grown2014年12月大学英语四级考试样题及答案

2021年1月9日发(作者：柴世需)
2014年12月大学英语四级考试样题及答案

Part I

Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay. You should
start your essay with a brief description of the picture and then express
your views on the importance of learning basic skills. You should write at
least 120 words but no more than 180 words. Write your essay on
Answer Sheet 1
.

Writing (30 minutes)



注意：此部分试题请在答题卡 1 上作答。




Part II
Section A
Listening Comprehension (30 minutes)
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.

注意：此部分试题请在答题卡 1 上作答。


1. A) The man has left a good impression on her family.
B) The man’s jeans and T-shirts are stylish.
C) The man should buy himself a new suit.
D) The man can dress casually for the occasion.


2. A) Its price.
B) Its comfort.
C) Its location.
D) Its facilities.

3. A) It is a routine offer.
B) It is quite healthy.

C) It is new on the menu.
D) It is a good bargain.
C) Go and ask the staff.
D) Get a new bus schedule.

4. A) Read the notice on the window.
B) Board the bus to Cleveland.


5. A) He is ashamed of his present condition.
B) He is careless about his appearance.
C) He changes jobs frequently.
D) He shaves every other day.


6. A) The woman had been fined many times before.
B) The woman knows how to deal with the police.
C) The woman had violated traffic regulations.
D) The woman is good at finding excuses.


7. A) She got hurt in an accident yesterday.
B) She has to go to see a doctor.
C) She is black and blue all over.
D) She stayed away from work for a few days.


8. A) She will ask David to talk less.
B) She will meet the man halfway.
C) She is sorry the man will not come.
D) She has to invite David to the party.



Questions 9 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
9. A) Beautiful scenery in the countryside.
B) A sport he participates in.
C) Dangers of cross- country skiing.
D) Pain and pleasure in sports.



10. A) He can’t find good examples to illustrate his point.
B) He can’t find a peaceful place to do the assignment.
C) He can’t decide whether to include the effort part of skiing.
D) He doesn’t know how to describe the beautiful country scenery.


11. A) New ideas come up as you write.
B) Much time is spent on collecting data.
C) A lot of effort is made in vain.
D) The writer’s point of view often changes.


Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
12. A) Having her bicycle repaired.
B) Hosting an evening TV program.

C) Lecturing on business management.
D) Conducting a market survey.
C) He worked as a salesman.
D) He served as a consultant.

13. A) He repaired bicycles.
B) He coached in a racing club.


14. A) He wanted to be his own boss.
B) He didn’t want to be in too much debt.
C) He didn’t want to start from scratch.
D) He found it more profitable.


15. A) They are all the man’s friends.
B) They work five days a week.
C) They are paid by the hour.
D) They all enjoy gambling.

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 1
with a single line through
the centre.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡 1 上作答。




Passage One
Questions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard.
16. A) They shared mutual friends in school.
B) They had many interests in common.
C) They shared many extracurricular activities.
D) They had known each other since childhood.



17. A) At a local club.
B) At Joe’s house.

C) At the boarding school.
D) At the sports center.

18. A) Durable friendships can be very difficult to maintain.
B) One has to be respectful of other people in order to win respect.
C) Social divisions will break down if people get to know each other.
D) It is hard for people from different backgrounds to become friends.



Passage Two
Questions 19 to 21 are based on the passage you have just heard.
19. A) The art of Japanese brush painting.
B) Some features of Japanese culture.
C) Characteristics of Japanese artists.
D) The uniqueness of Japanese art.

20. A) To calm themselves down.
B) To enhance concentration.

C) To show their impatience.
D) To signal lack of interest.

21. A) How speakers can misunderstand the audience.
B) How speakers can win approval from the audience.
C) How listeners in different cultures show respect.
D) How different Western and Eastern art forms are.



Passage Three
Questions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.
22. A) They mistake the firefighters for monsters.
B) They do not realize the danger they are in.
C) They cannot hear the firefighters for the noise.
D) They cannot see the firefighters because of the smoke.



23. A) He teaches Spanish in a San Francisco community.
B) He often teaches children what to do during a fire.
C) He travels all over America to help put out fires.
D) He provides oxygen masks to children free of charge.


24. A) He is very good at public speaking.
B) He rescued a student from a big fire.
C) He gives informative talks to young children.
D) He saved the life of his brother choking on food.


25. A) Kids should learn not to be afraid of monsters.
B) Informative speeches can save lives.
C) Carelessness can result in tragedies.
D) Firefighters play an important role in America.

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.

注意：此部分试题请在答题卡 1 上作答。


Almost every child, on the first day he sets foot in a school building, is smarter,
more 26 , less afraid of what he doesn’t know, better at finding and 27 ,
more confident, resourceful (机敏的), persistent and 28 than he will ever be
again in his schooling – or, unless he is very unusual and very lucky, for the rest of his
life. Already, by paying close attention to and 29 the world and people around
him, and without any school-type formal instruction, he has done a task far more
difficult, complicated and 30 than anything he will be asked to do in school, or than
any of his teachers has done for years. He has solved the 31 of language. He has
discovered it – babies don’t even know that language exists – and he has found out how
it works and learned to use it 32 . He has done it by exploring, by experimenting,
by developing his own model of the grammar of language, by 33 and seeing
whether it works, by gradually changing it and 34 it until it does work. And
while he has been doing this, he has been learning other things as well, including
many of the ― 35 ‖ that the schools think only they can teach him, and many that
are more complicated than the ones they do try to teach him.



Part III Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)
Section A
Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to
select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank
following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making
your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please
mark the corresponding letter for each item on
Answer Sheet 2
with
a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the
bank more than once.



Questions 36 to 45 are based on the following passage.


One in six. Believe it or not, that’s the number of Americans who struggle with
hunger. To make tomorrow a little better, Feeding America, the nation’s largest
36 hunger-relief organization, has chosen September as Hunger Action Month.
As part of its 30 Ways in 30 Days program, it’s asking 37 across the country to
help the more than 200 food banks and 61,000 agencies in its network provide
low-income individuals and families with the fuel they need to 38 .
It’s the kind of work that’s done every day at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in
San Antonio. People who 39 at its front door on the first and third Thursdays of
each month aren’t looking for God – they’re there for something to eat. St. Andrew’s
runs a food pantry (食品室) that 40 the city and several of the 41 towns.
Janet Drane is its manager.
In the wake of the 42 , the number of families in need of food assistance
began to grow. It is 43 that 49 million Americans are unsure of where they will
find their next meal. What’s most surprising is that 36% of them live in 44 where
at least one adult is working. ―It used to be that one job was all you needed,‖ says St.
Andrew’s Drane. ―The people we see now have three or four part-time jobs and
they’re still right on the edge 45 .‖

注意：此部分试题请在答题卡 2 上作答。

A) accumulate
B) circling
C) communities
D) competition
E) domestic
F) financially
G) formally
H) gather

I) households
J) recession
K) reported
L) reviewed
M) serves
N) surrounding
O) survive

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 questions by marking the
corresponding letter on
Answer Sheet 2
.


Universities Branch Out
A) As never before in their long history, universities have become instruments of
national competition as well as instruments of peace. They are the place of the
scientific discoveries that move economies forward, and the primary means of
educating the talent required to obtain and maintain competitive advantage. But at
the same time, the opening of national borders to the flow of goods, services,
information and especially people has made universities a powerful force for
global integration, mutual understanding and geopolitical stability.


B) In response to the same forces that have driven the world economy, universities
have become more self-consciously global: seeking students from around the
world who represent the entire range of cultures and values, sending their own
students abroad to prepare them for global careers, offering courses of study that
address the challenges of an interconnected world and collaborative (合作的)
research programs to advance science for the benefit of all humanity.

C) Of the forces shaping higher education none is more sweeping than the movement
across borders. Over the past three decades the number of students leaving home
each year to study abroad has grown at an annual rate of 3.9 percent, from
800,000 in 1975 to 2.5 million in 2004. Most travel from one developed nation to
another, but the flow from developing to developed countries is growing rapidly.
The reverse flow, from developed to developing countries, is on the rise, too.
Today foreign students earn 30 percent of the doctoral degrees awarded in the
United States and 38 percent of those in the United Kingdom. And the number
crossing borders for undergraduate study is growing as well, to 8 percent of the
undergraduates at America’s best institutions and 10 percent of all undergraduates
in the U.K. In the United States, 20 percent of the newly hired professors in
science and engineering are foreign-born, and in China many newly hired faculty

members at the top research universities received their graduate education abroad.
D) Universities are also encouraging students to spend some of their undergraduate
years in another country. In Europe, more than 140,000 students participate in the
Erasmus program each year, taking courses for credit in one of 2,200 participating
institutions across the continent. And in the United States, institutions are helping
place students in summer internships (实习) abroad to prepare them for global
careers. Yale and Harvard have led the way, offering every undergraduate at least
one international study or internship opportunity—and providing the financial
resources to make it possible.

E) Globalization is also reshaping the way research is done. One new trend involves
sourcing portions of a research program to another country. Yale professor and
Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Tian Xu directs a research center
focused on the genetics of human disease at Shanghai’s Fudan University, in
collaboration with faculty colleagues from both schools. The Shanghai center has
95 employees and graduate students working in a 4,300-square-meter laboratory
facility. Yale faculty, postdoctors and graduate students visit regularly and attend
videoconference seminars with scientists from both campuses. The arrangement
benefits both countries; Xu’s Yale lab is more productive, thanks to the lower
costs of conducting research in China, and Chinese graduate students, postdoctors
and faculty get on-the-job training from a world-class scientist and his U.S. team.

F) As a result of its strength in science, the United States has consistently led the
world in the commercialization of major new technologies, from the mainframe
computer and the integrated circuit of the 1960s to the Internet infrastructure (基
础设施 ) and applications software of the 1990s. The link between university-
based science and industrial application is often indirect but sometimes highly
visible: Silicon Valley was intentionally created by Stanford University, and
Route 128 outside Boston has long housed companies spun off from MIT and
Harvard. Around the world, governments have encouraged copying of this model,
perhaps most successfully in Cambridge, England, where Microsoft and scores of
other leading software and biotechnology companies have set up shop around the
university.

G) For all its success, the United States remains deeply hesitant about sustaining the
research- university model. Most politicians recognize the link between
investment in science and national economic strength, but support for research
funding has been unsteady. The budget of the National Institutes of Health
doubled between 1998 and 2003, but has risen more slowly than inflation since
then. Support for the physical sciences and engineering barely kept pace with
inflation during that same period. The attempt to make up lost ground is welcome,
but the nation would be better served by steady, predictable increases in science
funding at the rate of long-term GDP growth, which is on the order of inflation
plus 3 percent per year.

H) American politicians have great difficulty recognizing that admitting more foreign
students can greatly promote the national interest by increasing international
understanding. Adjusted for inflation, public funding for international exchanges
and foreign-language study is well below the levels of 40 years ago. In the wake
of September 11, changes in the visa process caused a dramatic decline in the
number of foreign students seeking admission to U.S. universities, and a
corresponding surge in enrollments in Australia, Singapore and the U.K.
Objections from American university and business leaders led to improvements in
the process and a reversal of the decline, but the United States is still seen by
many as unwelcoming to international students.



I) Most Americans recognize that universities contribute to the nation’s well-being
through their scientific research, but many fear that foreign students threaten
American competitiveness by taking their knowledge and skills back home. They
fail to grasp that welcoming foreign students to the United States has two
important positive effects: first, the very best of them stay in the States and—like
immigrants throughout history—strengthen the nation; and second, foreign
students who study in the United States become ambassadors for many of its most
cherished (珍视) values when they return home. Or at least they understand them
better. In America as elsewhere, few instruments of foreign policy are as effective
in promoting peace and stability as welcoming international university students.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡 2 上作答。

46. American universities prepare their undergraduates for global careers by giving
them chances for international study or internship.


47. Since the mid-1970s, the enrollment of overseas students has increased at an
annual rate of 3.9 percent.


48. The enrollment of international students will have a positive impact on America
rather than threaten its competitiveness.


49. The way research is carried out in universities has changed as a result of
globalization.


50. Of the newly hired professors in science and engineering in the United States,
twenty percent come from foreign countries.


51. The number of foreign students applying to U.S. universities decreased sharply
after September 11 due to changes in the visa process.


52. The U.S. federal funding for research has been unsteady for years.


53. Around the world, governments encourage the model of linking university-based
science and industrial application.


54. Present-day universities have become a powerful force for global integration.

55. When foreign students leave America, they will bring American values back to
their home countries.

Section C
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some
questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four
choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice
and mark the corresponding letter on
Answer Sheet 2
with a single
line through the centre.


Passage One
Questions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.
Global warming is causing more than 300,000 deaths and about $$125 billion in
economic losses each year, according to a report by the Global Humanitarian Forum,
an organization led by Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general.
The report, to be released Friday, analyzed data and existing studies of health,
disaster, population and economic trends. It found that human-influenced climate
change was raising the global death rates from illnesses including malnutrition (营养
不良) and heat-related health problems.
But even before its release, the report drew criticism from some experts on
climate and risk, who questioned its methods and conclusions.
Along with the deaths, the report said that the lives of 325 million people,
primarily in poor countries, were being seriously affected by climate change. It
projected that the number would double by 2030.
Roger Pielke Jr., a political scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who
studies disaster trends, said the Forum’s report was ―a methodological
embarrassment‖ because there was no way to distinguish deaths or economic losses
related to human-driven global warming amid the much larger losses resulting from
the growth in populations and economic development in vulnerable (易受伤害的)
regions. Dr. Pielke said that ―climate change is an important problem requiring our
utmost attention.‖ But the report, he said, ―will harm the cause for action on both
climate change and disasters because it is so deeply flawed (有瑕疵的).‖
However, Soren Andreasen, a social scientist at Dalberg Global Development
Partners who supervised the writing of the report, defended it, saying that it was clear
that the numbers were rough estimates. He said the report was aimed at world leaders,
who will meet in Copenhagen in December to negotiate a new international climate
treaty.
In a press release describing the report, Mr. Annan stressed the need for the
negotiations to focus on increasing the flow of money from rich to poor regions to
help reduce their vulnerability to climate hazards while still curbing the emissions of
the heat- trapping gases. More than 90% of the human and economic losses from
climate change are occurring in poor countries, according to the report.



注意：此部分试题请在答题卡 2 上作答。