2011年12月英语四级冲刺预测试题及答案(7)

　　录音文本

　　Part III Listening Comprehension

　　Section A

　　11. W: You look very sleepy and tired. What’s wrong, John? Did you stay up very late last night?

　　M: Oh, no. Well, you know, I’ve been here for only a few days. In my home country, it is still late at night now. I am suffering from jet lag. It’s so hard to overcome this.

　　Q: What does the man mean?

　　12. M: Hey, I’ve rented a horror film from the shop near the college. Could you come over and enjoy it with me?

　　W: You told me last night you’re going to study this morning. Your plans are always good enough, yet you rarely carry them out.

　　Q: What can we infer from the conversation?

　　13. M: I can’t believe I can’t get a plane ticket for the summer holiday. I mean, it’s only March.

　　W: Well, you know I wouldn’t worry about it too much. People cancel their reservations all the time.

　　Q: What does the woman suggest the man do?

　　14. W: John’s room was in a mess. It seemed that he had never cleaned it.

　　M: This problem is not uncommon for a young man from home.

　　Q: What does the man mean?

　　15. M: I think I’ll get my second-hand books at the Student Union this year. So many of the books we are using are the same print.

　　W: I hope you’re not planning to take your time going there. They are usually snapped up within the first week.

　　Q: What does the woman mean?

　　16. M: You’re going to make a trip to San Francisco, aren’t you?

　　W: Yes. But I haven’t got the plane ticket yet. I’m thinking of postponing the trip to next month since this is the busiest month for the airlines.

　　Q: What do we know about the woman from this conversation?

　　17. W: The bank near the supermarket opens on Sundays, quite different from the other banks in the same street.

　　M: On Sundays people have time to go there. It is really convenient for people. Besides, they offer quite satisfactory service.

　　Q: What does the man think of the bank?

　　18. W: Did you go to see the doctor about your cough?

　　M: The doctor said if I keep smoking it will increase my chance of having a heart attack or, lung disease. And I am thinking about quitting smoking as the problems seem to be quite serious.

　　Q: What do we know about the man?

　　Now you will hear the two long conversations.

　　Conversation One

　　M: I really don’t know what to do this summer. I can’t afford to just sit around, and there don’t seem to be any jobs available.

　　W: Why don’t you try house-sitting? Last summer my friend Margaret house-sat for the Dodds when they went away on vacation. Mr. Dodd hired Margaret to stay in their house because he didn’t want it left empty.

　　M: You mean the Dodds paid Margaret just to live in their house?

　　W: It wasn’t that easy. She had to mow the lawn and water the house plants. And when Eric house-sat for Dr. Cohen, he had to take care of her pets.

　　M: House-sitting sounds like a good job. I guess it’s a little like baby-sitting — except you’re taking care of a house instead of children.

　　W: The Student Employment Office still has a few jobs posted.

　　M: Do I just have to fill out an application?

　　W: Margaret and Eric had to interview with the home owners and provide three references each.

　　M: That seems like a lot of trouble for a summer job.

　　W: Well, the home owners want some guarantee that they can trust the house-sitter. You know, they want to make sure you’re not the type who’ll throw wild parties in their house, or move a group of friends in with you.

　　M: House-sitters who do that sort of thing probably aren’t paid then.

　　W: Usually they’re paid anyway just because the home owners don’t want to make a fuss. But if the home owner reported it, then the house-sitter wouldn’t be able to get another job. So why don’t you apply?

　　M: Yeah, I think I will.

　　Questions 19 to 22 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

　　19. What does the man want to do this summer?

　　20. What did the Dodds do when they went away last summer?

　　21. What is one responsibility the house-sitter probably wouldn’t have?

　　22. How do home owners determine the reliability of a house-sitter?

　　Conversation Two

　　M: So, you must have a lot of contact with overseas students in your work helping people coping with daily existence.

　　W: Sometimes. You know the life of a social worker is not all wonderful and working to help people in their daily life. I have to spend a lot of time pushing paper, and writing reports too. But when I do get out, yeah, I see a lot of foreigners. And sometimes they come in because life in America has just beaten them down and they can’t cope financially or emotionally.

　　M: Really? I would think that they had a good support network in place, especially university students.

　　W: They do have a network, and a variety of support groups, but these can’t meet all of the students’ needs. They can’t help with paying bills, dealing with American neighbors and customs, fitting in, getting a driver’s license, etc. They try, but very often the student has to figure out a lot of this stuff by himself. And if he or she is shy, they don’t have the courage to ask other people, even other people from their nationality.

　　M: So what are some of the things that overseas students struggle with?

　　W: This might interest you, but they struggle with the food, especially Chinese. You know, they come here knowing that Americans love Chinese food so much. They think that there will be good restaurants with Chinese food that they love. But they get here and they are extremely surprised. Americans enjoy totally different flavors.

　　M: So what do they do?

　　W: If they’re brave and curious, they look around and test all the restaurants. There is usually at least one restaurant in every town that has almost quality food.

　　Questions 23 to 25 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

　　23. In which aspect does the woman help people in her work?

　　24. Why do people come to the woman for help?

　　25. How did Chinese students expect the American-made Chinese food before they came to the U.S?

　　Section B

　　Passage One

　　It was the summer of 1965. DeLuca, then 17, visited Peter Buck, a family friend. Buck asked DeLuca about his plans for the future. “I’m going to college, but I need a way to pay for it,” DeLuca recalls saying. “Buck said, you should open a sandwich shop.”

　　That afternoon, they agreed to be partners. And they set a goal: to open 32 stores in ten years. After doing some research, Buck wrote a check for $1,000. DeLuca rented a storefront in Connecticut, and when they couldn’t cover their start-up costs, Buck kicked in another $1,000.

　　But business didn’t go smoothly as they expected. DeLuca says, “After six months, we were doing poorly, but we didn’t know how badly, because we didn’t have any financial controls.” All he and Buck knew was that their sales were lower than their costs.

　　DeLuca was managing the store and going to the University of Bridgeport at the same time. Buck was working at his day job as a nuclear physicist in New York. They’d meet Monday evenings and brainstorm ideas for keeping the business running. “We convinced ourselves to open a second store. We figured we could tell the public, ‘We are so successful, we are opening a second store.’” And they did — in the spring of 1966. Still, it was a lot of learning by trial and error.

　　But the partners’ learn-as-you-go approach turned out to be their greatest strength. Every Friday, DeLuca would drive around and hand-deliver the checks to pay their suppliers. “It probably took me two and a half hours and it wasn’t necessary, but as a result, the suppliers got to know me very well, and the personal relationships established really helped out,” DeLuca says.

　　And having a goal was also important. “There are so many problems that can get you down. You just have to keep working toward your goal,” DeLuca adds. DeLuca ended up founding Subway Sandwich, the multimillion-dollar restaurant chain.

　　Questions 26 to 29 are based on the passage you have just heard.

　　26. What was DeLuca’s purpose in opening the first sandwich shop?

　　27. What can we learn about DeLuca and Buck’s first shop?

　　28. Why did DeLuca and Buck decide to open a second store?

　　29. What contributes most to their success according to the speaker?

　　Passage Two

　　Silence is unnatural to man. He begins life with a cry and ends it in stillness. In between he does all he can to make a noise in the world, and he fears silence more than anything else. Even his conversation is an attempt to prevent a fearful silence. If he is introduced to another person, and a number of pauses occur in the conversation, he regards himself as a failure. He knows that ninety-nine percent of human conversation means no more than the buzzing of a fly, but he is anxious to join in the buzz and to prove that he is a man and not a waxwork figure.

　　The aim of conversation is for the most part, to communicate ideas; it is to keep up the buzzing sound. There are, it must be admitted, different qualities of buzz; there is even a buzz that is as annoying as the continuous noise made by a mosquito. But at a dinner party one would rather be a mosquito than a quiet person. Most buzzing, fortunately, is pleasant to the ear, and some of it is pleasant even to the mind. He would be a foolish man if he waited until he had a wise thought to take part in the buzzing with his neighbors.

　　Those who hate to pick up the weather as a conversational opening seem to me not to know the reason why human beings wish to talk. Very few human beings join in a conversation in the hope of learning anything new. Some of them are content if they are merely allowed to go on making a noise into other people’s ears. They have nothing to tell them except that they have seen two or three new plays or that they had food in a Swiss hotel. At the end of an evening, during which they have said nothing meaningful for a long time, they just prove themselves to be successful conversationalists.

　　Questions 30 to 32 are based on the passage you have just heard.

　　30. What is people’s purpose in making conversation according to the speaker?

　　31. What do people usually talk about to their neighbors according to the passage?

　　32. What is the speaker’s purpose in giving this speech?

　　Passage Three

　　Throughout history man has changed his physical environment in order to improve his way of life. With the tools of technology he has altered many physical features of the earth. He has transformed wood lands into farmland, and made lakes and reservoirs out of rivers for irrigation purposes or hydroelectric power. Man has also modified the face of the earth by draining marshes and cutting through mountains to build roads and railways.

　　However, man’s changes to the physical environment have not always had beneficial results. Today, pollution of the air and water is an increasing danger to the health of the planet. Each day thousands of tons of gases come out of the exhausts of motor vehicles; smoke from factories pollutes the air of industrialized areas and the surrounding areas of countryside. The air in cities is becoming increasingly unhealthy.

　　The pollution of water is equally harmful. In the sea, pollution from oil is increasing and killing enormous numbers of algae (a very simple plant without stems or leaves that grows in or near water), fish and birds. The whole ecological balance of the sea is being changed. The same problem exists in rivers. Industrial wastes have already made many rivers lifeless.

　　Conservationists believe that it is now necessary for man to limit the growth of technology in order to survive on earth.

　　Questions 33 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.

　　33. What is the purpose of man changing his physical environment?

　　34. When is the ecological balance of the sea lost?

　　35. Who would most probably disagree with conservationists?

　　Section C

　　Today we are going to practice evaluating the main tool used when addressing groups — the (36) voice. There are three main elements that combine to create either a positive or negative (37) experience for listeners. They can (38) result in a voice that is pleasing to listen to and can be used effectively, or they can create a voice that doesn’t hold the attention, or even worse causes an (39) adverse reaction. The three elements are volume, pitch and pace.

　　When talking about volume, keep in mind that a good speaker will adjust to the size of both the room and the audience. Of course, with an (40) amplifying device like a microphone, the speaker can use a (41) natural tone. But speakers should not be (42) dependent on it. A good speaker can speak loudly without shouting.

　　The second element — pitch — is related to the highness and lowness of the sounds. High pitches are for most people more difficult to listen to, so in general, the speaker should use the lower (43) registers of the voice. (44) During a presentation, it’s important to vary pitch to some extent in order to maintain interest.

　　The third element, pace — this is how fast or slow words and sounds are articulated — should also be varied. (45) A slower pace can be used to emphasize important points — note that the time spent not speaking can be very meaningful too. Pauses ought to be used to signal transitions or create anticipation. It can be very effective when moving from one topic to another (46) A slower pace can be used to emphasize important points — note that the time spent not speaking can be very meaningful too.

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