1、大学英语四级（ 2013年 12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷 256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 The Changes of Urban Green Coverage Ratio based on the statistics provided in the bar graph below. Please convey the information in the graph. You should write at leas
2、t 120 words but no more than 180 words. Section A （ A） Alcohol abuse. （ B） Smoking. （ C） Depression. （ D） Schizophrenia. （ A） To prevent patients from smoking. （ B） To better understand patients. （ C） To get patients occupied. （ D） To teach patients some skills. （ A） There were important space missi
3、ons. （ B） The space agency lacked funding for the program. （ C） The current shuttle missions would continue. （ D） Congress failed to pass President Obama s budget. （ A） To set up a moon colony by 2020. （ B） To send astronauts again to the moon by 2020. （ C） To continue the current shuttle missions t
4、ill 2020. （ D） To create more jobs for NASA till 2020. （ A） Foreign investment. （ B） Donor support. （ C） Price control. （ D） Bank prediction. （ A） 20 million percent. （ B） 2.2 million percent. （ C） 11.2 million percent. （ D） Over 11.2 million percent. （ A） Tougher times will wait for Zimbabwe. （ B）
5、The inflation situation will be eased. （ C） The future of the inflation is not clear. （ D） It was not mentioned in the news. Section B （ A） Giving up smoking. （ B） Birth control of the family. （ C） Plan for seeing a doctor. （ D） Arrangement for breaking engagement. （ A） Smoking helps to lessen the p
6、ressure. （ B） Smoking helps him fall asleep quickly. （ C） He can get much happiness from smoking. （ D） Smoking brings more chances to make friends. （ A） See a doctor to get some help. （ B） Read books about the harm of smoking. （ C） Improve his self-controlling abilities. （ D） Receive mental health t
7、reatment. （ A） Smoking is the only bad habit the man should change. （ B） She doesn t love the man as deep as before. （ C） She doesn t want to have a baby if the man smokes. （ D） Maybe she will leave the man if he continues to smoke. （ A） At a bookstore. （ B） At a library. （ C） On the telephone. （ D）
8、 At the student center. （ A） Return it as quickly as possible. （ B） Pay a fine because of the delayed return. （ C） Return it within 7 days of the recall notice. （ D） Return it within 7 days before the due date. （ A） Send an email to him. （ B） Impose an overdue fine on him. （ C） Ask his roommates to
9、give him a message. （ D） Give the notice to his teacher of his department. （ A） Thirty cents a day. （ B） Thirteen cents a day. （ C） Thirty cents four day. （ D） Twenty-three cents a day. Section C （ A） To examine the chemical elements in the Ice Age. （ B） To learn what s been happening on the sun s s
10、urface （ C） To analyze the composition of different trees. （ D） To find out the origin of carbon-14 on Earth. （ A） The life cycle of trees. （ B） The number of trees. （ C） The intensity of solar burning. （ D） The quality of air. （ A） It affects the growth of trees. （ B） It has been increasing since t
11、he Ice Age. （ C） It is determined by the chemicals in the air. （ D） It follows a certain cycle. （ A） Men who belong to organizations must wear jewelry. （ B） Each new period brings some changes in clothing. （ C） Women do not like to look attractive in new clothes. （ D） Every woman wants to look attra
12、ctive. （ A） They change to show their position in life. （ B） They change as fashions in beauty change. （ C） They change to attract other women. （ D） They change when dentists put on white clothing. （ A） Some men enjoy wearing special kinds of clothing. （ B） Soldiers do not allow delivery men to wear
13、 uniforms. （ C） All doctors and dentists wear coats at home. （ D） In ancient Greece, men wearing dresses were thought to be savages. （ A） Successful people. （ B） Famous people. （ C） Older people. （ D） Anyone. （ A） They show you how to achieve success. （ B） They provide you with the experience you ha
14、vent had. （ C） They tell you the secrets to gain certain abilities that you admire. （ D） They show you the way to better measure yourself. （ A） We should get to know everything about the model. （ B） We might be especially interested in people who are lucky. （ C） We should incorporate into ours the m
15、odels characteristics that we admire. （ D） We should try to learn what kind of achievements the model has gained. （ A） Role models will tell us how well we are doing. （ B） We can compare ourselves with role models at the same stage that we are. （ C） We can measure ourselves against what role models
16、have achieved. （ D） We can measure ourselves by looking at what successful people are doing. Section A 26 Every human being has a unique arrangement of the skin on his fingers and this arrangement is unchangeable. Scientists and experts have proved the【 C1】 _of finger-prints and discovered that no【
17、C2】 _similar pattern is passed on from parents to children, though nobody knows why this is the case. The ridge【 C3】 _on a person s fingers does not change with growth and is not affected by surface injuries. Burns, cuts and other damage to the outer part of the skin will be replaced in time by new
18、one which bears a reproduction of the【 C4】 _pattern. It is only when the inner skin is injured that the arrangement will be【 C5】 _. Some criminals make use of this fact to【 C6】 _their own finger-prints but this is a dangerous and rare step to【 C7】 _. Finger-prints can be made very easily with printe
19、rs ink. They can be recorded easily. With special methods, 【 C8】 _can be achieved successfully within a short time. Because of the simplicity and economy of this system, finger-prints have often been used as a method of solving criminal case. A【 C9】 _man may deny a charge but this may be in vain. Hi
20、s finger-prints can prove who he is even if his【 C10】 _has been changed by age or accident. A)take B)uniqueness C)harmed D)identification E)structure F)naturally G)exactly H)position I)appearance J)original K)destroyed L)diminish M)doubtful N)remove O)suspected 27 【 C1】 28 【 C2】 29 【 C3】 30 【 C4】 31
21、 【 C5】 32 【 C6】 33 【 C7】 34 【 C8】 35 【 C9】 36 【 C10】 Section B 36 It Isn t Easy Being Green Green stories of hotels A)Over the summer, I stayed at four hotels in the United States. They were all owned by different companies, but they had one thing in common: A little card on the bathroom counter tel
22、ling me that the establishment was very concerned about the environment, and appealing to me to do my part to help them save the earth by hanging up my wet towels and using them again the next day. Two of the hotels also placed a card next to the bed informing me that housekeeping would not change t
23、he sheets unless I left the card on the pillow. B)It is true that keeping all those towels clean requires an enormous amount of electricity and water and soap, and that cutting down on the number of loads of laundry would be more eco-friendly than my insisting on a new towel each day. But am I a hea
24、rtless cynic for doubting that a collective environmental anxiety has seized the hotel industry? C)Here is an alternative explanation: All that water, soap, and electricity costs a lot of money and eats into the hotels profits. A little card on the counter telling customers that they wont get new to
25、wels because the hotel doesnt want to pay for laundry wouldnt go over very well. But by couching it as a green campaign, the hotels actually get credit for providing less service to their customers, while pocketing the difference. D)Industry groups that advise hotels on becoming more environmentally
26、 friendly tend to stress the money theyll save just as much as the benefits to the planet. “Why should hotels be green?“ asks the Green Hotels Associations Web site. “Havent you heard? Being green goes directly to your bottom line.“ The site explains that by getting guests to recycle towels and shee
27、ts, hotels can save 5 percent on utility bills. “Some days, housekeeping workers, who usually clean 15 rooms a day, dont change a single bed, “ said one satisfied hotel owner, who estimates that “70 percent of people staying more than one night participate in the program.“ Another member reports tha
28、t far fewer guests ask for new towels. E)So lets review: We give up a nice luxury to save the hotel money: the hotel congratulates itself on being green for peer pressuring us into giving up the luxury under the excuse of environmental consciousness: the hotel keeps the money. Nice work. After all,
29、even if profit is the motive, the net result is a reduction in the hotel s “carbon footprint“. But here s what gets me: the hotels I stayed in this summer didnt seem all that interested in being green when it came to other things. The lobby of the big resort was air conditioned to meet locker temper
30、atures. All day long, that frosty air rushed out the vast double doors, which were left open in the July heat. The resort also had a fleet of big, gas guzzling(耗油的 )vans idling at the curb to transport guests around the grounds. Green stories of companies F)Hotels are not the only offenders in this
31、kind of green fakery. Some companies have embraced conservation for real. They build headquarters with solar panels and rainwater collection systems: they think of the environmental impact of every aspect of their businesses and actually change the way they do things to reduce waste. But this is lab
32、or intensive, often expensive, and takes commitment. Faced with that, many corporations take a different approach: They dont do much of anything to change the way they do business, but make a big show of their contribution to Mother Earth. G)It s usually easy to spot these companies: They make their
33、 customers do the work, and then take the credit. In the name of saving the planet, my cable TV operator keeps asking for permission to stop sending paper statements in the mail each month. Instead, firms are supposed to check my statement online. The real reason, of course, is that doing so would s
34、ave them paper, printing and postage. This is a perfectly reasonable reason for them to want me to switch. But when they pretend that it s all about the environment, it just makes me hate my cable company even more than I already do. Green stories of ad campaigns H)Sometimes a good ad campaign does
35、a better job of enhancing a companys green reputation than going through the expense and difficulty of adopting actual environmentally sound practices. Billboards in Washington appeal to me to join the cause. “I will unplug stuff more, “ reads one. Another says, “I will at least consider buying a hy
36、brid(合成物 ).“ These ads are the work of Chevron, the giant oil company, whose “Will You Join Us?“ ads try to convince people that saving the planet is at the top of their fist. You might think that if Chevron was really worried about problems like global warming, they would spend some of those dollar
37、s lobbying Congress to adopt stricter gas mileage(英里数 )requirements for automobiles. They do not do this. Instead, firms are apparently supposed to praise them as environmental heroes because they tell me to unplug my toaster and think about getting a Toyota Prius. I)Yet, ad campaigns like these wor
38、k. Chevron lands at No. 371 out of 500 companies on Newsweek s green ranks. But it claims the No. 62 spot when it comes to green reputation thanks in part to those pretty, polished ads. Green marketing has also helped Wal-Mart appear kinder and gentler in recent years. To be fair, the retailing gian
39、t has done more than redesign its logo. The company, which ranks 59th on Newsweeks list, has embraced a series of in-house green initiatives and is demanding its suppliers do the same. The result: Wal-Mart scores first place in our reputation survey. J)Given the power of positive marketing, it s eas
40、y to see why those little towel cards are so popular enough so that there are now a lot of companies that market them to hotels, along with all manner of products intended to make customers feel good about themselves while helping the hotels feel good about their bank balances. I suppose it is time
41、that I step up and do my part. On behalf of the planet I will dutifully sleep on day-old sheets. But please, for the love of all that is good and right, keep the towels coming. 37 Some companies actually change the way they do things to reduce waste, while others are just green fakeries. 38 Cutting
42、down the number of loads of laundry can save a large amount of electricity for the hotels. 39 Industry groups tend to emphasize the money hotels can save along with the benefits to the environment. 40 Some green fakery companies make its customers do the work, and take benefit themselves. 41 Ad camp
43、aigns help companies raise their ranks of green reputation. 42 In America, it is common for hotels to appeal to customers to recycle towels. 43 It is estimated that seventy percent of the hotel guests are willing to participate in the green program and ask for fewer. 44 It does better to set up an a
44、d campaign with eco-friendly slogans to enhance a companys green reputation than do some actual practices. 45 While name the activities as a green campaign, the hotels save money for providing less service to their customers. 46 All day long, frosty air rushed out the vast double doors of the lobby
45、in the July heat. Section C 46 Is language, like food, a basic human need without which a child at a critical period of life can be starved and damaged? Judging from the drastic experiment of Frederick II in the thirteenth century, it may be. Hoping to discover what language a child would speak if h
46、e heard no mother tongue, he told the nurses to keep silent. All the infants died before the first year. But clearly there was more than lack of language here. What was missing was good mothering. Without good mothering, in the first year of life especially, the capacity to survive is seriously affe
47、cted. Today no such severe lack exists as that ordered by Frederick. Nevertheless, some children are still backward in speaking. Most often the reason for this is that the mother is insensitive to the signals of the infant, whose brain is programmed to learn language rapidly. If these sensitive peri
48、ods are neglected, the ideal time for acquiring skills passes and they might never be learned so easily again. A bird learns to sing and to fly rapidly at right time, but the process is slow and hard once the critical stage has passed. Experts suggest that speech stages are reached in a fixed sequen
49、ce and at a constant age, but there are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be of high IQ. At twelve weeks a baby smiles and utters vowellike sounds: at twelve months he can speak simple words and understand simple commands: at eighteen months he has a vocabulary of three to fifty words. At three he knows about 1, 000 words which he can put into sentences, and at four his language differs from that of his parents in style rather than grammar. Recent evidence
