1、大学英语四级（ 2013年 12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷 274及答案与解析 一、 Part I Writing 1 For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a composition on an English idiom “Its never too old to learn“. Do you support it or disapprove of it ? Write down your ideas with 120 -180 words. Section A （ A） The homeless people in Ameri
2、ca make many troubles. （ B） The number of homeless people in the United States is down. （ C） The UN produced a study on the world s homeless population. （ D） The number of homeless people in Iraqi is up. （ A） 550,000. （ B） 100 million. （ C） 549,922. （ D） 110000 （ A） Because their engine failed and t
3、heir anchor was lost. （ B） Because they got lost at sea. （ C） Because the weather is terrible. （ D） Because their ship was lack of oil. （ A） The Brave Award. （ B） Excellent Woman Award. （ C） The Maritime Award. （ D） The International Maritime Organizations Award. （ A） Because there are so many worke
4、rs in its company. （ B） Because it introduced a lot of machines to increase productivity. （ C） Because it tries to boost profits in the wake of a huge emissions scandal. （ D） Because it has to obey the requirement of the government. （ A） 3. 9 billion dollars. （ B） 3.5 billion dollars. （ C） 610,000 d
5、ollars. （ D） 900 million dollars. （ A） Assembling. （ B） Marketing. （ C） Electric cars. （ D） Public Administration. Section B （ A） There were some pages missing in the old books. （ B） Some old books could not be found in the museum. （ C） Some pages were broken in some old books. （ D） Many pages were
6、turning brown and becoming brittle. （ A） Pack with plastic material. （ B） Add a lot of chemicals and acids. （ C） Seal in cool. （ D） Pack with wood boxes. （ A） Wood pulp. （ B） Maize cob. （ C） Animals skins. （ D） Broomcorn. （ A） To add chemicals to all old books. （ B） To remove the binding and treat e
7、ach page individually to remove the acid. （ C） To pack every book with plastic boxes. （ D） To seal in the museum and not show them to the public. （ A） She doesn t like traveling with someone. （ B） She wants to see whether she will enjoy traveling alone. （ C） She has no friends to travel with her. （
8、D） She is used to traveling alone. （ A） She will explore a lonely island. （ B） She will write her own guide book. （ C） She has planned her trip by herself. （ D） She has saved for a long time for it. （ A） A shorter one. （ B） A domestic one. （ C） A lonely one. （ D） A longer one. （ A） Staying away from
9、 other tourists. （ B） Sticking to the budget. （ C） Finding some companies. （ D） Following the original plans. Section C （ A） In Han Dynasty. （ B） In Tang Dynasty. （ C） In Song Dynasty. （ D） In Qing Dynasty. （ A） The shape of different kinds of tea. （ B） The temperature of making tea. （ C） The differ
10、ent places of tea. （ D） The roasting and fermentation of the tea leaves. （ A） Tea makes people more healthy. （ B） Tea has a long history. （ C） Frequent tea drinkers enjoy a longer life span. （ D） Tea has more nutrition. （ A） Money. （ B） Building. （ C） Facility. （ D） Teachers. （ A） 20,000 dollars. （
11、B） 6,000 dollars. （ C） 8,000 dollars. （ D） 14,000 dollars. （ A） Stanford University. （ B） Columbia University. （ C） Lewis & Clark College. （ D） New York University. （ A） They wanted to make a fortune. （ B） They sought for freedom of worship. （ C） They obeyed the requirement of their government. （ D）
12、 They had to support their family. （ A） Apples, pears, grapes and so on. （ B） Apples, oranges, grapes and so on. （ C） Oranges, bananas, pineapple and so on. （ D） Oranges, strawberry, bananas and so on. （ A） Chestnuts and pumpkin pie. （ B） Walnuts and Chestnuts. （ C） Roast turkey and pumpkin pie. （ D
13、） Grapes and roast turkey. （ A） To celebrate their gatherings. （ B） To express thanks for their families and friends. （ C） To give their wishes for friends. （ D） To express thanks for the years bounty and ask for continued blessings. Section A 26 Young people in the United States are falling behind
14、their overseas peers in reading, math and science, President Barack Obama said on Saturday, calling education reform an essential part of economic recovery. In his weekly radio and video address, Obama said as many as a quarter of American students are not【 C1】 _high school and far too few young peo
15、ple are getting college degrees. “ It is an【 C2】 _fact that countries who out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow. Businesses will hire wherever the highly skilled, highly trained workers are located,“ the Democrat said. “ So we have to【 C3】 _our standards. “ With the 2012 campaign for the
16、 U. S. presidency heating up, Obama is speaking【 C4】 _often about education, a key issue for his political base. His $447 billion job creation plan includes money for hiring teachers and school repairs, and on Friday he announced a【 C5】 _of “ No Child Left Behind,“ a decade-old education measure int
17、roduced by former President George W. Bush that seeks to hold schools【 C6】_for students performance. “No Child“ has been widely【 C7】 _for being inflexible, requiring teachers to adhere to a narrow curriculum【 C8】 _mostly at ensuring that students pass standardized tests. “ Experience has taught us t
18、hat the law has some serious【 C9】 _that are hurting our children instead of helping them,“ Obama said, making plain that education will be one of his key【 C10】 _issues into next November s vote. “These problems have been obvious to parents and educators all over this country for years. But for years
19、, Congress has failed to fix them. So now, I will,“ he said. A)flaws I)criticized B)conversely J)loosening C)necessity K)campaign D)undeniable L)targeted E)increasingly M)accountable F)break N)raise G)acceptable O)finishing H)graduating 27 【 C1】 28 【 C2】 29 【 C3】 30 【 C4】 31 【 C5】 32 【 C6】 33 【 C7】
20、34 【 C8】 35 【 C9】 36 【 C10】 Section B 36 How Your Language Affects Your Wealth and Health ADoes the language we speak determine how healthy and rich we will be? New research by Keith Chen of Yale Business School suggests so. The structure of languages affects our judgments and decisions about the fu
21、ture and this might have dramatic long-term consequences. BThere has been a lot of research into how we deal with the future. For example, the famous marshmallow(棉花糖 )studies of Walter Mischel and colleagues showed that being able to resist temptation is predictive of future success. Four-year-old k
22、ids were given a marshmallow and were told that if they did not eat that marshmallow and waited for the experimenter to come back, they would get two marshmallows instead of one. Follow-up studies showed that the kids who were able to wait for the bigger future reward became more successful adults.
23、CResisting our impulses for immediate pleasure is often the only way to attain the outcomes that are important to us. We want to keep a slim figure but we also want that last slice of pizza. We want a comfortable retirement, but we also want to drive that dazzling car, go on that dream vacation, or
24、get those gorgeous shoes. Some people are better at delaying gratification(满足 )than others. Those people have a better chance of accumulating wealth and keeping a healthy life style. They are less likely to be impulse buyers or smokers, or to engage in unsafe sex. DChen s recent findings suggest tha
25、t an unlikely factor, language, strongly affects our future-oriented behavior. Some languages strongly distinguish the present and the future. Other languages only weakly distinguish the present and the future. Chen s recent research suggests that people who speak languages that weakly distinguish t
26、he present and the future are better prepared for the future. They accumulate more wealth and they are better able to maintain their health. The way these people conceptualize the future is similar to the way they conceptualize the present. As a result, the future does not feel very distant and it i
27、s easier for them to act in accordance with their future interests. EDifferent languages have different ways of talking about the future. Some languages, such as English, Korean, and Russian, require their speakers to refer to the future explicitly. Every time English-speakers tell about the future,
28、 they have to use future markers such as “will“ or “going to“. In other languages, such as Mandarin, Japanese, and German, future markers are not obligatory(强制性的 ). The future is often talked about similar to the way present is talked about and the meaning is understood from the context. A Mandarin
29、speaker who is going to go to a seminar might say “Wo qu ting jiangzuo“ , which translates to “I go listen seminar“. Languages such as English constantly remind their speakers that future events are distant. For speakers of languages such as Mandarin future feels closer. As a consequence, resisting
30、immediate impulses and investing for the future is easier for Mandarin speakers. FChen analyzed individual-level data from 76 developed and developing countries. This data includes people s economic decisions, such as whether they saved any money last year, the languages they speak at home, demograp
31、hics(人口统计资料 ), and cultural factors such as “ saving is an important cultural value for me“. He also analyzed individual-level data on people s retirement assets, smoking and exercising habits, and general health in older age. Lastly, he analyzed national-level data that includes national savings ra
32、tes, country GDP and GDP growth rates, country demographics, and proportions of people speaking different languages. GPeople s savings rates are affected by various factors such as their income, education level, age, religious connection, their countries legal systems, and their cultural values. Aft
33、er those factors were accounted for, the effect of language on people s savings rates turned out to be big. Speaking a language that has obligatory future markers, such as English, makes people less likely to save money for the future. This effect is as large as the effect of unemployment. Being une
34、mployed decreases the likelihood of saving by about 30 percent as well. Similar analyses showed that speaking a language that does not have obligatory future markers, such as Mandarin, makes people accumulate more retirement assets, smoke less, exercise more, and generally be healthier in older age.
35、 Countries national savings rates are also affected by language. Having a larger proportion of people speaking languages that does not have obligatory future markers makes national savings rates higher. HAt a more practical level, researchers have been looking for ways to help people act in accordan
36、ce with their long-term interests. Recent findings suggest that making the future feel closer to the present might improve future-oriented behavior. For instance, researchers recently presented people with renderings of their future selves made using age-progression algorithms(算法 )that forecast how
37、physical appearances would change over time. One group of participants saw a digital representation of their current selves in a virtual mirror, and the other group saw an age-morphed version of their future selves. Those participants who saw the age-morphed version of their future selves allocated
38、more money toward a hypothetical savings account. The intervention brought people s future to the present and as a result they saved more for the future. IChen s research shows that language structures our future-related thoughts. Language has been used before to alter time perception with surprisin
39、g effects. Ellen Langer and colleagues famously improved older people s physical health by simple interventions including asking them to talk about the events of twenty years ago as if they were happening now. Talking about the past as if it were the present changed people s mindsets and their minds
40、ets affected their physical states. Chen s research points at the possibility that the way we talk about the future can shape our mindsets. Language can move the future back and forth in our mental space and this might have dramatic influences on our judgments and decisions. 37 More often than not,
41、refraining ourselves from enjoying immediate pleasure out of impulse is the mere way of obtaining the goals that are significant for us. 38 When judging or deciding something about future, the structure of language exerts an influence on us. 39 According to some analysis, speaking a language without
42、 obligatory future markers will universally make people healthier in older age. 40 The famous marshmallow studies suggest that people who can resist temptation are inclined to achieve success in the future. 41 People speaking such languages as English tend to have the feeling that the future is dist
43、ant. 42 Language also has an influence on national savings rates of countries. 43 People speaking languages where the present and the future are feebly distinguished are much more prepared for the future. 44 It is likely to improve future-oriented behavior by getting the future to feel closer to the
44、 present. 45 Ellen Langer and colleagues successfully got the physical health of the older people to become better by simple interventions. 46 Chen analyzed the individual-level statistics from 76 developed and developing countries. Section C 46 An industrial society, especially one as centralized a
45、nd concentrated as that of Britain, is heavily dependent on certain essential services: for instance, electricity supply, water, rail and road transport, the harbors. The area of dependency has widened to include removing rubbish, hospital and ambulance services, and, as the economy develops, centra
46、l computer and information services as well. If any of these services ceases to operate, the whole economic system is in danger. It is this economic inter-dependency of the economic system which makes the power of trade unions(工会 )such an important issue. Single trade unions have the ability to cut
47、off many countries economic blood supply. This can happen more easily in Britain than in some other countries, in part because the labor force is highly organized. About 55 percent of British workers belong to unions, compared to under a quarter in the United States. For historical reasons, Britain
48、s unions have tended to develop along trade(行业 )and occupational lines, rather than on an industry-by-industry basis, which makes a wages policy, democracy in industry and the improvement of procedures for fixing wage levels difficult to achieve. There are considerable strains and tensions in the tr
49、ade union movement, some of them arising from their outdated and inefficient structure. Some unions have lost many members because of their industrial changes. Others are involved in arguments about who should represent workers in new trades. Unions for skilled trades are separated from general unions, which means that different levels of wages for certain jobs are often a source of bad feelings between unions. In traditional trades which are being pushed out of existence by advancing technolo
