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大学英语四级考试 2015 年 12 月真题(第一套)
Part I Writing (30 minutes)
Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on
the saying “Learning is a daily experience and a lifetime mission.” You can cite
examples to illustrate the importance of lifelong learning. 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 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 abnormal winter snow storm. C) The frequent choking smog.
B)The first warm front from Europe. D) The unusual warm winter.
2. A) From Saturday afternoon. C) In the next spring.
B)From this Friday. D) During the Christmas holiday.
Questions 3 and 4 are based on the news report you have just heard.
3. A) The project of free digital off-line resources in Nigeria.
B)The project of free video lessons in Nigeria.
C)The digital library in Ahmadu Bello University.
D)The non-profit organizations in Ahmadu Bello University.
4. A) Multimedia work. C) Informative websites.
B ) Digital documents. D) Computer software.
Questions 5 to 7 are based on the news report you have just heard.
5. A) It hit another car. C) It hit a driving bus in the road.
B)It was overspeed. D) It hit a Lexus SUV.
6. A) 3 kilometers per hour. C) 24 kilometers per hour.
B ) 6 kilometers per hour. D) 180 kilometers per hour.
7. A) Realities of speed and distance. C) Wheel and fender damage.
B)Accidents in the road. D) Driving buses in the road.
1Section 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) From some of her friends. C) From a telephone directory.
B)From the wanted column. D)From a television commercial.
9. A) She finished her secondary school.
B ) She studied in a vocational college.
C)She graduated from an open university.
D)She received full-time education abroad.
10.A) She teaches an evening class. C) She is a policewoman.
B ) She works as a tour guide. D) She is a shorthand-typist.
11.A) A job in a travel agency. C) A job as a policewoman.
B)A job in the government. D) A job as a teacher.
Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
12.A) It was interrupted for four years.
B ) It has been off and on for ten years.
C)It helps enlarge his customer network.
D)It provides him with career opportunities.
13.A) Traditional setting. C) Social games.
B ) Individualized service. D)Home-made beer.
14.A) The quality of beer. C) The atmosphere.
B) The owner's attitude.. D) The right location.
15.A) It makes retirees feel useful. C) It is a profitable business.
B ) It helps old people kill time. D) It is a rather tough job.
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.
216.A) It helps the user to escape reality.
B)It is becoming increasingly popular.
C)It hurts a person and those around them.
D)It gives rise to serious social instability.
17. A) They take drugs to get high. C) They use drugs as medicine.
B) They use drugs just for fun. D) They keep drug use a secret.
18.A) It is fatal to the user.
B)It is hard to get rid of.
C)It is the cause of various social problems.
D)It is quite common in entertainment circles.
Questions 19 to 22 are based on the passage you have just heard.
19.A) Taking up exercises after recovery.
B)Finding new ways to cure heart disease.
C)Going on a diet upon leaving the hospital.
D)Producing tasty healthy frozen food.
20.A ) It was carefully tested with consumers.
B)It was disapproved by many diet experts.
C)It was promoted by health organizations.
D)It was highly expected by the general public.
21.A) Competitive price. C) Low expectations.
B) Vigorous promotion. D) Unique ingredients.
22. A) It has a positive implication for consumers.
B)It tricks the elders into impulse purchasing.
C)It matches the food's dark green packaging.
D)It was suggested by the firm's vice-president.
Questions 23 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.
23. A) It will be abolished sooner or later.
B)It is practiced in most of the states.
C)It has to be approved by the Supreme Court.
D)It has drawn a lot of criticism from overseas.
24. A) What effect it might have on youngsters.
B)What type of criminals should receive it.
C)Whether there should be a minimum age limit for execution.
D)Whether the practice should be allowed to continue in future.
325.A) The court sentenced him to life in prison for killing two friends.
B)The governor changed his death sentence to life in prison.
C)He was the first minor to be executed in South Carolina.
D)He was sentenced to death for a crime he committed as a minor.
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 26 to 35 are based on the following passage.
Children do not think the way adults do. For most of the first year of life, if
something is out of sight, it’s out of mind. If you cover a baby’s 26 toy with a piece of
cloth, the baby thinks the toy has disappeared and stops looking for it. A 4-year-old may
27 that a sister has more fruit juice when it is only the shapes of the glasses that differ,
not the 28 of juice.
Yet children are smart in their own way. Like good little scientists, children are
always testing their child-sized 29 about how things work. When your child throws
her spoon on the floor for the sixth time as you try to feed her, and you say, “That’s
enough! I will not pick up your spoon again!” the child will 30 test your claim. Are
you serious? Are you angry? What will happen if she throws the spoon again? She is not
doing this to drive you 31; rather, she is learning that her desires and yours can differ,
and that sometimes those 32 are important and sometimes they are not.
How and why does children’s thinking change? In the 1920s, Swiss psychologist
Jean Piaget proposed that children’s cognitive (认知的) abilities unfold 33 , like the
blooming of a flower, almost independent of what else is 34 in their lives. Although
many of his specific conclusions have been 35 or modified over the years, his ideas
inspired thousands of studies by investigators all over the world.
A) advocate I) Immediately
B) amount J) Naturally
C) confirmed K) Obtaining
D) crazy L) Primarily
E) definite M) Protest
F) differences N) Rejected
G) favorite O) theories
H) happening
4Section 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.
The Perfect Essay
A) Looking back on too many years of education, I can identify one truly impossible
teacher. She cared about me, and my intellectual life, even when I didn’t. Her
expectations were high—impossibly so. She was an English teacher. She was also my
mother.
B) When good students turn in an essay, they dream of their instructor returning it to
them in exactly the same condition, save for a single word added in the margin of the
final page: “Flawless”. This dream came true for me one afternoon in the ninth grade.
Of course, I had heard that genius could show itself at an early age, so I was only
slightly taken aback that I had achieved perfection at the tender age of 14. Obviously,
I did what any professional writer would do; I hurried off to spread the good news. I
didn’t get very far. The first person I told was my mother.
C) My mother, who is just shy of five feet tall, is normally incredibly soft-spoken, but on
the rare occasion when she got angry, she was terrifying. I am not sure if she was
more upset by my hubris (得意忘形) or by the fact that my English teacher had let
my ego get so out of hand. In any event, my mother and her red pen showed me how
deeply flawed a flawless essay could be. At the time, I am sure she thought she was
teaching me about mechanics, transitions (过渡), structure, style and voice. But what
I learned, and what stuck with me through my time teaching writing at Harvard, was a
deeper lesson about the nature of creative criticism.
D) First off, it hurts. Genuine criticism, the type that leaves a lasting mark on you as a
writer, also leaves an existential imprint ( 印记) on you as a person. I have heard
people say that a writer should never take criticism personally. I say that we should
never listen to these people.
E) Criticism, at its best, is deeply personal, and gets to the heart of why we write the way
we do. The intimate nature of genuine criticism implies something about who is able
to give it, namely, someone who knows you well enough to show you how your
mental life is getting in the way of good writing. Conveniently, they are also the
people who care enough to see you through this painful realization. For me it took the
form of my first, and I hope only, encounter with writer’s block--I was not able to
produce anything for three years.
5F) Franz Kafka once said: “Writing is utter solitude ( 独处), the descent into the cold abyss
( 深渊) of oneself.” My mother’s criticism had shown me that Kafka is right about
the cold abyss, and when you make the introspective (内省的) descent that writing
requires you are not always pleased by what you find. But, in the years that followed,
her sustained tutoring suggested that Kafka might be wrong about the solitude. I was
lucky enough to find a critic and teacher who was willing to make the journey of
writing with me. “It is a thing of no great difficulty,” according to Plutarch, “to raise
objections against another man’s speech, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a
better in its place is a work extremely troublesome.” I am sure I wrote essays in
the later years of high school without my mother's guidance, but I can’t recall them.
What I remember, however, is how she took up the "extremely troublesome" work of
ongoing criticism.
G) There are two ways to interpret Plutarch when he suggests that a critic should be able
to produce “a better in its place.” In a straightforward sense, he could mean that a
critic must be more talented than the artist she critiques (评论). My mother was well
covered on this count. But perhaps Plutarch is suggesting something slightly different,
something a bit closer to Marcus Cicero’s claim that one should “criticize by creation,
not by finding fault.” Genuine criticism creates a precious opening for an author to
become better on his own terms--a process that is often extremely painful, but also
almost always meaningful.
H) My mother said she would help me with my writing, but first I had to help myself. For
each assignment, I was to write the best essay I could. Real criticism is not meant to
find obvious mistakes, so if she found any--the type I could have found on my own--I
had to start from scratch. From scratch. Once the essay was “flawless,” she would
take an evening to walk me through my errors. That was when true criticism, the type
that changed me as a person, began.
I) She criticized me when I included little-known references and professional jargon (行
话). She had no patience for brilliant but irrelevant figures of speech. “Writers can’t
bluff (虚张声势) their way through ignorance.” That was news to me--I would need
to freed another way to structure my daily existence.
J) She trimmed back my flowery language, drew lines through my exclamation marks
and argued for the value of restraint in expression. “John,” she almost whispered. I
leaned in to hear her: “I can’t hear you when you shout at me.” So I stopped shouting
and bluffing, and slowly my writing improved.
K) Somewhere along the way I set aside my hopes of writing that flawless essay. But
perhaps I missed something important in my mother’s lessons about creativity and
perfection. Perhaps the point of writing the flawless essay was not to give up, but to
never willingly finish. Whitman repeatedly reworked “Song of Myself” between 1855
6and 1891 repeatedly. We do our absolute best with a piece of writing, and come as
close as we can to the ideal. And, for the time being, we settle. In critique, however,
we are forced to depart, to give up the perfection we thought we had achieved for the
chance of being even a little bit better. This is the lesson I took from my mother: If
perfection were possible, it would not be motivating?
36. The author was advised against the improper use of figures of speech.
37. The author’s mother taught him a valuable lesson by pointing out lots of flaws in his
seemingly perfect essay.
38. A writer should polish his writing repeatedly so as to get closer to perfection.
39. Writers may experience periods of time in their life when they just can’t produce anything.
40. The author was not much surprised when his school teacher marked his essay as “flawless”.
41. Criticizing someone’s speech is said to be easier than coming up with a better one.
42. The author looks upon his mother as his most demanding and caring instructor.
43. The criticism the author received from his mother changed him as a person.
44. The author gradually improved his writing by avoiding fancy language.
45. Constructive criticism gives an author a good start to improve his writing.
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.
Could you reproduce Silicon Valley elsewhere, or is there something unique about it?
It wouldn’t be surprising if it were hard to reproduce in other countries, because you
couldn't reproduce it in most of the US either. What does it take to make a Silicon Valley?
It’s the right people. If you could get the right ten thousand people to move from
Silicon Valley to Buffalo, Buffalo would become Silicon Valley.
You only need two kinds of people to create a technology hub (中心) : rich people
and nerds (痴迷科研的人).
Observation bears this out. Within the US, towns have become star, up hubs if and
only if they have both rich people and nerds. Few startups happen in Miami, for example,
because although it’s full of rich people, it has few nerds. It's not the kind of place nerds
like.
7Whereas Pittsburgh has the opposite problem: plenty of nerds, but no rich people.
The top US Computer Science departments are said to be MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and
Carnegie-Mellon. MIT yielded Route 128. Stanford and Berkeley yielded Silicon Valley.
But what did Carnegie-Mellon yield in Pittsburgh? And what happened in Ithaca, home of
Cornell University, which is also high on the list?
I grew up in Pittsburgh and went to college at Cornell, so I can answer for both. The
weather is terrible, particularly in winter, and there's no interesting old city to make up for
it, as there is in Boston. Rich people don't want to live in Pittsburgh or Ithaca. So while
there’re plenty of hackers (电脑迷) who could start startups, there’s no one to invest in
them.
Do you really need the rich people? Wouldn’t it work to have the government invest
in the nerds?
No, it would not. Startup investors are a distinct type of rich people. They tend to
have a lot of experience themselves in the technology business. This helps them pick the
right startups, and means they can supply advice and connections as well as money. And
the fact that they have a personal stake in the outcome makes them really pay attention.
46. What do we learn about Silicon Valley from the passage?
A)Its success is hard to copy anywhere else.
B)It is the biggest technology hub in the US.
C)Its fame in high technology is incomparable.
D)It leads the world in information technology.
47.What makes Miami unfit to produce a Silicon Valley?
A)Lack of incentive for investment.
B)Lack of the right kind of talents.
C)Lack of government support.
D)Lack of famous universities.
48.In what way is Carnegie-Mellon different from Stanford, Berkeley and MIT?
A)Its location is not as attractive to rich people.
B)Its science departments are not nearly as good.
C)It does not produce computer hackers and nerds.
D)It does not pay much attention to business startups.
49.What does the author imply about Boston?
A)It has pleasant weather all year round.
B)It produces wealth as well as high-tech.
C)It is not likely to attract lots of investors and nerds.
D)It is an old city with many sites of historical interest.
50.What does the author say about startup investors?
8A)They are especially wise in making investments.
B)They have good connections in the government.
C)They can do more than providing money.
D)They are rich enough to invest in nerds.
Passage Two
Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.
It’s nice to have people of like mind around. Agreeable people boost your confidence
and allow you to relax and feel comfortable. Unfortunately, that comfort can hinder the
very learning that can expand your company and your career.
It’s nice to have people agree, but you need conflicting perspectives to dig out the
truth. If everyone around you has similar views, your work will suffer from confirmation
bias (偏颇).
Take a look at your own network. Do your contacts share your point of view on most
subjects? If yes, it’s time to shake things up. As a leader, it can be challenging to create an
environment in which people will freely disagree and argue, but as the saying goes: From
confrontation comes brilliance.
It’s not easy for most people to actively seek conflict. Many spend their lives trying
to avoid arguments. There’s no need to go out and find people you hate, but you need to
do some self-assessment to determine where you have become stale in your thinking. You
may need to start by encouraging your current network to help you identify your blind
spots.
Passionate, energetic debate does not require anger and hard feelings to be effective.
But it does require moral strength. Once you have worthy opponents, set some ground
rules so everyone understands responsibilities and boundaries. The objective of this
debating game is not to win but to get to the truth that will allow you to move faster,
farther, and better.
Fierce debating can hurt feelings, particularly when strong personalities are involved.
Make sure you check in with your opponents so that they are not carrying the emotion of
the battles beyond the battlefield. Break the tension with smiles and humor to reinforce
the idea that this is friendly discourse and that all are working toward a common goal.
Reward all those involved in the debate sufficiently when the goals are reached. Let
your sparring partners ( 拳击陪练) know how much you appreciate their contribution. The
more they feel appreciated, the more they'll be willing to get into the ring next time.
951. What happens when you have like-minded people around you all the while?
A)It will help your company expand more rapidly.
B)It will create a harmonious working atmosphere.
C)It may prevent your business and career from advancing.
D)It may make you feel uncertain about your own decisions.
52.What does the author suggest leaders do?
A)Avoid arguments with business partners.
B)Encourage people to disagree and argue.
C)Build a wide and strong business network.
D)Seek advice from their worthy competitors.
53.What is the purpose of holding a debate?
A)To find out the truth about an issue.
B)To build up people's moral strength.
C)To remove misunderstandings.
D)To look for worthy opponents.
54.What advice does the author give to people engaged in a fierce debate?
A)They listen carefully to their opponents' views.
B)They show due respect for each other's beliefs.
C)They present their views clearly and explicitly.
D)They take care not to hurt each other’s feelings.
55.How should we treat our rivals after a successful debate?
A)Try to make peace with them.
B)Try to make up the differences.
C)Invite them to the ring next time.
D)Acknowledge their contribution.
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.
中国父母往往过于关注孩子的学习，以至于不要他们帮忙做家务。他们对孩子
的首要要求就是努力学习，考得好，能上名牌大学。他们相信这是为孩子好，因为 在
中国这样竞争激烈的社会里，只有成绩好才能保证前途光明。中国父母还认为， 如果
孩子能在社会上取得大的成就，父母就会受到尊敬。因此，他们愿意牺牲自己 的时
间、爱好和兴趣，为孩子提供更好的条件。
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