1、2023年12月大学英语四级试题(第一套)。Part I Writing (30minutes)(请于正式开考后半小时内完毕该部分,之后将进行听力考试)Directions:For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay .Suppose you are two options upon graduation: one is to find a job somewhere and the other to start a business of your own. You are to make a choice betw
2、een the two. Write an essay to explain the reasons for your choice. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.Part II Listening Comprehension (25 minutes)Section ADirections: In this section, you will hear three news reports. At the end of each news report, you will hear two or
3、three questions. Both the news report and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C). Then mark the corresponding letter on the Answer sheet1with a single line through the centre.Questions 1and 2 are base
4、d on the news report you have just the heard.1.A) It was dangerous to live in. C) He could no longer pay the rent. B) It was going to be renovated.D) He had sold it to the royal family.2. A) A strike. B) A storm. C) A forest fire. D) A Terrorist attack.Questions 3and 4 are based on the news report y
5、ou have just heard.3. A) They lost contact with the emergency department.B)They were trapped in an underground elevator.C) They were injured by suddenly falling rocks.D) They sent calls for help via a portable radio.4. A) They tried hard to repair the accident.B) They released the details of the acc
6、ident.C) They sent supplies to keep the miners warm.D) They provided the miner with food and water.Question5 to7 are based on the news report you have just heard.5. A) Raise postage rates.C) Redesign delivery routes. B) Improve its services. D) Close some of its post offices.6. A) Shortening busines
7、s hours. C) Stopping mail delivery on Saturdays.B) Closing offices on holidays. D) Computerizing mail sorting processes.7. A) Many post office staff will lose their jobsB) Many people will begin to complainC) Taxpayers will be very pleasedD)A lot of controversy will ariseSection BDirections:In this
8、section,you will hear two long conversations. At the end of each conversation,you will hear four questions. Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from four choice marked A),B),C) and D).Then mark the corresponding
9、 letter an Answer sheet1 with a single line though the centre.Question8 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard.8. A)He will be kept from promotion. C)He will be given a warning.B)He will go through retraining. D)He will lose part of his pay. 9. A)He is always on time.C)He is an expe
10、rienced press operator.B)He is trustworthy guy. D)He is on good terms with his workmates.10.A)She is a trade union representative. C)She is a senior manager of the shop. B)She is in charge of public relation. D)She is better at handing such matters.11. A)He is skilled and experienced.C)He is always
11、trying to stir up trouble.B)He is very close to the manager. D)He is always complaining about low wages.Question12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.12.A)Open. B)Friendly.C)Selfish.D)Reserved. 13.A)They stay quiet.C)They talk about the weather B)They read a book. D)They chat wi
12、th fellow passengers.14.A)She was always treated as a foreigner.B)She was eager to visit an English castle.C)She was never invited to a colleagues home.D)She was unwilling to make friends with workmates.15.A) House are much more quiet. C) They want to have more space. B) Houses provide more privacy.
13、 D) They want a garden of their own.Section CDirections:In this section,you will hear three passages. At the end of each passage,you will hear three or four questions. Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question,you must choose the best answer from the four
14、 choices marked A),B),C) and D).Then mark the corresponding 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 dont have much choice of jobs.B) They are likely to get much higher pay.C) They dont have to go throug
15、h job interviews.D) They will automatically be given hiring priority.17.A) Ask their professors for help.C) Visit the school careers services. B) Look at school bulletin boards.D) Go through campus newspapers.18.A) Helping students find the books and journals they need.B) Supervising study spaces to
16、 ensure a quiet atmosphere.C) Helping students arrange appointments with librarians.D) Providing students with information about the library.Questions 19 to 21 are based on the passage you have just heard.19.A) It tastes better.C) It may be sold at a higher price .B) It is easier to grow.D) It can b
17、etter survive extreme weathers.20.A) It is healthier than green tea.C) It will replace green tea one day.B) It can grow in drier soil. D) It is immune to various diseases. 21.A) It has been well received by many tea drinkers. B) It does not bring the promised health benefits. C) It has made tea farm
18、ers life easier.D) It does not have a stable market.Questions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.22.A)They need decorations to show their status.B) They prefer unique objects of high quality.C) They decorate their homes themselves.D) They care more about environment. 23.A) They we
19、re proud of their creations. B) They could only try to create at night.C) They made great contributions to society. D) They focused on the quality of their products.24.A) Make wise choices.C) Design handicrafts themselves.B) Identify fake crafts.D) Learn the importance of creation.25.A) To boost the
20、 local economy.C) To arouse public interest in crafts.B) To attract foreign investments.D) To preserve the traditional culture. PART Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)Section ADirections: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a l
21、ist 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 for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any
22、 of the words in the bank more than once.When someone commits a criminal act, we always hope the punishment will match the offense. But when it comes to one of the cruelest crimes animal fighting things 26 work out that way. Dog fighting victims are 27 and killed for profit and “sport,” yet their cr
23、iminal abusers often receive a 28 sentence for causing a lifetime of pain. Roughly half of all federally-convicted animal fighters only get probation(缓刑).Some progress has been made in the prosecution(起诉) of animal fighters. But federal judges often rely heavily on the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines whe
24、n they 29penalties, and in the case of animal fighting, those guidelines are outdated and extremely30.The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which 31these sentencing guidelines, is revisiting them, proposing to raise the minimum sentence from 6-12 to 21-27 months. This is a step in the right 32, but wed li
25、ke to see the U.S. Sentencing Commission make further guidelines.Simultaneous to this effort, were working with animal advocates and state and federal lawmakers to 33 anti-cruelty laws across the country, as well as supporting laws and policies that assist overburdened animal 34 that care for animal
26、 fighting victims. This help is35 important because the high cost of caring for animal victims is a major deterrent to intervening in cruelty cases in the first place.A) convenientB) creates C) critically D) determine E) direction F) hesitate G) inadequate H)inspiredI) methodJ) minimalK) rarely L) s
27、heltersM) strengthenN) sufferingsO) torturedSection BDirections:In this section, you are gonging 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 pa
28、ragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer sheet 2.When Work Becomes a GameAWhat motivates employees to do their jobs well? Competition with coworkers, for some. The promise of rewards, for others. Pure enjoyment
29、 of problem-solving, for a lucky few. BIncreasingly, companies are tapping into these desires directly through whats come to be known as “gamification:” essentially, turning work into a game. “Gamification is about understanding what it is that makes games engaging and what game designers do to crea
30、te a great experience in games, and taking those learnings and applying them to other contexts such as the workplace and education,” explains Kevin Werbach, a gamification expert who teaches at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.CIt might mean monit
31、oring employee productivity on a digital leaderboard and offering prizes to the winners, or giving employees digital badges or stars for completing certain activities. It could also mean training employees how to do their jobs through video game platforms. Companies from Google to IBM to Wells Fargo
32、 are known to use some degree of gamification in their workplaces. And more and more companies are joining them. A recent report suggests that the global gamification market will grow from $1.65 billion in 2023 to $11.1 billion by 2023.DThe concept of gamification is not entirely new, Werbach says.
33、Companies, marketers and teachers have long looked for fun ways to engage peoples reward-seeking or competitive spirits. Cracker Jacks has been “gamifying” its snack food by putting a small prize inside for more than 100 years, he adds, and the turn-of-the-century steel magnate Charles Schwab is sai
34、d to have often come into his factory and written the number of tons of steel produced on the past shift on the factory floor, thus motivating the next shift of workers to beat the previous one.EBut the word “gamification” and the widespread, conscious application of the concept only began in earnes
35、t about five years ago, Werbach says. Thanks in part to video games, the generation now entering the workforce is especially open to the idea of having their work gamified. “Were at a point where in much of the developed world the vast majority of young people grew up playing video games, and an inc
36、reasingly high percentage of adults play these video games too,” Werbach says.FA number of companies have sprung upGamEffective, Bunchball and Badgeville, to name a fewin recent years offering gamification platforms for businesses. The platforms that are most effective turn employees ordinary job ta
37、sks into part of a rich adventure narrative. “What makes a game game-like is that the player actually cares about the outcome,” Werbach says. “The principle is understanding what is motivating to this group of players, which requires some understanding of psychology.”GSome people, Werbach says, are
38、motivated by competition. Sales people often fall into this category. For them, the right kind of gamification might be turning their sales pitches into a competition with other team members, complete with a digital leaderboard showing whos winning at all times.Others are more motivated by collabora
39、tion and social experiences. One company Werbach has studied uses gamification to create a sense of community and boost employee morale. When employees log in to their computers, theyre shown a picture of one of their coworkers and asked to guess that persons name.HGamification does not have to be d
40、igital. Monica Cornetti runs a company that gamifies employee trainings. Sometimes this involves technology, but often it does not. She recently designed a gamification strategy for a sales training company with a storm-chasing theme. Employees formed “storm chaser teams” and competed in storm-theme
41、d educational exercises to earn various rewards.“Rewards dont have to be stuff,” Cornetti says. “Rewards can be flextime. Rewards can be extension time.”Another training, this one for pay roll law, used a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs theme. Snow White is public domain, but the dwarfs are still un
42、der copyright, so Cornetti invented sound-alike characters (Grumpy Gus, Dopey Dan) to illustrate specific pay roll law principles.ISome people dont take as naturally to gamified work environments, Cornetti says. In her experience, people in positions of power or people in finance or engineering dont
43、 tend to like the sound of the word.“If were designing for engineers, Im not talking about a game at all,” Cornetti says. “Im talking about a simulation, Im talking about being able to solve this problem.”JGamification is “not a magic bullet,” Werbach cautions. A gamification strategy thats not suff
44、iciently thought through or tailored to its players may engage people for a little while, but it wont motivate in the long term. It can also be exploitative, especially when used with vulnerable populations. For workers, especially low-paid workers, who desperately need their jobs yet know they can
45、be easily replaced, gamification may feel more like the Hunger Games. Werbach gives the example of several Disneyland hotels in Anaheim, California, which used large digital leaderboards to display how efficiently laundry workers were working compared to one another. Some employees found the board m
46、otivating. To others, it was the opposite of fun. Some began to skip bathroom breaks, worried that if their productivity fell they would be fired. Pregnant employees struggled to keep up. In a Los Angeles Times article, one employee referred to the board as a “digital whip.”“It actually had a very n
47、egative effect on morale and performance,” Werbach says.KStill, gamification only stands to become more popular, he says, “as more and more people come into the workforce who are intuitively familiar with the structures and expressions of digital games.” “We are way ahead of the tipping point,” Corn
48、etti agrees. “Theres no reason this will go away.”36.some famous companies are already using gamification and more are trying to do the same.37.Gamification is not a miracle cure for all workplaces as it may have negative results.38.To enhance morale, one company asks its employees to identify their fellow works when starting their computers.39.The idea of gamification w