2016年12月大學英語四級考試真題、聽力原文及參考答案（第1套）

1、2016年12月大學英語四級考試真題(第1套)Part Writing (30 minutes)Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay. Suppose you have two options upon graduation: one is to find a job somewhere and the other to start a business of your own. You are to make a decision. Write an essay to explain t

2、he reasons for your decision. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.Part Listening Comprehension (25 minutes)Section ADirections: 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

3、 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

4、heard.1. A) It was dangerous to live in. C) He could no longer pay the rent.B) It was going to be renovated. D) He had sold it to the royal family.2. A) A strike. C) A forest fire.B) A storm. D) A terrorist attack.Questions 3 and 4 are based on the news report you have just heard.3. A) They lost con

5、tact with the emergency department.B) They were trapped in an underground elevator.C) They were injured by suddenly falling rocks.D) They sent calls for help via a portable radio.4. A) They tried hard to repair the elevator.B) They released the details of the accident.C) They sent supplies to keep t

6、he miners warm.D) They provided the miners with food and water.Questions 5 to 7 are based on the news report you have just heard.5. A) Raise postage rates. C) Redesign delivery routes.B) Improve its services. D) Close some of its post offices.6. A) Shortening business hours. C) Stopping mail deliver

7、y on Saturdays.B) Closing offices on holidays. D) Computerizing mail sorting processes.7. A) Many post office staff will lose their jobs. C) Taxpayers will be very pleased.B) Many people will begin to complain. D) A lot of controversy will arise.Section BDirections: In this section, you will hoar tw

8、o 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 hoar a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A ), B), C) and D ). Then mark the corresponding letter on An

9、swer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.Questions 8 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard.8. A) He will be kept from promotion. C) He will be given a warning.B) He will go through retraining. D) He will lose part of his pay.9. A) He is always on time. C) He is an experie

10、nced press operator.B) He is a trustworthy guy. D) He is on good terms with his workmates.10. A) She is a trade union representative. C) She is a senior manager of the shop.B) She is in charge of public relations. D) She is better at handling such matters.11. A) He is skilled and experienced. C) He

11、is always trying to stir up trouble.B) He is very close to the manager. D) He is always complaining about low wages.Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.12. A) Open. B) Friendly. C) Selfish. D) Reserved.13. A) They stay quiet. C) They talk about the weather.B) They re

12、ad a book. D) They chat with fellow passengers.14. A) She was always treated as a foreigner.B) She was eager to visit an English castle.C) She was never invited to a colleagues home.D) She was unwilling to make friends with workmates.15. A) Houses are much more quiet. C) They want to have more space

13、.B) Houses provide more privacy. D) They want a garden of their own.Section CDirections: In this section, you will hoar three passages. At the end of each passage, you will hoar three or four questions. Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must

14、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 dont have much choice of jobs.B) They are likely to get much

15、higher pay.C) They dont have to go through job interviews.D) They will automatically be given hiring priority.17. A) Ask their professors for help. C) Visit the school careers service.B) Look at school bulletin boards. D) Go through campus newspapers.18. A) Helping students find the books and journa

16、ls they need.B) Supervising study spaces to ensure a quiet atmosphere.C) Helping students arrange appointments with librarians.D) Providing students with information about the library.Questions 19 to 21 are based on the passage you have just heard.19. A) It tastes better. C) It may be sold at a high

17、er price.B) It is easier to grow. D) It can better survive extreme weathers.20. A) It is healthier than green tea. C) It will replace green tea one day.B) It can grow in drier soil. D) It is immune to various diseases.21. A) It has been well received by many tea drinkers.B) It does not bring the pro

18、mised health benefits.C) It has made tea farmers life easier.D) It does not have a stable market.Questions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.22. A) They need decorations to show their status.B) They prefer unique objects of high quality.C) They decorate their homes themselves.D)

19、They care more about environment.23. A) They were proud of their creations.B) They could only try to create at night.C) They made great contributions to society.D) They focused on the quality of their products.24. A) Make wise choices. C) Design handicrafts themselves,B) Identify fake crafts. D) Lea

20、rn the importance of creation.25. A) To boost the local economy. C) To arouse public interest in crafts.B) To attract foreign investments. D) To preserve the traditional culture.Part Reading Comprehension ( 40 minutes )Section ADirections: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are

21、 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

22、 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.When someone commits a criminal act, we always hope the punishment will match the offense. But when it comes to one of the cruelest crimes-animal fightin

23、gthings 26 work out that way. Dog-fighting victims are 27 and killed for profit and sport, yet their criminal abusers often receive a 28 sentence for causing a lifetime of pain. Roughly half of all federally-convicted animal fighters only get probation ( 緩刑 ).Some progress has been made in the prose

24、cution ( 起訴 ) of animal fighters. But federal judges often rely heavily on the U. S. Sentencing Guidelines when they 29 penalties, and in the case of animal fighting, those guidelines are outdated and extremely 30 .The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which 31 these sentencing guidelines, is revisiting t

25、hem, proposing to raise the minimum sentence from 6 - 12 to 21 - 27 months. This is a step in the right 32 , but wed like to see the U. S. Sentencing Commission make further changes to the guidelines.Along with this effort, were working with animal advocates and state and federal lawmakers to 33 ant

26、i-cruelty laws across the country, as well as supporting laws and policies that assist overburdened animal 34 that care for animal fighting victims. This help is 35 important because the high cost of caring for animal victims is a major factor that prevents people from getting involved in cruelty ca

27、ses in the first place.A) convenient F) hesitate K) rarelyB) creates G) inadequate L) sheltersC) critically H) inspired M) strengthenD) determine I) method N) sufferingsE) direction J) minimal O) torturedSection BDirections: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attach

28、ed 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.Wh

29、en Work Becomes a GameA) What motivates employees to do their jobs well? Competition with coworkers, for some. The promise of rewards, for others. Pure enjoyment of problem-solving, for a lucky few.B) Increasingly, companies are tapping into these desires directly through what has come to be known a

30、s gamification: essentially, turning work into a game. Gamification is about understanding what it is that makes games engaging and what game designers do to create a great experience in games, and taking those learnings and applying them to other contexts such as the workplace and education, explai

31、ns Kevin Werbach, a gamification expert who teaches at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.C) It might mean monitoring employee productivity on a digital leaderboard and offering prizes to the winners, or giving employees digital badges or stars for

32、completing certain activities. It could also mean training employees how to do their jobs through video game platforms. Companies from Google to LOral to IBM to Wells Fargo are known to use some degree of gamification in their workplaces. And more and more companies are joining them. A recent report

33、 suggests that the global gamification market will grow from $1.65 billion in 2015 to $11.1 billion by 2020.D) The concept of gamification is not entirely new, Werbach says. Companies, marketers and teachers have long looked for fun ways to engage peoples reward-seeking or competitive spirits. Crack

34、er Jacks has been gamifying its snack food by putting a small prize inside for more than 100 years, he adds, and the turn-of-the-century steel magnate (巨頭) Charles Schwab is said to have often come into his factory and written the number of tons of steel produced on the past shift on the factory flo

35、or, thus motivating the next shift of workers to beat the previous one.E) But the word gamification and the widespread, conscious application of the concept only began in earnest about five years ago, Werbach says. Thanks in part to video games, the generation now entering the workforce is especiall

36、y open to the idea of having their work gamified. We are at a point where in much of the developed world the vast majority of young people grew up playing video games, and an increasingly high percentage of adults play these video games too, Werbach says.F) A number of companies have sprung up - Gam

37、Effectlve, Bunchball and Badgeville, to name a few - in recent years offering gamification platforms for businesses. The platforms that are most effective turn employees ordinary job tasks into part of a rich adventure narrative. What makes a game game-like is that the player actually cares about th

38、e outcome, Werbach says. The principle is about understanding what is motivating to this group of players, which requires some understanding of psychology.G) Some people, Werbach says, are motivated by competition. Sales people often fall into this category. For them, the right kind of gamification

39、might be turning their sales pitches into a competition with other team members, complete with a digital leaderboard showing who is winning at all times. Others are more motivated by collaboration and social experiences. One company Werbach has studied uses gamification to create a sense of communit

40、y and boost employees morale (士氣). When employees log in to their computers, theyre shown a picture of one of their coworkers and asked to guess that persons name.H) Gamification does not have to be digital. Monica Cornetti runs a company that gamifies employee trainings. Sometimes this involves tec

41、hnology, but often it does not. She recently designed a gamification strategy for a sales training company with a storm-chasing theme. Employees formed storm chaser teams and competed in storm-themed educational exercises to earn various rewards. Rewards do not have to be stuff, Cornetti says. Rewar

42、ds can be flexible working hours. Another training, this one for pay roll law, used a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs theme. Snow White is available for everyone to use, but the dwarfs are still under copyright, so Cornetti invented sound-alike characters (Grumpy Gus, Dopey Dan) to illustrate specif

43、ic pay roll law principles.I) Some people do not take naturally to gamified work environments, Cornetti says. In her experience, people in positions of power or people in finance or engineering do not tend to like the sound of the word. If we are designing for engineers, Im not talking about a game

44、at all, Cornetti says. Im talking about a simulation (模擬), Im talking about being able to solve this problem. J) Gamification is not a magic bullet, Werbach warns. A gamification strategy that is not sufficiently thought through or well tailored to its players may engage people for a little while, b

45、ut it will not motivate people in the long term. It can also be exploitative, especially when used with vulnerable populations. For workers, especially low-paid workers, who desperately need their jobs yet know they can be easily replaced, gamification may feel more like the Hunger Games. Werbach gi

46、ves the example of several Disneyland hotels in Anaheim, California, which used large digital leaderboards to display how efficiently laundry workers were working compared to one another. Some employees found the board motivating. To others, it was the opposite of time. Some began to stop taking bat

47、hroom breaks, worried that if their productivity fell they would be fired. Pregnant employees struggled to keep up. In a Los Angeles Times article, one employee referred to the board as a digital whip. It actually had a very negative effect on morale and performance, Werbach says.K) Still, gamificat

48、ion only stands to become more popular, he says, as more and more people come into the workforce who are familiar with the structures and expressions of digital games. We are far from reaching the peak, Cornetti agrees. There is no reason this will go away.36. Some famous companies are already using

49、 gamtfication and more are trying to do the same.37. Gamification is not a miracle cure for all workplaces as it may have negative results.38. To enhance morale, one company asks its employees to identify their fellow workers when starting their computers.39. The idea of gamification was practiced b

50、y some businesses more than a century ago.40. There is reason to believe that gamification will be here to stay.41. Video games contributed in some ways to the wide application of gamification.42. When turning work into a game, it is necessary to understand what makes games interesting.43. Gamificat

51、ion in employee training does not always need technology.44. The most successful gamification platforms transform daily work assignments into fun experiences.45. It is necessary to use terms other than gamification for some professions.Section CDirections: There are 2 passages in this section. Each

52、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 OneQuestions 46 to 50 are based on

53、 the following passage.Recently I attended several meetings where we talked about ways to retain students and keep younger faculty members from going elsewhere.It seems higher education has become an industry of meeting-holders whose task it is to solve problems-real or imagined. And in my position

54、as a professor at three different colleges, the actual problems in educating our young people and older students have deepened, while the number of people hired-not to teach but to hold meetings-has increased significantly. Every new problem creates a new job for an administrative fixer. Take our Ce

55、nter for Teaching Excellence. Contrary to its title, the center is a clearing house (信息交流中心) for using technology in classrooms and in online courses. Its an administrative sham (欺詐) of the kind that has multiplied over the last 30 years.I offer a simple proposition in response: Many of our problems

56、-class attendance, educational success, student happiness and well-being-might be improved by cutting down the bureaucratic (官僚的) mechanisms and meetings and instead hiring an army of good teachers. If we replaced half of our administrative staff with classroom teachers, we might actually get a majo

57、rity of our classes back to 20 or fewer students per teacher. This would be an environment in which teachers and students actually knew each other.The teachers must be free to teach in their own way-the curriculum should be flexible enough so that they can use their individual talents to achieve the

58、 goals of the course. Additionally, they should be allowed to teach, and be rewarded for doing it well. Teachers are not people who are great at and consumed by research and happen to appear in a classroom. Good teaching and research are not exclusive, but they are also not automatic companions. Tea

59、ching is an art and a craft, talent and practice; it is not something that just anyone can be good at. It is utterly confusing to me that people do not recognize this, despite the fact that pretty much anyone who has been a student can tell the difference between their best and worst teachers.46. Wh

60、at does the author say about present-day universities?A) They are effectively tackling real or imagined problems.B) They often fail to combine teaching with research.C) They are over-burdened with administrative staff.D) They lack talent to fix their deepening problems.47. According to the author, w