1、大学英语四级（ 2013年 12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷 169及答案与解析 一、 Part I Writing 1 For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a letter of inquiry following the outline given below. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words. Write your essay on Answer Sheet 1. 假设你是刘梅，准备去美国留学。现向申请学校写信，咨询相关事宜。信件内容
2、如下： 1自我介绍 2咨询相关事宜，如签证、学费、奖学金和语言考试等 3表示感谢，并希望早日得到答复 Section A （ A） Sixteen people drowned. （ B） It stopped in a Greek island. （ C） There were 15 people on board. （ D） It started from Turkey. （ A） They crossed Europe to Africa. （ B） They went to Europe by sea. （ C） Many of them migrate from countries
3、in the East. （ D） Thousands of them already made the trip. （ A） Serena Williams won a tennis champion. （ B） Serena Williams was pronounced Sportsperson of the year. （ C） Serena Williams decided to work in a sports magazine. （ D） Serena Williams was facing a lot of challenges. （ A） They challenged Se
4、rena Williamss ethnicity. （ B） They followed the role model of Serena Williams. （ C） They raised a number of complaints. （ D） They warmly welcomed the announcement. （ A） It would improve job market. （ B） It would cause too much inflation. （ C） It would damage economy. （ D） It would keep prices stead
5、y. （ A） Less than 11%. （ B） Above 11%. （ C） Less than 1%. （ D） Above 1%. （ A） The economy would react badly. （ B） It would delay any rate increase. （ C） The inflation would be too serious. （ D） Foreign markets share would decrease. Section B （ A） Take a job to pay the tuition fees. （ B） Visit his pa
6、rents in his hometown. （ C） Spend the summer with his friends. （ D） Work as a volunteer in South Africa. （ A） Her home is too far away from her university. （ B） Her parents have been volunteering in South America. （ C） She is too busy to visit her parents. （ D） She has to take a part-time job during
7、 vacations. （ A） The loaning rate is too high. （ B） The loan procedure is complex. （ C） She wouldnt be able to get a loan. （ D） She hates to have debt burden. （ A） Stay with her parents the whole summer. （ B） Take a full-time job to earn some money. （ C） Go back home and take a part-time job. （ D） A
8、pply for a loan and stay with her parents. （ A） She needs to do some research on industrial architecture. （ B） Albert Kahn is the womans most-respected architect. （ C） She is interested in his classical design and industrial design. （ D） Albert Kahn designed many grand factories all over the world.
9、（ A） They were inefficient. （ B） They had wooden frames. （ C） They were spacious and airy. （ D） They didnt provide enough light. （ A） It made the buildings solid and fireproof. （ B） It decreased workers labor intensity. （ C） It shortened the construction period. （ D） It beautified the outlook of the
10、 buildings. （ A） He did research in Kahns factories. （ B） He read a lot of background materials. （ C） He focused on Kahns classical design. （ D） He went to the auto plants in Detroit. Section C （ A） They travel faster near the TV station. （ B） They can work better than ever before. （ C） They usually
11、 follow the curve of the earth. （ D） They travel in straight lines in all directions. （ A） Pay a monthly charge. （ B） Pay a yearly charge. （ C） Pay a daily charge. （ D） Pay an hourly charge. （ A） All classrooms use cable television. （ B） City people can see extra programs. （ C） The charge of cable i
12、s much lowered. （ D） TV signals can be received more easily. （ A） He had no pension. （ B） He had a great car. （ C） He was right at the age of 56. （ D） He owned a recipe for chicken. （ A） Ask his friends to sell Fried Chicken. （ B） Work as a cook in a famous restaurant. （ C） Sell his chicken recipe t
13、o restaurant owners. （ D） Study hard to work out a chicken recipe. （ A） 65. （ B） 105. （ C） 1008. （ D） 1009. （ A） Collectivism. （ B） Equality. （ C） Social group. （ D） Individualism. （ A） Equal rights and equal freedom. （ B） Equal worth and equal opportunity. （ C） Equal opportunity and equal pay. （ D）
14、 Equal worth and equal status. （ A） Protesting their unequal treatment. （ B） Enduring all the hardships willingly. （ C） Fulfilling their dreams through hard work. （ D） Learning how to get freedom and equality. （ A） People can easily fight with each other. （ B） Conflicts with others become inevitable
15、. （ C） Americans are too concerned about their status. （ D） Ones freedom can conflict with others rights. Section A 26 Barack and Michelle Obama understand the heavy burden of student loan debt. The Obamas did not pay off their student loans until Obamas best-selling books earned them millions of do
16、llars. With the cost of a college education【 C1】 _, more than 60% of students take out loans to fund their undergraduate education. On average, students who borrow graduate with debts of $22,700a【 C2】 _of more than 18% from 2000. But some of those with a newly acquired bachelors degree are restraine
17、d with debts of $40,000 or more. You think this economys tough? Try finding a job with the【 C3】 _of repaying tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Now, a new federal programIncome-Based Repaymentis making it【 C4】_to pay back these loans. If a student chooses to repay her or his loan with this plan,
18、payments are then readjustedbased on their income to something they can【 C5】_afford. All debt will be forgiven after 25 years. A graduate who earns less than 150% of the【 C6】 _line wont have to make any payments. This is in addition to the year-old Public Service Loan Forgiveness program for those【
19、C7】 _in jobs such as law enforcement, public health and social work. Their loans will be forgiven after 10 years. This【 C8】 _isnt perfect: the loans have to be federal loans, not【 C9】 _. But students with more than one federal student loan can combine them under the program. In some cases, borrowers
20、 with large debt and low-to-moderate incomes may benefit at the end of 25 years, with the【 C10】 _of their debt forgiven, Others with higher incomes, though, will pay more. A)earning E)pressure I)balance M)easier B)state F)initiative J)raising N)working C)rising G)poverty K)private O)reasonably D)jum
21、p H)public L)barely 27 【 C1】 28 【 C2】 29 【 C3】 30 【 C4】 31 【 C5】 32 【 C6】 33 【 C7】 34 【 C8】 35 【 C9】 36 【 C10】 Section B 36 Why Money Doesnt Buy Happiness What do the experts say? AAll in all, it was probably a mistake to look for the answer to the eternal question“Does money buy happiness?“from peo
22、ple who practice whats called the gloomy science. For when economists tackled the question, they started from the observation that when people put something up for sale they try to get as much for it as they can, and when people buy something they try to pay as little for it as they can. Both sides
23、in the transaction, the economists noticed, are therefore behaving as if they would be more satisfied, or happier, dare we say, if they ended up receiving more money(the seller)or holding on to more money(the buyer). Hence, more money must be better than less, and the only way more of something can
24、be better than less of it is if it brings you greater satisfaction. The economists conclusion: the more money you have, the happier you must be. BSuicidal CEOs, miserable magnates(大资本家 )and other unhappy rich folks arent the only ones giving the lie to this. “Psychologists have spent decades studyin
25、g the relation between wealth and happiness,“ writes Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert and they have generally concluded that wealth increases human happiness when it lifts people out of extreme poverty and into the middle class but that it does little to increase happiness thereafter.
26、CThat flies in the face of intuition(直觉 ), not to mention economic theory. According to standard economics, the most important commodity you can buy with additional wealth is choice. If you have $20 in your pocket, you can decide between steak and peanut butter for dinner, but if you have only $1 yo
27、ud better hope you already have a jar of jelly at home. Additional wealth also lets you satisfy additional needs and wants, and the more of those you satisfy the happier you are supposed to be. DThe trouble is, choice is not all its cracked up to be. Studies show that people like selecting from amon
28、g maybe half a dozen kinds of food at the grocery store but find 27 choices ovenvhelming, leaving them habitually on edge that they could have chosen a better one than they did. And wants, which are nice to be able to afford, have a bad habit of becoming needs. Satisfying needs brings less emotional
29、 well-being than satisfying wants. What do the common people say? EThe nonlinear(非线性的 )nature of how much happiness money can buy comes through clearly in global surveys that ask people how satisfied they feel with their lives. In a typical survey people are asked to rank their sense of well-being o
30、r happiness on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 means “not at all satisfied with my life“ and 7 means “completely satisfied.“ Of the American multimillionaires who responded, the average happiness score was 5.8. Homeless people in Calcutta came in at 2.9. But before you assume that money does buy happines
31、s after all, consider who else rated themselves around 5.8: the Inuit of northern Greenland, who do not exactly lead a life of luxury, and the cattle-herding Masai of Kenya, whose huts have no electricity or running water. And proving Gilberts point about money buying happiness only when it lifts yo
32、u out of extreme poverty, slum dwellers in Calcuttaone economic rung above the homelessrate themselves at 4.6. FStudies tracking changes in a populations reported level of happiness over time have also dealt a death blow to the money-buys-happiness claim. Since World War II the gross domestic produc
33、t(GDP)per capita has tripled in the United States. But peoples sense of well-being has barely been altered. Japan has had an even more dramatic rise in GDP per capita since its postwar misery, but measures of national happiness have been flat, as they have also been in Western Europe during its long
34、 postwar boom, according to social psychologist Ruut Veenhoven. An analysis of more than 150 studies on wealth and happiness concluded that “economic indicators have obvious shortcomings“ as approximations of well-being across nations. GThats partly because in an expanding economy, in which former l
35、uxuries such as washing machines become necessities, the newly well-off people dont feel the same joy in having a machine do the laundry that their grandparents, suddenly freed from washboards, did. They just take the machines for granted. Another reason is that an expanding paycheck, especially in
36、an expanding economy, produces expanding aspirations and a sense that there is always one more cool thing out there that you absolutely have to have. If money doesnt buy happiness, what does? HGrandma was right when she told you to value health and friends, not money and stuff. Researchers add fulfi
37、llment, a sense that life has meaning, belonging to civil and other groups, and living in a democracy that respects individual rights and the rule of law. If a nation wants to increase its populations sense of well-being, says Veenhoven, it should make “less investment in economic growth and more in
38、 policies that promote good governance, liberties, democracy, trust and public safety.“ ICuriously, although money doesnt buy happiness, happiness can buy money. Young people who describe themselves as happy typically earn higher incomes, years later, than those who said they were unhappy. It seems
39、that a sense of well-being can make you more productive and more likely to show initiative and other traits that lead to a higher income. Contented(知足的 )people are also more likely to marry and stay married, as well as to be healthy, both of which increase happiness. JIf more money doesnt buy more h
40、appiness, then the behavior of most Americans looks downright insane, as we work harder and longer, decade after decade. But what is insane for an individual is crucial for a national economythat is, ever more growth and consumption. Gilbert again: “Economies can blossom and grow only if people are
41、deceived into believing that the production of wealth will make them happy. Economies thrive when individuals strive, but because individuals will strive only for their own happiness, it is essential that they mistakenly believe that producing and consuming are routes to personal well-being.“ In oth
42、er words, if you want to do your part for your countrys economy, forget all of the above about money not buying happiness. 37 Based on standard economics, additional wealth can provide more options. 38 According to Veenhoven, a nation can increase its populations sense of well-being by making more e
43、ffort to promote good governance. 39 Most American work harder and longer for decades because they believe more money buys more happiness. 40 Global surveys prove Gilberts point that money increases happiness only when it relieves the utmost poverty. 41 According to the economists, more money buys m
44、ore happiness. 42 It is necessary for people to believe producing and consuming are routes to personal well-being for a thriving economy. 43 Initiative that leads to a higher income is usually motivated by a sense of well-being. 44 Some unhappy rich folks, like suicidal CEOs, show richness does not
45、necessarily make people happy. 45 In an expanding economy, the former luxuries are taken for granted by the new generation. 46 Too many choices may be negative in that people may regret about what they bought. Section C 46 There is no more fashionable solution to the current global recession than “g
46、reen jobs.“ Many countries are all eagerly promoting clean-technology industries. It sounds like the ultimate win-win deal: create jobs, cut down on energy dependence, and save the planet from global warming. Ever since the recession began, governments, environmental groups, and even labor unions ha
47、ve been spinning out reports on just how many jobs might be created by these new industriesestimates that range from tens of thousands to millions. Those kinds of predictions, however, may be overoptimistic. As a new study from McKinsey points out, the clean-energy industry doesnt have much in commo
48、n with old, labor-intensive manufacturing industries like steel and cars. A more accurate comparison would be to the semiconductor industry, which was also expected to create a boom in high-tech jobs but today employs mainly robots. Green-tech workers now make up only 0.6 percent of the American wor
49、kforce. McKinsey figures that clean energy wont command much more of the total job market in the years ahead. On the other hand, a booming green sector could fuel job growth in other industries. Here, too, the story of the computer chip is instructive. Today the big chip makers like Intel employ only 0.4 percent of the U.S. workforce. But indirectly they helped create millions of jobs by making other industries more efficient McKinsey says that the same process c
