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2015年06月大学英语四级考试真题（第1套)
Part I Writing (30minutes)
Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay based on the picture below.
You should start your essay with a brief description of the picture and then comment on this kind of
modern life. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.
Part II Listening Comprehension (25 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 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 1 and 2 are based on the news report you have just heard.
1. A) An earthquake hitting Lahore in Pakistan.
B) Rescue operation after the earthquake.
C) A factory building being damaged in the earthquake.
D) Relief work in the collapsed factory building.
2. A) Concrete and bricks. C) Plastic bags.
B) Heavy machines. D) Building materials.
Questions 3 and 4 are based on the news report you have just heard.
3. A) Its color choices. C) Its price.
B) Its hardware. D) Its size.
4. A) About 500 dollars. C) About 300 dollars.
B) About 400 dollars. D) About 100 dollars.
Questions 5 to 7 are based on the news report you have just heard.
5. A) The repeated chemotherapy. C) The stem cell transplant.
B) The immune system treatment. D) The bone marrow transplant.
6. A) About 33. C) About 50.
B) About 35. D) About 94.
7. A) Improving cancer-fighting ability of immune cells.
B) Encouraging patients with skin or lung cancers.
C) Healing the leukemia patients in a single treatment.
D) Eradicating invading viruses and bacteria.
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) It specializes in safety from leaks.
C) It has a chemical processing plant.
B) It is headquartered in London. D) It has a partnership with LCP.
9. A) He is a safety inspector. C) He is a chemist.
B) He is Mr. Grand’s friend. D) He is a salesman.
10. A) The public relations officer. C) Mr. Grand’s personal assistant.
B) Head of the personnel department. D) Director of the safety department.
11. A) Send a comprehensive description of their work.
B) Provide details of their products and services.
C) Leave a message for Mr. Grand.
D) Wait for Mr. Grand to call back.
Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
12. A) She listened to recordings of many European orchestras.
B) She read a lot about European musicians and their music.
C) She dreamed of working and living in a European country.
D) She learned playing the violin from a famous French musician.
13. A) She was a pupil of a famous European violinist.
B) She gave her first performance with her father.
C) She became a professional violinist at fifteen.
D) She began taking violin lessons as a small child.
14. A) In 1955. C) In 1964.
B) In 1961. D) In 1970.
15. A) It was the chance of a lifetime.
B) It was a great challenge to her.
C) It gave her a chance to explore the city.
D) It helped her learn classical French music.
Section C
Directions: In this section, you will hear 3 short passages. At the end of each passage, you will
hear three or four 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.
Questions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard.
15.A) There are mysterious stories behind his works.
B)His personal history is little known.
C)His works have no match worldwide.
D)There are many misunderstandings about him.
16.A) He once worked in a well-known acting company.
B) He moved to Stratford-on-Avon in his childhood.C) He failed to go beyond grammar school.
D) He was a member of the town council.
17.A) People of his time had little interest in him.
B)His works were adapted beyond recognition.
C)Possible sources of clues about him were lost in a fire.
D)Writers of his time had no means to protect their works.
Questions 19 to 21 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
18.A)Theft. C) Cheating.
B)Air crash. D) Road accidents.
19.A) Learn the local customs. C) Book tickets well in advance.
B) Have the right documents. D)Make hotel reservations.
20.A) Contact your agent. C) Get a lift if possible.
B) Use official transport. D) Have a friend meet you.
Questions 22 to 25 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
22. A) Cut down production cost.
B) Refine the taste of his goods.
C) Sell inexpensive products.
D) Specialise in gold ornaments.
23. A) At a meeting of top British business people.
B) During a local sales promotion campaign.
C) During a live television interview.
D) At a national press conference.
24. A) Discouraged. C) Puzzled.
B) Distressed. D) Insulted.
25. A) He is not laughed at, that laughs at himself first.
B) There should be a limit to one’s sense of humour.
C) He who never learns from the past is bound to fail.
D) The words of some businesspeople are just rubbish.
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.
Question 36 to 45 are based on the following passage.
As a teacher, you could bring the community into your classroom in many ways. The parents
and grandparents of your students are resources and 2 6 for their children. They can be 2 7
teachers of their own traditions and histories. Immigrant parents could talk about their country of 2 8
and why they emigrated to the United States. Parents can be invited to talk about their jobs or a
community project. Parents, of course, are not the only community resources. Employees at localbusinesses and staff at community agencies have 2 9 information to share in classrooms.
Field trips provide another opportunity to know the community. Many students don’t have the
opportunity to 3 0 concerts or visit museums or historical sites except through field trips. A
school district should have 3 1 for selecting and conducting field trips. Families must be made
3 2 of field trips and give permission for their children to participate.
Through school projects, students can learn to be 3 3 in community projects ranging from
planting trees to cleaning up a park to assisting elderly people. Students, 3 4 older ones, might
conduct research on a community need that could lead to action by a city council or state
government. Some schools require students to provide community
service by 3 5 in a nursing home, child care center or government agency. These projects help
students understand their responsibility to the larger community.
A) assets I) joining
B) attend J) naturally
C) aware K) observe
D) especially L) origin
E) excellent M) recruited
F) expensive N) up-to-date
G) guidelines O) volunteering
H) involved
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.
Reaping the Rewards of Risk-Taking
A) Since Steve Jobs resigned as chief executive of Apple, much has been said about him as a
peerless business leader who has created immense wealth for shareholders, and guided the
design of hit products that are transforming entire industries, like music and mobile
communications.
B) All true, but let’s think different, to borrow the Apple marketing slogan of years back. Let’s look
at Mr. Jobs as a role model.
C) Above all, he is an innovator (创新者）. His creative force is seen in products such as the iPod,
iPhone, and iPad, and in new business models for pricing and distributing music and mobile
software online. Studies of innovation come to the same conclusion: you can’t engineer
innovation, but you can increase the odds of it occurring. And Mr. Jobs’ career can be viewed as
a consistent pursuit of improving those odds, both for himself and the companies he has led. Mr.
Jobs, of course, has enjoyed singular success. But innovation, broadly defined, is the crucial
ingredient in all economic progress—higher growth for nations, more competitive products for
companies, and more prosperous careers for individuals. And Mr. Jobs, many experts say,
exemplifies what works in the innovation game.
D) “We can look at and learn from Steve Jobs what the essence of American innovation is,” saysJohn Kao, an innovation consultant to corporations and governments. Many other nations, Mr.
John Kao notes, are now ahead of the United States in producing
what are considered the raw materials of innovation. These include government financing for
scientific research, national policies to support emerging industries, educational achievement,
engineers and scientists graduated, even the speeds of Internet broadband service.”
E) Yet what other nations typically lack, Mr. Kao adds, is a social environment that encourages
diversity, experimentation, risk-taking, and combining skills from many fields into products that
he calls “recombinant mash-ups ( 打碎重组),” like the iPhone, which redefined the smartphone
category. “The culture of other countries doesn’t support the kind of innovation that Steve Jobs
exemplifies, as America does,” Mr. John Kao says.
F) Workers of every rank are told these days that wide-ranging curiosity and continuous learning
are vital to thriving in the modem economy. Formal education matters, career counselors say,
but real- life experience is often even more valuable.
G) An adopted child, growing up in Silicon Valley, Mr. Jobs displayed those traits early on. He was
fascinated by electronics as a child, building Heath kit do-it-yourself projects, like radios. Mr.
Jobs dropped out of Reed College after only a semester and traveled around India in search of
spiritual enlightenment, before returning to Silicon Valley to found Apple with his friend,
Stephen Wozniak, an engineering wizard (奇才). Mr. Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985,
went off and founded two other companies, Next and Pixar, before returning to Apple in 1996
and becoming chief executive in 1997.
H) His path was unique, but innovation experts say the pattern of exploration is not unusual. “It’s
often people like Steve Jobs who can draw from a deep reservoir of diverse experiences that
often generate breakthrough ideas and insights,” says Hal Gregersen, a professor at the European
Institute of Business Administration.
I) Mr. Gregersen is a co-author of a new book, The Innovator’s DNA, which is based on an eight-
year study of 5000 ( 创 业 者 ） and executives worldwide. His two collaborators and co-authors
are Jeff Dyer, a professor at Brigham Young University, and Clayton Christensen, a professor at
the Harvard Business School, whose 1997 book The Innovators Dilemma popularized the concept
of disruptive ( 颠覆性的） innovation.”
J) The academics identify five traits that are common to the disruptive innovators: questioning,
experimenting, observing, associating and networking. Their bundle of characteristics echoes the
ceaseless curiosity and willingness to take risks noted by other experts. Networking, Mr. Hal
Gregersen explains, is less about career-building relationships than a consistent search for new
ideas. Associating, he adds, is the ability to make idea-producing connections by linking
concepts from different disciplines.
K) “Innovators engage in these mental activities regularly,” Mr. Gregersen says. “It’s a habit for
them Innovative companies, according to the authors, typically enjoy higher valuations in the
stock market, which they call an “innovation premium (溢价）.” It is calculated by estimating
the share of a company’s value that cannot be accounted for by its current products and cash
flow. The innovation premium tries to quantify (量化) investors’ bets that a company will do
even better in the future because of innovation.
L) Apple, by their calculations, had a 37 percent innovation premium during Mr. Jobs’ first termwith the company. His years in exile resulted in a 31 percent innovation discount. After his
return, Applet fortunes improved gradually at first, and improved markedly starting in 2005,
yielding a 52 percent innovation premium since then.
M) There is no conclusive proof, but Mr. Hal Gregersen says it is unlikely that Mr. Jobs could have
reshaped industries beyond computing, as he has done in his second term at Apple, without the
experience outside the company, especially at Pixar—the computer-animation ( 动 画 制 作 ）
studio that created a string of critically and commercially successful movies, such as “Toy
Story” and “Up.”
N) Mr. Jobs suggested much the same thing during a commencement address to the graduating
class at Stanford University in 2005. “It turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best
thing that could have ever happened to me,” he told the students. Mr. Jobs also spoke of
perseverance (坚持）and will power. “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick,” he
said. “Don’t lose faith. ”Mark D. Shermis, a professor at the University of Akron in Ohio,
supervised the Hewlett Foundation’s contest on automated essay scoring and wrote a paper
about the experiment. In his view, the technology—though imperfect—has a place in
educational settings.
O) Mr. Jobs ended his commencement talk with a call to innovation, both in one’s choice of work
and in one’s life. Be curious, experiment, take risks, he said to the students. His advice was
emphasized by the words on the back of the final edition of The Whole Earth Catalog, which he
quoted “Stay hungry. Stay foolish. ” And, Mr. Jobs said, “I have always wished that for myself.
And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
P) Often they come from very famous institutions where, in fact, they do a much better job of
providing feedback than a machine ever could,” Dr. Shermis said. “There seems to be a lack of
appreciation of what is actually going on in the real world.”
36. Steve Jobs called on Stanford graduates to innovate in his commencement address.
37. Steve Jobs considered himself lucky to have been fired once by Apple.
38. Steve Jobs once used computers to make movies that were commercial hits.
39. Many governments have done more than the US government in providing the raw materials
for innovation.
40. Great innovators are good at connecting concepts from various academic fields.
41. Innovation is vital to driving economic progress.
42. America has a social environment that is particularly favorable to innovation.
43. Innovative ideas often come from diverse experiences.
44. Real-life experience is often more important than formal education for career success.
45. Applet fortunes suffered from an innovation discount during Jobs’ absence.
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 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.
Some of the world’s most significant problems never hit headlines. One example comes from
agriculture. Food riots and hunger make news. But the trend lying behind these matters is rarely
talked about. This is the decline in the growth in yields of some of the world’s major crops. A new
study by the University of Minnesota and McGill University in Montreal looks at where, and how
far, this decline is occurring.
The authors take a vast number of data points for the four most important crops: rice, wheat,
com and soybeans ( 大豆). They find that on between 24% and 39% of all harvested areas, the
improvement in yields that took place before the 1980s slowed down in the 1990s and 2000s.
There are two worrying features of the slowdown. One is that it has been particularly sharp in
the world’s most (人口多的）countries, India and China. Their ability to feed themselves has
been an important source of relative stability both within the countries and on world food markets.
That self-sufficiency cannot be taken for granted if yields continue to slow down or reverse.
Second, yield growth has been lower in wheat and rice than in com and soybeans. This is
problematic because wheat and rice are more important as foods, accounting for around half of all
calories consumed. Corn and soybeans are more important as feed grains. The authors note that “we
have preferentially focused our crop improvement efforts on feeding animals and cars rather than
on crops that feed people and are the basis
of food security in much of the world.”
The report qualifies the more optimistic findings of another new paper which suggests that the
world will not have to dig up a lot more land for farming in order to feed 9 billion people in 2050, as
the Food and Agriculture Organisation has argued.
Instead, it says, thanks to slowing population growth, land currently ploughed up for crops
might be able to revert ( 回返） to forest or wilderness. This could happen. The trouble is that the
forecast assumes continued improvements in yields, which may not actually happen.
46.What does the author try to draw attention to?
A)Food riots and hunger in the world. C) The decline of the grain yield growth.
B)News headlines in the leading media. D) The food supply in populous countries.
47.Why does the author mention India and China in particular?
A)Their self-sufficiency is vital to the stability of world food markets.
B)Their food yields have begun to decrease sharply in recent years.
C)Their big populations are causing worldwide concerns.
D)Their food self-sufficiency has been taken for granted.
48. What does the new study by the two universities say about recent crop improvement efforts?
A)They fail to produce the same remarkable results as before the 1980s.
B)They contribute a lot to the improvement of human food production.
C)They play a major role in guaranteeing the food security of the world.
D)They focus more on the increase of animal feed than human food grains.
49. What does the Food and Agriculture Organisation say about world food production in the
coming decades?A)The growing population will greatly increase the pressure on world food supplies.
B)The optimistic prediction about food production should be viewed with caution.
C)The slowdown of the growth in yields of major food crops will be reversed.
D)The world will be able to feed its population without increasing farmland.
50.How does the author view the argument of the Food and Agriculture Organisation?
A)It is built on the findings of a new study.
B)It is based on a doubtful assumption.
C)It is backed by strong evidence.
D)It is open to further discussion.
Passage Two
Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.
The endless debate about “work-life balance” often contains a hopeful footnote about stay-at-
home dads. If American society and business won’t make it easier on future female leaders who
choose to have children, there is still the ray of hope that increasing numbers of full-time fathers will.
But based on today’s socioeconomic trends, this hope is, unfortunately, misguided.
It’s true that the number of men who have left work to do their thing as full-time parents has
doubled in a decade, but it’s still very small: only 0. 8% of married couples where the stay-at-home
father was out of the labor force for a year. Even that percentage is likely inflated by men thrust
into their caretaker role by a downsizing. This is simply not a large enough group to reduce the
social stigma (污名) and force other adjustments necessary to supporting men in this decision, even
if only for a relatively short time.
Even shorter times away from work for working fathers are already difficult. A study found
that 85% of new fathers take some time off after the birth of a child—but for all but a few, it’s a
week or two at most. Meanwhile, the average for women who take leave is more than 10 weeks.
Such choices impact who moves up in the organization. While you’re away, someone else is
doing your work, making your sales, taking care of your customers. That can’t help you at work. It
can only hurt you. Women, of course, face the same issues of returning after a long absence. But
with many more women than men choosing to leave the workforce entirely to raise families,
returning from an extended parental leave doesn’t raise as many eyebrows as it does for men.
Women would make more if they didn’t break their earning trajectory ( 轨迹） by leaving the
workforce, or if higher-paying professions were more family-friendly. In the foreseeable future,
stay-at-home fathers may make all the difference for individual families, but their presence won’t
reduce the numbers of high-potential women who are forced to choose between family and career.
51. What gives women a ray of hope to achieve work-life balance?
A) More men taking an extended parental leave.
B) Peopled changing attitudes towards family.
C) More women entering business management.
D) The improvement of their socioeconomic status.
52. Why does the author say the hope for more full-time fathers is misguided?
A) Women are better at taking care of children.
B) Many men value work more than their family.C) Their number is too small to make a difference.
D) Not many men have the chance to stay at home.
53. Why do few men take a long parental leave?
A) A long leave will have a negative impact on their career.
B) They just have too many responsibilities to fulfill at work.
C) The economic loss will be too much for their family to bear.
D) They are likely to get fired if absent from work for too long.
54. What is the most likely reaction to men returning from an extended parental leave?
A) Jealousy. B) Surprise. C) Admiration. D) Sympathy.
55.What does the author say about high-potential women in the not-too-distant future?
A)They will benefit from the trend of more fathers staying at home.
B)They will find high-paying professions a bit more family-friendly.
C)They are unlikely to break their career trajectory to raise a family.
D)They will still face the difficult choice between career and children.
Part IV Translation (30 minutes)
Section A
Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to translate a passage from Chinese into
English. You should write your answer on Answer Sheet 2.
中国是世界上最古老的文明之一。构成现代世界基础的许多元素都起源于中国。中国现在拥有
世界上发展最快的经济，并经历着一次新的工业革命。中国还启动了雄心勃勃的太空探索计划,
其中包括到2020年建成一个太空站。目前，中国是世界最大的出口国之一，并正在吸引大量外国
投资。同时，它也在海外投资数十亿美元。2011年，中国超越日本成为世界第二大经济体。
