1、大学英语四级（ 2013年 12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷 252及答案与解析 一、 Part I Writing 1 For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay on the following topic. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words. Online bookstores such as Amazon and Dangdang are enjoying great popularity in recent ye
2、ars. Some people argue that traditional bookstores will be replaced by those online bookstores since people can always buy cheaper books there. What s your opinion? Section A （ A） The pro-Iranian Hezbollah. （ B） The Palestinian group Hamas. （ C） The Irish Republican Army. （ D） The Basque separatist
3、group ETA. （ A） Entering the United States legally. （ B） Freezing US financial assets abroad. （ C） Receiving support from other countries. （ D） Giving weapons to other terrorist groups. （ A） Upgrade its network capacity. （ B） Improve customer services. （ C） Develop new products. （ D） Market more iPh
4、ones. （ A） Nationwide. （ B） Overseas. （ C） In large cities. （ D） In remote towns. （ A） A big fire erupted on the Nile River. （ B） Helicopters were used to evacuate people. （ C） Five people were taken to hospital for burns. （ D） A big fire took place on two floors. （ A） Electrical short-cut. （ B） Lac
5、k of fire-safety measures. （ C） Terrorism. （ D） Not known. （ A） It is well carried out. （ B） It is not straightly enforced. （ C） It haven t enacted. （ D） It is not suitable. Section B （ A） It is broken. （ B） It needs cleaning. （ C） It doesn t keep good time. （ D） It is out of battery. （ A） 12 months
6、. （ B） 15 months. （ C） 3 months. （ D） 9 months. （ A） It is reasonable. （ B） It should be not more than $3.99 plus tax. （ C） It should not be that high. （ D） $3.99 should also include the warranty. （ A） Until about 5:00 p.m. （ B） By tomorrow. （ C） In a few minutes. （ D） By this evening. （ A） To film
7、a TV show. （ B） To tape a radio program. （ C） To attend a party. （ D） To see a live show. （ A） Because he can dress casually. （ B） Because he hates his present job. （ C） Because he doesnt have smart suits. （ D） Because he doesnt say the truth. （ A） Not dress up. （ B） Wear casually. （ C） Try to be sm
8、art. （ D） Dress in bad taste. （ A） The man prefers working in television studios to working in radio studios. （ B） In TV studios, man should dress smart clothes. （ C） The woman agrees with the man s idea of taking off his ties and shoes. （ D） The man is going to dress some casual clothes after the c
9、onversation. Section C （ A） Countries of America and Europe. （ B） Countries in the Middle East. （ C） Jewish countries. （ D） India. （ A） On January first. （ B） The first day of March. （ C） On Spring Festival. （ D） At the end of summer. （ A） People made noise in ancient times to drive away the evil sp
10、irits from the home. （ B） People made noise to welcome evil spirits. （ C） People made noise to drive away sadness. （ D） People made noise to be happier on New Year s Day. （ A） Most of the early diamond miners became wealthy later. （ B） Diamonds couldnt be formed without great heat and pressure of th
11、e volcano. （ C） The earliest known diamonds were discovered in the River Amazon. （ D） Explosions of the volcano can damage diamonds as well. （ A） Under the river bed. （ B） On the floor of the sea. （ C） In the volcanoes. （ D） At the foot of the mountains. （ A） Diamond Hunting. （ B） DiamondA Precious
12、Stone. （ C） DiamondSymbol of Fortune. （ D） How Is Diamond Formed and Found? （ A） The development of electronic musical instruments. （ B） The relative costs of different types of musical instruments. （ C） The performance of classical music on synthesizers. （ D） The replacement of the harpsichord by t
13、he piano. （ A） At the beginning. （ B） In the middle. （ C） Near the end. （ D） Just after the end. （ A） He thinks it is too soon to tell. （ B） He disagrees with it. （ C） He is prized by it. （ D） He is alarmed by it. （ A） In the early nineteenth century. （ B） In the late nineteenth century. （ C） In the
14、 early twentieth century. （ D） In the late twentieth century. Section A 26 Accustomed though we are to speaking of the films made before 1927 as “silent“, the film has never been, in the full sense of the word, silent. From the very beginning, music was regarded as an【 C1】 _accompaniment: when the L
15、umiere films were shown at the first public film exhibition in the United States in February 1896, they were【 C2】 _by piano improvisations(即兴创作 )on popular tunes. At first, the music played【 C3】 _no special relationship to the films: an accompaniment of any kind was【 C4】 _. Within a very short time,
16、 however, the incongruity(不协调 )of playing lively music to a【 C5】 _film became apparent, and film pianists began to take some care in【 C6】 _their pieces to the mood of the film. As movie theaters grew in number and importance, a violinist, and perhaps a cellist, would be added to the pianist in certa
17、in【 C7】 _, and in the larger movie theaters small orchestras were formed. For a number of years the selection of music for each film program【 C8】 _entirely in the hands of the conductor or leader of the orchestra, and very often the principal【 C9】 _for holding such a position was not skill or taste
18、so much as the ownership of a large personal library of musical pieces. Since the conductor seldom saw the films until the night before they were to be shown, the musical arrangement was【 C10】 _improvised in the greatest hurry. A)sufficient B)incredible C)accompanied D)comparatively E)matching F)res
19、ted G)normally H)occasions I)bore J)qualification K)solemn L)indispensable M)severe N)according O)cases 27 【 C1】 28 【 C2】 29 【 C3】 30 【 C4】 31 【 C5】 32 【 C6】 33 【 C7】 34 【 C8】 35 【 C9】 36 【 C10】 Section B 36 Want to Know Your Disease Risk? Check Your Exposome A)When it comes to health, which is more
20、 important, nature or nurture? You may well think your genes are a more important predictor of health and ill health. Not so fast. In fact, it transpires(得知 )that our everyday environment outweighs our genetics, when it comes to measuring our risk of disease. The genome(染色体组，基因组 )is outwelcome the e
21、xposome(环境暴露 ). B)“The exposome represents everything a person is exposed to in the environment, that s not in the genes, “says Stephen Rappaport, environmental health scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. That includes stress, diet, lifestyle choices, recreational and medicinal drug
22、use and infections, to name a few. “The big difference is that the exposome changes throughout life as our bodies, diets and lifestyles change, “he says. While our understanding of the human genome has been growing at an exponential(迅速发展的 )rate over the last decade, it is not as helpful as we hoped
23、in predicting diseases. “Genes only contribute 10 percent to the overall disease burden, “ says Rappaport. “Knowing genetic risk factors can prove absolutely futile(无用的 ), “ says Jeremy Nicholson at Imperial College London. He points to work by Nina Paynter at the Brigham and Womens Hospital in Bost
24、on, who investigated the effects of 101 genetic markers implicated in heart disease. After following over 19, 000 women for 12 years, she found these markers were not able to predict anything about the incidence of heart disease in this group. C)On the other hand, the impact of environmental influen
25、ces is still largely a mystery. “Theres an imbalance between our ability to investigate the genome and the environment, “ says Chris Wild, director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, who came up with the idea of the exposome. In reality, most diseases are probably caused by a combin
26、ation of the two, which is where the exposome comes in. “The idea is to have a comprehensive analysis of a person s full exposure history, “ says Wild. He hopes a better understanding of exposures will shed a brighter light on disease risk factors. D)There are likely to be critical periods of exposu
27、re in development. For example, the time from birth to 3 years of age is thought to be particularly important. “We know that this is the time when brain connections are made, and that if you are obese(过度肥胖的 )by this age, you 11 have problems as an adult, “ says Nicholson. In theory, a blood or urine
28、 sample taken from an individual could provide a snapshot of what that person has been exposed to. But how do you work out what fingerprints chemicals might leave in the body? The task is not as formidable(艰难的 )as it sounds. For a start, researchers could make use of swatches(样本 )of bio-bank informa
29、tion that has already been collected. “There has been a huge international funding effort in adult cohorts(一群 )like the UK Bio-bank already, “ says Wild. “If we improved analysis, we could apply it to these groups.“ E)Several teams are also working towards developing wearable devices to measure pers
30、onal exposure to chemicals in the environment. “We can put chemicals in categories, “ says Rappaport. “We could start by prioritizing toxic chemicals, and look for markers of these toxins in the blood, while hormones and metals can be measured directly.“ Rappaport is looking at albumin(白蛋白 ), a comm
31、on protein in the blood that transports toxins to the liver where they are processed and broken down. He wants to know how it reacts with a range of chemicals, and is measuring the products. “You can get a fingerprinta display of all the products an individual has been exposed to.“ F)By combining th
32、is information with an enhanced understanding of how exposure affects health, the exposome could help better predict a persons true disease risk. And we shouldnt have to wait longRappaport reckons we can reap the benefits within a generation. To this end, the US National Institutes of Health has set
33、 up an exposure biology program. “We re looking for interactions between genes and exposure to work out an individuals risk of disease, “ says David Balshaw, who manages the program. “It would allow you to tailor(使合适 )the therapeutic response to that persons risk.“ An understanding of this interacti
34、on, reflected in a persons metabolic(新陈代谢的 )profiles(数据图表 ), might also help predict how they will respond to a drug. Nicholson has been looking for clues in metabolite profiles of urine samples. G)Last year, his research group used these profiles to predict how individuals would metabolise paraceta
35、mol(扑热息痛 ). “It turned out that gut(肠子 )microbes(微生物 )were very important, “ says Nicholson. “Weve shown that the pre-dose urinary metabolite profile could predict the metabolism of painkilling drugs, and therefore predict drug toxicity.“ The findings suggest that metabolic profiles of exposure coul
36、d help doctors tailor therapies and enable them to prescribe personalized medicines. Justin Stebbing at Imperial College London has already shown that metabolic profiles of women with breast cancer can predict who will respond to certain therapies. It is early days, but the initial findings look pro
37、mising. “Were reaching the point where were capable of assessing the exposome, “ says Balshaw. With the implications for understanding disease causes and risks, and a real prospect of developing personalized medicine, the expo-some is showing more promise than the genome already, he adds. H)How does
38、 air pollution or stress leave a trace in the blood? The US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, is trying to find out. One group funded by the NIH and led by Nongjian Tao at Arizona State Universitys Biodesign Institute in Tempre is developing wearable wireless sensors to monitor an
39、 individual s exposure to environmental pollutants. Tao s team started by creating software for Windows phones(视窗话筒 ), but they are working on apps(应用程序 )that could be used on any smart phone. In theory, anyone could pop on(戴 )a sensor and download an app to receive real-time information on exposure
40、 to environmental pollutants. At the same time, smart phones monitoring your location can combine the level of pollution with an exact time and place. Tao presented his sensor at the Circuits and Systems for Medical and Environmental Applications Workshop in Yucatan Mexico last week. I)“Were now mov
41、ing prototypes(原型 , 样品 )into human studies, and progressing those prototypes into products, “ says David Balshaw of the NIH. Earlier this year, Tao s group tried out the sensor on individuals taking a stroll around Los Angeles, California. They were able to measure how exposure to pollutants changed
42、 as each person wandered near busy roads and petrol stations. 37 Theoretically speaking, we can know what one has been exposed to from his blood samples. 38 Chris Wild put forward the conception of exposome. 39 Rappaport has confidence in the realization of exposomes helping better predict peoples t
43、rue disease risk. 40 Jeremy Nicholson said, knowing genetic risk factors of health turned out to be completely useless. 41 When measuring the risk of disease, one should consider the influence of exposome first. 42 The albumin in our blood plays the role of conveying toxins to the liver. 43 The meta
44、bolic profiles of individuals can reflect the interaction between genes and exposure. 44 According to the findings of Nicholsons research group, doctors can give a prescription of personalized medicines with the help of metabolic profiles of exposure. 45 Nicholson says that one s period from birth t
45、o the age of three is a period that forms his brain connections. 46 The wearable wireless sensors being developed by Taos research group are used to detect the exposure to environmental pollutants of individuals. Section C 46 If you want to teach your children how to say sorry, you must be good at s
46、aying it yourself, especially to your own children. But how you say it can be quite tricky. If you say to your children “Im sorry I got angry with you, but.“ what follows that “but“ can render the apology ineffective: “I had a bad day“ or “your noise was giving me a headache“ leaves the person who h
47、as been injured feeling that he should be apologizing for his bad behavior in expecting an apology. Another method by which people appear to apologize without actually doing so is to say “Im sorry youre upset“: this suggests that you are somehow at fault for allowing yourself to get upset by what th
48、e other person has done. Then there is the general, all covering apology, which avoids the necessity of identifying a specific act that was particularly hurtful or insulting, and which the person who is apologizing should promise never to do again. Saying “I m useless as a parent“ does not commit a
49、person to any specific improvement. These pseudo-apologies are used by people who believe saying sorry shows weakness, Parents who wish to teach their children to apologize should see it as a sign of strength, and therefore not resort to these pseudo-apologies. But even when presented with examples of genuine contrition, children still need help to be come aware of the complexities of saying sorry. A three-year-old might need help in understanding that other children feel pain just as he does, and
