1、大学英语四级（ 2013年 12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷 189及答案与解析 一、 Part I Writing 1 For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled Do One Thing at a Time, And Do It Well by commenting on the saying, “I can do many things well at a time if given chances.“ You should write at least 120 words but no
2、more than 180 words. Do One Thing at a Time, And Do It Well Section A （ A） The U.S. central bank decides monetary policy. （ B） The U.S. central bank has raised an interest rate. （ C） The U.S. economic growth is expected to continue. （ D） The U.S. economy is adding about 200,000 jobs each year. （ A）
3、It is expected to grow. （ B） It is set below 1 percent. （ C） It would affect interest rates. （ D） It would be good for price stability. （ A） They had killed civilians and destroyed basic facilities. （ B） They covered the whole nation of Syria （ C） They attempted to destroy Syrias government faciliti
4、es. （ D） They were launched based on humanitarian law. （ A） It promised to stop air strikes in September. （ B） It did not feel guilty for the casualties. （ C） It was proud of causing the casualties. （ D） It claimed to take responsible for the casualties. （ A） The growing number of motor vehicles doe
5、snt mean more traffic crashes. （ B） All countries surveyed have great progress in preventing traffic deaths. （ C） Road traffic crashes are decreasing in those 180 countries surveyed. （ D） Road crashes have been prevented thoroughly in most poor countries. （ A） There is no way to make roads safer in
6、developed countries. （ B） About 30 percent of driving-related accidents are from drunk driving. （ C） All countries surveyed have implemented tougher road safety laws. （ D） Young adults around the world are facing serious driving risks. （ A） There are no differences between them and rich ones. （ B） T
7、hey have the highest death rate in the world. （ C） They have more than 60 percent of worlds vehicles. （ D） The safety statistics of them is worse than rich ones. Section B （ A） Consult the man about investment strategy. （ B） Draw a large amount of money. （ C） Ask the man for financial advice. （ D） O
8、pen some bank accounts. （ A） Daily expenses. （ B） Big expenses. （ C） Holidays. （ D） Education fee. （ A） Her ID card and passport. （ B） Her personal references. （ C） Her social security number. （ D） Her cover letter. （ A） A salesman. （ B） A real estate agent. （ C） A bank clerk. （ D） A consultant. （ A
9、） It takes up much room. （ B） It was delivered the day before yesterday. （ C） It was sold at 15% discount. （ D） It is of the same size as the old one. （ A） It is of good quality. （ B） It works well. （ C） It is pretty huge. （ D） Its not functioning. （ A） He thinks its a good bargain. （ B） He finds it
10、s just what he needs. （ C） He will use it more often than before. （ D） He considers it as a symbol of wealth. （ A） Rearrange its place. （ B） Return it to the store. （ C） Sell it to her. （ D） Give it to his friend. Section C （ A） Many countries dislike it. （ B） All countries observe it. （ C） It began
11、 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 robbers. （ D） To sell their drums and sticks. （ A） Sing and dance in the square till midnight. （ B） Throw pieces of pottery against friends houses.
12、（ C） Kiss each other when the clock strikes midnight （ D） 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. （ C） It brings good luck to people. （ D） It is good for peoples health. （ A） They are not allowed to drink coffee
13、. （ 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 pressure. （ A） It improves ones brain function. （ B） It increases ones blood flow.
14、 （ 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. （ C） It costs too much money. （ D）
15、 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. Section A 26 Back in the carefree days of the Noughties boom, Britains youngsters were swept along by
16、the buy-now-pay-later culture embraced by consumers up and down the country. During a decade of near-full employment, many【 C1】 _quickly from one joband one credit card to another, and rainy days were such a distant memory that they【 C2】 _seemed worth saving for. But with the supply of cheap credit【
17、 C3】 _up and a generation of school and university leavers about to【 C4】 _the recession-hit job market, thousands of young people with no memory of the early 1990s recession are shocked into the【 C5】_that the world of 2014 is very different. Katie Orme, 19, who lives in Birmingham, says she has deci
18、ded never to get a credit card after seeing the problems that her parents and 22-year-old sister have had with debt just one of the【 C6】 _lessons that she has had to learn. Orme finished her A-levels a year ago, and has been【 C7】 _for a job and living at home with her parents ever since. She has had
19、 to sign on to support herself and is now on a 12-week internship (实习 期 ) at the Princes Trust to improve her【 C8】_. The Trust says that the number of calls from【 C9】 _people such as Orme has shot up by 50% over six months. “Its so hard to get a job at the moment,“ she says, “its better to go and ge
20、t more qualifications so when more jobs are【 C10】 _you will be better suited.“ A) anxious E) flood I) neglected M) resume B) available F) hardly J) painful N) searching C) drying G) mostly K) realization O) skipped D) dynamic H) mug L) remedy 27 【 C1】 28 【 C2】 29 【 C3】 30 【 C4】 31 【 C5】 32 【 C6】 33
21、【 C7】 34 【 C8】 35 【 C9】 36 【 C10】 Section B 36 Schools outside cities A With its sandy beaches, charming ruins and occasionally blue waters, the Isle of Wight is a perfect spot off Englands southern coast. Wealthy Londoners sail their boats there. It seems odd that such a place should contain some o
22、f the worst-performing schools in England. But it does: and in this, the Isle of Wight is not quite as strange as it seems. B Provisional figures show that last year just 49% of 16-year-olds on the island got at least five C grades, including in English and maths, in GCSE exams. That is fewer than i
23、n any of Londons 32 boroughs (行政区 ), or indeed anywhere in the southern half of England apart from nearby Portsmouth. In the previous year the Isle of Wight was second to bottom in the whole country. Just 23% of pupils entitled to free school meals (a representative of poverty) got five decent grade
24、s, compared with a national average of 36%. In September the islands schools were deemed so bad that Hampshire County Council took them over. C Part of the explanation is distinctively local. Luring good teachers to an out-of-the-way spot is hard. In 2011 the island endured a confused transition fro
25、m the sort of three-tier school system common in America, with primary, middle and secondary schools, to the two-tier one that is standard in England. But its results were bad even before that change. The Isle of Wights real problems are structural. It suffers from three things that might appear to
26、be advantages but are actually the opposite. The island lacks a large city: it has some, but not many, poor children: and it is almost entirely white. D Englands worst schools used to be urban, poor and black or sometimes Asian. But these days pupils, including poor ones, often fare better in inner
27、cities than elsewhere. In Tower Hamlets, an east London borough that is the third most deprived place in England, children entitled to free school meals do better in GCSE exams than do all children in the country as a whole. Bangladeshis, who are concentrated in that borough, used to perform conside
28、rably worse than whites nationally: now they do better. E Poor whites are now the countrys signal educational underachievers. Just 31% of white British children entitled to free school meals got five good GCSEs two years ago, fewer than poor children from any other ethnic group. They fare especially
29、 badly in suburbs, small towns and on the coast places like the Isle of Wight. F Although the island contains pockets of poverty, it is hardly poverty-stricken: overall it comes 106th out of 326 local authorities in England on the governments deprivation index. A bigger problem is a pervasive lack o
30、f faith in education as a means of self-improvement. Steph Boyd, who runs a new free school on the island, says some parents doubt whether the education system can help their children not altogether surprising given the islands failings. A few are more anxious for their offspring to go out and get j
31、obs. And nearby career options are limited, points out Pat Goodhead, the headmistress of Christ the King College, the islands best secondary school. The jobs pages of the County Press, the local newspaper, are filled with advertisements for care workers, barmen and cleaners. The advantage of deep po
32、verty G Oddly, the Isle of Wight might do better if it were poorer. Truly poor parts of England receive large amounts of government cash. Schools in Tower Hamlets get 7,014 a year for each child, compared with 4,489 in the Isle of Wight. In addition, secondary schools get 900 for each poor child tha
33、nks to the “pupil premium“ introduced by the coalition government. Poverty-stricken spots also benefit from energetic, idealistic young teachers. Teach First, a programme that sends top graduates into poor schools for at least two years, started in London in 2002. Then it expanded to other big citie
34、s such as Manchester. Last year it started sending teachers to south coast towns, but in tiny numbers. Of the 1,261 graduates who joined the programme last year, just 25 were placed on the entire south coast, compared with 553 in London. H Poor children do best in schools where they are either scarc
35、e or very numerous. Where they are few, teachers can give them plenty of attention. Where they are numerous, as in the East End of London, schools have no choice but to focus on them. Most ill-served are those who fall in between, in schools where they are insufficiently numerous to merit attention
36、but too many to succeed alone. The Isle of Wights six state secondary schools are all stuck in the unhappy middle: between 9% and 17% of the children in them are entitled to free school meals. I One woman, who moved to the island from east London with her young daughter, suspects that the Isle of Wi
37、ghts lack of diversity is itself a problem. She may be right about that. Illiteracy among white British children can be easier to overlook than illiteracy among immigrants. Where schools are forced to help the latter, natives often benefit too, says Matthew Coffey of Ofsted, the schools inspectorate
38、. That seems to have happened in Lincolnshire, which has seen a surge in Portuguese and east European immigration. J The government and Ofsted are increasingly worried about the gap in attainment between poor white Britons and the rest. The Department for Education reckons changing the way schools s
39、uccess is measured could help. The current emphasis on grades of C and above encourages teachers to focus on children on the edge of attaining that grade, at the expense of those who do really badly. Beginning in 2016 schools will have to track more closely the progress of each child, no matter what
40、 grades they are predicted to get. That should raise attentions of schools that have been able to coast along, ignoring the neediest, to give them more attention. But such reforms may not make much difference on the Isle of Wight. Schools there have struggled even against the current benchmark. K Th
41、ey might look to east London for inspiration. The dramatic improvement in Tower Hamlets resulted partly from efforts to change local culture. Schools ran programmes through mosques to tackle absenteeism (旷课 ). Parents were encouraged to become governors. But change will be harder outside the capital
42、. Tower Hamlets benefits from nearby Canary Wharf, the capitals second financial district, which supplies good jobs and middle-class advisers. The levers of change are less obvious where poor children are scattered thin. And there are fewer obvious institutions through which to try and improve the l
43、ot of the godless white majority. 37 Changing the way schools success is measured may of little help to improve the education of the Isle of Wight. 38 Compared with the illiteracy among immigrants, British white illiterates are easier to be neglected. 39 Poor children can receive enough attention ei
44、ther in schools with large number of poor students or those with few poor students. 40 More than half of the 16-year-old students on the Isle of Wight failed to get at least five C grades in GCSE exams last year. 41 Parents in the Isle of Wight generally lack confidence in the education system. 42 P
45、oor schools in big cities embrace more young energetic teachers than those schools in south coast. 43 Nowadays poor whites are the representatives of Britains educational underachievers. 44 In Tower Hamlets, poor childrens performances in GCSE are better than those of any other children in the whole
46、 country. 45 Changing local culture is one of the reasons that Tower Hamlets obtain great progress in its school education. 46 Two-tier school system did not exert positive influence on the Isle of Wights education. Section C 46 By and large, married people appear to have better health than their si
47、ngle peers. However, if the marriage ends, that healthy edge tends to disappear, with divorced and separated people reporting one of the highest rates of illness. Now, a new study published in the May issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family shows that co-habitating (同居的 ) couples also experience
48、 a decrease in health after splitting up. “Leaving a co-habitation, like a marriage, tends to have a harmful effect on health,“ said lead author Dr. Zheng Wu of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. Wu and his co-author Randy Hart obtained their results from nationwide surveys on p
49、hysical and mental health and relationship status, conducted by Statistics Canada at 2-year intervals starting in the 1990s. There were 9,775 participants, aged 20 to 64 years when the surveys began. Looking at this data, the researchers found that both men and women tend to report a decrease in physical or mental health after ending either a co-habitation or a marriage. Researchers have proposed two theories to explain why married people report better health
