2016年12月大學英語四級仿真模擬試題

2016年下半年英語四級考試時間為12月17日，為了幫助大家更好地備考，yjbys網小編為大家提供了英語四級仿真模擬題，供大家備考練習。

　Part I Writing (30 minutes)

Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a composition on the topic Competition. You should write at least 120 words following the outline given below in Chinese:

1. 競爭使人們充滿創造力，使人們更有效率。

2. 競爭促使生產出更好的產品和提供更優質的服務。

3. 競爭促進了社會的進一步發展。

Key to Model Test Three

Part I Writing

【寫作思路】

要求寫一篇關於競爭的議論文。要求從以下幾個方面闡述：競爭使人們充滿創造力，使人們更有效率;競爭促使生產出更好的產品和提供更優質的服務;競爭促進了社會的進一步發展。

【參考範文】

Competition

Competition makes people more creative and effective. It urges them to plan better, to try harder, and to achieve more. With a desire to excel in their work, people tend to perform more creatively and more efficiently。

Competition helps produce better products and provide better services. In the present world of intense competition, every manufacture tries his best to outmatch his competitor by producing goods of better quality at lower costs. As a result, consumers pay less and receive better service。

Competition promotes further development of society. If there were no competition, people would remain complacent and be unwilling to make any efforts or risk anything new. However, with fierce competition going on, they exert themselves to accomplish more. Their accomplishment will, in one way or another, contribute to the progress of society。

Part II Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes)

Earthquake

Can Scientists Predict Killer Earthquakes?

The date was November 23, 1980. People near Naples, in southern Italy, felt the Earth roll and shake. Earthquake! Suddenly buildings came tumbling down. Cracks appeared in the earth. Within minutes, entire towns were destroyed. Thousands of people were dead. Thousands more were injured。

As rescuers searched through the rubble, many people must have wondered, of only the victims had known ahead of time, many lives could have been saved。

Actually, an Italian scientist did predict that such a quake would happen. In 1977 Dr. M. Caputo of the Universite Degiles Studi in Rome warned that a large quake would soon strike the east of Naples. Unfortunately, he couldn’t predict the exact time and date of the quake。

Dr. Caputo made his general prediction after talking with scientists at 54 earthquake monitoring stations throughout Italy. He learned that many earthquakes had recently rocked different areas around Naples. But none had occurred in one particular spot east of Naples for many years. Dr. Caputo felt that the area was long overdue for a large quake. And it was。

Earthquake Strikes in Gap

The quake occurred in a region that Dr. Caputo called a seismic gap. A seismic gap is an area in an active earthquake region where no earthquake or seismic activity has been recorded in a long time. Seismic gaps are located where two large plates in the Earth have become stuck。

When the plates slide past each other, they sometimes became locked in place. A similar thing happens when you make a running leap on a sidewalk while wearing sneakers. When you land on both feet, the sneakers grab onto rough surface. Friction tends to hold your feet back while the rest of your body goes forward. You may end up falling flat on your face。

In the case of plates, however, the uneven surfaces between the plates cause the plates to remain locked in place for years. Huge pressure builds up behind each plate. Periodically, a shudder, or tremor, is recorded as some of this energy is released。

Finally, after about 50 years, rock in the seismic gap either suddenly breaks or moves under the great stress. This sudden release of energy sends shock waves through the rock layers above. The ground shakes, sidewalks crack, and buildings tumble. A mighty quake has struck。

Gaps Used To Predict Quakes

Many geologists have used what is called the seismic gap technique to accurately predict earthquakes. The technique was first developed by Soviet earthquake expert Dr. V. Fodotov during his studies of ancient and recent Japanese earthquakes. Dr. Fodotov was marking the location, size, and date of all known quakes in Japan when he noticed a striking pattern。

All major earthquakes were found to occur in only a few isolated spots in Japan. Each of these spots, he noted, experienced a major quake only once every 50 to 60 years. Dr. Fodotov concluded that spots that hadn?t had a quake in more than 50 years were “ripe” for a quake. The Russian scientist named these locations seismic gaps。

In the past several years, geologists from other countries have found seismic gaps in other parts of the world. After making detailed studies of past quakes in these regions, the geologists were able to make an accurate prediction of when a quake would occur。

How Do Animals Know When an Earthquake Is Coming?

Scientists who try to predict earthquakes have gotten some new helpers recently—animals。

That’s right, animals. Scientists have begun to catch on to what farmers have known for thousands of years. Animals often seem to know in advance that an earthquake is coming, and they show their fear by acting in strange ways. Before a Chinese quake in 1975, snakes awoke from their winter sleep early only to freeze to death in the cold air. Cows broke their halters and tried to escape. Chickens refused to enter their coop. All of this unusual behavior, as well as physical changes in the earth, alerted Chinese scientists to the coming quake. They moved people away from the danger zone and saved thousands of lives。

One task for scientists today is to learn exactly which types of animal behavior predict quakes. It’s not an easy job. First of all not every animal reacts to the danger of an earthquake. Just before a California quake in 1977, for example, an Arabian stallion became very nervous and tried to break out of his stall. The horse next to him, however, remained perfectly calm. It’s also difficult at times to tell the difference between normal animal restlessness and “earthquake nerves”. A zoo keeper once called earthquake researchers to say that his cougar had been acting strangely. It turned out that the cat had an upset stomach。

A second task for scientists is to find out exactly what kind of warnings the animals receive. They know that animals? sense far more of the world than humans do. Many animals can see, hear, and smell things that people do not even notice. Some can detect tiny changes in air pressure, gravity, or the magnetism of Earth. This extra sense probably helps animals predict quakes。

A good example of this occurred with a group of dogs. They were penned up in an area that was being shaken by a series of tiny earthquakes. (Several small quakes often come before or after a large one。) Before each quake a low booming sound was heard. Each boom caused the dogs to bark wildly. Then the dogs began to bark during a silent period. A scientist who was recording tile quakes looked at his machine. It was acting as though there were a loud noise too. The scientist realized that the dogs had reacted to a booming noise. They also sensed the tiny quake that followed it. The machine recorded both, though humans felt and heard nothing。

In this case there was a machine to monitor what the dogs were sensing. Many times, however, our machines record nothing out of the ordinary, even though animals know a quake is coming. The animals might be sensing something we so measure but do not recognize as a warning. Discovering what animals sense, and learning how they know it is a danger signal, is a job for future scientists。

e no one had predicted the precise date of the earthquake striking east of Naples, people there suffered heavy loss in the destruction。

2.A seismic gap is located at the junction of two interlocking plates in the Earth, and where no seismic activity has been recorded for a long time。

the passage we learn that a regular striking pattern can be found in an active earthquake region。

ng an earthquake in China 1975, cows broke their halters and ran away from their sheds。

it is used in Paragraph 13, the word “cat” refers to a typical domestic cat。

animals but tiny changed in air pressure, gravity, or the magnetism of Earth。

dogs mentioned in Paragraph 15 had sensed both the low booms and the minor quakes following them。

1. [Y][N][NG]2.[Y][N][NG]3.[Y][N][NG]

4. [Y][N][NG]5.[Y][N][NG]6.[Y][N][NG]

7. [Y][N][NG]

. Caputo based his prediction upon the fact that lots of earthquakes had recently occurred in all areas around Naples but its___________。

rding to the author’s information, every 50 years or so, a mighty earthquake will be recorded at___________________。

ese scientists evacuated people from_____________after they had noticed the strange behavior of some animals as well as physical changes in the earth。

　　Part Ⅳ Reading Comprehension (Reading in Depth)(25 minutes)

Section A

Questions 47 to 56 are based on the following passage。

What is it about Americans and food? We love to eat, but we feel 47 about it afterward. We say we want only the best, but we strangely enjoy junk food. We’re 48 with health and weight loss but face an unprecedented epidemic of obesity. Perhaps the 49 to this ambivalence lies in our history. The first Europeans came to this continent searching for new spices but went in vain. The first cash crop wasn’t eaten but smoked. Then there was Prohibition, intended to prohibit drinking but actually encouraging more 50 ways of doing it。

The immigrant experience, too, has been one of in harmony. Do as Romans do means eating what “real Americans” eat, but our nation’s food has come to be 51 by imports-pizza, say, or hot dogs. And some of the country’s most treasured cooking comes from people who arrived here in shackles。

Perhaps it should come as no surprise then that food has been a medium for the nation’s defining struggles, whether at the Boston Tea Party or the sit-ins at southern lunch counters. It is integral to our concepts of health and even morality whether one refrains from alcohol for religious reasons or evades meat for political 52 。

But strong opinions have not brought 53 . Americans are ambivalent about what they put in their mouths. We have become 54 of our foods, especially as we learn more about what they contain。

The 55 in food is still prosperous in the American ’s no coincidence,then,that the first Thanksgiving holds the American imagination in such bondage(束縛)’s what we eat—and how we 56 it with friends。

[A]answer[B]result[C]share[D]guilty

[E]constant[F]defined[G]vanish[H]adapted

[I]creative[J]belief[K]suspicious[L]certainty

[M]obsessed[N]identify[O]ideals

Section B

Passage One

Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage。

It is not often realized that women held a high place in southern European societies in the 10th and 11th centuries. As a wife, the woman was protected by the setting up of a dowry (嫁粧). Admittedly, the purpose of this was to protect her against the risk of desertion, but in reality its function in the social and family life of the time was much more important. The dowry was the wife’s right to receive a tenth of all her husband’s property. The wife had the right to with hold consent, in all transactions the husband would make, and more than just a right; the documents show that she enjoyed a real power of decision, equal to that of her husband. In no case do the documents indicate any degree of difference in the legal status of husband and wife。

The wife shared in the management of her husband’s personal property, but the opposite was not always true. Women seemed perfectly prepared to defend their own inheritance against husbands who tried to exceed their rights, and on occasion they showed a fine fighting spirit. A case in point is that of Maria Vivas. Having agreed with her husband Miro to sell a field she had inherited, for the needs of the household, she insisted on compensation. None being offered, she succeeded in dragging her husband to the scribe to have a contract duly drawn up assigning her a piece of land from Miro’s personal inheritance. The unfortunate husband was obliged to agree, as the contract says, “for the sake of peace。” Either through the dowry or through being hot-tempered, the wife knew how to win herself, with the context of the family, a powerful economic position。

inally, the purpose of a dowry is to_________。

[A]give a woman the right to receive all her husband’s property

[B]help a woman to enjoy a higher position in the family

[C]protect a woman against the risk of desertion

[D]both A and C

rding to the passage, the legal status of the wife in marriage was__________。

[A]higher than that of a single woman

[B]higher than that of her husband

[C]lower than that of her husband

[D]the same as that of her husband

59. Why does the author give us the example of Maria Vivas?

[A]To show that the wife shared in the management of her husband?s personal property。

[B]To show that the wife can defend her own inheritance。

[C]To prove that women have powerful position。

[D]To illustrate how women win her property。

compensation Maria Vivas got for the field is____________。

[A]some of the land Miro had inherited

[B]a tenth of Miro’s land

[C]money for household expenses

[D]money form Miro’s inheritance

61. The author’s attitude towards Maria Vivas is_____________。

[A]sympathetic[B]disapproval [C]indifferent [D]objective

Passage Two

Questions 62 to 66 are based on the following passage。

According to sociologists, there are several different ways in which a person may become recognized as the leader of a social group. In the family, traditional cultural patterns confer leadership on one or both of the parents. In other cases, such as friendship groups, one or more persons may gradually emerge as leaders, although there is no formal process of selection. In larger groups, leaders are usually chosen formally through election or recruitment。

Although leaders are often thought to be people with unusual personal ability, decades of research have failed to produce consistent evidence that there is any category of “natural leaders”. It seems that there is no set of personal qualities that all leaders have in common; rather, virtually any person may be recognized as a leader if the person has qualities that meet the needs of that particular group。

Research suggests that there are typically two different leadership roles that are held by different individuals. Instrumental leadership is leadership that emphasizes the completion of tasks by a social group. Group members look to instrumental leaders to “get things done”. Expressive leadership, on the other hand, is leadership that emphasizes the collective well-beings of a social group’s members. Expressive leaders are less concerned with the overall goals of the group than with providing emotional support to group members and attempting to minimize tension and conflict among them。

Instrumental leaders are likely to have a rather secondary relationship to other group members. They give others and may discipline group members who inhibit attainment of the groups goals. Expressive leaders cultivate a more personal or primary relationship to others in the group. They offer sympathy when someone experiences difficulties and try to resolve issues that threaten to divide the group. As the difference in these two roles suggest, expressive leaders generally receive more personal affection from group members; instrumental leaders, if they are successful in promoting enjoy a more distant respect。

62. What does the passage mainly discuss?

[A]The problems faced by leaders。

[B]How leadership differs in small and large groups。

[C]How social groups determine who will lead them。

[D]The role of leaders in social groups。

passage mentions all of the following ways by which people can become leaders EXCEPT_____________。

[A]recruitment

[B]formal election process

[C]specific leadership training

[D]traditional cultural patterns

64. Which of the following statements about leadership can be inferred from Paragraph 2?

[A]A person who is an effective leader of a particular group may not be an effective leader in another group。

[B]Few people succeed in sharing a leadership role with another person。

[C]A person can best learn how to be an effective leader by studying research on leadership。

[D]Most people desire to can produce little evidence of their qualifications。

65. In mentioning “natural leaders” in Line 7, the author is making the point that____________。

[A]few people qualify as “natural leaders”

[B]there is no proof that “natural leaders” exist

[C]“natural leaders” are easily accepted by the members of a group

[D]“natural leaders” share a similar set of characteristics

66. The passage indicates leaders generally focus on___________。

[A]ensuring harmonious relationships

[B]sharing responsibility with group members

[C]identifying new leaders

[D]achieving a goal