2021年6月大学英语四级考试真题（二）Part IWriting(30 minutes)Directions:For this part,you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay titled "Is technology making peoplelazy?".The statement given below is for your reference.You should write at least 120 words but no more than180 words.Many studies claim that computers distract people,make them lazy thinkers and even lower their workefficiency.Part IListening Comprehension(25 minutes)Section ADirections:In this section,you will hear three news reports.At the end of each news report,you will heartwo or three questions.Both the news report and the questions will be spoken only once.After you hear aquestion,you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A),B),C)and D).Then markthe 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 heard.1.A)See the Pope.C)Travel to Germany.B)Go to Newcastle.D)Tour an Italian city.2.A)He was taken to hospital in an ambulance.B)His car hit a sign and was badly damaged.C)His GPS system went out of order:D)He ended up in the wrong place.Questions 3 and 4 are based on the news report you have just heard3.A)Scotland will reach the national target in carbon emissions reduction ahead of schedule.B)Glasgow City Council has made a deal with ScottishPower on carbon emissions.C)Glasgow has pledged to take the lead in reducing carbon emissions in the UK.D)First Minister Nicola Sturgeon urged ScottishPower to reduce carbon emissions.4.A)Glasgow needs to invest in new technologies to reach its goal.B)Glasgow is going to explore new sources of renewable energy.C)Stricter regulation is needed in transforming Glasgow's economy.D)It's necessary to create more low-emission zones as soon as possible.Questions 5 to 7 are based on the news report you have just heard.5.A)It donates money to overpopulated animal shelters.B)It permits employees to bring cats into their office.C)It gives 5,000 yen to employees who keep pet cats.D)It allows workers to do whatever their hearts desire.四级2021年6月246.A)Keep cats off the street.C)Volunteer to help in animal shelters.B)Rescue homeless cats.D)Contribute to a fund for cat protection.7.A)It has contributed tremendously to the firm's fame.B)It has helped a lot to improve animals'well-being.C)It has led some other companies to follow suit.D)It has resulted in damage to office equipment.Section BDirections:In this section,you will hear two long conversations.At the end of each conversation,you willhear four questions.Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once.After you hear aquestion,you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A),B),C)and D).Then markthe corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.Questions 8 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard.8.A)Find out where Jimmy is.C)Make friends with Jimmy.B)Borrow money from Jimmy.D)Ask Jimmy what is to be done.9.A)He was unsure what kind of fellow Jimmy was.B)He was working on a study project with Jimmy.C)He wanted to make a sincere apology to Jimmy.D)He wanted to invite her to join in a study project.10.A)He got a ticket for speeding.C)He was involved in a traffic accident.B)He got his car badly damaged.D)He had an operation for his injury.11.A)He needed to make some donation to charity.B)He found the 60 pounds in his pocket missing.C)He wanted to buy a gift for his mother's birthday.D)He wanted to conceal something from his parents.Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.12.A)Shopping delivery.C)Where he goes shoppingB)Shopping online.D)How often he does shopping.13.A)Searching in the aisles.C)Driving too long a distance.B)Dealing with the traffic.D)Getting one's car parked.14.A)The after-sales service.C)The quality of food products.B)The replacement policy.D)The damage to the packaging.15.A)It saves money.C)It increases the joy of shopping.B)It offers more choice.D)It is less time-consuming.Section CDirections:In this section,you will hear three passages.At the end of each passage,you will hear three orfour questions.Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once.After you hear a question,youmust choose the best answer from the four choices marked A),B),C)and D).Then mark thecorresponding 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 have little talent for learning math.B)They need medical help for math anxiety.C)They need extra help to catch up in the math class.D)They have strong negative emotions towards math.四级2021年6月2517.A)It will gradually pass away without teachers'help.B)It affects low performing children only.C)It is related to a child's low intelligence.D)It exists mostly among children from poor families.18.A)Most of them have average to strong math ability.B)Most of them get timely help from their teachers.C)They will regain confidence with counselling.D)They are mostly secondary school students.Questions 19 to 21 are based on the passage you have just heard.19.A)Social media addiction is a threat to our health.B)Too many people are addicted to smartphones.C)Addiction to computer games is a disease.D)Computer games can be rather addictive.20.A)They prioritize their favored activity over what they should do.B)They do their favored activity whenever and wherever possible.C)They are unaware of the damage their behavior is doing to them.D)They are unable to get rid of their addiction without professional help.21.A)It may be less damaging than previously believed.B)There will never be agreement on its harm to people.C)It may prove to be beneficial to developing creativity.D)There is not enough evidence to classify it as a disease.Questions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.22.A)They are relatively uniform in color and design.B)They appear more formal than other passports.C)They are a shade of red bordering on brown.D)They vary in color from country to country.23.A)They must endure wear and tear.C)They must be made from a rare material.B)They must be of the same size.D)They must follow some common standards.24.A)They look more traditional.C)They are favored by airlines.B)They look more official.D)They are easily identifiable.25.A)For beauty.C)For visibility.B)For variety.D)For security.Reading Comprehension(40..minutes)Section ADirections: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 thewords in the bank more than once.Social isolation poses more health risks than obesity or smoking 15 cigarettes a day,according toresearch published by Brigham Young University.The 26 is that loneliness is a huge,if silent,riskfactor.Loneliness affects physical health in two ways.First,it produces stress hormones that can lead tomany health problems.Second,people who live alone are less likely to go to the doctor 27,to四级2021年6月26exercise or to eat a healthy diet.Public health experts in many countries are 28 how to address widespread loneliness in oursociety.Last year Britain even appointed a minister for loneliness."Loneliness 29 almost every one ofus at some point,"its minister for loneliness Baroness Barran said."It can lead to very serious health30 for individuals who become isolated and disconnected."Barran started a "Let's Talk Loneliness"campaign that 31 difficult conversations across Britain.He is now supporting 32 benches,"which are public seating areas where people are encouraged to goand chat with one another.The minister is also 33 to stop public transportation from being cut in waysthat leave people isolated.More than one-fifth of adults in both the United States and Britain said in a 2018 34 that theyoften or always feel lonely.More than half of American adults are unmarried,and researchers have foundthat even among those who are married,30%of relationships are 35 strained.A quarter ofAmericans now live alone,and as the song says,one is the loneliest number.A)abruptlyF)friendlyK)severelyB)appointmentsG)hinderedL)sparkedC)consequencesH idiomM)splittingD)debatingD implicationN)surveyE)dimensionsJ)pushingO)touchesSection BDirections:In this section,you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it.Eachstatement contains information given in one of the paragraphs.Identify the paragraph from which theinformation is derived.You may choose a paragraph more than once.Each paragraph is marked with aletter.Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.What happens when a language has no words for numbers?A)Numbers do not exist in all cultures.There are numberless hunter-gatherers in Amazonia,living alongbranches of the world's largest river tree.Instead of using words for precise quantities,these peoplerely exclusively on terms similar to "a few"or "some.In contrast,our own lives are governed bynumbers.As you read this,you are likely aware of what time it is,how old you are,your checkingaccount balance,your weight and so on.The exact numbers we think with impact everything in ourlives.B)But,in a historical sense,number-conscious people like us are the unusual ones.For the bulk of ourspecies'approximately 200,000-year lifespan,we had no means of precisely representing quantities.What's more,the 7,000 or so languages that exist today vary dramatically in how they utilize numbers.C)Speakers of anumeric,or numberless,languages offer a window into how the invention of numbersreshaped the human experience.Cultures without mumbers,or with only one or two precise mumbers,includethe Munduruku and Piraha in Amazonia.Researchers have also studied some adults in Nicaragua who werenever taught number words.Without numbers,healthy human adults struggle to precisely distinguish andrecall quantities as low as four.In an experiment,a researcher will place nuts into a can one at a timeand then remove them one by one.The person watching is asked to signal when all the nuts have beenremoved.Responses suggest that anumeric people have some trouble keeping track of how many nutsremain in the can,even if there are only four or five in total.D)This and many other experiments have led to a simple conclusion:When people do not have numberwords,they struggle to make quantitative distinctions that probably seem natural to someone like youor me.While only a small portion of the world's languages are anumeric or nearly anumeric,they四级2021年6月27demonstrate that number words are not a human universal.E)It is worth stressing that these anumeric people are cognitively(在认知方面)normal,well-adapted tothe surroundings they have dominated for centuries.As a child,I spent some time living with anumericpeople,the Piraha who live along the banks of the black Maici River.Like other outsiders,I wascontinually impressed by their superior understanding of the ecology we shared.Yet numberless peoplestruggle with tasks that require precise discrimination between quantities.Perhaps this should beunsurprising.After all,without counting,how can someone tell whether there are,say,seven or eightcoconuts (in a tree?Such seemingly straightforward distinctions become blurry through numberlesseyes.F)This conclusion is echoed by work with anumeric children in industrialized societies.Prior to beingspoon-fed number words,children can only approximately discriminate quantities beyond three.Wemust be handed the cognitive tools of numbers before we can consistently and easily recognize higherquantities.In fact,acquiring the exact meaning of number words is a painstaking process that takeschildren years.Initially,kids learn numbers much like they learn letters.They recognize that numbersare organized sequentially,but have little awareness of what each individual number means.Withtime,they start to understand that a given number represents a quantity greater by one than thenumber coming before it.This "successor principle"is part of the foundation of our numerical)cognition,but requires extensive practice to understand.G)None of us,then,is really a "numbers person."We are not born to handle quantitative distinctionsskillfully.In the absence of the cultural traditions that fill our lives with numbers from infancy,wewould all struggle with even basic quantitative distinctions.Number words and their written formstransform our quantitative reasoning as they are introduced into our cognitive experience by ourparents,peers and school teachers.The process seems so normal that we sometimes think of it as anatural part of growing up,but it is not.Human brains come equipped with certain quantitativeinstincts that are refined with age,but these instincts are very limited.H)Compared with other mammals,our numerical instincts are not as remarkable as many assume.Weeven share some basic instinctual quantitative reasoning with distant non-mammalian relatives likebirds.Indeed,work with some other species suggests they too can refine their quantitative thought ifthey are introduced to the cognitive power tools we call numbers.I)So,how did we ever invent "unnatural"numbers in the first place?The answer is,literally,at yourfingertips.The bulk of the world's languages use base-10,base-20 or base-5 number systems.That is,these smaller numbers are the basis of larger numbers.English is a base-l0 or decimal(十进制的)language,as evidenced by words like 14(“four”+“10”)and31(“three'”ד10”+“one").We speak adecimal language because an ancestral tongue,proto-Indo-European,was decimally based.Proto-Indo-European was decimally oriented because,as in so many cultures,our ancestors'hands served as thegateway to the realization that "five fingers on one hand is the same as five fingers on the other."Suchmomentary thoughts were represented in words and passed down across generations.This is why theword "five"in many languages is derived from the word for"hand."Most number systems,then,arethe by-product of two key factors:the human capacity for language and our inclination for focusing onour hands and fingers.This manual fixation-an indirect by-product of walking upright on two legs-has helped yield numbers in most cultures,but not all.J)Cultures without numbers also offer insight into the cognitive influence of particular numerictraditions.Consider what time it is.Your day is ruled by minutes and seconds,but these concepts arenot real in any physical sense and are nonexistent to numberless people..Minutes and seconds are theverbal and written representations of an uncommon base-60 number system used in ancient四级2021年6月28