四级模拟试卷2.doc

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炎黄学院《综合英语》单元测试卷(二)

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Part One. Writing. (30minutes)
For this part, you are allowed 30minutes to write a short essay entitled On College Students’ Career Planning. You should write at least 120 words following the outline given below.
1. 近年来，各地高校日益重视大学生职业生涯规划教育
2. 分析这种现象产生的原因
3. 大学生应该如何规划好自己的职业生涯
Part Two. Reading Comprehension. (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes)
Five Questions on the Origins of Christmas
The traditions we associate with Christmas have evolved over the centuries. Here are answers to five questions about these traditions, from the date we choose to celebrate to the origin of Santa.
1. Why do we celebrate on December 25th?
The bible makes no mention of Jesus being born on December 25th and, as more than one historian has pointed out, why would shepherds be tending to their flock in the middle of winter? So why is that the day we celebrate? Well, either Christian holidays miraculously fall on the same days as pagan ones or the Christians have been crafty in converting pagan populations to religion by placing important Christian holidays on the same days as pagan ones. And people had been celebrating on December 25th (and the surrounding weeks) for centuries by the time Jesus showed up.
The Winter Solstice, falling on or around December 21st, was and is celebrated around the world as the beginning of the end of winter. It is the shortest day and longest night and its passing signifies that spring is on the way. In Scandinavian countries, they celebrated the solstice with a holiday called Yule last from the 21st until January and burned a Yule log the whole time.
In Rome, Saturnalia—a celebration of Saturn, the God of agriculture—lasted the entire end of the year and was marked by mass intoxication. In the middle of this, the Romans celebrated the birth of another God, Mithra (a child God), whose holiday celebrated the children of Rome.
When the Christianity became the official religion of Rome, there was no Christmas. It was not until the 4th century that Pope Julius I declared the birth of Jesus to be a holiday and picked December 25th as the celebration day. By the middle ages, most people celebrated the holiday we know as Christmas.
2. How did Americans come to love the holiday?
The American Christmas is, like most American holidays, a mishmash of Old World customs mixed with American inventions. While Christmas was celebrated in America from the time of the Jamestown settlement, our modern idea of the holiday didn’t take root until the 19th century. The history channel credits Washington Irving with getting the ball rolling. In 1819 he published The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, gent., an account of a Christmas celebration in which a rich family invites poor folk into their house to celebrate the holiday.
The problem was that many of the activities described in Irving’s work, such as crowning a Lord of Misrule, were entirely fictional. Nonetheless, Irving began to steer Christmas celebrations away from drunken debauchery and towards wholesome, charitable fun. Throughout the rest of the 19th century, Christmas gained popularity and Americans adopted old customs or invented new ones, such as Christmas trees, greeting cards, giving gifts and eating a whole roasted pig.
3. Who popularized Christmas trees?
Since time immortal, humans have been fascinated with the color green and plants that stay green through winter. Many ancient societies—from Romans to Vikings—would decorated their homes and temples with evergreens in the winter as a symbol of the returning growing season.
But the Christmas tree didn’t get going until some intrepid German dragged home and decorated a tree in the 16th century. Legend has it that Martin Luther himself added lighted candles to his family’s tree, starting the trend (and leading to countless fires through the years). In America, the Christmas tree didn’t catch on until 1846 when the British royals, Queen Victoria and the German Prince Albert, were shown with a Christmas tree in a newspaper. Fashionable people in America mimicked the Royals and the tree thing spread outside of German enclaves(被围领土) in America, Ornaments, courtesy of Germany, and electric lights, courtesy of Thomas Edison’s assistants, were added over the years and we haven’t changed much since.
4. What’s deal with Santa Claus?
The jolly, red-suited man who sneaks into your home every year to leave you gifts hasn’t always been so jolly. The real Saint Nick was a Turkish monk who lived in the 3rd century. According to legend, he was a rich man thanks to an inheritance from his parents, but he gave it all away in the form of gifts to the less fortunate. He eventually became the most popular saint in Europe and, through his alter ego, Santa Claus, remains so to this day. But how did a long dead Turkish monk became a big, fat, reindeer-riding pole dweller?
The Dutch got the ball rolling by celebrating the saint—called Sinter Klaas—in New York in the late-18th century. Our old friend, Washington Irving, included the legend of Saint Nick in his seminal History of New York as well, but at the turn of the 18th century, Saint Nick was still a rather obscure figure in America.
On December 23, 1823, though, a man named Clement Clarke Moore published a poem he had written for his daughters called “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas,” better known now as “T’was the night before Christmas.” Nobody knows how much of the poem Moore invented, but we do know that it was the spark that eventually lit the Santa fire. Many of the things we associated with Santa—a sleigh, reindeer, Christmas Eve visits—came from Moore’s poem.
From 1863 to 1886, Thomas Nast’s illustrations of Santa Claus appeared in Harper’s weekly—including a scene with Santa giving gifts to Union soldiers. Not much has changed since the second half of the 19th century: Santa still gets pulled in a sleigh by flying reindeer, he still wears the big red suit and he still sneaks down chimneys to drop off presents.
5. Who invented Rudolph?
Santa did get one more friend in 1939. Robert May, a copywriter for the Montgomery Ward department store chain, wrote a little story about a 9th reindeer with a disturbing red nose for a booklet to give customers during the holiday season. Ten years later, May’s brother would put the story to music, writing the lyrics and melody.
The shift form print to electronic will change the nature of the book itself. Many books will be shorter. They’ll be more timely and culturally relevant. They’ll be more colorfully and engagingly written. And they’ll go after young readers like nothing before.
As in Japan, this will spark a new cultural phenomenon of young people not just reading, but also writing novels and other book types on their mobile devices.
The idea that “people don’t read any more,” especially young people, will be revealed as false. Young people today read more, and write a lot more, than any generation in history. To date, they’ve been unexcited about books, magazines and newspapers because they grew up with social networking and social media. Once book are electronic, relevant and social, too, they’ll start reading and writing books like crazy.
1. When did people begin to celebrate Dec. 25th? ___________.
A) Right on the Jesus’ birthday. B) Long before the birth of Jesus.
C) Long before the existence of Christianity. D) When the Christian religion came into being.
2. What does Winter Solstice mean when it comes around Dec. 21st? ________
A) The day will become shorter. B) The night will become longer.
C) Spring is coming. D) Winter is coming.
3. The celebration of Jesus’ birthday on Dec.25th has much to do with ________________.
A) the Scandinavian Yule B) Saturn, the God of agriculture
C)Mithra, a child God D) Pope Julius I
4. Christmas began to take root in America in the 19th century, thanks to ______________.
A) the writer Washington Irving B) the Jamestown settlement
C) the history channel D) the Dutch immigrants
5. What was regarded as old Christmas practice in America in the 19th century? _______________.
A) Christmas trees. B) Sending greeting cards.
C) Drunken debauchery. D) Exchanging gifts.
6. What color fascinated the Vikings? ___________.
A) White. B) Red. C) Blue. D) Green.
7. The trend of Christmas tree tradition in German was said to be related to ___________.
A) Queen Victoria B) Prince Albert C) Martin Luther D) Thomas Edison
8. Santa Claus was based on a monk named Saint Nick, who was from___________________________.
9. What Santa Claus does nowadays can be traced back to one of Clement Clarke Moore’s ___________.
10. Rudolph, one of Santa Claus’ friends, appeared in Robert May’s story as a _____________________.
Part Three. Reading Comprehension. (Reading in Depth) (25 minutes)
Section A
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12
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15
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19
20

Searching for love is no longer just a favorite subject for songs. It has also become a huge industry.
Experts say that the industry has grown because traditional social ties in the United States have _11_. Many young people leave behind a close community of friends and family to find work in big cities. People work longer hours, so they have less time to meet new people. So they depend _12_on technology.
This helps explain the _13_ of online dating. Some estimates say 120,000 marriages a year result from _14_ made on the Internet.
The dating industry has also been expanding in new and interesting ways. Many companies around the country offer _15_ services for finding the perfect mate. These companies are answering a large demand by single people. They are willing to _16_ their name and money to find love with _17_ planned methods, instead of leaving love to chance.
For example, in Virginia, the company True Life Partners provides a _18_ but detailed dating service. The company’s owner, Stephanie Rockey, says her customers are busy professionals who do not have time to search for their life partner. Customers hire Miz Rockey’s team of _19_ experts to help them find people they will like based on detailed information they provide about themselves.
The company says it is a team of professional personal _20_who help couples meet. But this level of attention comes at a high price. Men pay thousands of dollars for the service. But women get to take part at no cost.
A)carefully B)inquire C)personalized D)invest E)notified
F)recruiters G)matches H)increasingly I)desperate J)costly
K)restraint L)popularity M)weakened N)shortly O)trained

Section B Passage One
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The earliest process of making paper was done almost 5,000 years ago in Egypt and the Nile Valley. In those days, paper was made from strips of the papyrus plant.
Modern paper-making began in China about 2,000 years ago. This process produced paper from cloth, straw, wood, or the bark of trees. The raw materials are struck over and over until they become loose. Then they are mixed with water.
After the water has been removed, the flat, thin form remaining is permitted to dry. This becomes a sheet of paper.
Large machines started to be used for making paper near the end of the 16th century. Today, paper-making is a big business. But it is still possible to make paper by hand, since the steps are the same as using big machines.
You should choose paper with small amounts of printing. Old envelopes are good for this reason. Colored paper also can be used, as well as small amount of newspaper. Small pieces of rags or cloth can be added. These should be cut into pieces about 5 centimeters by 5 centimeters.
Everything is placed in a container, covered with water, and brought to a boil. It is mixed for about 2 hours with some common chemicals and then allowed to cool. Then it is left until most of the water dries up. The substance left, called pulp, can be stored until you are ready to make paper.
When you are ready, the pulp is mixed with water again. Then the pulp is poured into a special box or mold. The mold is made of small squares of wire that hold the shape and thickness of the paper. To help dry the paper, the mold lets the water flow through the small wire squares.
After several more drying steps, the paper is carefully lifted back from the mold. It is now strong enough to be touched.
The paper is smoothed and pressed to remove trapped air. You can use a common electric iron used for pressing clothes.
21. What is mentioned about the earliest process of making paper? ____
A) Its procedures. B) Its influences. C) Its purpose D) Its materials.
22. It is suggested that we “should choose paper with small amount of printing” to ____________.
A) make paper by ourselves B) renew the old envelopes
C) make various colored paper D) create our own newspaper
23.Whether the paper is strong enough to be touched is determined by ____________.
A) how long the pulp is stored B) how thick the paper is
C) how much water remains D) what type of chemicals are used
24.When the paper is lifted from the mold, it is time to ___________.
A) make it smooth B) make it strong C) decorate it D) iron it
25.The passage is most probably intended to ___________.
A) introduce the history of paper-making B) describe the process of paper-making
C) compare the ancient and the modern paper-making D) argue the possibility of paper-making by hand
Passage Two
When today’s college graduates get together for a reunion someday, they may decide to do it by computer. That’s because right now, nearly one in five college students takes at least one class online, according to a new survey.
For professors, the growth of e-learning has meant a big shift in the way they deal with students.
Take professor Sara Cordell of the University of Illinois-Springfield as an example: Her day doesn’t end at 6 p.m., as it does for some college professors.
Cordell sits at her computer in her campus office to chat with a half-dozen students gathered in front of their screens: One is in Tennessee, another in California’s central valley, another in Ohio. They’re all here to talk about Thomas Hardy’s 19th-century novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles.
Cordell has