in America. Several more green burial facilities are being planned throughout the country.Everything Old Is New AgainC)“A gr
26、een burial is not about extra workits about not doing extra work,“ said Joshua Slocum, executive director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, a group of grassroots organizations interested in alternatives to the choices offered by the funeral industry. And for advocates of green burials, these arent
27、unique or unusual ceremonies. “ What people need to remember is that this is not new,“ said Slocum. “This is a return to what we used to do before the commercial funeral industry came along. “D)Indeed, many religious traditions follow the basic principles of green burials. Traditional Jewish burial
28、rites, for example, view embalming as an insult to the dead. Only coffins made completely of wood are alloweda metal coffin would be a disrespectful effort to artificially preserve the body. The modern practice of embalming is relatively new. It was largely unknown until the Civil War, when bodies o
29、f Union soldiers were often embalmed in preparation for the long trip home from Southern battlefields. Civil War-area embalming fluids contained poisonous arsenic(砒霜). Formaldehyde(甲醛)is now used as a preservative(防腐剂), but formaldehyde is not without its risks.Does Embalming Cause Cancer?E)Studies
30、by the National Cancer Institute have found that embalmers and anatomists(解剖学家), exposed daily to formaldehyde, are at an increased risk for leukemia and brain cancer. NCI investigators concluded that exposure to formaldehyde may particularly cause myeloid(骨髓的)leukemia, though further studies are ne
31、eded. The International Agency for Research on Cancer lists formaldehyde as a known matter which can cause cancer. It is listed by the Environmental Protection Agency as a suspected carcinogen(致癌物质), and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration has established a permissible exposure limit o
32、f 0. 75 parts per million averaged over an 8-hour work shift. Consumers are often confused about state and local requirements for dealing with dead bodies, and its generally assumed that health codes require embalming.Not So, According to SlocumF)“Embalming is never routinely required by law,“ said
33、Slocum, adding that cold storage is an acceptable alternative for preserving a body, in addition to being much safer and less invasive. “No law requires a casket,“ Slocum adds. “And a grave liner or vaultnowhere are they required by law. “Voicing Environmental ConcernsG)In addition to concerns over
34、formaldehyde exposure, some suspect that the preservative may be leaking into groundwater supplies from the millions of bodies buried every year. The fact that elevated levels of arsenic have been found in the groundwater near Civil War-era cemeteries buttresses the argument. Formaldehyde has been f
35、ound in groundwater sampling wells near cemeteries. But scientific data are limited, and formaldehydes long-term health effects in the environment are believed to be minorformaldehyde evaporates readily and is biodegradable.H)But the environmental effects of cemeteries go beyond formaldehyde. Some l
36、and-use planners are concerned about the impact of turning vast tracts of land into heavily landscaped cemeteries, and the resulting use of fertilizers, pesticides, water supplies and gasoline-powered landscaping equipment. “Cemeteries just seemed like an ecological wasteland,“ said David Schroeder,
37、 a landscape architect-in-training who specializes in green burial sites. “ There was a period of time in the 1800s when cemeteries were designed like parks,“ said Schroeder. “ They were like a garden. Now, most are about economics. “I)As an example of the economics that drive burial practices, Schr
38、oeder points to the cemetery vaults and grave liners that are not required by the law, but are required by most cemeteries. “ Cemetery vaults are designed to keep the ground flat to make things easier for the lawn mowers,“ he said. In Schroeders model for green burials, the topsoil is separated from
39、 other layers of soil, and is returned to its original place after the body is placed in the grave. “ The top layers are a biological hotbed. Seeds and microbes(微生物)are kept near the surface,“ he said.J)Preserving undeveloped land was foremost in John Wilkersons mind when he and his brother created
40、Glendale Memorial Gardens, a green burial site in north Florida. One of the last wishes of Wilkersons father was that the family farm be protected from development. Both of his parents are now buried on the site. “It was the best answer we could find to keep this farm from being developed,“ said Wil
41、kerson. “It took their death to speed action. They did not like the idea of the circus, the modern-day funeral,“ said Wilkerson. “They thought it was out of control, it was ridiculous. “ But in addition to the environmental benefits, most families participating in green burials agree that the cost s
42、avings are significant. “ There is, in fact, a large percentage of American people who are resistant to the large $ 10,000 funeral, especially the embalming. We dont even allow it,“ said Wilkerson. Estimates vary from state to state, but the average cost of a typical funeral in a commercial cemetery
43、 is between $5,000 and $ 10,000. A green burial, however, is usually less than $ 3,000. “We have allowed the commercial funeral industry to convince us that the only way to measure our love for our dead is through the amount of conspicuous consumption that we lavish on them,“ said Slocum.（分数：20.00）(
44、1).Generally speaking, in the United States, the average expense of a normal commercial funeral is much more than that of a green burial.（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(2).In the authors opinion, a “green“ burial refers to a green cemetery which will become a nature preserve.（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(3).According to Schroe
45、der, the topsoil of a standard green cemetery should be a biological hotbed.（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(4).It is not the law but the cemeteries that require cemetery vaults and grave liners.（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(5).Before the commercial funeral industry became popular, people used to practise green burials.（分数：2.00
46、）填空项 1:_(6).Traditional Jewish principles regard embalming as an offense to the dead.（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(7).At present, compared with the United States, Great Britain has done a better job in increasing the popularity of green cemeteries.（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(8).People under the exposure of formaldehyde every day are more likely to get leukemia and brain cancer.（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_
