2018年6月大学英语四级真题（第3套)PartIWriting(30 minutes)Directions:For this part,you are allowed 30minutes to write a short essay on the importanceof speaking ability and how to develop it.You should write at least 120 words but no more than180 words.Part IIListening Comprehension(25 minutes)说明：由于2018年6月四级考试全国共考了两套听力，本套真题听力与前两套内客相同，只是选项顺序不同，因此在本套真题中不再重复出现。Reading Comprehension(40 minutes)SectionADirections:In this section,there is a passage with ten blanks.You are required to select one word for eachblank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage.Read the passage through carefullybefore making your choices.Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter.Please mark the correspondingletter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.You may not use any of the wordsin the bank more than once.Neon (is to Hong Kong as red phone booths are to London and fog is to San Francisco.Whennight falls,.red and blue and other colors26ahay(雾蒙蒙的)glow over a city lit up by tens ofthousands of neon signs.But many of them are going dark,27 by more practical,but less romantic,LEDs(发光二极管)Changing building codes,evolving tastes,and the high cost of maintaining those wonderful old signshave businesses embracing LEDs,which are energy 28.but still carry great cost."To me,neon representsmemories of the past,"says photographer Sharon Blance,whose series Hong Kong Neon celebrates the city'sfamous signs."Looking at the signs now I get a feeling of amazement,mixed with sadness."Building a neon sign is an art practiced by 29 trained on the job to mold glass tubes into_30shapes and letters.They fill these tubes with gases that glow when 31.Neon makes orange,while othergases make yellow or blue.It takes many hours to craft a single sign.Blance spent a week in Hong Kong and 32 more than 60 signs;22 of them appear in the series thatcapture the signs lighting up lonely streets-an33that makes it easy to admire their colors andcraftsmanship."I love the beautiful,handcrafted,old-fashioned 34 of neon,"says Blance.The signs donothing more than 35 a restaurant,theater,or other business,but do so in the most striking way possible.A)alternativeB)approachC)castD)challengingE)decorativeF)efficientG)electrifiedH)identifyI)photographedJ)professionalsK)qualityL)replacedM)stimulateN)symbolizesO)volunteersSection BDirections:In this section,you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it.Each statementcontains information given in one of the paragraphs.Identify the paragraph from which the information isderived.You may choose a paragraph more than once.Each paragraph is marked with a letter.Answer thequestions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.New Jersey School District Eases Pressure on Students-Baring an Ethnic DivideA)This fall,David Aderhold,the chief of a high-achieving school district near Princeton,New Jersey,sentparents an alarming 16-page letter.The school district,he said,was facing a crisis.Its students wereoverburdened and stressed out,having to cope with too much work and too many demands.In the previousschool year,120 middle and high school students were recommended for mental health assessments and 40were hospitalized.And on a survey administered by the district,students wrote things like,"I hate going toschool,"and "Coming out of 12 years in this district,I have learned one thing:that a grade,a percentage oreven a point is to be valued over anything else."B)With his letter,Aderhold inserted West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District into a nationaldiscussion about the intense focus on achievement at elite schools,and whether it has gone too far.Atfollow-up meetings,he urged parents to ioin him in advocating a"whole child"approach to schooling thatrespects "social-emotional development"and "deep and meaningful leaming"over academics alone.Thealtemative,he suggested,was to face the prospect of becoming another Palo Alto,California,where outsizestress on teenage students is believed to have contributed to a number of suicides in the last six years.C)But instead of bringing families together,Aderhold's letter revealed a divide in the district,which has9,700 students,and one that broke down roughly along racial lines.On one side are white parents likeCatherine Foley,a former president of the Parent-Teacher-Student Association at her daughter's middle school,who has come to see the district's increasingly pressured atmosphere as opposed to learning."My son was infourth grade and told me,'I'm not going to amount to anything because I have nothing to put on my resume,""she said.On the other side are parents like Mike Jia,one of the thousands of Asian-American professionalswho have moved to the district in the past decade,who said Aderhold's reforms would amount to a "dumbingdown"of his children's education."What is happening here reflects a national anti-intellectual trend that willnot prepare our children for the future,"Jia said.D)About 10 minutes from Princeton and an hour and a half from New York City,West Windsor andPlainsboro have become popular bedroom communities for technology entrepreneurs,researchers andengineers,drawn in large part by the public schools.From the last three graduating classes,16 seniors wereadmitted to MIT.It produces Science Olympiad winners,classically trained musicians and students withperfect SAT scores.E)The district has become increasingly popular with immigrant families from China,India and Korea.This year,65 percent of its students are Asian-American,compared with 44 percent in 2007.Many of themare the first in their families born in the United States.They have had a growing influence on the district.Asian-American parents are enthusiastic supporters of the competitive instrumental music program.Theyhave been huge supporters of the district's advanced mathematics program,which once began in the fourthgrade but will now start in the sixth.The change to the program,in which 90 percent of the participatingstudents are Asian-American,is one of Aderhold's reforms.F)Asian-American students have been eager participants in a state program that permits them to takesummer classes off campus for high school credit,allowing them to maximize the number of honors andAdvanced Placement classes they can take,another practice that Aderhold is limiting this school year.Withmany Asian-American children attending supplementary instructional programs,there is a perceptionamong some white families that the elementary school curriculum is being sped up to accommodate them.G)Both Asian-American and white families say the tension between the two groups has grown steadilyover the past few years,as the number of Asian families has risen.But the division has become moreobvious in recent months as Aderhold has made changes,including no-homework nights,an end to highschool midterms and finals,and an initiative that made it easier to participate in the music program.H)Jennifer Lee,professor of sociology at the University of California,Irvine,and an author of the AsianAmerican Achievement Paradox,says misunderstanding between first-generation Asian-American parentsand those who have been in this country longer are common.What white middle-class parents do notalways understand,she said,is how much pressure recent immigrants feel to boost their children into themiddle class."They don't have the same chances to get their children intemships (or jobs at lawfirms,"Lee said."So what they believe is that their children must excel and beat their white peers inacademic settings so they have the same chances to excel later.I)The issue of the stresses felt by students in elite school districts has gained attention in recent years asschools in places like Newton,Massachusetts,and Palo Alto have reported a number of suicides.WestWindsor-Plainsboro has not had a teenage suicide in recent years,but Aderhold,who has worked in thedistrict for seven years and been chief for the last three years,said he had seen troubling signs.In a recentart assignments,a middle school student depicted (an overburdened child who was being scolded foreaming an A,rather than an A+,on a math exam.In the image,the mother scolds the student with thewords,"Shame on you!"Further,he said,the New Jersey Education Department has flagged at least twopieces of writing on state English language assessments in which students expressed suicidal thoughts.J)The survey commissioned by the district found that 68 percent of high school honor and AdvancedPlacement students reported feeling stressed about school "always or most of the time.""We need to bringback some balance,"Aderhold said."You don't want to wait until it's too late to do something.K)Not all public opinion has fallen along racial lines.Karen Sue,the Chinese-American mother of afifth-grader and an eighth-grader,believes the competition within the district has gotten out of control.Sue,who was born in the United States to immigrant parents,wants her peers to dial it back."It's become anarms race,an educational arms race,"she said."We all want our kids to achieve and be successful.Thequestion is,at what cost?"36.Aderhold is limiting the extra classes that students are allowed to take off campus.37.White and Asian-American parents responded differently to Aderhold's appeal.38.Suicidal thoughts have appeared in some students writings.39.Aderhold's reform of the advanced mathematics program will affect Asian-American students most.40.Aderhold appealed for parents'support in promoting an all-round development of children,instead offocusing only on their academic performance.41.One Chinese-American parent thinks the competition in the district has gone too far.42.Immigrant parents believe that academic excellence will allow their children equal chances to succeedin the future43.Many businessmen and professionals have moved to West Windsor and Plainsboro because of thepublic schools there.44.A number of students in Aderhold's school district were found to have stress-induced mental healthproblems.45.The tension between Asian-American and white families has increased in recent years.Section CDirections:There are 2 passages in this section.Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinishedstatements.For each of them there are four choices marked A),B).C)and D).You should decide on thebest choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.Passage OneQuestions 46 and 50 are based on the following passage.For thousands of years,people have known that the best way to understand a concept is to explain it tosomeone else."While we teach,we leam,"said Roman philosopher Seneca.Now scientists are bringingthis ancient wisdom up-to-date.They're documenting why teaching is such a fruitful way to leam,anddesigning innovative ways for young people to engage in instruction.Researchers have found that students who sign up to tutor others work harder to understand thematerial,recall it more accurately and apply it more effectively.Student teachers score higher on tests thanpupils who're leaming only for their own sake.But how can children,still leaming themselves,teach others?One answer:They can tutor younger kids.Some studies have found that first-born children are moreintelligent than their later-born siblings ()This suggests their higher IQs result from the timethey spend teaching their siblings.Now educators are experimenting with ways to apply this model toacademic subjects.They engage college undergraduates to teach computer science to high school students,who in turn instruct middle school students on the topic.But the most cutting-edge tool under development is the "teachable agent"-a computerized characterwho learns,tries,makes mistakes and asks questions just like a real-world pupil.Computer scientists havecreated an animated figure called Betty's Brain,who has been "taught"about environmentalscience by hundreds of middle school students.Student teachers are motivated to help Betty master certainmaterials.While preparing to teach,they organize their knowledge and improve their own understanding.And as they explain the information to it,they identify problems in their own thinkingFeedback from the teachable agents further enhances the tutors'learning.The agents'questionscompel student tutors to think and explain the materials in different ways,and watching the agent solveproblems allows them to see their knowledge put into action.Above all,it's the emotions one experiences in teaching that facilitate learning.Student tutors feelupset when their teachable agents fail,but happy when these virtual pupils succeed as they derive pride andsatisfaction from someone else's accomplishment.46.What are researchers rediscovering through their studies?A)Seneca's thinking is still applicable today.B)Better leamers will become better teachers.C)Human intelligence tends to grow with age.D)Philosophical thinking improves instruction.47.What do we learn about Betty's Brain?A)It is a character in a popular animation.B)It is a teaching tool under development.C)It is a cutting-edge app in digital games.