2016年12⽉⼤学英语四级考试真题试卷⼆(完整版)Part I Writing (25 minutes)
(请于正式开考后半⼩时内完成该部分，之后将进⾏听⼒考试)
Directions:For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay. Suppose you have two options upon graduation: oneis to work in a state-owned business and the other in a joint venture. You are to make a choice between the two. Write anessay to explain the reasons for your decision. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。Part II Listening Comprehension (30 minutes)Section A
Directions:In this section, you will hear three news reports. At the end of each news report, you will hear two or three
questions. Both the news report and questions will be spoken only once. After you hear questions, you must choose the bestanswer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a singleline through the centre.注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。Questions 1 to 2 are based on the conversation you have just heard.1. A) To satisfy the curiosity of tourists.B) To replace two old stone bridges.C) To enable tourists to visit Goat Island.D) To improve utility services in the state.2. A) Countless tree limbs.B) A few skeletons.
C) Lots of wrecked boats and ships.D) Millions of coins on the bottom.
Questions 3 to 4 are based on the conversation you have just heard.3. A) It suspended diplomatic relations with Libya.B) It urged tourists to leave Tunisia immediately.C) It shut down two border crossings with Libya.D) It launched a fierce attack against Islamic State.
4. A) Advise Tunisian civilians on how to take safety precautions.B) Track down the organization responsible for the terrorist attack.C) Train qualified security personnel for the Tunisian government.D) Devise a monitoring system on the Tunisian border with Libya.Questions 5 to 7 are based on the conversation you have just heard.5. A) An environment-friendly battery.B) An energy-saving mobile phone.C) A plant-powered mobile phone charger.
D) A device to help plants absorb sunlight.6. A) While sitting in their school?s courtyard.B) While playing games on their phones.C) While solving a mathematical problem.D) While doing a chemical experiment.
7. A) It increases the applications of mobile phones.B) It speeds up the process of photosynthesis.C) It improves the reception of mobile phones.D) It collects the energy released by plants.Section B
Directions:In this section, you will hear two long conversations. At the end of each conversation, you will hear four questions.Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the bestanswer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a singleline through the centre.
Questions 8 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard.8. A) He visited the workshops in the Grimsby plant.B) He called the woman and left her a message.C) He used stand-ins as replacements on all lines.D) He asked a technician to fix the broken production line.9. A) It is the most modern production line.B) It assembles super-intelligent robots.C) It has stopped working completely.D) It is going to be upgraded soon.10. A) To seek her permission.B) To place an order for robots.C) To request her to return at once.D) To ask for Tom?s phone number.11. A) She is on duty.B) She is having her day off.C) She is on sick leave.D) She is abroad on business.
Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.12. A) He saved a baby boy?s life.B) He wanted to be a superhero.C) He prevented a train crash.D) He was a witness to an accident.13. A) He has a 9-month-old boy.
B) He is currently unemployed.C) He enjoys the interview.D) He commutes by subway.14. A) A rock on the tracks.B) A misplaced pushchair.C) A strong wind.D) A speeding car.
15. A) She asked for other?s help.B) She couldn?t help crying.C) She was in horror.
D) She was unaware of this incident.Section C
Directions: In this section, you will hear three passages of lectures or talks followed by three or four questions. Therecordings will be played only once. After you hear a question,you must choose the best answer from the four choicesmarked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.Questions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard.16. A) She inherited her family ice-cream business in Billings.
B) She loved the ice-cream business more than teaching primary school.C) She started an ice-cream business to finance her daughter?s education.D) She wanted to have an ice-cream truck when she was a little girl.17. A) To preserve a tradition.B) To amuse her daughter.C) To help local education.D) To make some extra money.
18. A) To raise money for business expansion.B) To make her truck attractive to children.C) To allow poor kids to have ice-cream too.D) To teach kids the value of mutual support.
Questions 19 to 21 are based on the passage you have just heard.19. A) The reasons for imposing taxes.B) The various services money can buy.C) The various burdens on ordinary citizens.D) The function of money in the modem world.20. A) Educating and training citizens.B) Improving public transportation.C) Protecting people?s life and property.
D) Building hospitals and public libraries.21. A) By asking for donations.B) By selling public lands.C) By selling government bonds.D) By exploiting natural resources.
Questions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.22.A) Taxes in this country are lowB) People there speak mostly GermanC)It is located in the Pyrenees MountainsD) It is one of the most famous small countries23. A) It is situated on Mediterranean Sea.B) Its ruler married an American actress.C) Its ruler was a handsome prince.D) It is surrounded by France on three side.24. A) Tobacco.B) Potatoes.C) Machinery.D) Clothing.
25. A) A marriage between a prince and actress.B) Several excellent skiing locations in Europe.C) Some very small countries in Europe.
D) Main export products in some European countries.Part ⅢReading 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 ofchoices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices, Eachchoice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2with a singleline through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.Questions 26 to 35 are based on the following passage.
Many men and women have long bought into the idea that there are “male” and “female” brains, believing that explains justabout every difference between the sexes. A new study(26)_______that belief, questioning whether brains really can bedistinguished by gender.
In the study, Tel Aviv University researchers(27)_______for sex differences throughout the entire human brain.
And what did they find? Not much. Rather than offer evidence for(28)_______brains as “male”or “female,” research showsthat brains fall into a wide range, with most people falling right in the middle.
Daphna Joel, who led the study, said her research found that while there are some gender-based (29)_______, manydifferent types of brain can?t always be distinguished by gender.
While the “average” male and” average” female brains were (30)_______different, you couldn?t tell it by looking at individualbrain scans. Only a small (31)_______of people had “all-male”or “all-female” characteristics.
Larry Cahill, an American neuroscientist (神经科学家), said the study is an important addition to a growing body of researchquestioning (32)_______beliefs about gender and brain function. But he cautioned against concluding from this study that allbrains are the same, (33)_______of gender.
“There?s a mountain of evidence (34)_______the importance of sex influences at all levels of brain function,” he told TheSeattle Times.
If anything, he said, the study (35)_______that gender plays a very important role in the brain—” even when we are not clearexactly how.”
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 aparagraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the correspondingletter on Answer Sheet 2.When Work Becomes a Game
A) What motivates employees to do their jobs well? Competition with coworkers, for some. The promise of rewards, forothers. Pure enjoyment of problem-solving, for a lucky few.
B) Increasingly, companies are tapping into these desires directly through what has come to be known as “gamification”:essentia lly, turning work into a game. “Gamification is about understanding what it is that makes games engaging and whatgame designers do to create a great experience in games, and taking those learnings and applying them to other contextssuch as the workplace andeducation,”explains Kevin Werbach, a gamification expert who teaches at the Wharton School ofBusiness at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.
C) It might mean monitoring employee productivity on a digital leader board and offering prizes to the winner, or giving
employees digital badges or stars for completing certain activities. It could also mean training employees how to do their jobsthrough video game platforms. Companies from Google to L?Oréal to IBM to Wells Fargo are known to use some degree ofgamification in their workplaces. And more and more companies are joining them. A recent report suggests that the globalgamification market will grow from $1.65 billion in 2015 to $11.1 billion by 2020.
D) The concept of gamification is not entirely new, Werbach says. Companies, marketers and teacher shave long looked forfun ways to engage people?s reward-seeking or competitive spirits. Cracker Jacks has been “gamifying” its snack food byputting a small prize inside for more than 100 years, he adds, and the turn-of-the-century steel magnate (巨头) CharlesSchwab is said to have often come into his factory and written the number of tons of steel produced on the past shift on thefactory floor, thus motivating the next shift of workers to beat the previous one.
E) But the word “gamification” and the widespread, conscious application of the concept only began in earnest about five
years ago, Werbach says. Thanks in part to video games, the generation now entering the workforce is especially open to theidea of having their work gamified. “We are at a point where in much of the developed world the vast majority of young
people grew up playing video games, and an increasingly high percentage of adults play these video games too,” Werbachsays.
F) A number of companies have sprung up--GamEffective, Bunchbail and Badgeville, to name a few--in recent years offeringgamification platforms for businesses. The platforms that are most effective turn employees? ordinary job tasks into part of arich adventure narrative. “What makes a game game-like is that the player actually cares about the outcome,” Werbach says.“The principle is about understanding what is motivating to this group of players, which requires some understanding ofpsychology.”
G) Some people, Werbach says, are motivated by competition. Sales people often fall into this category. For them, the rightkind of gamification might be turning their sales pitches into a competition with other team members, complete with a digitalleaderboard showing who is winning at all times. Others are more motivated by collaboration and social experiences. Onecompany Werbach has studied uses gamification to create a sense of community and boost employees?morale(⼠⽓). Whenemployees log in to their computers, they?re shown a picture of one of their coworkers and asked to guess that person?sname.
H) Gamification does not have to be digital. Monica Cornetti runs a company that gamifies employee trainings. Sometimes
this involves technology, but often it does not. She recently designed a gamification strategy for a sales training companywith a storm-chasing theme. Employees formed “storm chaser teams” and competed in storm-themed educational exercisesto earn various rewards. “Rewards do not have to be stuff,” Cornetti says. “Rewards can be flexible working hours.” Anothertraining, this one for pay roll law, used a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs theme. “Snow White” is available for everyone touse, but the “dwarfs”are still under copyright, so Cornetti invented sound-alike characters (Grumpy Gus, Dopey Dan) toillustrate specific pay roll law principles.
I) Some people do not take naturally to gamified work environments, Cornetti says. In her experience, people in positions ofpower or people in finance or engineering do not tend to like the sound of the word. “If we are designing for engineers, I?mnot talking about a …game? at all,” Cornetti says. “I?m talking about a …simulation?(模拟), I?m talking about …being able tosolve this problem.?”
J) Gamification is “not a magic bullet,”Werbach warns. A gamification strategy that is not sufficiently thought through or welltailored to its players may engage people for a little while, but it will not motivate people in the long term. It can also be
exploitative, especially when used with vulnerable populations. For workers, especially low-paid workers, who desperatelyneed their jobs yet know they can be easily replaced, gamification may feel more like the Hunger Games. Werbach gives theexample of several Disneyland hotels in Anaheim, California, which used large digital leaderboards to display how efficientlylaundry workers were working compared to one another. Some employees found the board motivating. To others, it was theopposite of fun. Some began to stop taking bathroom breaks, worried that if their productivity fell they would be fired.
Pregnant employees struggled to keep up. In a Los Angeles Times article, one employee referred to the board as a “digitalwhip.”“It actually had a very negative effect on morale and performance,” Werbach says.
K) Still, gamification only stands to become more popular, he says, “as more and more people come into the workforce whoare familiar with the structures and expressions of digital games. ““We are far from reaching the peak,” Cornetti agrees.“There is no reason this will go away. “注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
36. Some famous companies are already using gamification and more are trying to do the same.37. Gamification is not a miracle cure for all workplaces as it may have negative results.
38. To enhance morale, one company asks its employees to identify their fellow workers when starting their computers.39. The idea of gamification was practiced by some businesses more than a century ago.40. There is reason to believe that gamification will be here to stay.
41. Video games contributed in some ways to the wide application of gamification.
42. When turning work into a game, it is necessary to understand what makes games interesting.43. Gamification in employee training does not always need technology.
44. The most successful gamification platforms transform daily work assignments into fun experiences.45. It is necessary to use terms other than “gamification” for some professions.Section C
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. Foreach of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark thecorresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2with a single line through the centre.Passage One
Questions 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.
Recently I attended several meetings where we talked about ways to retain students and keep younger faculty members fromgoing elsewhere.
It seems higher education has become an industry of meeting-holders whose task it is to “solve”problems--real or imagined.And in my position as a professor at three different colleges, the actual problems in educating our young people and olderstudents have deepened, while the number of people hired--not to teach but to hold meetings--has increased significantly.Every new problem creates anew job for an administrative fixer. Take our Center for Teaching Excellence. Contrary to itstitle, the center is a clearing house (信息交流中⼼) for using technology in classrooms and in online courses.It?s anadministrative sham (欺诈) of the kind that has multiplied over the last 30 years.
I offer a simple proposition in response: Many of our problems--class attendance, educational success, student happinessand well-being--might be improved by cutting down the bureaucratic (官僚的) mechanisms and meetings and instead hiringan army of good teachers. If we replaced half of our administrative staff with classroom teachers, we might actually get amajority of our classes back to 20or fewer students per teacher. This would be an environment in which teachers andstudents actually knew each other.
The teachers must be free to teach in their own way--the curriculum should be flexible enough so that they can use their
individual talents to achieve the goals of the course. Additionally, they should be allowed to teach, and be rewarded for doingit well. Teachers are not people who are great at and consumed by research and happen to appear in a classroom. Goodteaching and research are not exclusive, but they are also not automatic companions. Teaching is an art and a craft, talentand practice; it is not something that just anyone can be good at. It is utterly confusing to me that people do not recognizethis, despite the fact that pretty much anyone who has been a student can tell the difference between their best and worstteachers.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
46. What does the author say about present-day universities?A) They are effectively tackling real or imagined problems.B) They often fail to combine teaching with research.C) They are over-burdened with administrative staff.D) They lack talent to fix their deepening problems.
47. According to the author, what kind of people do universities lack most?A) Good classroom teachers.B) Efficient administrators.C) Talented researchers.D) Motivated students.
48. What does the author imply about the classes at present?A) They facilitate students? independent learning.B) They help students form closer relationships.C) They have more older students than before.D) They are much bigger than is desirable.49. What does the author think of teaching ability?A) It requires talent and practice.B) It is closely related to research.
C) It is a chief factor affecting students? learning.D) It can be acquired through persistent practice.
50. What is the author?s suggestion for improving university teaching?A) Creating an environment for teachers to share their teaching experiences.B) Hiring more classroom teachers and allowing them to teach in their own way.C) Using high technology in classrooms and promoting exchange of information.D) Cutting down meetings and encouraging administrative staff to go to classrooms.Passage Two
Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.
The secret to eating less and being happy about it may have been cracked years ago--by McDonald?s. According to a newstudy from Cornell University?s Food and Brand Lab, small non-food rewards--like the toys in McDonald?s Happy Meals--stimulate the same reward centers in the brain as food does.
The researchers, led by Martin Reimann, carried out a series of experiments to see if people would choose a smaller meal ffit was paired with a non-food item.
They found that the majority of both kids and adults opted for a haft-sized portion when combined with a prize. Both optionswere priced the same.
Even more interesting is that the promise of a future reward was enough to make adults choose the smaller portion. One ofthe prizes used was a lottery ticket ( 彩票), with a $10, $ 50 or $100 payout, and this was as effective as a tangible gift inpersuading people to eat less.
“The fact that participants were willing to substitute part of a food item for the mere prospect of a relatively small monetaryaward is interesting,” says Reimann.
He theorizes that it is the emotional component of these intangible prizes that make them effective. In fact, vaguely-statedpossibilities of winning a prize were more effective than options with hard odds included.
“One explanation for this finding is that possible awards may be more emotionally provoking than certainty awards,”saysReimann, “The uncertainty of winning provides added attraction and desirability through emotional …thrills.? The possibilityof receiving an award also produces a state of hope--a state that is in itself psychologically rewarding.” In other words, there?s a reason why people like to gamble.
How might this knowledge be used to help people eat more healthily?
One possibility is a healthy option that offers the chance to win a spa (温泉疗养) weekend. Or maybe the reward of a half-sized portion could be a half-sized dessert to be claimed only on a future date. That would get you back in the restaurant--and make you eat a little less.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
51. What do we learn about McDonald?s inclusion of toys in its Happy Meals?A) It may shed light on people?s desire to crack a secret.B) It has proved to be key to McDonald?s business success.C) It appeals to kid?s curiosity to find out what is hidden inside.D) It may be a pleasant way for kids to reduce their food intake.52. What is the finding of the researchers led by Martin Reimann?
A) Reducing food intake is not that difficult if people go to McDonald?s more.B) Most kids and adults don?t actually feel hungry when they eat half of their meal.C) Eating a smaller portion of food does good to the health of kids and adults alike.D) Most kids and adults would choose a smaller meal that came with a non-food item.53. What is most interesting in Martin Reimann?s finding?
A) Kids preferred an award in the form of money to one in the form of a toy.B) Adults chose the smaller portion on the mere promise of a future award.C) Both kids and adults felt satisfied with only half of their meal portions.D) Neither children nor adults could resist the temptation of a free toy.54. How does Martin Reimann interpret his finding?A) The emotional component of the prizes is at work.B) People now care more about quality than quantity.
C) People prefer certainty awards to possible awards.D) The desire for a future reward is overwhelming.55. What can we infer from Martin Reimann?s finding?
A) People should eat much less if they wish to stay healthy and happy.B) More fast food restaurants are likely to follow McDonald?s example.C) We can lead people to eat less while helping the restaurant business.D) More studies are needed to find out the impact of emotion on behavior.P art IV Translation (30 minutes)
Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to translate a passage from Chinese into English. You should write youranswer on Answer Sheet 2.
随着中国的改⾰开放，如今很多年轻⼈都喜欢举⾏西式婚礼。新娘在婚礼上穿着⽩⾊婚纱，因为⽩⾊被认为是纯洁的象征。然⽽，在中国传统⽂化中，⽩⾊经常是葬礼上使⽤的颜⾊。因此务必记住，⽩花⼀定不要⽤作祝⼈康复的礼物，尤其不要送给⽼年⼈或危重病⼈。同样，礼⾦也不能装在⽩⾊的信封⾥，⽽要装在红⾊的信封⾥。注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。答案
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