2019年12月大学英语四级考试真题(一)

2019年12月大学英语四级考试真题（一）

2019年12月大学英语四级考试真题（一）Part I Writing (30 minutes)

Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a letter to a foreign friend who wants to study in China.

Please recommend a university to him. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 word.

Part II Listening Comprehension (25 minutes)

facilities were destroyed by a wandering cow.B.A wandering cow knocked down one of its tourists were injured by a wandering cow.D.A wandering cow was captured by the was shot to death by a police became a great attraction for found its way back to the park's was sent to the animal control ions: Answer the questions 1 to 2 based on the following news report.

is the largest of its is displaying more fossil specimens.4.A.A collection of bird fossils from ancient wall paintings from raphs of certain rare fossil es by winners of a wildlife photo is going to be is starting an online ions: Answer the questions 3 to 4 based on the following news report.

up are especially are quite easy to en may be harmed by the en may contract bird en may be tempted to drop en may overfeed the are children's are clean and r with ions: Answer the questions 5 to 7 based on the following news report.

will produced at Harvard will cover different areas of ions: Answer the questions 8 to 11 based on the following will be hosted by famous will focus on recent scientific bi.

2019年12月大学英语四级考试真题（一） will be more will be more interested in en in their early professional promote it on the e financial episodes for its first ters eager to ts majoring in will be more will be easier to understand.

Directions: Answer the questions 12 to 15 based on the following conversation.

is too concerned with being is too ambitious in achieving to be optimistic whatever learn from others' loses heart when faced with takes on projects beyond his e his present with his past others the way he would be treated.

Directions: Answer the questions 16 to 18 based on the following passage.

have a stronger sense of social are more likely to become girls who like to speak up that boys and girls work together personalized teaching great emphasis on test are more likely to succeed in the have greater potential to be age girls to solve problems on their d more positively to boys' e a variety of optional extra attention to top students.

Directions: Answer the questions 19 to 21 based on the following passage.

often rains cats and does not rain as much as people drive most of the have got used to the seldom rains in summer is one of the most rainy cities in the rain is usually very rain comes mostly at night.

2019年12月大学英语四级考试真题（一） has a lot of places for has never seen thunder and has fewer cloudy days than any other coastal has mild weather both in summer and in winter.

Directions: Answer the questions 22 to 25 based on the following passage.

occurs when people are doing a repetitive results from exerting one's muscles happens when people engage in an uncommon comes from straining one's muscles in an unusual flow and body heat increase in the affected movements in the affected area become begin to make repairs gradually become one muscle a hot plenty of two ten four weeks.

Part III Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)

When travelling overseas, do you buy water in plastic bottles or take your chances with tap water? Imagine you

are wandering about on a Thai island or 26 the ruins of Angkor. It's hot so you grab a bottle of water from a local

vendor. It's the safe thing to do, right? The bottle is 27, and the label says "pure water". But maybe what's inside is

not so 28. Would you still be drinking it if you knew that more than 90 percent of all bottled water sold around the

world 29microplastics? That's the conclusion of a recently 30study, which analysed 259 bottles from 11 brands sold in nine countries,

31an average of 325 plastic particles per litre of water. These microplastics included a 32 commonly known as PET

and widely used in the manufacture of clothing and food and 33containers. The study was conducted at the State

New York on behalf of Orb Media, a journalism organisation. About a million bottles are bought every minute, not

only by thirsty tourists but also by many of the 2.1 billion worldwide who live with unsafe drinking water. Confronted with this 34, several bottled-water manufacturers including Nestle and Coca-Cola undertook their

own studies using the same methodology. These studies showed that their water did contain microplastics, but far

less than the Orb study suggested. Regardless, the World Health Organisation has launched a review into the

35health risks of drinking water from plastic bottles.

ing

2019年12月大学英语四级考试真题（一）nce

The quiet heroism of mail delivery[A] On Wednesday, a polar wind brought bitter cold to the Midwest. Overnight, Chicago reached a low of 21

degrees Fahrenheit below zero, making it slightly colder than Antarctica(南极洲), Alaska, and the North Pole. Wind

chills were 64 degrees below zero in Park Rapids, Minnesota, and 45 degrees below zero in Buffalo, North Dakota,

according to the National Weather Service. Schools, restaurants, and businesses closed, and more than 1,000 flights

were canceled.[B] Even the United States Postal Service(USPS) suspended mail delivery. "Due to this arctic outbreak and concerns

for the safety of USPS employees, " USPS announced Wednesday morning, "the Postal Service is suspending

delivery Jan. 30 in some 3-digit ZIP Code locations." Twelve regions were listed as unsafe on Wednesday; on

Thursday, eight remained.[C] As global surface temperatures increase, so does the likelihood of extreme weather In 2018 alone, wildfires,

volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, mudslides, and other natural disasters cost at least $49 billion in the United States. As

my colleague Vann Newkirk reported, Puerto Rico is still confronting economic and structural destruction and

resource scarcity from 2017's Hurricane Maria. Natural disasters can wreck a community's infrastructure, disrupting

systems for months or years. Some services, however, remind us that life will eventually return, in some form, to

..[D] Days after the deadly 2017 wildfires in Santa Rosa, California, a drone (无人机) caught footage(连续镜头) of a

iibbnnUSPS worker, Trevor Smith, driving through burned homes in that familiar white van, collecting mail in an affected

. The video is striking: The operation is familiar, but the scene looks like the end of the world. According to Rae

Ann Haight, the program manager for the national-preparedness office at USPS, Smith was fulfilling a request made

by some of the home owners to pick up any mail that was left untouched. For Smith, this was just another day on the

job. "I followed my route like I normally do," Smith told a reporter. " As I came across a box that was up but with no

house, I checked, and there was mail—outgoing mail—in it. And so we picked those up and carried on."[E] USPS has sophisticated emergency plans for natural disasters. Across the country, 285 emergency-management

teams are devoted to crisis control. These teams are trained annually using a framework known as the three Ps:

people, property, product. After mail service stops due to weather, the agency's top priority is ensuring that

employees are safe. Then it evaluates the health of infrastructure, such as the roads that mail carriers drive on.

Finally, it decides when and how to re-open operations. If the destruction is extreme, mail addressed to the area will

get sent elsewhere. In response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, USPS redirected incoming New Orleans mail to

existing mail facilities in Houston. Mail that was already processed in New Orleans facilities was moved to an upper

floor so it would be protected from water damage.[F] As soon as it's safe enough to be outside, couriers(邮递员) start distributing accumulated mail on the still-accessible routes. USPS urges those without standing addresses to file change-of-address forms with their new

location. After Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, mail facilities were set up in dozens of locations across the country in

the two weeks that USPS was unable to provide street delivery.[G] Every day, USPS processes, on average, 493.4 million pieces of mail—anything from postcards to Social

Security checks to medicine. Spokespeople from both USPS and UPS told me all mail is important. But some mail

can be extremely sensitive and timely. According to data released in January 2017, 56 percent of bills are paid

online, which means that just under half of payments still rely on delivery services to be completed.[H] It can be hard to identify which parcels are carrying crucial items such as Social Security checks, but USPS and

UPS try their best to prioritize sensitive material. They will coordinate with the Social Security Administration to

make sure that Social Security checks reach the right people in a timely fashion. After Hurricane Florence and

bi.

2019年12月大学英语四级考试真题（一）Hurricane Michael last fall, USPS worked with state and local election boards to make sure that absentee ballots

were available and received on time.[I] Mail companies are logistics (物流)companies, which puts them in a special position to help when disaster

strikes. In a 2011 USPS case study, the agency emphasized its massive infrastructure as a"unique federal asset "to be

called upon in a disaster or terrorist attack. " I think we're unique as a federal agency."USPS official Mike Swigart

told me,“ because we're in literally every community in this country.. We're obligated to deliver to that point on a

daily basis."[J] Private courier companies, which have more dollars to spend, use their expertise in logistics to help revitalize

damaged areas after a disaster. For more than a decade, FedEx has supported the American Red Cross in its effort to

get emergency supplies to areas affected by disasters, both domestically and internationally. In 2012, the company

distributed more than 1, 200 MedPacks to Medical Reserve Corps groups in California. They also donated space for

3.1 million pounds of charitable shipping globally. Last October the company pledged $1 million in cash and

transportation support for Hurricanes Florence and Michael. UPS's charitable arm, the UPS Foundation, uses the

company's logistics to help disaster-struck areas rebuild. "We realize that as a company with people, trucks,

warehouses, we needed to play a larger role, " said Eduardo Martinez, the president of the UPS Foundation. The

company employs its trucks and planes to deliver food, medicine, and water. The day before I spoke to Martinez in

November, he had been touring the damage from Hurricane Michael in Florida with the American Red Cross. We

have an obligation to make sure our communities are thriving,"he said.[K]Rebuilding can take a long time, and even then, impressions of the disaster may still remain. Returning to a

normal life can be difficult, but some small routines—mail delivery being one of them—may help residents

remember that their communities are still their communities. "When they see that carrier back out on the street,

"Swigart said, "that's the first sign to them that life is starting to return to normal."

United States Postal Service has a system to ensure its employees' official says USPS is unique in that it has more direct reach to communities compared with other l disasters can have a long-lasting impact on community delivery service is still responsible for the completion of almost half of sight of a mailman on the street is a reassuring sign of life becoming normal again.41. After Hurricane Katrina interrupted routine delivery, temporary mail service points were set service in some regions in the U.S. was suspended due to extreme cold e postal companies also support disaster relief efforts by distributing urgent supplies.44.A dedicated USPS employee was on the job carrying out duties in spite of extreme services work hard to identify items that require priority treatment. Professor Ashok Goel of Georgia Tech developed an artificially intelligent teaching assistant to help handle the

enormous number of student questions in the online class, Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence. This online

course is a core requirement of Georgia Tech's online Master of Science in Computer Science program. Professor

2019年12月大学英语四级考试真题（一）Goel already had eight teaching assistants, but that wasn't enough to deal with the overwhelming number of daily

questions from students. Many students drop out of online courses because of the lack of teaching support. When students feel isolated or

confused and reach out with questions that go unanswered, their motivation to continue begins to fade. Professor

Goel decided to do something to remedy this situation and his solution was to create a virtual assistant named Jill

Watson, which is based on the IBM Watson platform. Goel and his team developed several versions of Jill Watson before releasing her to the online forums. At first,

the virtual assistant wasn't too great. But Goel and his team sourced the online discussion forum to find all the 40,000 questions that had ever been asked since the class was launched. Then they began to feed Jill with the questions

and answers. After some adjustments and sufficient time, Jill was able to answer the students’ questions correctly

97% of the time. The virtual assistant became so advance and realistic that the students didn't know she was a

computer. The students who were studying artificial intelligence, were interacting with the virtual assistant and

couldn’t tell it apart from a real human being. Goel didn’t inform them about Jill's true identity until April 26. The

students were actually very positive about the experience.

The goal of Professor Goel's virtual assistant next year is to take over answering 40% of all the questions posed

by students on the online forum. The name Jill Watson will, of course, change to something else next semester.

Professor Goel has a much rosier outlook on the future of artificial intelligence than, say Elon Musk, Stephen

Hawking, Bill Gates or Steve bi.

do we learn about Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence? is a robot that can answer students’ is a high-tech device that revolutionizes problem did Professor Goel meet with? students were unsatisfied with the ts’ questions were too many to do we learn about Jill Watson? turned out to be a great was unwelcome to students at did the students feel about Jill Watson? thought she was a bit too could not but admire her different versions of her her with new questions and her to answer more of students' age students to interact with her more found her not as capable as could not tell her from a real got along pretty well with was released online as an course was too difficult for the many students dropped out of his is a course designed for students to learn is a computer program that aids student does Professor Goel plan to do next with Jill Watson?

Thinking small, being engaging, and having a sense of humor don't hurt. Those are a few of the traits of

successful science crowdfunding efforts that emerge from a recent study that examined nearly 400 campaigns. But

having a large network and some promotional skills may be more crucial. Crowdfunding, raising money for a project through online appeals, has taken off in recent years for everything

from making movies to producing water-saving gadgets. Scientists have tried to tap Internet donors, too, with mixed

success. Some raised more than twice their goals, but others have fallen short of reaching even modest targets.

2019年12月大学英语四级考试真题（一） To determine what separates science crowdfunding triumphs from failures, a team led by science

communications scholar Mike Schafer of the University of Zurich examined the content of the webpages for 371

recent campaigns. Four traits stood out for those that achieved their goals, the researchers report in PublicUnderstanding of Science. For one, they use a crowdfunding platform that specializes in raising money for science,

and not just any kind of project. Although sites like Kickstarter take all comers, platforms such as

and only present scientific projects. For another, they present the project with a funny video because

good visuals and a sense of humor improved success. Most of them engage with potential donors, since projects that

answered questions from interested donors fared better. And they target a small amount of money. The projects

included in the study raised $4000 on average, with 30% receiving less than $1000. The more money a project

sought, the lower the chance it reached its goal, the researchers found. Other factors may also significantly influence a project's success, most notably, the size of a scientist's personal

and professional networks, and how much a researcher promotes a project on their own. Those two factors are by far

more critical than the content on the page. Crowdfunding can be part of researchers' efforts to reach the public, and

people give because"they feeI a connection to the person "who is doing the fundraising - not necessarily to the

bi.

do we learn about the scientists trying to raise money online for their projects? did not raise much due to modest all of them achieved their anticipated made use of mixed fundraising of them put movies online for the is the purpose of Mike Schafer's research of recent crowdfunding campaigns? create attractive content for science help scientists to launch innovative potential benefit to future originality in addressing financial should be small to be should be assessed with great ease of access to the content of the desire to contribute to the cause of significance and influence of the project feeling of connection to the scientists identify reasons for their different separate science projects from general interaction with prospective value of the proposed should be based on actual should be ambitious to gain trait contributes to the success of a crowdfunding campaign? did the researchers think of the financial targets of crowdfunding projects? motivates people to donate in a crowdfunding campaign?

Part IV Translation (30 minutes)

For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to translate a passage from Chinese into English.

中国的家庭观念与其文化传统有关，和睦的大家庭曾非常令人羡慕。过去四代同堂并不少见。由于这个传统，许多年轻人婚后继续与父母同住。今天，这个传统正在改变。随着住房条件的改善，越来越多年轻夫妇选择与父母分开住。但他们之间的联系仍然很密切。许多老年人仍然帮着照看孙辈。年轻夫妇也抽时间探望父母，特别是在春节和中秋节等重要节日。