大学英语四级（2013年12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷320

For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay based on the Chinese Spring Festival Culture. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.

Honduran authorities devoted to the protection of children and teenagers have undertaken a campaign to protect youngsters who beg on the streets. In the capital of Tegucigalpa alone, the effort has resulted in the rescue of 350 children, city officials say. The Honduran Institute of Childhood and Family, together with the police and the district lawyer, carry out operations around the country to rescue the children and punish the parents. “Many children are used for begging, “ said Nora Urbina, “Many children are rented and that is precisely what we hope to punish, because Article 1-70 of the Juvenile Penal Code sets a penalty of up to six years in prison.“ Those children who are rescued are taken to the Honduran Institute of Childhood and Family and then handed over to their parents with the promise that their rights will be protected. Parents who allow their children to work in this way face, in addition, to as many as six years in prison, the equivalent of a $500 fine. 1. Which of the following is NOT involved in the operations to rescue the children? 2. What punishment would parents face if they allowed their children to beg? The police. The district lawyer. The prison authorities. Institute of Childhood and Family.

Officials say Japan lost its place as the world’s No. 2 Economy to China in the second quarter, as the island nation’s economic growth was very slow. Japan’s Cabinet Office said Monday that gross domestic product rose 0.4 percent in the three months ended June 3, compared with a revised 4.4 percent expansion in the first quarter. Monday’ s report said export growth slowed and consumer spending stopped. The expansion was weaker than economists estimated, with their predictions ranging from 0.6 percent to 3.4 percent. Analysts say China’s economy will almost certainly be bigger than Japan’s at the end of the year, because of the big difference in each country’s growth rates. China is growing at about 10 percent per year, while Japan’ s economy is expected to grow 3 percent this year. 3. How much was Japan’ s economic growth in the first quarter? 4. How many reasons does the news item mention for Japan’ s slow economic growth? 0.4 percent. 3.4 percent. 4.4 percent. 3 percent.

A Moscow company is now marketing “Sleep Boxes“—mobile boxes with beds inside for travelers left in a place overnight, or those in need of a quick snooze. The Sleep Boxes are meant to be fixed in airports and rented for 30 minutes to several hours at a time. A Sleep Box is currently fixed at the Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow. “We travel a lot and many times we faced a problem of rest and privacy in airports“, says co-designer Mikhail Krymov of design firm Arch Group, who is together with Alexei Goryainov came up with the idea of Sleep Box. “And as we are architects, we like to think of solutions“ . Measuring 1.4 meters wide, two meters in length and 2.3 meters in height, Sleep Boxes star feature is a two-meter-long bed made of polymer foam and pulp tissue that changes bedding automatically. It also comes with luggage space, Wi-Fi, electric sockets, and so on. 5. What are the two designer’ s real identity? 6. Whose problems will be solved by “Sleep Boxes“ ? 7. Which of the following is NOT true with reference to the news? Engineer. Passengers. Architects. Workers of airport.

W: So this is the Internet? M: Well, it’s the World Wide Web, which is part of the Internet. W: Wow... and, uh, what do you use it for? M: Oh, well, I can sit here in my office and do almost anything. W: Well, like what? M: Well, this morning, the first thing I did when I got up was to turn on the computer. In a couple of minutes, I was reading the newspaper from Illinois. W: Wow. M: Yeah, you can read hundreds of newspapers from around the world. W: That’s amazing. M: That’s just the start. Then I checked my e-mail. There was a message from my dad in Chicago, one from my sister, and a message from my brother in Hong Kong. My dad’s message was to tell me not to forget my mom’s birthday. So then I sent her an electronic birthday card. W: An electronic birthday card? M: Uh huh. W: Fantastic. M: My sister wanted to know if I was planning to visit her in San Francisco during my vacation. W: So ..., are you? M: Well, I checked an airline reservation service. I looked at the schedule and picked a flight, booked it, and sent the information to my sister. After about an hour she sent me a reply saying she ’d pick me up at the airport. W: Oh, my god! You can book a ticket through your computer? M: Absolutely. Sure. Amazing, isn’t it? Questions 8 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 8. Where does this conversation take place? 9. Where does the man’ s sister live? 10. What is the man most probably going to do during his vacation? 11. Which statement is incorrect according to the conversation? At home. In the office. In a computer store. In a bar.

W: Interested in this book? This is our bestseller this week. M: Bestseller? I am considering what new ideas it gives about how to deal with the aggravating people. W: It asks people to quit complaining and do something. What surprises many people about this book is that it suggests that the best thing to do is to change yourself because you are not going to change the other person. M: Really? It’s “me“ that has to change instead of other person? W: Well, have you ever changed anybody? M: I’ve tried many times. It’ s not really possible though. W: That’s right. M: But how can I change myself? W: The book is here. Bring it back home and read it and you can find the answer. M: Before I pay my money I should be clear that this book is useful for me. I don’t want to waste my money. W: This book is definitely worth the money. The book even tells you how to deal with different types of workers, co-workers and bosses, from the most common annoying type to the worst kind. M: Tell me more about it. W: Again, sir, the book is here. Bring it back and read for the answer. M: It seems you know a lot about this book. Can I draw the conclusion that you fancy it? W: Well, frankly, I am the author. Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 12. What is the new idea that the book gives according to the woman? 13. Where does this conversation probably take place? 14. What information cannot be found in this book? 15. Why does the woman know so much about this book? How to deal with the aggravating people. How to deal with bosses. How to manage the subordinates. How to change yourself.

Cattle have served humanity since prehistoric days as beasts of burden and as suppliers of leather, meat, and milk. Some of the earliest written records concern the sale of cattle. These valuable animals are unusual in that they do not have front teeth in their upper jaw. Instead they chew with their rear teeth and gums. Cows swallow their food quickly and store it in the paunch or rumen, the first of the four compartments in their stomachs. Later the food passes into the second stomach or reticulum where it is rolled into little balls or cuds. While resting, cows cough up these cuds and chew them more thoroughly. This time the food passes into the third and then into the fourth stomach, where digestion takes place. Bacteria in cow’ s stomachs aid in digesting the cellulose in stems of grass or hay. Over one hundred million head of cattle are raised in the United States. Dairy cattle produce more than fifteen and one-half billion gallons of milk every year. Although dairy cattle are bred primarily to produce milk, about half the beef used in the United States comes from dairy breeds. This is because when dry(no longer producing milk)they fatten quickly and produce high-quality beef. Questions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard. 16. According to the passage, what is the rumen? 17. What is the cow’ s second stomach used primarily for? 18. Which of the following is essential in the digestion of cellulose in the cow’s stomach? The first stomach compartment. The name of the upper jaw. The stomach where digestion takes place. The name of the bacteria in the cow’s stomach.

The average American will move 13 times in his life time and most of those moves will take him to another city—a new job, new friends, sometimes a whole new lifestyle. Moving offers the opportunity to make personal changes as well as to change the place where you live and work. For example, you might want to change the way you dress, the kind of friends you have or what you do for entertainment. When no one knows you, you can make these changes in yourself and your lifestyle more easily because your old friends aren’t watching you and you don’t have the pressure of your former co-workers. Moving offers opportunities, but of course, it can also cause problems. It takes time to adjust yourself to change and you might feel lonely and unhappy at first. Moving can also cause problems within the family. If both husband and wife work, probably only one of them will benefit professionally from the move. The other may feel angry and resentful. Children may also resent having to leave their friends and school because their parents decide to move. In the end, moving will be easier if you can focus on the present. That is, don’ t waste time missing the life you left behind. Instead, start making a new life in your new city. And don’t worry that you might have to move again in a couple of years. Think about where you are now and make the most of it. Questions 19 to 21 are based on the passage you have just heard. 19. Why can moving make it much easier for you to make personal change? 20. What problem might you meet when you move according to the passage? 21. What do we learn from the passage? Because you have more opportunities. Because you have much pressure of your former colleagues. Because your old friends aren’ t watching you. Because everyone knows you in a new place.

Some people think that the best time to begin studying a foreign language is in childhood, and that the younger you are, the easier it is to learn another language. There is little evidence, however, that children in language classrooms learn foreign languages any better than adults in similar classroom situations. In fact, adults have many advantages over children: better memories, more efficient ways of organizing information, better study habits, and greater ability to handle complex mental tasks. Adults are often better motivated than children: they see learning a foreign language as necessary for education or career. In addition, adults are particularly sensitive to correctness of grammar and appropriateness of vocabulary, two factors that receive much attention in most language classrooms. Age does have some disadvantages, however. For instance, adults usually want to learn a foreign language in a hurry, unlike children who can devote more time to language mastery. Also, adults have complex communication needs that extend beyond the ability to carry on a simple conversation. Adults need to be able to argue, persuade, express concern, object, explain, and present information about complex matters that pertain to their work or education. Because most adults do not like to appear foolish, they often deny themselves opportunities to practice for fear of making mistakes, not getting their message across, or appearing ridiculously incompetent. Questions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard. 22. In studying a foreign language, which of the following is not one of the adults’ advantages? 23. Compared with adults, what advantage do children have according to the passage? 24. Why do adults deny themselves opportunities to practice a foreign language? 25. What is the passage mainly about? Better memories. Better study habits. More efficient ways of conveying information. Greater abilities to deal with complex tasks.

A bookless life is a / an【C1】______life. Books influence the depth and【C2】______of life. They meet the natural desire for freedom, for expression, for creativity and beauty of life. Learners, therefore, must have books, and the right type of book, for the【C3】______of their need. Readers turn naturally to books because their【C4】______concerning all manners of things, their eagerness to share in the experiences of others and their need to【C5】______from their own limited environment lead them to find in books food for the mind and the spirit. Through their reading they find a deeper significance to life as books acquaint them with life in the world as it was and it is now. They are presented with a / an【C6】______of human experiences and come to respect other ways of thought and living. And while【C7】______their own relationships and responses to life, the readers often find that the characters in their stories are going through similar adjustments, which help to clarify and give significance to their own. Books provide【C8】______material for readers’ imagination to grow. Imagination is a valuable quality and a motivating power, and stimulates achievement. While enriching their imagination, books【C9】______their outlook, develop a fact-finding attitude and train them to use leisure properly. The social and【C10】______significance of the readers’ books cannot be overestimated in an academic library. A) curiosity B) breadth C) educational D) incomplete E) mobile F) particular G) satisfaction H) widen I) escape J) academic K) approach L) establishing M) diversity N) abundant O) benefits

Beauty and Body Image in the Media A) Images of female bodies are everywhere. Women—and their body parts—sell everything from food to cars. Popular film and television actresses are becoming younger, taller and thinner. Some have even been known to faint on the set from lack of food. Women’ s magazines are full of articles urging that if they can just lose those last twenty pounds, they’ll have it all—the perfect marriage, loving children, great sex, and a rewarding career. B) Why are standards of beauty being imposed on women, the majority of whom are naturally larger and more mature than any of the models? The roots, some analysts say, are economic. By presenting an ideal difficult to achieve and maintain, the cosmetic and diet product industries are assured of growth and profits. And it’s no accident that youth is increasingly promoted, along with thinness, as an essential criterion of beauty. If not all women need to lose weight, for sure they’re all aging, says the Quebec Action Network for Women’s Health in its 2001 report. And, according to the industry, age is a disaster that needs to be dealt with. C) The stakes are huge. On the one hand, women who are insecure about their bodies are more likely to buy beauty products, new clothes, and diet aids. It is estimated that the diet industry alone is worth anywhere between 40 to 100 billion (U.S.) a year selling temporary weight loss (90% to 95% of dieters regain the lost weight). On the other hand, research indicates that exposure to images of thin, young, air-brushed female bodies is linked to depression, loss of self-esteem and the development of unhealthy eating habits in women and girls. D) The American research group Anorexia Nervosa & Related Eating Disorders, Inc. says that one out of every four college-aged women uses unhealthy methods of weight control—including fasting, skipping meals, excessive exercise, laxative (泻药) abuse, and self-induced vomiting. The pressure to be thin is also affecting young girls: the Canadian Women’s Health Network warns that weight control measures are now being taken by girls as young as 5 and 6. American statistics are similar. Several studies, such as one conducted by Marika Tiggemann and Levina Clark in 2006 titled “Appearance Culture in 9- to 12-Year-Old Girls: Media and Peer Influences on Body Dissatisfaction,“ indicate that nearly half of all preadolescent girls wish to be thinner, and as a result have engaged in a diet or are aware of the concept of dieting. In 2003, Teen magazine reported that 35 percent of girls 6 to 12 years old have been on at least one diet, and that 50 to 70 percent of normal weight girls believe they are overweight. Overall research indicates that 90% of women are dissatisfied with their appearance in some way. Media activist Jean Kilbourne concludes that, “Women are sold to the diet industry by the magazines we read and the television programs we watch, almost all of which make us feel anxious about our weight.“ E) Perhaps the most disturbing is the fact that media images of female beauty are unattainable for all but a very small number of women. Researchers generating a computer model of a woman with Barbie-doll proportions, for example, found that her back would be too weak to support the weight of her upper body, and her body would be too narrow to contain more than half a liver and a few centimeters of bowel. A real woman built that way would suffer from chronic diarrhea (慢性腹泻) and eventually die from malnutrition. Jill Barad, President of Mattel (which manufactures Barbie), estimated that 99% of girls aged 3 to 10 years old own at least one Barbie doll. Still, the number of real life women and girls who seek a similarly underweight body is epidemic, and they can suffer equally devastating health consequences. In 2006 it was estimated that up to 450, 000 Canadian women were affected by an eating disorder. F) Researchers report that women’s magazines have ten and one-half times more ads and articles promoting weight loss than men’s magazines do, and over three-quarters of the covers of women’s magazines include at least one message about how to change a woman’s bodily appearance—by diet, exercise or cosmetic surgery. Television and movies reinforce the importance of a thin body as a measure of a woman’ s worth. Canadian researcher Gregory Fouts reports that over three-quarters of the female characters in TV situation comedies are underweight, and only one in twenty are above average in size. Heavier actresses tend to receive negative comments from male characters about their bodies (“How about wearing a sack? “), and 80 percent of these negative comments are followed by canned audience laughter. G) There have been efforts in the magazine industry to buck (抵制，反抗) the trend. For several years the Quebec magazine Coup de Pouce has consistently included full-sized women in their fashion pages and Chatelaine has pledged not to touch up photos and not to include models less than 25 years of age. In Madrid, one of the world’ s biggest fashion capitals, ultra-thin models were banned from the runway in 2006. Furthermore Spain has recently undergone a project with the aim to standardize clothing sizes through using a unique process in which a laser beam is used to measure real life women’ s bodies in order to find the most true to life measurement. H) Another issue is the representation of ethnically diverse women in the media. A 2008 study conducted by Juanita Covert and Travis Dixon titled “A Changing View: Representation and Effects of the Portrayal of Women of Color in Mainstream Women’s Magazines“ found that although there was an increase in the representation of women of color, overall white women were overrepresented in mainstream women’s magazines from 1999 to 2004. I) The barrage of messages about thinness, dieting and beauty tells “ordinary“ women that they are always in need of adjustment—and that the female body is an object to be perfected. Jean Kilbourne argues that the overwhelming presence of media images of painfully thin women means that real women’s bodies have become invisible in the mass media. The real tragedy, Kilbourne concludes, is that many women internalize these stereotypes, and judge themselves by the beauty industry’s standards. Women learn to compare themselves to other women, and to compete with them for male attention. This focus on beauty and desirability “effectively destroys any awareness and action that might help to change that climate.“

Global life expectancy averages out to 71.4 years. That means, of course, that some parts of the world see much shorter life spans, while others enjoy far greater longevity. Five places, in particular, fall into the latter category. They’re known as Blue Zones—named for the blue circles researchers drew to identify the first one on a map—and they’re home to some of the oldest and healthiest people in the world. Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones and The Blue Zones Solution, told TIME why residents of these places live so long—and how you can steal their habits. SARDINIA, ITALY A largely plant-based diet, daily physical activity and familial closeness have given this Blue Zone the highest concentration of male centenarians in the world. (Sheep herders, who tend to walk at least five miles a day, and men with daughters, who may get especially tender care as they age, live even longer than most in this area.) It also doesn’t hurt that the M26 marker, a genetic variant linked to extreme longevity, has been passed down through generations in this secluded community. OKINAWA, JAPAN Many Blue Zones emphasize family and community, but bonding reaches its peak in this Japanese culture. Okinawans are supported by their moai, a small but tight-knit social circle meant to be there through all of life’ s ups and downs, which provides social support strong enough to dull mental stressors and reinforce shared healthy behaviors. The result? A culture that boasts the longest-living women in the world, with many surpassing 100. NICOYA, COSTA RICA Most Blue Zone residents avoid processed food, but Nicoyans take it to another level. The Costa Rican people traditionally get the majority of their caloric intake from beans, squash and corn, plus tropical fruits. This plant-forward, nutrient-dense diet—and plenty of time outdoors—makes for strong, well-nourished bodies. Meanwhile, a plan devida, or guiding life purpose, helps Nicoyans stay mentally and spiritually fulfilled to age 90 and beyond. LOMA LINDA, CALIF., USA The U.S. ’s only Blue Zone is a haven for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a Protestant denomination. A shared set of principles, emphasis on community and adherence to the Sabbath—a day of rest, reflection and recharging—Many avoid meat and eat plenty of plants, whole grains and nuts help Loma Linda Adventists live 10 years longer than their fellow Americans. IKARIA, GREECE A fierce sense of island pride keeps Ikarians invested in their community. That, combined with late bedtimes offset by daily naps and a strict adherence to the Mediterranean diet—eating lots of fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grains, potatoes and olive oil—propels 1 in 3 Ikarians to live into their 90s, often free of dementia and chronic disease.

Protests at the use of animals in research have taken a new and fearful character in Britain with attempted murder of two British scientists by the terrorist technique of the pre-planted car bomb. The research community will rightly be alarmed at these developments, which have two aims: to draw public attention and to frighten people working in research with animals. The scientists insist that everything should be done to identify those responsible for the crimes and to put them on trial. The Defense Research Society has taken the practical step of offering a reward of $10, 000 for information leading to those responsible, but past experience is not encouraging. People are unlikely to be tempted by such offers. The professional police will similarly be confronted by the usual problem of finding a needle in a haystack. That is why the intellectual community in Britain and elsewhere must act more actively in its own defense. There are several steps that can be taken, of which the chief one is to demand of all the organizations that exist with the declared aims of safeguarding the interests of animals that theyshould declare clearly where they stand on violence towards people. And it will not be enough for the chairman and chairwoman of these organizations to make placatory statements on behalf of all their members. These people should also undertake that it will be a test of continuing membership in their organizations that members and would-be members should declare that they will take no part in acts of violence against human beings. Even such undertakings would be fully effective: people, after all, can lie. But at least they would distinguish the organizations entitled to a continuing voice in the dialogue with the research community about the rights of animals in research from the organizations that deserve no say.

大熊猫被称为“中国国宝(China’s national treasure)”，是中国特有的动物。大熊猫外表黑白相间，体型肥胖，是一种温驯可爱的动物。它们主要生活在中国西南地区，80％以上分布于四川境内。它们习惯居住在温暖潮湿的环境中，喜欢吃竹类。由于生育率低，对生活环境的要求又相当高，它们的数量越来越少。中国政府早已意识到这一问题的严重性，所以做出了很多努力来保护这一濒危物种。