2019年12月大学英语四级真题试卷及答案(第三套)

Part III Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)
Section A
Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.
 

Millions of people travel by plane every single day. If you're planning on being one of them soon, you might not be looking forward to the __26__ feeling air travel often leaves you with. Besides the airport crowds and stress, travelling at a high altitude has real efects on the body. Although the pressure of the cabin is __27__ to prevent altitude sickness, you could still __28__ sleepiness or a headache. The lower oxygen pressure found in an aircraft cabin is __29__ to that at 6,000-8,000 feet of altitude. A drop in oxygen pressure can cause headaches in certain __30__ To help prevent headaches, drink plenty of water, and avoid alcohol and coffee.

Aiplane food might not really be as tateless as you __31__ thought. The air you breathe in a plane dries out your mouth and nose, which can affect your sense of taste. Perception of sweet and salty foods dropped by almost 30 percent in a simulation of air travel. However, you can make your taste buds active again by drinking water. A dry mouth may __32__ taste sensitivity, but taste is restored by drinking fluids.

Although in-flight infections __33__ in dry environments like airplanes, your risk of getting sick from an airplane is actually low because of the air __34__ used. Unless you 're stting next to someone who is coughing or sneezing, you shouldn't worry too much about getting sick. However, bacteria have been shown to live on cabin surfaces, so wash your hands __35__.

A) adjusted
B) channels
C) equivalent
D) experience
E) filters
F) frequently
G) individuals
H) originally
I) particular
J) primarily
K) reduce
L) renovated
M) smooth
N) thrive
O) unpleasant
 

Section B
Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.

A south Korean city designed for the future takes on a life of its own

A) Getting around a city is one thing -- and then there's the matter of getting from one city to another. One vision of the perfect city of the future: a place that offers easy access to air travel.In 2011, a University of North Carolina business professor named John Kasarda published a book called Aerotropolis: The Way We'll Live Next. Kasarda says future cities should be built intentionally around or near airports. The idea, as he has put it, is to offer businesses "rapid, long-distance connectivity on a massive scale."

B) "The 18th century really was a waterborne century, the 19th century a rail century, the 20th century a highway, car, truck century -- and the 21st century will increasingly be an aviation century, as the globe becomes increasingly connected by air," Kasarda says.Songdo, a city built from scratch in South Korea, is one of Kasarda's prime examples. It has existed for just a few years."From the get-go, it was designed on the basis of connectivity and competitiveness," says Kasada. "The government built the bridge directly from the airport to the Songdo International Business District. And the surface infrastructure was built in tandem with the new airport."

C) Songdo is a stone's throw from South Korea's Incheon Airport, its main international hub. But it takes a lot more than a nearby airport to be a city of the future. Just building a place as an "international business district" doesn't mean it will become one. Park Yeon Soo conceived this city of the future back in 1986. He considers Songdo his baby. "I am a visionary," he says.Thirty years after he imagined the city, Park's baby is close to 70 percent built, with 36,000 people living in the business district and 90,000 residents in greater Songdo. It's about an hour outside Seoul, built on reclaimed tidal flats along the Yellow Sea. There's a Coast Guard building and a tall trade tower, as well as a park, golf course and university.

D) Chances are you've actually seen this place. Songdo appears in the most famous music video ever to come out of South Korea."Gangnam Style" refers to the fashionable Gangnam district in Seoul. But some of the video was filmed in Songdo."I don't know if you remember, there was a scene in a subway station. That was not Gangnam. That was actually Songdo," says Jung Won Son, a professor of urban development at London's Bartlett School of Planning. "Part of the reason to shoot there is that it's new and nice."

E) The city was supposed to be a hub for global companies, with employees from all over the world. But that's not how it has turned out.Songdo's reputation is as a futuristic ghost town. But the reality is more complicated.A bridge with big, light-blue loops leads into the business district. In the center of the main road, there's a long line of flags of the world. On the corner, there's a Starbucks and a 7-Eleven -- all of the international brands that you see all over the world nowadays.

F) The city is not empty. There are mothers pushing strollers, old women with walkers -- even in the middle of the day, when it's 90 degrees out. Byun Young-Jin chairs the Songdo real estate association and started selling property here when the first phase of the city opened in 2005. He says demand has boomed in the past couple of years.Most of his clients are Korean. In fact, the developer says, 99 percent of the homes here are sold to Koreans. Young families move here because the schools are great.And that's the problem: Songdo has become a popular Korean city -- more popular as a residential area than a business one. It's not yet the futuristic international business hub that planners imagined. "It's a great place to live. And it's becoming a great place to work," says Scott Summers, the vice president of Gale International, the developer of the city. The floor-to-ceiling windows of his company's offices overlook Songdo Central Park, with a canal full of kayaks and paddle boats. Shimmering glass towers line the canal’s edge.

G) "What's happened is, because we focused on creating that quality of life first, which enabled the residents to live here, what has probably missed the mark is for companies to locate here," he says. "There needs to be strong economic incentives."The city is still unfinished, and it feels a bit like a theme park. It doesn't feel all that futuristic. There's a high-tech underground trash disposal system. Buildings are environmentally friendly. Everybody's television set is connected to a system that streams personalized language or exercise classes.

H) But Star Trek this is not. And to some of the residents, Songdo feels hollow."I'm, like, in prison for weekdays. That's what we call it in the workplace," says a woman in her 20s. She doesn't want to use her name for fear of being fired from her job. She goes back to Seoul every weekend. "I say I'm prison-breaking on Friday nights."But she has to make the prison break in her own car. There's no high-speed train connecting Songdo to Seoul, just over 20 miles away.

I) The man who first imagined Songdo feels frustrated, too. Park says he built South Korea a luxury vehicle, "like Mercedes or BMW. It's a good car now. But we're waiting for a good driver to accelerate."But there are lots of other good cars out there, too. The world is dotted with futuristic, high-tech cities trying to attract the biggest international companies.

J) Songdo's backers contend that it's still early, and business space is filling up -- about 70 percent of finished offices are now occupied.Brent Ryan, who teaches urban design at MIT, says Songdo proves a universal principle. "There have been a lot of utopian cities in history. And the reason we don't know about a lot of them is that a lot of them have vanished entirely."In other words, when it comes to cities -- or anything else -- it is hard to predict the future.

36. Songdo's popularity lies more in its quality of life than its business attraction.
37. The man who conceived Songdo feels disappointed because it has fallen short of his expectations.
38. A scene in a popular South Korean music video was shot in Songdo.
39. Songdo still lacks the financial stimulus for businesses to set up shop there.
40. Airplanes will increasingly become the chief means of transportation, according to a professor.
41. Songdo has ended up diferent from the city it was supposed to be.
42. Some of the people who work in Songdo complain about boredom in the workplace.
43. A business professor says that a future city should have easy access to international transportation.
44. According to an urban design professor, it is difficult for city designers to foresce what will happen in the future.
45. Park Yeon Soo, who envisioned Songdo, feels a parental connction with the city.
 

Section C

Directions: In this section, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read for the first time，you should listen carefully for its general idea.When the passage is read for the second time，you are required to fill in the blanks with the exact words you have just heard. Finally，when the passage is read for the third time，you should check what you have written.
 

Passage One
Questions 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.
 

The fifth largest city in US passed a significant soda tax proposal that will levy (征税)1.5 cents per liquid ounce on distributors.

Philadelphil's new measure was approved by a 13 to 4 city council vote. It sets a new bar for similar initiatives across the country. It is proof that taxes on sugary drinks can win substantial support outside super-liberal areas. Until now, the only city to successfully pass and implement a soda tax was Berkeley, California, in 2014.

The tax will apply to regular and diet sodas, as well as other drinks with adder sugar, such as Gatorade and iced teas. It's expected to raise $410 million over the next five years, most of which will go toward funding a universal pre-kindergarten program for the city.

While the city council vote was met with applause inside the council room, opponents to the measure, including soda lobbyists, made sharp criticisms and a promise to challenge the tax in court.

"The tax passed today unfairly singles out beverages — including low —and no-calorie choices," said Lauren Kane, spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association. "But most importantly, it is against the law. So we will side with the majority of the people of Philadelphia who oppose this tax and take legal action to stop it."

An industry-backed anti-tax campaign has spent at least $4 million on advertisements. The ads criticized the measure, characterizing it as a "grocery tax".

Public health groups applauded the approved tax as step toward fixing certain lasting health issues that plague Americans. "The move to recapture a small part of the profits from an industry that pushed a product that contributes to diabetes, obesity and heart disease in poorer communities in order to reinvest in those communities will sure be inspirational to many other places," said Jim Krieger, executive director of Healthy Food America. "indeed, we are already hearing from some of them. It's not 'just Berkeley' anymore."

Similar measures in California's Albany, Oakland, San Francisco and Colorado's Boulder are becoming hot-button issues. Health advocacy groups have hinted that even more might be coming.

46. What does the passage say about the newly-approved soda tax in Philadelphia?
A) It will change the lifestyle of many consumers.
B) It may encourage other US cities to fllow suit.
C) It will cut soda consumption among low-income communities.
D) It may influence the marketing strategies of the soda business.
47. What will the opponents probably do to respond to the soda tax proposal?
A) Bargain with the city council.
B) Refuse to pay additional tax.
C) Take legal action against it.
D) Try to win public support.
48. What did the industry-backed anti-tax campaign do about the soda tax proposal?
A) It tried to arouse hostile felings among consumers.
B) It tried to win grocers' support against the measure.
C) It kept sending ltters of protest to the media.
D) It criticized the measure through advertising.
49. What did public health groups think the soda tax would do?
A) Alert people to the risk of sugar-induced diseases.
B) Help people to fix certain long-time health issues.
C) Add to the fund for their rescarch on discases.
D) Benefit low-income people across the country.
50. What do we lear about similar measures concening the soda tax in some other citics?
A) They are becoming rather sensitive issues.
B) They are spreading panic in the soda industry.
C) They are reducing the incidence of sugar-induced diseases.
D) They are taking away a lot of proft from the soda industry.
 

Passage Two
Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.
 

Popping food into the microwave for a couple of minutes may seem utterly harmless, and Europe's stock of these quick-cooking ovens emit as much carbon as nearly 7million cars, a new study has found, and the problem is growing. With costs falling and kitchen appliances becoming "status" users, owners are throwing many microwave after an average of eight years. This is pushing sales of new microwave which are expected to reach 135 million annually in the EU by the end of the decade.

A study by the University of Manchester worked out the emissions of carbon dioxide -- the main greenhouse gas responsible for climate change -- at every stage of microwaves, from manufacture to waste disposal. "It is electricity consumption by microwaves that has the biggest impact on the environment," say the authors, who also calculate that the emissions from using 19 microwaves over a year are the same as those from a car. According to the same study, efforts to reduce consumption should focus on improving consumer awareness and behaviour to use appliances more efficiently. For example, electricity consumption by microwaves can be reduced by adjusting the time of cooking to the type of food."

However, David Reay, professor of carbon management argues that, although microwaves use a great deal of enery, their emissions are minor compared to those from cars. In the UK alone and these emit way more than all the emissions from microwaves in the EU. Backing this up, recent data show that passenger cars in the UK emitted 69m tonnes of CO2 in 2015. This is 10 times the amount this new microwave oven study estimates for annual emissions for all the microwave ovens in the whole of the EU." further, the energy used by microwaves is lower than any other form of cooking. Among common kitchen appliances used for cooking, microwaves are the most energy efficient, followed by a stove and finally a standard oven. Thus, rising microwave sales could be seen as a positive thing.

51. What is the finding of the new study?
A) Quick-cooking microwave ovens have become more popular.
B) The frequent use of microwaves may do harm to our health.
C) CO2 emissions constitute a major threat to the environment.
D) The use of microwaves emits more CO2 than people think.
52. Why are the sales of microwaves expected to rise?
A) They are becoming more afrdabla.
B) They have a shorter life cycle than other appliances.
C) They are gtting much easier to operate.
D) They take less tine to cook than other ppliaces.
53. What recommendation does the study by the University of Manchester make?
A) Cooking food of dfferent varieties.
B) Improving microwave users' habits.
C) Eating less to cut energy consumption.
D) Using microwave ovens less frequently.
54. What does Professor David Reay try to argue?
A) There are far more emissions from cars than from microwaves.
B) People should be persuaded into using passenger cars less often.
C) The UK produces less CO2 than many other countries in the EU.
D) More data are needed to show whether microwaves are harmful.
55. What does Professor David Reay think of the use of microwaves?
A) It will become less popular in the coming decades.
B) It makes everyday cooking much more convenient.
C) It plays a positive role in envronmental protection.
D) It consumes more power than conventional cooking.