2020年12月英语四级真题第2套

1、2020年12月大学英语四级考试真题（二）Part IWiltingPart IWilting(30 minutes)Directions ffior this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write on the topic Changes in the Way of Transportation. You should wi te at least 120 woris but no more than 180 words.Listening Comprehension(25 minutes)Listening Comprehension(25 m

2、inutes)Section ADirections In this section, * will hear three news reports. At the end ofeach news repon, you will hear two or three questions. Both the news report and the questions will be s融 n only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answerfrom the four choices marked A), B)

3、, ,C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line througU the centre .Questions 1 and 2 are based on the news report you have just heard.A) He wanted to buy a home.He suffered from a shock.A) Invite the waiter to a iancy dinner.Tell her story to the Daily News.He

4、Lost a huge sum of money.He did an unusual good deed.Give some money to the waiter.Pay the waiters school tuition.Questions 3 and 4 are based on the news repott you have just ffieard.A) Whether or not to move to the states mainland.How to keep the viLLage from sinking into the sea.Where to get the f

5、unds for rebuilding their viLLage.What to do about the rising leveL of the seawater.A) It takes too Long a time.C) It has to wait for the states finatapprovaL.It costs too much money.D) It faces strong opposition from manyviLLagers.Questins 5 to 7 are based on tffie news repott you have Just heard.A

6、) To investigate whether people are gratefuL for heLp.To see whether peopLe hoLd doors open for strangers.To explore ways of inducing gratitude in peopLe.To find out how peopLe express gratitude.A) They induced strangers to taLk with them.They heLped 15 to 20 peopLe in a bad mood.They heLd doors ope

7、n for peopLe at various places.They interviewed peopLe who didnt say thank you.A) PeopLe can be educated to be grateful.C) Most peopLe have bad days now and then.B) Most peopLe express gratitude for heLp. D) PeopLe are ungrateful when in a bad mood.IlYfJ! 2020 12 J3 24Section BDirections Jn this sec

8、tion, JtU will hear two long conversations. At the.ena of each conversation, JtU will hear four questions. Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once. Afteryou heara question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices markeaA), B), C) and D). Then inark the correspo

9、nding letter on Answer Sheet J with a single line through the centre.Quetio ns 8 to 11 are based on the conversation you havejusfi heard.A) To order a solar panel installation.B) To report a serious leak in his roof.A) To order a solar panel installation.B) To report a serious leak in his roof.A) He

10、 plans to install solar pllnels.He owns afour-bedroom house.A) The service ofthe solar panel company.The cost of a solar panel installation.A) One year and a half.Less than four years.To enquire about solar pai;iel installations.To coiplain about the faulty solar panels.He saves $ 300 a year.He has

11、a large family._The maintenance of the solar panels.The quality of the solar panels.Roughly six years.About five years.Questions 12 to 15。招 based on the conversation you havejust ffieardA) At a travel agency.C) At an airline transfer service.At an Australian airport.D) At a local transportation auth

12、ority.A) She would be able to visit more scenic spots.She wanted to save as much money as possible.She vm3111d like to have eveeything taken care of.She wanted to spend more time with her family.A) Fourdays.Five days.A) Choosing sdne activities herself.Spending Christmas with Australians.One week.A)

13、 Fourdays.Five days.A) Choosing sdne activities herself.Spending Christmas with Australians.One week.Two weeks.Driving along the Great Ocean Road.Learning more about winemakingDirectii ns Jn this section, JtU will hear three pzssages. At the end ofeach passage, you will hearthree or four questions.

14、Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only ONce. After ycu heara question, JtU must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A ) , B) , C) and D ) . Then mark the co Responding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.Questions 16 to 18 are based on the p

15、0eyou havejust heard.A) Bringtheirown bagsvyhenshopping. C) Dispose .of their trash properly.Use public transportwhen traveling. D) Pay a green tax upon arrival.A) It has not been doing a good job in recycling.It has witnessed a rise in accidental dinning.It has not attracted many tourists in recent

16、 years.It has experienced an overall decline in air quality.A) To charge a small fee on plastic products in supermarkets.B) To ban single-use plastic bags and straws on Bali Island.C)1 To promote the use of paper bags for shopping.D) To impose a penalty on anyone caught litfiering.2O2OQ120 25Questin

17、s 19 to21 are based od the passage you have just heard.A) It gives birth to several babies at a time.B) It is the least protected mammal secies.A) Global warming.Polluted seawaters.A) To mate.To look for food.C) Its breeding grounds are now btter preserved.D) Its population is. now showing signs of

18、increase.Commercial hunting.Decreasing birthrates.To escape hunters.To seek breeding grounds.A) They prefer to drink low-fat milk.They think milk is good for health.C) Its breeding grounds are now btter preserved.D) Its population is. now showing signs of increase.Commercial hunting.Decreasing birth

19、rates.To escape hunters.To seek breeding grounds.A) They prefer to drink low-fat milk.They think milk is good for health.A) It is not as healthy as once thought.It is not easy to stay fresh for long.A) They drinktoo many pints every day.They are sensitive to certain minerals.A) It is easier for sick

20、 pe ole to digest.It provides, some necessary nutrients.They consume less milk these days.They buy more milk than the British.It benefits the elderly more.It tends to make popple fat.They lack the necessary proteins to digest it.They have eaten fiood inconpatible with milk.It is healthier than other

21、 animal products.It supplies the body with enough calories.Part Reading Comprehension ( 40 minutes)Section ADirections 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 thepa

22、sagB through carefully before making 30ur 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 we any of the words in the bank more than once.When my son completes a task,

23、I cant help but praise him. Its only natural to give praise where praise is due, right? But is there *such 0 thing as too much praise?According to psychogj st Kaiheiine Phillip, children dont- benefit from 26 u praise as much as w*d like to think. Parents often praise, believing they are building ih

24、eir childs self-confidence. However, over-praising can have a 27 effect/ says Phillip. When we use the same praise 28, it may become empy and no longer valued* by the child. Tt can also become an expectation that anything they do aust be 29 with praise. This may lead to the child avoiding taking ris

25、ks due to fiear of 30 their parents. HDoesthismeanweshoulddoawaywithallthepraise?Phillipsaysno. ,rThekeyto healthy praise is to fiocus on the process rather than the 31 . It is the recognition of a childs attempt, or the process in which they achieved something, that is essential/ she says. Parents

26、should encourage their child to take the risks needed to learn and grow. HSo how do we break the 32 of praise were all so accustomed to? Phillip says its important to33 between person praise and process praise. Person praise is 34 saying how great someone is. Its a form of personal approval. Process

27、 praise is acknowledgement of the efforts the personImU! 2020。12 Q 26has just - 35. Children who receive person praise are more likely to fieel shame after losing/1 says Phillip.A) chooseF) experiencedK) repeatedlyB) constantG) negativeL) rewardedC) disappointingH) outcomeM) separatelyD) diitinguish

28、I) patternN) simplyE) exhaustingJ) plural0) undertakenSection BDiRECtions In this secttbn, you are gothg to read a passagu wt!th ten statements attached to ti, Each statement contains information gtven th one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from wht:ch the information 七 dertvea . Yru may c

29、hoose a paragraph moru than oncu . Each paragraph ts marked wtih a letfier. Answer the questtbns by marking the corresponding - letfier on Answer Sheet 2.Poverty is a story about us , not themA) Too often still, we think we know what poverty looks like. Kts the way weve been taught, the images weve

30、been force-fed for decades. The chronically homeless. The undocumented immigrant. The urban poor, usually personified as a woman of color, the welfare queen politicians stil too often reference.B) But as incdne inequality rises to record levels in the United States, even in the midst of a record ecd

31、iomic expansion, those familiar images are outdated, hurtful, and counterproductive to fiocusing attention on solutions and building ladders of opportunity.C) Todays faces of income inequality and lack of opportunity look like all of us. Its Anna Landre, a disabled Georgetown University student figh

32、ting to keep health benefits that allow her the freedom to live her life. Its Tiffanie Standard, a counselorfor young women of color inaihiladelphiawho want to betechentrepreneurs-butwhomustworZmultiplejobstostayafloat. Iti Ken Outlaw, a welder in rural North Carolina whose dream of going back to sc

33、hool at a local community college was dashed by Hurricane Florence-just one otthe extreme weather events that have tipped the balance for struggling Americans across the nation.D) If these are the central characters of our story about poverty, what layers of perceptions, myths, and realities must we

34、 unearth to find meaningful solutions and support? In pursuit of revealing this complicated reality. Mothering tustice, led by women of color, went lait year to the state capital in Lansing, Michigan, to lobbyon issues that affect working mothers. One of the Mothering Justice , otganizers went to th

35、e office of a state representative to talk about the lack of affordable childcare- the vestiges (ii.) of a system that expected mothers to stay home with their children while their husbands worked. A legislative staffer dismissed the activists concerns, telling her my husband iook care of that-I sta

36、yed home.E) That comment, says Mothering Justice director Danielle Atkinson, was meant to shame and relied on the familiar notion that a woman of color concerned about income inequality and programs that promote mobility must by definition beaa single* mom, probably with multiple kids. In this cage,

37、 the Mothering Justice activist happened to be married. And in mosfi cases in the America of 2019z the images that come to mind when we hear the words polity or income inequality fail miserably in lmf!t202012 27reflecting a complicated reality poverty touches virtually all of us. The face of income

38、inequality, for all but a very few of usz is the one we each see in the mirror.How many of us arep r in the U. S. ? It depends on who you ask. According to the Census Bureau, 38 million people in the U. & are living blow the official poverty thresholds. Taking into account economic need beyond that

39、absolute measure, the Institute for Policy Studies fiound that 140 million people are poor or low-if me. Thats almost halt the U. S. population.Whatever the measure, within that massive group, poverty is extremely diverse. We know that some people a re more affected than others, like children, the e

40、lderly, people with disabilities, and pqple of color.But the factthat4in 10 ;Americans cant coue up with $.400 in an emergency is a commonly cited statistic for good reason economic insbilitj stretches across race, gender, and geography. It even reaches into the middle classes, as real wages Oave st

41、agnated (for alt but the very wealthy and temporary spells of financial instability are not uncommon.Negative images remain of who is living in poverty as well as what is needed to move out of it. The big American myth is that you can pull yoursif up by your own efforts and change a bad situation in

42、to a good one. The reality is that finding opportunity without hetp from families, friends, schools, and community is virtually impossible. And the playing fiel4 is nothing close to level.The Frameworks Institute, a research group that focuses on public framing of issues, has studied what sustains s

43、tereotypes and narratives of poverty in the Unified Kingdom. People view economic success and wellbeing in lite as a product of choice, wiltpower, and drive/* says Nat Kendall-Taylor, CEO of Frameworks. nWhen we see people who are struggling/ he saysr those assumptions J lead us to the perception th

44、at, peqple in poverty are lazy, they dont care； and they havent made the right decisions.ADoes this sound familiar? Similar ideas surround poverty in the U.&. And these assumptions give a false picture of reality. When people enter into that patfiern of thinking/ says Kendall-Taylor,n its cognitivel

45、y qfifortable tQ make sense of issues of poverty in that way. It creates a kind of cognitive blindness-all of the factors exfiernalto a persons drive and choices thattheyve made become invisible and fade from view.Those ex_fiernal factors incfude the difficulties accompanying low-wage work or struct

46、ural discrimination based on race, gender, or ability. Assumptions get worse when people who are poor use government benefits to help them surviye. There is a great tension between the poor and those who are receiving what has become a dirty word welfare.According to the General Social Sqrvey, 71 pe

47、rcent of respondents believe the country is spending too little on assistance to the. poor.。On the other hand, 22 percent think we are spending too little on weltare 37 percent believe we are spending too much.“ Poverty has been interchangeable with people of color-speciiically black women and black

48、 mothers/ says Atkinson of Mothering tustice. Its true that black mothers are more affected by poverty than many other groups, yet they are .disproportionately the face of poverty. For example, Americans routinelyoverestimatetheshareofblackrecipients of publicassistance programs.In reality, most peo

49、ple .will experience some form of financial hardship at some point in their lives. Indeed, pele tendio dip in and out of poverty, perhaps due to unexpected obstacles like losing a job,Im。2020 12 Jj 28or when hours of a low-wage job fluctuate.Something each of us can do is to treat each other with th

50、e dignity and sympathy that is deserved and to understand deeply that the issue of poverty touches all of us.One legislative staffer assumed that a woman of color who advocated atYordable childcare must be a single mother.People from different races, genders, and regions all suffer from a lack of fi

51、nancial security.According to a survey, while the majority believe too little assistance is given to the poor, more than a third believe fioo much is spent on welfare.A research group has fiound thatAmericans who are struggling are thoughtto be lazy and to have made the wrong decisions.Under the old

52、 system in America, a mother was supposed to stay home and take care of her children. 41. It was found that nearly 50% of Americans are poor or receive low pay.Americans usually overestimate the number of blacks receiving welfare benefits.41 . It is impossible for Americans to lift themselves out of

53、 poverty entirely on their own. 44. Nowadays, it seems none of us can get away from income inequality.Assumptb ns about poor 昨 pie become even more negative when -they live on welfare.Section CDirections There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by 9Jme questions or unfinished s

54、tatements. For each of them the re are fbu r choices marked A), B), C) and D). You shoufa decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. Passage OneQuestions 46 to SO are based on tffie fiollowing pasuge.Boredom has, paradoxically

55、, become quite interesting to academics lately. In early May, Londons Boring Conference celebrated seven years of delighting in dullness. At this event, people flocked to talks about weather, traffic jams, and vending-machine soundsm ng other sleeiRinducing topics.Whatz exactly, is everybody studyin

56、g? One widely accepted psychological definition of boredom is the distasteful experience of wanting, but being unable, to engage in satisfying activity. But how can you quantify a persons bore41m level and c gpare it with someone elses? In 1986, psychologists introduced the Boredom Proneness Scale,

57、designed to measure an individuals overall tendency to feel bored. By contrat, the Multidimensional State Boredom Sclez developed in 2008 z measures a persons fieelings of boredom in a given situation.Boredom has been linked to behavior issues including inatfientive driving, mindless snacking, exces

58、sive drinking, and addictive gambling. In fact, many of us would choose pain over boredom. One team of psychologists discovered that two-thirds of men and a quarter of women vld rather self-administer electric shocks than sit alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. Researching this phenomenon, ano

59、ther team asked volunteers to watch boring, sadz or neutral films, during which they could self-administer electric shocks. The bored volunteers shocked themselves more and harder than the sad or neutral ones did.But boredom isnt all bad. By encouraging self-reflection and daydreaming, it can spur c

60、reativity. An early study gave participants abundant time to c giplete problem-solving and word-association exercises. Once all the obvious answers were exhausted, participants gave more and more inventive answers toIDIlt 20204 12/7 29combat boredom. A British study took these findings one step furt