2015年12月英语四级真题（卷一）

　Part I 　Writing               

　　Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on the saying ‘Learning is a daily experience and a lifetime mission.” You can cite examples to illustrate the importance of lifelong learning. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.

Part II           Listening Comprehension   

Directions: In this section, you will hear 8 short conversations and 2 long conversations. At the end of each conversation, one or more questions will be asked about what was said. Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once. After each question there will be a pause. During the pause, you must read the four choices marked A), B), C) and D), and decide which is the best answer.  Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.

Section A
1.
They admire the courage of space explorers.
They enjoyed the movie on space exploration.
They were going to watch a wonderful movie.
They like doing scientific exploration very much.
2.
At a gift shop.
At a graduation ceremony.
In the office of a travel agency.
In a school library.
3.
He used to work in the art gallery.
He does not have a good memory.
He declined a job offer form the art gallery.
He is not interested in any part-time jobs.
4.
Susan has been invited to give a lecture tomorrow.
He will go to the birthday party after the lecture.
The woman should have informed him earlier.
He will be unable to attend the birthday party.
5.
Reward those having made good progress.
Set a deadline for the staff to meet.
Assign more workers to the project.
Encourage the staff to work in small groups.
6.
The way to the visitor’s parking.
The rate for parking in Lot C.
How far away the parking lot is.
Where she can leave her car.
7.
He regrets missing the classes.
He plans to take the fitness classes.
He is looking forward to a better life.
He has benefited form exercise.
8.
A. How to ? work efficiency.
B. How to select secretaries.
C. The responsibilities of secretaries.
D. The secretaries in the man’s company.

Conversation 1
9.
It is more difficult to learn than English.
It is used by more people than English.
It will be as commonly used as English.
It will eventually become a world language.
10.
It has words words from many languages,
Its popularity with the common people.
The influence of the British Empire.
The effect of the Industrial Revolution,
11.
It includes a lot of words form other languages.
It has a growing number of newly coined words,
It can be easily picked up by overseas travellers.
It is the largest among all languages in the world.

Conversation 2
12.
To return some goods.
To apply for a job.
To place an order.
To make a complaint.
13. He has become somewhat impatient with the woman.
He is not familiar with the  exact details of goods.
He has not worked in the sales department for long.
He works on a part-time basis for the company.
14.
It is not his responsibility.
It will be free for large orders.
It costs 15 more for express delivery.
It depends on a number of factors.
15.
Report the information to her superior.
Pay a visit to the saleswoman in charge.
Ring back when she comes to a decision.
Make inquiries with some other companies.

Section B
Directions:In this section, you will hear 3 short passages. At the end of each passage, you will hear some questions. Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D ). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet I with a single line through the centre.

Passage 1
16.
No one knows exactly where they were ??
No one knows for sure when thy came into being.
No one knows for what purpose they were ?
No one knows what they will ?????
17.
Carry ropes across rivers.
Measure the speed of wind.
Pass on secret messages.
Give warnings of danger.
18.
To protect houses against lightning.
To test the effects of the lightning rod.
To find out the strength of silk for kites.
To prove the lightning is electricity.

Passage 2
19.
She enjoys teaching languages,
She can speak several languages,
She was trained to be an interpreter.
She was born with a talent for languages.
20.
They acquire an immunity to culture shock.
They would like to live abroad permanently.
They want to learn as many foreign languages as possible.
They have an intense interest in cross-cultural interactions.
21.
She became an expert in horse racing.
She got a chance to visit several European countries.
She was able to translate for a German sports judge.
She learned to appreciate classical music.
22.
Taste the beef and give her comment.
Take part in a cooking competition.
Teach vocabulary for food in ??
Give cooking lessons on ????

Passage 3
23.
He had only a third-grade education.
He once threatened to kill his teacher.
He grew up in a poor ???
He often helped his ???
24.
Careless.
Stupid.
Brave.
Active.
25.
Write two book reports a week.
Keep a diary.
Help with housework.
Watch education??

　　Section C

　　Directions:In this section, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read for the first time, you should listen carefully for its general idea. When the passage is read for the second time, you are required to fill in the blanks with the exact words you have just heard. Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, you should check what you have written. 　　When you look up at the night sky, what do you see? There are other… besides the moon and stars. One of the most 27___ of the …Comets were formed around the same time the Earth was formed. …and other frozen liquids and gases. 29___ these “dirty snow…” just as the planets do.

　　As a comet get closer to the sun, some gases in it begin to unfreeze… particles form the comet to form a huge cloud. As the comet gets … wind blows the cloud behind the comet, thus forming its tail. The tail… (模糊的) atmosphere around a comet are 32____ that can help… in the night sky.

　　In any given year, about a dozen known comets come close to … average person can’t see them all, of course. Usually there is only one … to be seen with 34___ eye. Comet Hale-Bopp, discovered… bright comet. Its orbit brought it 35___ close to the Earth, … But Hale-Bopp came a long way an its earthly visit. It won’t be back…or so.

　Questions 36 to 45 are based on the following passage.

　　Children do not think the way adults do. For most of the first yearof life, if something is out of sight, it’s out of mind. if you cover a baby’s__36__toy with a piece of cloth, the baby thinks the toy has disappeared andstops looking for it. A 4-year-old man__37__, that a sister has more fruitjuice when it is only the shapes of the glasses that differ, not the __38__ ofthe juice.

　　Yet children are smart in their own way. Like good little scientists,children are always testing their child-sized __39__ about how things work.When your child throws her spoon on the floor for the sixth time as you try tofeed her, and you say, “That’s enough! I will not pick up your spoon again!”the child will__40__ test your claim. Are you serious? Are you angry? What willhappen if she throws the spoon again? She is not doing this to drive you__41__;rather, she is learning that her desires and yours can differ, and thatsometimes those__42__ are important and sometimes they are not.

　　How and why does children’s thinking change? In the 1920s, Swisspsychologist Jean Piaget proposed that children’s cognitive abilities unfold__43__,like the blooming of a flower, almost independent of what else is__44__ intheir lives. Although many of his specific conclusions have been__45__ ormodified over the years, his ideas inspired thousands of studies byinvestigators all over the world.

　　A) advocate B) amount C) confirmed 
　　D) crazy E) definite F) differences 
　　G) favorite H) happening I) immediately 
　　J) naturally K) obtaining L) primarily 
　　M) protest N) rejected O) theories

Section B
　　Directions:In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the question by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.

　　The Perfect Essay 
　　A) Looking back on too many yearsof education, I can identify one truly impossible teacher. She cared about me,and my intellectual life, even when I didn’t. Her expectations were highimpossibly so. She was an English teacher. She was also my mother. 
　　B) When good students turn in anessay, they dream of their instructor returning it to them in exactly the samecondition, save for a single word added in the margin of the final page:”Flawless.” This dream came true for me one afternoon in the ninth grade. Ofcourse, I had heard that genius could show itself at an early age, so I wasonly slightly taken aback that I had achieved perfection at the tender age of14. Obviously, I did what any professional writer would do; I hurried off tospread the good news. I didn’t get very far. The first person I told was mymother. 
　　C) My mother, who is just shy offive feet tall, is normally incredibly soft-spoken, but on the rare occasionwhen she got angry, she was terrifying. I am not sure if she was more upset bymy hubris(得意忘形) or by the fact that my Englishteacher had let my ego get so out of hand. In any event, my mother and her redpen showed me how deeply flawed a flawless essay could be. At the time, I amsure she thought she was teaching me about mechanics, transitions(过渡), structure, style and voice. But what I learned, and what stuckwith me through my time teaching writing at Harvard, was a deeper lesson aboutthe nature of creative criticism. 
　　D) Fist off, it hurts. Genuinecriticism, the type that leaves a lasting mark on you as a writer, also leavesan existential imprint(印记) on you asa person. I have heard people say that a writer should never take criticismpersonally. I say that we should never listen to these people. 
　　E) Criticism, at its best, isdeeply personal, and gets to the heart of why we write the way we do. Theintimate nature of genuine criticism implies something about who is able togive it, namely, someone who knows you well enough to show you how your mentallife is getting in the way of good writing. Conveniently, they are also thepeople who care enough to see you through this painful realization. For me ittook the form of my first, and I hope only, encounter with writer’s block—I wasnot able to produce anything for three years. 
　　F) Franz Kafka once said:” Writingis utter solitude(独处), the descentinto the cold abyss(深渊) ofoneself. “My mother’s criticism had shown me that Kafka is right about the coldabyss, and when you make the introspective (内省的) decent that writing requires you are out always pleased by whatyou find.” But, in the years that followed, her sustained tutoring suggestedthat Kafka might be wrong about the solitude. I was lucky enough to find acritic and teacher who was willing to make the journey of writing with me. “Itis a thing of no great difficulty,” according to Plutarch, “to raise objectionsagainst another man’s speech, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a betterin its place is a work extremely troublesome.” I am sure I wrote essays in thelater years of high school without my mother’s guidance, but I can’t recallthem. What I remember, however, is how we took up the “extremely troublesome”work of ongoing criticism. 
　　G) There are two ways to interpretPlutarch when he suggests that a critic should be able to produce “a better inits place.” In a straightforward sense, he could mean that a critic must bemore talented than the artist she critiques(评论). My mother was well covered on this count. But perhaps Plutarch issuggesting something slightly different, something a bit closer to MarcusCicero’s claim that one should “criticize by creation, not by finding fault.”Genuine criticism creates a precious opening for an author to become better onthis own terms—a process that is often extremely painful, but also almostalways meaningful. 
　　H) My mother said she would helpme with my writing, but fist I had myself. For each assignment, I was write thebest essay I could. Real criticism is not meant to find obvious mistakes, so ifshe found any—the type I could have found on my own—I had to start fromscratch. From scratch. Once the essay was “flawless,” she would take an eveningto walk me through my errors. That was when true criticism, the type thatchanged me as a person, began. 
　　I) She criticized me when Iincluded little-known references and professional jargon(行话). She had no patience for brilliant but irrelevant figures ofspeech. “Writers can’t bluff(虚张声势) theirway through ignorance.” That was news to me—I would need to find another way tostructure my daily existence. 
　　J) She trimmed back my flowerylanguage, drew lines through my exclamation marks and argued for the value ofrestraint in expression. “John,” she almost whispered. I learned in to hearher:”I can’t hear you when you shout at me.” So I stopped shouting andbluffing, and slowly my writing improved. 
　　K) Somewhere along the way I setaside my hopes of writing that flawless essay. But perhaps I missed somethingimportant in my mother’s lessons about creativity and perfection. Perhaps thepoint of writing the flawless essay was not to give up, but to never willinglyfinish. Whitman repeatedly reworded “Song of Myself” between 1855 and 1891.Repeatedly. We do our absolute best wiry a piece of writing, and come as closeas we can to the ideal. And, for the time being, we settle. In critique,however, we are forced to depart, to give up the perfection we thought we hadachieved for the chance of being even a little bit better. This is the lesson Itook from my mother. If perfection were possible, it would not be motivating.

46. The author was advised against theimproper use of figures of speech. 
47. The author’s mother taught him avaluable lesson by pointing out lots of flaws in his seemingly perfect essay. 
48. A writer should polish his writingrepeatedly so as to get closer to perfection. 
49. Writers may experience periods of timein their life when they just can’t produce anything. 
50. The author was not much surprised whenhis school teacher marked his essay as “flawless”. 
51. Criticizing someone’s speech is said tobe easier than coming up with a better one. 
52. The author looks upon his mother as hismost demanding and caring instructor. 
53. The criticism the author received fromhis mother changed him as a person. 
54. The author gradually improved hiswriting by avoiding fact language. 
55. Constructive criticism gives an authora good start to improve his writing.

第一篇 
　　Could youreproduce Silicon Valley elsewhere, or is there something unique about it? 
　　It wouldn’t besurprising if it were hard to reproduce in other countries, because youcouldn’t reproduce it in most of the US either. What does it take to make aSilicon Valley? 
　　It’s the rightpeople. If you could get the right ten thousand people to move from SiliconValley to Buffalo, Buffalo would become Silicon Valley. 
　　You only needtwo kinds of people to create a technology hub （中心）:rich people and nerds （痴迷科研的人）. 
　　Observationbears this out. Within the US, towns have become startup hubs if and only ifthey have both rich people and nerds. Few startups happen in Miami, forexample, because although it’s full of rich people, it has few nerds. It’s notthe kind of place nerds like. 
　　WhereasPittsburg has the opposite problem: plenty of nerds, but no rich people. Thetop US Computer Science departments are said to be MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, andCarnegie-Mellon. MIT yielded Route 128. 　　Stanford and Berkeley yielded SiliconValley. But what did Carnegie-Mellon yield in Pittsburgh? And whathappened in Ithaca, home of Cornell University, which is also high on the list. 
　　I grew up inPittsburgh and went to college at Cornell, so I can answer for both. Theweather is terrible, particularly in winter, and there’s no interesting oldcity to make up for it, as there is in Boston. Rich people don’t want to livein Pittsburgh or Ithaca. So while there are plenty of hackers （电脑迷）who could start startups, there’s no one to invest in them. 
　　Do you reallyneed the rich people? Wouldn’t it work to have the government invest the nerds?No, it would not. Startup investors are a distinct type of rich people. Theytend to have a lot of experience themselves in the technology business. Thishelps them pick the right startups, and means they can supply advice andconnections as well as money. And the fact that they have a personal stake inthe outcome makes them really pay attention.

56. What do welearn about Silicon Valley from the passage? 
A) Its success is hard to copy any where else. 
B) It is the biggest technology hub in the US. 
C) Its fame in high technology is incomparable. 
D) It leads the world in information technology.

57. What makesMiami unfit to produce a Silicon Valley? 
A) Lack of incentive for investments. 
B) Lack of the right kind of talents. 
C) Lack of government support. 
D) Lack of famous universities.

58. In that wayis Carnegie-Mellon different from Stanford, Berkeley and MIT? 
A) Its location is not as attractive to rich people 
B) Its science department are not nearly as good 
C) It does not produce computer hackers and nerds 
D) It does not pay much attention to business startups

59. What doesthe author imply about Boston? 
A) It has pleasant weather all year round. 
B) It produces wealth as well as high-tech 
C) It is not likely to attract lots of investor and nerds. 
D) It is an old city with many sites of historical interest.

60. What doesthe author say about startup investors? 
A) They are especially wise in making investments. 
B) They have good connections in the government. 
C) They can do more than providing money. 
D) They are enough to invest in nerds.

　　第二篇 
　　It’s nice to have people of like mindaround. Agreeable people boost your confidence and allow you to relax and feelcomfortable. Unfortunately, that comfort can hinder the very learning that canexpand your company and your career.

　　It’s nice to have people agree, but youneed conflicting perspectives to dig out the truth. If everyone around you hassimilar views, your work will suffer from confirmation bias. (偏颇)

　　Take a look at your own network. Do youcontacts share your point of view on most subjects? It yes, it’s time to shakethings up. As a leader, it can be challenging to create an environment in whichpeople will freely disagree and argue, but as the saying goes: Fromconfrontation comes brilliance.

　　It’s not easy for most people to activelyseek conflict. Many spend their lives trying to avoid arguments. There’s noneed to go out and find people you hate, but you need to do someself-assessment to determine where you have become stale in your thinking. Youmay need to start by encouraging your current network to help you identify yourblind spots.

　　Passionate, energetic debate does notrequire anger and hard feelings to be effective. But it does require moralstrength. Once you have worthing opponents, set some ground rules so everyoneunderstands 　　responsibilities and boundaries. The objective of this debatinggame is not to win but to get to the truth that will allow you to move faster,and better.

　　Fierce debating can hurt feelings,particularly when strong personalities are involved. Make sure your check inwith your opponents so that they are not carrying the emotion of the battlesbeyond the battlefield. Break the tension with smiles and humor to reinforcethe idea that this is friendly discourse and that all are working toward acommon goal.

　　Reword all those involved in the debatesufficiently when the goals are reached. Let your sparring partners (拳击陪练) know how much you appreciate their contribution. The more theyfeel appreciated, the more they’ll be willing to get into the ring next time.

61.What happens when you have like-mindedpeople around you all the while? 
A) It will help your companyexpand more rapidly. 
B) It will be create a harmoniousworking atmosphere. 
C) It may prevent your businessand career from advancing. 
D) It may make you fell uncertainabout your own decision.

62.What does the author suggest leaders do? 
A) Avoid arguments with businesspartners. 
B) Encourage people to disagreeand argue. 
C) Build a wide and strongbusiness network. 
D) Seek advice from their worthycompetitors.

63.What is the purpose of holding a debate? 
A) To find out the truth about anissue. 
B) To build up people’s moralstrength. 
C) To remove misunderstandings. 
D) To look for worthy opponents.

64.What advice does the author give topeople engaged in a fierce debate? 
A) They listen carefully to theiropponents’ views. 
B) They slow due respect for eachother’s beliefs. 
C) They present their viewsclearly and explicitly. 
D) They take care not to hurt eachother’s feelings.

65.How should we treat our rivals after asuccessful debate? 
A) Try to make peace with them. 
B) Try to make up the differences. 
C) Invite them to the ring nexttime. 
D) Acknowledge their contribution.

Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to translate a passage from Chinese into English. You should write your answer on Answer Sheet 2.

　　云南省的丽江古镇是中国著名的旅游目的地之一。那里的生活节奏比大多数中国的城市都要缓慢。丽江到处都是美丽的自然风光，众多的少数民族同胞提供了各式各样，丰富多彩的文化让游客体验。历史上，丽江还以“爱之城”而闻名。当地人中流传着许多关于人生，为爱而死的故事。如今，在中外游客眼中，这个古镇被视为爱情和浪漫的天堂。（paradise）

作文：
　　For this part，you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essaycommenting on the saying "Learning is a daily experience and alifetime mission." You can cite examples to illustrate theimportance of lifelong learning“. You should write at least 120words but no more than 180 words.