2014年下半年大学英语四级预测模拟试卷(四)

　　Part I Listening Comprehension (20 minutes)

　　Section A

　　Directions: In this section, you will hear 10 short conversations. At the end of each conversation, a question will be asked about what was said. Both the conversation and the question will be spoken only once. After each question there will be a pause. During the pause, you must read the four choices marked A), B), C) and D), and decide which is the best answer. Then mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the center.

　　Example: You will hear:

　　You will read: A) At the office. B) In the waiting room.

　　C) At the airport. D) In a restaurant.

　　From the conversation we know that the two were talking about some work they had to finish in the evening. This conversation is most likely to have taken place at the office. Therefore, A) “At the office” is the best answer. You should choose [A] on the Answer Sheet and mark it with a single line through the center.

　　Sample Answer [A] [B] [C] [D]

　　1. A) go to a Chinese restaurant B) go to a western restaurant

　　C) go to a pub for a change D) go to a food shop

　　2. A) She likes math very much.

　　B) She does not like math at all.

　　C) She wants to make the math interesting.

　　D) She likes math and thought it was interesting.

　　3. A) He wants to wash the dishes. B) He doesn’t want to wash the dishes.

　　C) He will help them wash the dishes. D) He will do anything for the woman.

　　4. A) She disagrees with the man.

　　B) She agrees with the man.

　　C) She thinks it is not the time we should turn our attention to the danger of drunk driving.

　　D) She only agrees with the man at one point.

　　5. A) His partner B) His teacher

　　C) His sister D) His boss

　　6. A) At a cigarette store. B) At a bus station.

　　C) At a gas station. D) At her parents’

　　7. A) Fifteen. B) Twenty-nine.

　　C) Sixteen. D) Sixty.

　　8. A) Do her housework. B) Clean the backyard.

　　C) Wash clothes. D) Enjoy the beautiful day.

　　9. A) Wife and husband B) Teacher and student

　　C) Mum and son D) Neighbors

　　10. A) The unsmiling faces B) The weather

　　C) The Londoners D) The color

　　Section B Compound Dictation

　　注意：听力理解的B节(Section B)为复合式听写(Compound Dictation)，题目印刷在试卷二上，现在请取出试卷二。

　　Part II Reading Comprehension (35 minutes)

　　Directions: There are 4 passages in this part. 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 the Answer Sheet with a single line through the center.

　　Passage One

　　Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following passage.

　　The most fashionable trend in college sports celebrations today is as innocent as a letterman’s sweater, as old-fashioned as school pride, and reserved only for people who can wear the name of their school across their chest.

　　It can be spotted after any surprising victory, when the most jubilant player grabs the front of his jersey with both hands and displays it to the crowd, framing the college name as if in an advertisement for the school.

　　Popping the jersey, as it has become known, is becoming more and more common. When Donald Brown helped his team win an unlikely victory, he raised his jersey high enough to cover his chin. When Niagara won a major tournament this season, two players popped for the photograph.

　　“Our team doesn’t have names on the back of our jerseys,” Brown said. “So we play for the name on the front. You have to understand, college basketball is not like the N.B.A., where a team chooses you and then you have to play for them. Here, you choose where you want to go, and you go there for a good reason.”

　　“This is one thing I’ve never seen in the N.B.A., and I don’t think I ever will,” Erroll Knight said. “It is our way to represent where we’re from and tell people that we’re proud of it.”

　　Like most dance steps and slang words, no one really knows who started the latest thing. One of the first documented accounts of jersey-popping occurred in December 2000, when Earl Watson faced the student section and tugged at the front of his jersey after his team erased a 19-point deficit against their opponents.

　　“Basketball is an urban sport, a hip-hop sport, and what you’re seeing right now comes from that,” Knight said. “If a guy is wearing a really nice shirt on the street and he wants to show it off to everyone, he’ll do what’s called popping his collar — he’ll sort of flick his collar to demonstrate the value it has. What guys are doing now with their jerseys is the same thing, only they have taken it to another level.”

　　11. According to the passage, we can tell that Erroll Knight is a player for .

　　A) soccer B) tennis C) basketball D) field hockey

　　12. The trend in college sports celebrations today, as told in the text, is .

　　A) innocent but sophisticated B) as fashionable as in the old days

　　C) beloved by everyone D) pure as well as old-fashioned

　　13. Which of the following statement is true according to the author?

　　A) Popping the jersey is not in vogue any more.

　　B) The victory of Donald Brown’s team is out of expectation.

　　C) N.B.A and college basketball are much the same.

　　D) People pop their collars because they are dirty.

　　14. The word “pop” (Para 3, L1)in this passage is closest in meaning to which of the following word/phrase?

　　A) spank B) flick C) popular D) show off

　　15. The reason why college sports players pop the jerseys is because .

　　A) their jerseys are exquisitely designed

　　B) it is a rule of their colleges

　　C) they are very proud of their sports team

　　D) it is a form of demonstration of the value being the representative of their schools

　　Passage Two

　　Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following passage.

　　In the 16th century, Venetian and French glassmakers perfected a technique of coating glass with an alloy of silver to produce an effective mirror. Mirrors soon proliferated in public spaces and private homes, and owning a pocket or hand mirror became a marker of status. The mirror, you might say, was an early personal technology — ingenious, portable, effective — and like all such technologies, it changed its users. By giving us, for the first time, a readily available image of ourselves that matched what others saw, it encouraged self-consciousness and introspection and, as some worried, excesses of vanity.

　　By the 19th century, it was the machines of the Industrial Revolution — the power loom, the motor, the turbine — that prompted concern about the effects of technology on the person. Karl Marx argued that factory work alienated the worker from what he was toiling to produce, transforming him into “a cripple, a monster.” Men were forced to become more like machines: efficient, tireless and soulless.

　　Today’s personal technologies, particularly the cellphone and the digital video recorder, have not provoked similar worries. They are marvels of individual choice, convenience and innovation; they represent the democratization of the power of the machine. Our technologies are more intuitive, more facile and more responsive than ever before. In a rebuke to Marx, we have not become the alienated slaves of the machine; we have made the machines more like us and in the process toppled decades of criticism about the dangerous and potentially enervating effects of our technologies.

　　16. The word “coat” (Line 1, Para.1) means .

　　A) to cover sth. with a layer of sth. B) to combine two different things

　　C) to make sth. into the shape of a coat D) to put a coat on sth.

　　17. Which of the following statement is true according to the text?

　　A) Soon after being invented, mirrors became unpopular among people.

　　B) Mirrors were first invented by French and Vietnamese.

　　C) Karl Marx criticized that factory work had turned the workers into thoughtless monsters.

　　D) The motor is among the machines of ancient inventions.

　　18. Why did some people worried that the mirror might be excesses of vanity?

　　A) Because pocket and hand mirror became a marker of status.

　　B) Because mirrors were extremely expensive during that time.

　　C) Because only wealthy people can afford buying a mirror.

　　D) Because mirrors were invented for important figures.

　　19. The author’s purpose of writing this article is .

　　A) to give a definition on modern technology

　　B) to give evidence to the statement that today’s personal technologies are marvels of individual choice

　　C) to prove the rebuke of Karl Marx

　　D) to illustrate how modern technologies of different times affect people’s life

　　20. Compared with technologies in the 16th and 19th century, technologies today are more .

　　A) ingenious and portable B) marvelous and effective

　　C) intuitive and unreliable D) facile and responsive

　　Passage Three

　　Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage.

　　BMW’s efforts to harness the creativity of its customers began two years ago when it posted a toolkit on its website. This toolkit let BMW’s customers develop ideas showing how the firm could take advantage of advances in telematics and in-car online services. From the 1,000 customers who used the toolkit, BMW chose 15 and invited them to meet its engineers in Munich. Some of their ideas (which remain under wraps for now) have since reached the prototype stage, says BMW. “They were so happy to be invited by us, and that our technical experts were interested in their ideas,” says Mr Reimann. “They didn’t want any money.”

　　Westwood Studios, a game developer now owned by EA, first noticed its customers innovating its products after the launch of a game, “Red Alert,” in 1996: gamers were making new content for existing games and posting it freely on fan websites. Westwood made a conscious decision to embrace this phenomenon. Soon it was shipping basic game-development tools with its games, and by 1999 had a dedicated department to feed designers and producers working on new projects with customer innovations of existing ones. “The fan community has had a tremendous influence on game design,” says Mr Verdu, “and the games are better as a result.”

　　Researchers call such customers “lead users.” GE’s healthcare division calls them “luminaries.” They tend to be well-published doctors and research scientists from leading medical institutions, says GE, which brings up to 25 luminaries together at regular medical advisory board sessions to discuss the evolution of GE’s technology. GE then shares some of its advanced technology with a subset of luminaries who form an “inner sanctum of good friends,” says Sholom Ackelsberg of GE Healthcare. GE’s products then emerge from collaboration with these groups.

　　21. Why does BMW post a toolkit on its website?

　　A) Because it wants to interest more customers.

　　B) Because it wants to improve their website.

　　C) Because it wants their customers to give advices or ideas on theirs products.

　　D) Because it wants to see if the customers’ ideas match their prototype.

　　22. We may conclude from the text that .

　　A) EA is a computer game producer

　　B) EA is the largest hi-tech company in the world

　　C) “Red Alert” made its first appearance before 1996

　　D) Westwood Studios used to be owned by EA for many years

　　23. Which of the following behavior does not reflect that we are now in a customer-driven market?

　　A) BMW posts a toolkit to collect customers’ ideas.

　　B) GE brings up 25 luminaries to discuss the evolution of GE’s technology.

　　C) Westwood establishes a department to deal with customers’ innovations.

　　D) GE’s healthcare division calls some of the well-published doctors and research scientists “luminaries”.

　　24. Which of the following can replace the word “customer-driven”?

　　A) customer-centered B) customer-satisfied

　　C) customer-analyzed D) customer-evaluate

　　25. Customers invited by BMW didn’t want any money, instead, they just want .

　　A) to be invited in a conference

　　B) their suggestions and ideas to be accepted by the company and be of use in the cars’ upgrade

　　C) take a look at BMW’s newest models

　　D) get together and exchange experience on driving the BMWs

　　Passage Four

　　Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.

　　Half of literature concerns the perils of falling for a soul mate: the Victorian heroine runs off with the gardener; Romeo decides he can’t live without the daughter of a family with whom his is feuding. And these tales always end badly, with disgrace and death, so that the normal order of society can be soberly restored.

　　The new matchmakers take a traditional approach. They believe that people do and should marry within their tribes. The count’s daughter is not going to be happy as a gardener’s wife, no matter how mad she was for him at first, whereas a person from an affluent neighborhood will find comfort in a spouse who grew up in a similar area and went to the same tennis camp. They will speak the same dialect. They will move back to their hometowns and send their kids to that same tennis camp. The matchmakers themselves need not necessarily speak their — or any of their clients’— languages. Rather, matchmakers are like linguists who recognize the sounds and structure of many languages and then get the natives together. And if the clients protest that their hearts aren’t beating fast enough (That town? Near my parents?), the matchmakers will insist that the pairing is right. Once they commit and start building that long-delayed life, they’ll be happy — or happier, at least, than when they were single.

　　Of course, you wonder if these kinds of matches actually last, or whether a few months or years after that hefty wedding bonus has been paid, one of them starts saying: Do we really communicate? Sometimes I wonder if you really understand me. Does the man think, What about all that money I paid for you? Does the woman wonder, should I have a profitable divorce and marry for love the next time?

　　26. The sentence “…the normal order of society can be soberly restored.” (Line 4, Para.1) indicates that .

　　A) Romeo should marry Juliet even though she is the daughter of the family with whom his is feuding

　　B) it is totally OK for heroines run off with the gardener

　　C) Victorian heroine should fall in love with a hero

　　D) Romeo should marry a gardener’s daughter

　　27. The phrase “tennis camp ” in paragraph 2 means .

　　A) some certain place where poor people often go

　　B) the actual tennis court

　　C) a place where lovers like to go

　　D) certain places, especially places rich people often go

　　28. The sentence “their hearts aren’t beating fast enough” in paragragh 2 means .

　　A) there is something wrong with their hearts

　　B) their hearts should have been beating faster

　　C) the two people are not so attracted to each other

　　D) the two people fall in love with each other so passionately that their heart beats slow down a little

　　29. The writer claimed mainly in this article that .

　　A) The normal order of society should be soberly restored

　　B) The new matchmakers take a traditional approach nowadays

　　C) People will be much happier once they start a long-delayed life

　　D) Soul mates may not necessarily be people who share the same social status

　　30. According the writer, what is the most fundamental element in a relationship or marriage?

　　A) favorable communication B) similar family background

　　C) similar financial condition D) equal social position