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2017年6月大学英语四级真题（卷二）
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 advertisement on your campus website to sell a
bicycle you used at college. Your advertisement may include its brand, features, condition and price, and your
contact information. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.
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 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.
Questions 1 to 2 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
1.A) The majority of drivers prefer to drive and park themselves.
B)Human drivers become easily distracted or tired while driving.
C)Most drivers feel uncertain about the safety of self-driving cars.
D)Most drivers have test driven cars with automatic braking features.
2.A) Their drivers would feel safe after getting used to the automatic devices.
B)They would be unpopular with drivers who only trust their own skills.
C)Their increased comfort levels have boosted their sales.
D)They are not actually as safe as automakers advertise.
Questions 3 to 4 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
3.A) Thefts of snowmobile dogs in Alaska.
B)A series of injuries to snowmobile drivers.
C)Attacks on some Iditarod Race competitors.
D)A serious accident in the Alaska sports event.
4.A) He stayed behind to look after his injured dogs.
B)He has won the Alaska Iditarod Race four times.
C)He received a minor injury in the Iditarod Race.
D)He has quit the competition in Alaska for good.
Questions 5 to 7 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
5. A) It sank into the sea due to overloading. B) It ran into Nicaragua’s Big Corn Island.
C) It disappeared between two large islands. D) It turned over because of strong winds.
6.A) 13. B) 25. C) 30. D)32.
7. A) He has helped with the rescue effort. B) He is being investigated by the police.
C) He was drowned with the passengers. D) He is among those people missing.
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 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.
Questions 8 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
8.A) At a shopping centre. B) At a community college.
C) At an accountancy firm. D) At an IT company.
9.A) Helping out with data input. B) Arranging interviews.C) Sorting application forms. D) Making phone calls.
10.A) He enjoys using computers. B) He needs the money badly.
C) He wants to work in the city centre. D) He has relevant working experience.
11. A) Purchase some business suits. B) Learn some computer language.
C) Improve his programming skills. D) Review some accountancy terms.
Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
12.A) They are keen on high technology.
B) They are poor at technology skills.
C) They often listen to National Public Radio.
D) They feel superior in science and technology.
13.A) Japanese. B) Germans. C) Poles. D) Americans.
14.A) Emailing. B) Texting. C) Science. D) Literacy.
15.A) It is undergoing a drastic reform. B) It lays emphasis on creative thinking.
C) It has much room for improvement. D) It prioritizes training of practical skills.
Section C
Directions: In this section, you will hear three passages of lectures or talks followed by three or four
questions. The recordings will be played 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.
Questions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard.
16.A) They have small roots. B) They grow white flowers.
C) They taste like apples. D) They come from Central Africa.
17.A) They turned from white to purple in color.
B) They became popular on the world market.
C) They became an important food for humans.
D) They began to look like modern-day carrots.
18.A) They were found quite nutritious.
B) There were serious food shortages.
C) People discovered their medicinal value.
D) Farm machines helped lower their prices.
Questions 19 to 21 are based on the passage you have just heard.
19.A) She could update her family any time she liked.
B) She could call up her family whenever she liked
C) She could locate her friends wherever they were.
D) She could download as many pictures as she liked.
20.A) She liked to inform her friends about her success.
B)She enjoyed reading her friends’ status updates.
C)She felt quite popular among them.
D)She felt she was a teenager again.
21.A) She could barely respond to all her 500 Facebook friends.
B)She spent more time updating her friends than her family.
C)She could barely balance Facebook updates and her work.
D)She didn’t seem to be doing as well as her Facebook friends.
Questions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.
22. A) They have strong muscles. B)They live a longer life than horses.
C)They eat much less in winter. D)They can work longer than donkeys.23.A) It was a pet of a Spanish king. B)It was bought by George Washington.
C)It was brought over from Spain. D)It was donated by a U.S. Ambassador.
24.A) They met and exchanged ideas on animal breeding.
B)They participated in a mule-driving competition.
C)They showed and traded animals in the market.
D)They fed mules with the best food they could find.
25.A)The wider use of horses. B) The arrival of tractors.
C) A shrinking animal trade. D) A growing donkey population.
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 26 to 35 are based on the following passage.
As if you needed another reason to hate the gym, it now turns out that exercise can exhaust not only your
muscles, but also your eyes. Fear not, however, for coffee can stimulate them again. During (26)_______
exercise, our muscles tire as they run out of fuel and build up waste products. Muscle performance can also be
affected by a (27)_______ called "central fatigue,” in which an imbalance in the body’s chemical messengers
prevents the central nervous system from directing muscle movements（28)_______. It was not known, however,
whether central fatigue might also affect motor systems not directly (29) _______ in the exercise itself, such as
those that move the eyes. To find out, researchers gave 11 volunteer cyclists a carbohydrate (碳水化合物的）
(30)_______ either with a moderate dose of caffeine (咖啡因)，which is known to stimulate the central nervous
system, or as a placebo (安慰剂） without, during 3 hours of (31)_______ . After exercising, the scientists
tested the cyclists with eyetracking cameras to see how well their brains could still (32)_______ their visual
system. The team found that exercise reduced the speed of rapid eye movements by about 8%, (33)_______ their
ability to capture new visual information. The caffeine, the equivalent of two strong cups of coffee, was
(34)_______ to reverse this effect, with some cyclists even displaying (35)_______ eye movement speeds. So it
might be a good idea to get someone else to drive you home after that marathon.
A) cautiously B) commit C) control D) cycling
E) effectively F)increased G) involved H) limited
I) phenomenon J) preventing K) sensitive L) slowing
M) solution N) sufficient O) vigorous
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 .
Team spirit
[A] Teams have become the basic building blocks of organizations. Recruitment advertisements routinely call
for “team players”. Business schools grade their students in part on their performance in group projects. Office
managers knock down walls to encourage team building. Teams are as old as civilization, of course: even Jesus
had 12 co-workers. But a new report by Deloitte, “Global Human Capital Trends”, based on a survey of more than
7,000 executives in over 130 countries, suggests that the fashion for teamwork has reached a new high. Almost
half of those surveyed said their companies were either in the middle of restructuring or about to embark on (开
始）it; and for the most part, restructuring meant putting more emphasis on teams.[B] Companies are abandoning conventional functional departments and organising employees into cross-
disciplinary teams that focus on particular products, problems or customers. These teams are gaining more power
to run their own affairs. They are also spending more time working with each other rather than reporting upwards.
Deloitte argues that a new organisational form is on the rise: a network of teams is replacing the conventional
hierarchy (等级体制).
[C] The fashion for teams is driven by a sense that the old way of organising people is too rigid for both the
modem marketplace and the expectations of employees. Technological innovation places greater value on agility
(灵活性).John Chambers, chairman of Cisco Systems Inc., a worldwide leader in electronics products, says that
“we compete against market transitions (过渡)，not competitors. Product transitions used to take five or seven
years; now they take one or two. ” Digital technology also makes it easier for people to co-ordinate their activities
without resorting to hierarchy. The “millennials” (千禧一代) who will soon make up half the workforce in rich
countries were raised from nursery school onwards to work in groups.
[D] The fashion for teams is also spreading from the usual corporate suspects (such as GE and IBM) to some
more unusual ones. The Cleveland Clinic, a hospital operator, has reorganised its medical staff into teams to focus
on particular treatment areas; consultants, nurses and others collaborate closely instead of being separated by
speciality (专业)and rank. The US Army has gone the same way. In his book, “Team of Teams' General Stanley
McChrystal describes how the army’s hierarchical structure hindered its operations during the early stages of the
Iraq war. His solution was to learn something from the insurgents it was fighting: decentralise authority to self-
organising teams.
[E] A good rule of thumb is that as soon as generals and hospital administrators jump on a management
bandwagon, it is time to ask questions. Leigh Thompson of Kellogg School of Management in Illinois warns that,
‘Teams are not always the answer—teams may provide insight, creativity and knowledge in a way that a person
working independently cannot; but teamwork may also lead to confusion, delay and poor decision-making.” The
late Richard Hackman of Harvard University once argued, “I have no question that when you have a team, the
possibility exists that it will generate magic, producing something extraordinary... But don’t count on it.”
[F] Hackman (who died in 2013) noted that teams are hampered by problems of co-ordination and motivation
that chip away at the benefits of collaboration. High-flyers forced to work in teams may be undervalued and free-
riders empowered. Groupthink may be unavoidable. In a study of 120 teams of senior executives, he discovered
that less than 10% of their supposed members agreed on who exactly was on the team. If it is hard enough to
define a team’s membership, agreeing on its purpose is harder still.
[G] Profound changes in the workforce are making teams trickier to manage. Teams work best if their
members have a strong common culture. This is hard to achieve when, as is now the case in many big firms, a
large proportion of staff are temporary contractors. Teamwork improves with time: America’s National
Transportation Safety Board found that 73% of the incidents in its civil-aviation database occurred on a crew’s
first day of flying together. However, as Amy Edmondson of Harvard points out, organisations increasingly use
“team” as a verb rather than a noun: they form teams for specific purposes and then quickly disband them.
[H] The least that can be concluded from this research is that companies need to think harder about managing
teams. They need to rid their minds of sentimentalism (感情用事)：the most successful teams have leaders who
are able to set an overall direction and take immediate action. They need to keep teams small and focused: giving
in to pressure to be more “inclusive” is a guarantee of dysfunction. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s boss, says that “If I see
more than two pizzas for lunch, the team is too big.” They need to immunize teams against group-think: Hackman
argued that the best ones contain “deviants” (离经叛道者）who are willing to do something that maybe upsetting
to others.
[I] A new study of 12,000 workers in 17 countries by Steelcase, a furniture-maker which also does consulting,
finds that the best way to ensure employees are “engaged” is to give them more control over where and how they
do their work―which may mean liberating them from having to do everything in collaboration with others.[J] However, organisations need to learn something bigger than how to manage teams better: they need to be
in the habit of asking themselves whether teams are the best tools for the job. Teambuilding skills are in short
supply: Deloitte reports that only 12% of the executives they contacted feel they understand the way people work
together in networks and only 21% feel confident in their ability to build cross-functional teams. Loosely managed
teams can become hotbeds of distraction―employees routinely complain that they can’t get their work done
because they are forced to spend too much time in meetings or compelled to work in noisy offices. Even in the age
of open-plan offices and social networks some work is best left to the individual.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
36. Successful team leaders know exactly where the team should go and are able to take prompt action.
37. Decentralisation of authority was also found to be more effective in military operations.
38. In many companies, the conventional form of organisation is giving way to a network of teams.
39. Members of poorly managed teams are easily distracted from their work.
40. Teamwork is most effective when team members share the same culture.
41. According to a report by Deloitte, teamwork is becoming increasingly popular among companies.
42. Some team members find it hard to agree on questions like membership and the team’s purpose.
43. Some scholars think teamwork may not always be reliable, despite its potential to work wonders.
44. To ensure employees’ commitment, it is advisable to give them more flexibility as to where and how they
work.
45. Product transitions take much less time now than in the past.
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 2with a single line through the centre.
Passage One
Questions 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.
Shoppers in the UK are spending less money on toilet paper to save money, research has shown.
Penny-pinching UK consumers choose cheaper products from discounters such as Aldi and Lidl rather than
luxury alternatives.
This has wiped 6% off the value of the soft tissue paper market in the UK. It has shrunk from £1.19 billion in
2011 to £1.12 billion in 2015,according to a new report from market research company Mintel. Furthermore, the
future of the market looks far from rosy, with sales expected to fall further to £1.11 billion in 2016.
In the last year alone, despite an increase in the UK population and a subsequent rise in the number of
households, sales of toilet paper fell by 2%, with the average household reducing their toilet roll spending from
£43 in 2014 to £41 in 2015.
Overall, almost three in five people say they try to limit their usage of paper—including facial tissue and
kitchen roll―to save money. “Strength，softness and thickness remain the leading indicators of toilet paper
quality, with just a small proportion of consumers preferring more luxurious alternatives, such as those with flower
patterns of perfume,said Mintel analyst Jack Duckett. ''These extra features are deemed unnecessary by the
majority of shoppers, which probably reflects how these types of products are typically more expensive than
regular toilet paper, even when on special offer.”
While consumers are spending less on toilet paper, they remain fussy―in theory at least—when it comes to
paper quality. Top of Britons’ toilet paper wish list is softness (57%) followed by strength (45%) and thickness
(36%).
One in 10 buyers rand toilet rolls made from recycled paper among their top considerations, highlighting how
overall the environment is much less of a consideration for shoppers than product quality. In a challenge for
manufacturers, 81% of paper product users said they would consider buying recycled toilet tissue if it werecomparable in quality to standard paper.
46. The market sales of toilet paper have decreased because .
A) Britons have cut their spending on it
B) its prices have gone up over the years
C) its quality has seen marked improvement
D) Britons have developed the habit of saving
47. What does the author think of the future of the tissue paper market in the UK?
A) It will expend in time.
B) It will remain gloomy.
C) It will experience ups and downs.
D) It will recover as population grows.
48. What does Jack Duckett say about toilet paper?
A) Special offers would promote its sales.
B) Consumers are loyal to certain brands.
C) Luxurious features add much to the price.
D) Consumers have a variety to choose from.
49. What do we learn about Britons concerning toilet paper?
A) They are particular about the quality of toilet paper.
B) They emphasize the strength of toilet paper the most.
C) They prefer cheap toilet paper to recycled toilet paper.
D) They reject using toilet paper with unnecessary features.
50. What can we infer from the last paragraph?
A) More and more Britons buy recycled toiler paper to protect the environment.
B) Toilet paper manufacturers are facing a great challenge in promoting its sales.
C) Toilet paper manufacturers compete with one another to improve product quality.
D) Environmental protection is not much of a concern when Britons buy toilet paper.
Passage Two
Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.
“One of the reasons I find this topic very interesting is because my mom was a smoker when I was
younger，” says Lindson-Hawley, who studies tobacco and health at the University of Oxford.
By studying about 700 adult smokers, she found out that her mom quit the right way—by stopping abruptly
and completely.
In her study, participants were randomly (随机地）assigned to two groups. One had to quit abruptly on a
given day, going from about a pack a day to zero. The other cut down gradually over the course of two weeks.
People in both groups used nicotine (尼古丁）patches before they quit, in addition to a second form of nicotine
replacement, like gum or spray. They also had talk therapy with a nurse before and after quit day.
Six months out, more people who had quit abruptly had stuck with it—more than one-fifth of them,
compared to about one-seventh in the other group. Although these numbers appear low, it is much higher than if
people try without support.
And the quit rates were particularly convincing given that before the study started, most of the people had
said they’d rather cut down gradually before quitting. “If you’re training for a marathon, you wouldn’t expect to
turn up and just be able to run it. And I think people see that for smoking as well. They think,‘ Well， if I
gradually reduce, it’s like practice，’” says Lindson-Hawley. But that wasn’t the case. Instead of giving people
practice, the gradual reduction likely gave them cravings (瘾）and withdrawal symptoms before they even
reached quit day, which could be why fewer people in that group actually made it to that point. “Regardless of
your stated preference, if you’re ready to quit, quitting abruptly is more effective,”says Dr. Gabriela Ferreira.
