1、2015年 6月大学英语四级真题试卷（二）及答案与解析 一、 Part I Writing 1 For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay based on the picture below. You should start your essay with a brief description of the picture and then comment on this kind of modern life. You should write at least 120 words but no more th
2、an 180 words. Section A （ A） He is pleased to sit on the committee. （ B） He is willing to offer the woman a hand. （ C） He will tell the woman his decision later. （ D） He would like to become a club member. （ A） Their planned trip to Vancouver is obviously overpriced. （ B） They should borrow a guide
3、book instead of buying one. （ C） The guide books in the library have the latest information. （ D） The library can help order guide books about Vancouver. （ A） He regrets having taken the history course. （ B） He finds little interest in the history books. （ C） He has trouble finishing his reading ass
4、ignments. （ D） He has difficulty writing the weekly book report. （ A） The man had better choose another restaurant. （ B） The new restaurant is a perfect place for dating. （ C） The new restaurant caught her fancy immediately. （ D） The man has good taste in choosing the restaurant. （ A） He has been lo
5、oking forward to spring. （ B） He has been waiting for the winter sale. （ C） He will clean the womans boots for spring. （ D） He will help the woman put things away. （ A） At a tailors. （ B） At Bobs home. （ C） In a clothes store. （ D） In a theatre. （ A） His guests favor Tibetan drinks. （ B） His water i
6、s quite extraordinary. （ C） Mineral water is good for health. （ D） Plain water will serve the purpose. （ A） Report the result of a discussion. （ B） Raise some environmental issues. （ C） Submit an important document. （ D） Revise an environmental report. （ A） They pollute the soil used to cover them.
7、（ B） They are harmful to nearby neighborhoods. （ C） The rubbish in them takes long to dissolve. （ D） The gas they emit is extremely poisonous. （ A） Growing population. （ B） Packaging materials. （ C） Changed eating habits. （ D） Lower production cost. （ A） By saving energy. （ B） By using less aluminum
8、. （ C） By reducing poisonous wastes. （ D） By making the most of materials. （ A） We are running out of natural resources soon. （ B） Only combined efforts can make a difference. （ C） The waste problem will eventually hurt all of us. （ D） All of us can actually benefit from recycling. （ A） Miami. （ B）
9、Vancouver. （ C） Bellingham. （ D） Boston. （ A） To get information on one-way tickets to Canada. （ B） To inquire about the price of “Super Saver“ seats. （ C） To get advice on how to fly as cheaply as possible. （ D） To inquire about the shortest route to drive home. （ A） Join a tourist group. （ B） Choo
10、se a major airline. （ C） Avoid trips in public holidays. （ D） Book tickets as early as possible. Section B （ A） There are mysterious stories behind his works. （ B） There are many misunderstandings about him. （ C） His works have no match worldwide. （ D） His personal history is little known. （ A） He m
11、oved to Stratford-on-Avon in his childhood. （ B） He failed to go beyond grammar school. （ C） He was a member of the town council. （ D） He once worked in a well-known acting company. （ A） Writers of his time had no means to protect their works. （ B） Possible sources of clues about him were lost in a
12、fire. （ C） His works were adapted beyond recognition. （ D） People of his time had little interest in him. （ A） It shows you have been ignoring your health. （ B） It can seriously affect your thinking process. （ C） It is an early warning of some illness. （ D） It is a symptom of too much pressure. （ A）
13、 Reduce our workload. （ B） Control our temper. （ C） Use painkillers for relief. （ D） Avoid masking symptoms. （ A） Lying down and having some sleep. （ B） Rubbing and pressing ones back. （ C） Going out for a walk. （ D） Listening to light music. （ A） Depending heavily on loans. （ B） Having no budget pl
14、ans at all. （ C） Spending beyond ones means. （ D） Leaving no room for large bills. （ A） Many of them can be cut. （ B） All of them have to be covered. （ C） Their payment cannot be delayed. （ D） They eat up most of the family income. （ A） Rent a house instead of buying one. （ B） Discuss the problem in
15、 the family. （ C） Make a conservation plan. （ D） Move to a cheaper place. （ A） Financial issues plaguing a family. （ B） Difficulty in making both ends meet. （ C） Family budget problems and solutions. （ D） New ways to boost family income. Section C 26 Perhaps because going to college is so much a par
16、t of the American dream, many people go for no【 B1】 _reason. Some go because their parents expect it, others because its what their friends are doing. Then, theres the belief that a college degree will【 B2】 _ensure a good job and high pay. Some students【 B3】 _through four years, attending classes, o
17、r skipping(逃课 )them as the case may be, reading only what cant be avoided, looking for less【 B4】_courses, and never being touched or changed in any important way. For a few of these people, college provides no【 B5】 _, yet because of parental or peer pressure, they cannot voluntarily leave. They stop
18、 trying in the hope that their teachers will make the decision for them by【 B6】 _them. To put it bluntly(直截了当地 ), unless youre willing to make your college years count, you might be【 B7】 _doing something else. Not everyone should attend college, nor should everyone who does attend begin right after
19、high school. Many college students【 B8】 _taking a year or so off. A year out in the world helps some people to【 B9】 _their priorities and goals. If youre really going to get something out of going to college, you have to make it mean something, and to do that you must have some idea why youre there,
20、 what you hope to get out of it, and【 B10】 _even what you hope to become. 27 【 B1】 28 【 B2】 29 【 B3】 30 【 B4】 31 【 B5】 32 【 B6】 33 【 B7】 34 【 B8】 35 【 B9】 36 【 B10】 Section A 36 Its our guilty pleasure: Watching TV is the most common everyday activity, after work and sleep, in many parts of the worl
21、d. Americans view five hours of TV each day, and while we know that spending so much time sitting【 C1】 _can lead to obesity(肥胖症 )and other diseases, researchers have now quantified just how【 C2】_being a couch potato can be. In an analysis of data from eight large【 C3】 _published studies, a Harvard-l
22、ed group reported in the that for every two hours per day spent channel【 C4】 _, the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes Journal of the American Medical Association(糖尿病 )rose 20% over 8. 5 years, the risk of heart disease increased 15% over a【 C5】_, and the odds of dying prematurely【 C6】 _13% during a
23、 seven-year follow-up. All of these【 C7】 _are linked to a lack of physical exercise. But compared with other sedentary(久坐的 )activities, like knitting, viewing TV may be especially【 C8】 _at promoting unhealthy habits. For one, the sheer number of hours we pass watching TV dwarfs the time we spend on
24、anything else. And other studies have found that watching ads for beer and popcorn may make you more likely to【 C9】_them. Even so, the authors admit that they didnt compare different sedentary activities to【 C10】 _whether TV watching was linked to a greater risk of diabetes, heart disease or early d
25、eath compared with, say, reading. A)climbed I)previously B)consume J)resume C)decade K)suffered D)determine L)surfing E)effective M)term F)harmful N)terminals G)outcomes O)twisting H)passively 37 【 C1】 38 【 C2】 39 【 C3】 40 【 C4】 41 【 C5】 42 【 C6】 43 【 C7】 44 【 C8】 45 【 C9】 46 【 C10】 Section B 46 Ess
26、ay-Grading Software Offers Professors a Break A)Imagine taking a college exam, and, instead of handing in a blue book and getting a grade from a professor a few weeks later, clicking the “send“ button when you are done and receiving a grade back instantly, your essay scored by a software program. An
27、d then, instead of being done with that exam, imagine that the system would immediately let you rewrite the test to try to improve your grade. B)EdX, the nonprofit enterprise founded by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT)to offer courses on the Internet, has just introduced su
28、ch a system and will make its automated(自动的 )software available free on the Web to any institution that wants to use it. The software uses artificial intelligence to grade student essays and short written answers, freeing professors for other tasks. C)The new service will bring the educational conso
29、rtium(联盟 )into a growing conflict over the role of automation in education. Although automated grading systems for multiple-choice and true-false tests are now widespread, the use of artificial intelligence technology to grade essay answers has not yet received widespread acceptance by educators and
30、 has many critics. D)Anant Agarwal, an electrical engineer who is president of EdX, predicted that the instant-grading software would be a useful teaching tool, enabling students to take tests and write essays over and over and improve the quality of their answers. He said the technology would offer
31、 distinct advantages over the traditional classroom system, where students often wait days or weeks for grades. “There is a huge value in learning with instant feedback,“ Dr. Agarwal said. “Students are telling us they learn much better with instant feedback. “ E)But skeptics(怀疑者 )say the automated
32、system is no match for live teachers. One longtime critic, Les Perelman, has drawn national attention several times for putting together nonsense essays that have fooled software grading programs into giving high marks. He has also been highly critical of studies claiming that the software compares
33、well to human graders. F)He is among a group of educators who last month began circulating a petition(呼吁 )opposing automated assessment software. The group, which calls itself Professionals Against Machine Scoring of Student Essays in High-Stakes Assessment, has collected nearly 2,000 signatures, in
34、cluding some from famous people like Noam Chomsky. G)“Lets face the realities of automatic essay scoring,“ the groups statement reads in part. “ Computers cannot read. They cannot measure the essentials of effective written communication: accuracy, reasoning, adequacy of evidence, good sense, ethica
35、l(伦理的 )position, convincing argument, meaningful organization, and clarity, among others. “ H)But EdX expects its software to be adopted widely by schools and universities. It offers free online classes from Harvard, MIT and the University of California-Berkeley: this fall, it will add classes from
36、Wellesley, Georgetown and the University of Texas. In all, 12 universities participate in EdX, which offers certificates for course completion and has said that it plans to continue to expand next year, including adding international schools. I)The EdX assessment tool requires human teachers, or gra
37、ders, to first grade 100 essays or essay questions. The system then uses a variety of machine-learning techniques to train itself to be able to grade any number of essays or answers automatically and almost instantly. The software will assign a grade depending on the scoring system created by the te
38、acher, whether it is a letter grade or numerical(数字的 )rank. J)EdX is not the fust to use the automated assessment technology, which dates to early computers in the 1960s. There is now a range of companies offering commercial programs to grade written test answers, and four states Louisiana, North Da
39、kota, Utah and West Virginia are using some form of the technology in secondary schools. A fifth, Indiana, has experimented with it. In some cases the software is used as a “second reader,“ to check the reliability of the human graders. K)But the growing influence of the EdX consortium to set standa
40、rds is likely to give the technology a boost. On Tuesday, Stanford announced that it would work with EdX to develop a joint educational system that will make use of the automated assessment technology. L)Two start-ups, Coursera and Udacity, recently founded by Stanford faculty members to create “mas
41、sive open online courses,“ or MOOCs, are also committed to automated assessment systems because of the value of instant feedback. “ It allows students to get immediate feedback on their work, so that learning turns into a game, with students naturally gravitating(吸引 )toward resubmitting the work unt
42、il they get it right,“ said Daphne Roller, a computer scientist and a founder of Coursera. M)Last year the Hewlett Foundation, a grant-making organization set up by one of the Hewlett-Packard founders and his wife, sponsored two $100,000 prizes aimed at improving software that grades essays and shor
43、t answers. More than 150 teams entered each category. A winner of one of the Hewlett contests, Vik Paruchuri, was hired by EdX to help design its assessment software. N)“One of our focuses is to help kids learn how to think critically,“ said Victor Vuchic, a program officer at the Hewlett Foundation
44、. “ Its probably impossible to do that with multiple-choice tests. The challenge is that this requires human graders, and so they cost a lot more and they take a lot more time. “ O)Mark D. Shermis, a professor at the University of Akron in Ohio, supervised the Hewlett Foundations contest on automate
45、d essay scoring and wrote a paper about the experiment. In his view, the technology though imperfect has a place in educational settings. P)With increasingly large classes, it is impossible for most teachers to give students meaningful feedback on writing assignments, he said. Plus, he noted, critic
46、s of the technology have tended to come from the nations best universities, where the level of teaching is much better than at most schools. Q)“ Often they come from very famous institutions where, in fact, they do a much better job of providing feedback than a machine ever could,“ Dr. Shermis said.
47、 “There seems to be a lack of appreciation of what is actually going on in the real world. “ 47 Some professionals in education are collecting signatures to voice their opposition to automated essay grading. 48 Using software to grade students essays saves teachers time for other work. 49 The Hewlet
48、t contests aim at improving essay grading software. 50 Though the automated grading system is widely used in multiple-choice tests, automated essay grading is still criticized by many educators. 51 Some people dont believe the software grading system can do as good a job as human graders. 52 Clitics
49、 of automated essay scoring do not seem to know the true realities in less famous universities. 53 Critics argue many important aspects of effective writing cannot be measured by computer rating programs. 54 As class size grows, most teachers are unable to give students valuable comments as to how to improve their writing. 55 The automated assessment technology is sometimes used to double check the work of human graders. 56 Students find instant feedback
