四级样题及答案.doc

Part I Writing (30 minutes)
注意：此部分试题在Answer Sheet 2上。
Part I Writing (30 minutes)
Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a campaign speech in support of your election to the post of chairman of the student union. You should write at least 120 words following the outline given below in Chinese:
1. 你认为自己具备了什么条件（能力、性格、爱好等）可以胜任学生会主席的工作
2. 如果当选，你将为本校同学做些什么

Dear fellow students,

I am grateful that you have offered me the chance to speak here. I am impressed by the speeches of the other candidates. But, I want to prove that I would be better for the post of chairman of the student union.

First of all, I have a pleasant personality, such as being easy-going, warm-hearted, and considerate. Last year I was dorm director of our building and I managed to get along well with all the students. At the same time I have acquired a lot of working experience and communication skills, which I consider to be essential for the successful running of the whole student union.

Second, I'm always ready to create. At present our union is very well organized. However its activity schedule is slightly monotonous. I'll try to add greater variety and more colour to it to make our campus life richer and more enjoyable.

If I am elected chairman, I promise I will be your voice and make the student union a bridge between the students and the university administration.

I believe I'm your best choice. Vote for me and vote for yourself. Thank you!

Part II Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes)
Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on the Answer Sheet. For questions 1-7, choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.

Into the Unknown
The world has never seen population ageing before. Can it cope?
Until the early 1990s nobody much thought about whole populations getting older. The UN had the foresight to convene a “world assembly on ageing” back in 1982, but that came and went. By 1994 the World Bank had noticed that something big was happening. In a report entitled “Averting the Old Age Crisis”, it argued that pension arrangements in most countries were unsustainable. Q1
For the next ten years a succession of books, mainly by Americans, sounded the alarm. They had titles like Young vs Old, Gray Dawn and The Coming Generational Storm, and their message was blunt: health-care systems were heading for the rocks, pensioners were taking young people to the cleaners, and soon there would be intergenerational warfare. Q2
Since then the debate has become less emotional, not least because a lot more is known about the subject. Books, conferences and research papers have multiplied. International organizations such as the OECD and the EU issue regular reports. Population ageing is on every agenda, from G8 economic conferences to NATO summits. The World Economic Forum plans to consider the future of pensions and health care at its prestigious Davos conference early next year. The media, including this newspaper, are giving the subject extensive coverage.
Whether all that attention has translated into sufficient action is another question. Governments in rich countries now accept that their pension and health-care promises will soon become unaffordable, and many of them have started to introduce reforms, but so far only timidly. That is not surprising: politicians with an eye on the next election will hardly rush to adopt unpopular measures that may not bear fruit for years, perhaps decades. Q3
The outline of the changes needed is clear. To avoid fiscal meltdown (财政坍塌), public pensions and health-care provision will have to be reined (控制) back severely and taxes may have to go up. By far the most effective method to restrain pension spending is to give people the opportunity to work longer, Q4 because it increases tax revenues and reduces spending on pensions at the same time. It may even keep them alive longer. John Rother, the AARP’s head of policy and strategy, points to studies showing that other things being equal, people who remain at work have lower death rates than their retired peers.
Younger people today mostly accept that they will have to work for longer and that their pensions will be less generous. Employers still need to be persuaded that older workers are worth holding on to. Q5 That may be because they have had plenty of younger ones to choose from, partly thanks to the post-war baby-boom and partly because over the past few decades many more women have entered the labour force, increasing employers’ choice. But the reservoir of women able and willing to take up paid work is running low, and the baby-boomers are going grey.
In many countries immigrants have been filling such gaps in the labour force as have already emerged (and remember that the real shortage is still around ten years off). Immigration in the developed world is the highest it has ever been, and it is making a useful difference. In still-fertile America it currently accounts for about 40% of total population growth, and in fast-ageing western Europe for about 90%.
On the face of it, it seems the perfect solution. Many developing countries have lots of young people in need of jobs; many rich countries need helping hands that will boost tax revenues and keep up economic growth. But over the next few decades labour forces in rich countries are set to shrink so much that inflows of immigrants would have to increase enormously to compensate: to at least twice their current size in western Europe’s most youthful countries, and three times in the older ones. Japan would need a large multiple of the few immigrants it has at present. Q6 Public opinion polls show that people in most rich countries already think that immigration is too high. Further big increases would be politically unfeasible.
To tackle the problem of ageing populations at its root, “old” countries would have to rejuvenate (使年轻) themselves by having more of their own children. A number of them have tried, some more successfully than others. But it is not a simple matter of offering financial incentives or providing more child care. Modern urban life in rich countries is not well adapted to large families. Women find it hard to combine family and career. They often compromise by having just one child.Q7
And if fertility in ageing countries does not pick up? It will not be the end of the world, at least not for quite a while yet, but the world will slowly become a different place. Older societies may be less innovative and more strongly disinclined to take risks than younger ones.Q8 By 2025 at the latest, about half the voters in America and most of those in western European countries will be over 50—and older people turn out to vote in much greater number than younger ones. Academic studies have found no evidence so far that older voters have used their power at the ballot box to push for policies that specifically benefit them, though if in future there are many more of them they might start doing so.
Nor is there any sign of the intergenerational warfare predicted in the 1990s. After all, older people themselves mostly have families.Q9 In a recent study of parents and grown-up children in 11 European countries, Karsten Hank of Mannheim University found that 85% of them lived within 25km of each other and the majority of them were in touch at least once a week.
Even so, the shift in the centre of gravity to older age groups is bound to have a profound effect on societies, not just economically and politically but in all sorts of other ways too. Richard Jackson and Neil Howe of America’s CSIS, in a thoughtful book called The Graying of the Great Powers, argue that, among other things, the ageing of the developed countries will have a number of serious security implications.
For example, the shortage of young adults is likely to make countries more reluctant to commit the few they have to military service.Q10 In the decades to 2050, America will find itself playing an ever-increasing role in the developed world’s defense effort. Because America’s population will still be growing when that of most other developed countries is shrinking, America will be the only developed country that still matters geopolitically (地缘政治上).
Ask me in 2020
There is little that can be done to stop population ageing, so the world will have to live with it. But some of the consequences can be alleviated. Many experts now believe that given the right policies, the effects, though grave, need not be catastrophic. Most countries have recognized the need to do something and are beginning to act.
But even then there is no guarantee that their efforts will work. What is happening now is historically unprecedented. Ronald Lee, director of the Centre on the Economics and Demography of Ageing at the University of California, Berkeley, puts it briefly and clearly: “We don’t really know what population ageing will be like, because nobody has done it yet. ”

1. In its 1994 report, the World Bank argued that the current pension system in most countries could ______.
A) not be sustained in the long term
B) further accelerate the ageing process
C) hardly halt the growth of population
D) help overcome the current ageing crisis
2. What message is conveyed in books like Young vs Old?
A) The generation gap is bound to narrow.
B) Intergenerational conflicts will intensify.
C) The younger generation will beat the old.
D) Old people should give way to the young.
3. One reason why pension and health care reforms are slow in coming is that ______.
A) nobody is willing to sacrifice their own interests to tackle the problem
B) most people are against measures that will not bear fruit immediately
C) the proposed reforms will affect too many people’s interests
D) politicians are afraid of losing votes in the next election
4. The author believes the most effective method to solve the pension crisis is to ______.
A) allow people to work longer C) cut back on health care provisions
B) increase tax revenues D) start reforms right away
5. The reason why employers are unwilling to keep older workers is that ______.
A) they are generally difficult to manage
B) the longer they work, the higher their pension
C) their pay is higher than that of younger ones
D) younger workers are readily available
6. To compensate for the fast-shrinking labour force, Japan would need ______.
A) to revise its current population control policy
B) large numbers of immigrants from overseas
C) to automate its manufacturing and service industries
D) a politically feasible policy concerning population
7. Why do many women in rich countries compromise by having only one child?
A) Small families are becoming more fashionable.
B) They find it hard to balance career and family.
C) It is too expensive to support a large family.
D) Child care is too big a problem for them.
8-10题在Answer Sheet 2上。

Part III Listening Comprehension (35 minutes)
Section A
Directions: In this section, you will hear 8 short conversations and 2 long conversations. At the end of each conversation, one or more questions will be asked about what was said. Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once. After each question there will be a pause. During the pause, you must read the four choices marked A), B), C) and D), and decide which is the best answer. Then mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the center.

11. A) The man hates to lend his tools to other people.
B) The man hasn’t finished working on the bookshelf.
C) The tools have already been returned to the woman.
D) The tools the man borrowed from the woman are missing.
12. A) Save time by using a computer. C) Borrow Martha’s computer.
B) Buy her own computer. D) Stay home and complete her paper.
13. A) He has been to Seattle many times. C) He holds a high position in his company.
B) He has chaired a lot of conferences. D) He lived in Seattle for many years.
14. A) Teacher and student. C) Manager and office worker.
B) Doctor and patient. D) Travel agent and customer.
15. A) She knows the guy who will give the lecture.
B) She thinks the lecture might be informative.
C) She wants to add something to her lecture.
D) She’ll finish her report this weekend.
16. A) An art museum. C) A college campus.
B) A beautiful park. D) An architectural exhibition.
17. A) The houses for sale are of poor quality.
B) The houses are too expensive for the couple to buy.
C) The housing developers provide free trips for potential buyers.
D) The man is unwilling to take a look at the houses for sale.
18. A) Talking about sports. C) Reading newspapers.
B) Writing up local news. D) Putting up advertisements.

Questions 19 to 22 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
19. A) The benefits of strong business competition.
B) A proposal to lower the cost of production.
C) Complaints about the expense of modernization.
D) Suggestions concerning new business strategies.
20. A) It cost much more than its worth.
B) It should be brought up-to-date.
C) It calls for immediate repairs.
D) It can still be used for a long time.
21. A) The personnel manager should be fired for inefficiency.
B) A few engineers should be employed to modernize the factory.
C) The entire staff should be retrained.
D) Better-educated employees should be promoted.
22. A) Their competitors have long been advertising on TV.
B) TV commercials are less expensive.
C) Advertising in newspapers alone is not sufficient.
D) TV commercials attract more investments.

Questions 23 to 25 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
23. A) Searching for reference material. B) Watching a film of the 1930s’.
C) Writing a course book. D) Looking for a job in a movie studio.
24. A) It’s too broad to cope with. C) It’s controversial.
B) It’s a bit outdated. D) It’s of little practical value.
25. A) At the end of the online catalogue. C) In The New York Times.
B) At the Reference Desk. D) In the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature.

Section B
Directions: In this section, you will hear 3 short passages. At the end of each passage, you will hear some 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 choices marked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the center.

Passage One
Questions