1、大学英语四级（ 2013年 12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷 271及答案与解析 一、 Part I Writing 1 For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay entitled College Students Booklist based on the statistics provided in(he table below. Please give a brief description of the table first and then make comments on it. You should wr
2、ite at least 120 words but no more than 180 words. Write your essay on Answer Sheet 1. Section A （ A） 21 years old. （ B） 5 years old. （ C） 17 months old. （ D） 5 months old. （ A） They were separated by the US doctors. （ B） They were born with joined heads. （ C） Their father is too young to bring them
3、 up. （ D） They were sad to leave the staff. （ A） Their products were not registered. （ B） The quality of their products didnt meet the standard. （ C） They fixed price with the local seller. （ D） They bribed health workers to promote products. （ A） Information about the health benefits of bottle-feed
4、ing. （ B） Instruction for the appropriate preparation in two languages. （ C） Information on how to choose the milk powder properly. （ D） Instructions to help mothers make up the milk. （ A） It changed its policy on posts with violent speech. （ B） It identified people who hate terrorists. （ C） It rais
5、ed the anger of terrorists. （ D） It suspended some accounts for religious reason. （ A） Updating their information frequently. （ B） Posting hateful things regularly. （ C） Using multiple accounts. （ D） Suspending some of their accounts. （ A） They cant stop terrorists communicating through this channel
6、. （ B） They didnt adjust their policy over the past year. （ C） They didnt make an effort to gain promotion from the public. （ D） They dont update their service frequently enough. Section B （ A） His inbox was broken. （ B） He made a big mistake. （ C） The meeting was put off. （ D） The work was postpone
7、d. （ A） There is a bunch of coffee. （ B） It is full of misplaced memos. （ C） The secretary works beside it. （ D） Things get piled up there. （ A） It has not been sent out yet. （ B） It was posted in the break room. （ C） It never got to the mans inbox. （ D） It was misplaced by the man. （ A） Ask the sec
8、retary about the memo. （ B） Talk to his friends about the secret. （ C） Read the memo to get the truth. （ D） Take a bunch of coffee breaks. （ A） She cant have a break again. （ B） The tires of her car are broken. （ C） She cant sell her car in the shop. （ D） Her car is being repaired again. （ A） He is
9、incapable of repairing old cars. （ B） He may overcharge her for the repairing. （ C） He may make an incorrect estimate. （ D） He doesnt know much about cars. （ A） Offer the woman a ride home. （ B） Write the homework for the woman. （ C） Drive the woman back to campus. （ D） Recommend a new car mechanic
10、to the woman. （ A） Move back to live on campus. （ B） Leave alone those troubles. （ C） Pay a visit to the dormitory. （ D） Move to live near the campus. Section C （ A） To find the similarity of soybeans in the world. （ B） To protect soybeans against dry condition. （ C） To collect materials for their p
11、apers. （ D） To study the impact of global warming. （ A） China is the only country to grow soybeans. （ B） China is the ancestral home of soybeans. （ C） China has a long history of growing soybeans. （ D） China has different kinds of soybeans. （ A） They produce the same yield in different locations. （
12、B） They are suitable to grow only in the United States. （ C） They produce better quality soybeans under dry weather. （ D） They have better production under drought conditions. （ A） They like mass produced things. （ B） They design things themselves and sell them. （ C） They make clothes and tools for
13、themselves. （ D） They use crafts to decorate their homes. （ A） In shopping centers or churches. （ B） In community or parking lots. （ C） On playgrounds or country grounds. （ D） In public parks or on county grounds. （ A） Candies and toys. （ B） Clothes and gifts. （ C） Rides and shows. （ D） Rides and fo
14、ods. （ A） Things in craft fairs have better quality than in stores. （ B） They want to buy things that are different and original. （ C） It is more convenient to buy things in craft fairs. （ D） They can buy everything they want in craft fairs. （ A） It is the largest supplier of valuable minerals. （ B）
15、 It will disappear in about thirty years. （ C） It is beginning to grow smaller and smaller. （ D） It offers many resources to help mankind survive. （ A） Iron and copper. （ B） Gold and copper. （ C） Nickel and bronze. （ D） Iron and bronze. （ A） The sea level will be 20 centimeters higher than it is now
16、. （ B） The sea will be empty if we continue fishing at this pace. （ C） The problems to explore the sea will have been largely solved. （ D） People will depend largely on sea foods and minerals. Section A 26 Skip that third helping of roast beef, save the planet and do your heart a favor at the same t
17、ime. Thats the advice of Alan Dangour of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and colleagues who【 C1】 _the livestock industrys potential to help the UK reduce its carbon emissions to half of 1990 levels by 2030, and the knock-on effect on the nations health. They found that the industr
18、y could reduce its emissions, but only if the livestock the UK produces, and the meat the nation【 C2】 _, drops by 30 per cent Farms must also optimise(最优化 )their energy【 C3】 _by, for example, capturing carbon in animal waste. The health pay-off would be【 C4】 _: 18,000 fewer people would die prematur
19、ely in the UK each year from heart attacksa(n) 【 C5】 _of 17 per centas they would eat less of the fats found in meat. The effect would not be limited to rich nations. The team found that Brazil could【 C6】 _the same health benefits. “Were not saying go vegetarian, were saying reduce how much livestoc
20、k produce you consume,“ says Dangour. The savings could be【 C7】 _higher if reduced death rates from cancer and obesity had been included, he adds. Agronomist(农艺学家 )Kenneth Cassman of the University of Nebraska warns that cutting production in one region can【 C8】 _it elsewhere, causing a rise in glob
21、al emissions. “Reducing production of livestock products in a developed country like the UK does little to influence global【 C9】 _in production and consumption where most of the increase in demand between now and 2050 will come from【 C10】_countries,“ he says. A)developing E)developed I)boast M)reduc
22、tion B)even F)just J)achieve N)boost C)trends G)considerable K)considerate O)efficiency D)explored H)consumes L)offers 27 【 C1】 28 【 C2】 29 【 C3】 30 【 C4】 31 【 C5】 32 【 C6】 33 【 C7】 34 【 C8】 35 【 C9】 36 【 C10】 Section B 36 Having Kids Makes You Happy? AWhen I was growing up, our former neighbors, wh
23、om well call the Sloans, were the only couple on the block without kids. It wasnt that they couldnt have children: according to Mr. Sloan, they just chose not to. All the other parents, including mine, thought it was oddeven tragic. So any bad luck that happened to the Sloansthe egging of their hous
24、e one Halloween: the landslide(山崩 )that sent their pool careering to the street belowwas somehow attributed to that fateful decision theyd made so many years before. “Well,“ the other adults would say, “you know they never did have kids.“ Each time I visited the Sloans, Id search for signs of insani
25、ty, misery or even regret in their super clean home, yet I never seemed to find any. From what I could tell, the Sloans were happy, maybe even happier than my parents, despite the fact that they were childless. BMy impressions may have been swayed by the fact that their candy dish was always full, b
26、ut several studies now show that the Sloans could well have been more satisfied than most of the traditional families around them. In Daniel Gilberts 2006 book Stumbling on Happiness, the Harvard professor of psychology looks at several studies and concludes that marital satisfaction decreases drama
27、tically after the birth of the first childand increases only when the last child has left home. He also finds out that parents are happier grocery shopping and even sleeping than spending time with their kids. Other data cited by 2008s Gross National Happiness author, Arthur C. Brooks, finds that pa
28、rents are about 7 percentage points less likely to report being happy than the childless. CThe most recent comprehensive study on the emotional state of those with kids shows us that the term “bundle of joy“ may not be the most accurate way to describe our offspring. “Parents experience lower levels
29、 of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers,“ says Florida State Universitys Robin Simon. “In fact, no group of parentsmarried, single, step or even empty nestreported significantly greater emotional well-being than people
30、who never had children. Its such an unexpected finding because we have these cultural beliefs that children are the key to happiness and a healthy life, and theyre not.“ DSimon received plenty of hate mail in response to her research, which isnt surprising. Her findings shake the very foundation of
31、what weve been raised to believe is true. In a recent Newsweek Poll, 50 percent of Americans said that adding new children to the family tends to increase happiness levels. Only one in six(16 percent)said that adding new children had a negative effect on the parents happiness. But which parent is wi
32、lling to admit that the greatest gift life has to offer has in fact made his or her life less enjoyable? EParents may openly complain their lack of sleep, busy schedules and difficulty in dealing with their bad-tempered teens, but rarely will they cop to feeling depressed due to the everyday rigors
33、of child rearing. “If you admit that kids and parenthood arent making you happy, its basically blasphemy(亵渎 ),“ says Jen Singer, a stay-at-home mother of two from New Jersey who runs the popular parenting blog MommaS. “From baby-cream commercials that make motherhood look happy and well rested, to c
34、ommercials for Disney World where youre supposed to feel like a kid because youre there with your kids, weve made parenthood out to be one extremely happy moment after another, and its disappointing when you find out its not.“ FIs it possible that American parents have always been this disillusioned
35、? Anecdotal(轶事的 )evidence says no. In pre-industrial America, parents certainly loved their children, but their offspring also served a purposeto work the farm, contribute to the household. Children were a necessity. Today, we have kids more for emotional reasons, but an increasingly complicated wor
36、k and social environment has made finding satisfaction far more difficult. A key study by University of Wisconsin-Madisons Sara McLanahan and Julia Adams, conducted some 20 years ago, found that parenthood was perceived as significantly more stressful in the 1970s than in the 1950s: the researchers
37、attribute part of that change to major shifts in employment patterns. The majority of American parents now work outside the home, have less support from extended family and face a worsening education and health-care system, so raising children has not only become more complicatedit has become more e
38、xpensive. Today the U. S. Department of Agriculture estimates that it costs anywhere from $134,370 to $237,520 to raise a child from birth to the age of 17and thats not counting school or college tuition. No wonder parents are feeling a little blue. GSocietal ills aside, perhaps we also expect too m
39、uch from the promise of parenting. The National Marriage Projects 2006 “State of Our Unions“ report says that parents have significantly lower marital satisfaction than nonparents because they experienced more single and child-free years than previous generations. Twenty-five years ago, women marrie
40、d around the age of 20, and men at 23. Today both sexes are marrying four to five years later. This means the experience of raising kids is now competing with highs in a parents past, like career wins or a carefree social life. Sending bad-tempered kids to school or dashing to work with spit-up on y
41、our favorite sweater doesnt turn out to be romantic. HFor the childless, all this research must certainly feel redeeming(弥补的 ). As for those of us with kids, well, the news isnt all bad. Parents still report feeling a greater sense of purpose and meaning in their lives than those whove never had kid
42、s. And there are other rewarding aspects of parenting that are impossible to quantify. For example, I never thought it possible to love someone as deeply as I love my son. As for the Sloans, its hard to say whether they had a less meaningful existence than my parents, or if my parents were 7 percent
43、 less happy than the Sloans. Perhaps it just comes down to how you see the candy dishhalf empty or half full. Or at least as a parent, thats what Ill keep telling myself. 37 Now highs in a parents past are being fought by the experience of raising kids. 38 Because of insufficient sleep, busy schedul
44、es and difficulty in rearing their bad-tempered teens, parents may complain publicly. 39 Besides societal ills that lower parents satisfaction, the promise of parenting is also too much expected. 40 Our cultural beliefs are that having kids makes parents happy. 41 The Sloans were childless because t
45、hey decided not to have a child. 42 A professor believes that after the last child has left home, parents tend to be happier. 43 Despite the low happiness level, compared with the childless, parents feel a greater sense of purpose and meaning in their lives. 44 Parenthood became more stressful in th
46、e 1970s partly due to changes in employment patterns. 45 The author expects to find signs showing the Sloans were miserable in their home. 46 According to the Newsweek Poll, half Americans agreed adding a child has a positive effect on happiness levels. Section C 46 Thoreau said education often made
47、 straight-cut ditches out of twisting small streams. But not at the EcoDorm, which houses 36 undergraduates and is the spiritual heart of Warren Wilson College, a liberal-arts school of fewer than 1,000 students in Swannanoa, N.C. In recent years, colleges like Warren Wilson took a leading role in t
48、he sustainability movement, which seeks to develop a durable human relationship with the environment. More than 600 U.S. colleges and universities have signed up for a pledge to become carbon neutral. Ninety dorms are now LEED certified, the most widely accepted national standard for green design. T
49、he EcoDorm is one of only two student residences that have LEEDs highest rating. Two Warren Wilson students first proposed the dorm a decade ago. Undergraduates on the planning committee initially suggested that it be built with corncobs or straw. The design, by Asheville-based Samsel Architects, required compromisesas well as a number of creative solutionsThe wood used for building the walls was harvested from campus trees that were suffering
