1996年6月大学英语四级考试试题及参考答案

Part I Listening Comprehension (20 minutes)
Section A
Directions: In this section, you will hear 10 short conversations. At the end of each conversation, a question will be asked about what was said. Both the conversation and the question 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.

Example: You will hear:
 You will read:
A) 2 hours.
B) 3 hours.
C) 4 hours.
D) 5 hours.
From the conversation we know that the two were talking about some work they will start at 9 o’clock in the morning and have to finish at 2 in the afternoon. Therefore, D) “5 hours” is the correct answer. You should choose [D] on the Answer Sheet and mark it with a single line through the center.
Sample Answer [A] [B] [C] [D]
1. A) Place another order.
 B) Call to check on it.
 C) Wait patiently.
 D) Go and find the furniture.
2. A) She doesn’t need the job.
 B) She hasn’t got a job yet.
 C) She has got a good job.
 D) She is going to start work soon.
3. A) She got home before 9 o’clock.
 B) She had a bad cold.
 C) She had a car accident.
 D) She was delayed.
4. A) She hasn’t gone camping for several weeks.
 B) She like to take long camping trips.
 C) She prefers not to go camping on weekends.
 D) She often spends a lot of time planning her camping trips.
5. A) A writer.
 B) A teacher.
 C) A reporter.
 D) A student.
6. A) She has not heard of Prof. Johnson.
 B) She has not heard of Prof. Johnson’s brother.
 C) She is a good friend of Prof. Johnson’s.
 D) She does not know Prof. Johnson’s.
7. A) Coming back for a later show.
 B) Waiting in a queue.
 C) Coming back in five minutes.
 D) Not going to the movie today.
8. A) He has got a heart attack.
 B) He was unharmed.
 C) He was badly hurt.
 D) He has fully recovered from the shock.
9. A) The man went to Australia during Christmas.
 B) The man visited Australia during the summer vacation.
 C) The man didn’t have a good time because of the different weather.
 D) The man remained home while his parents went to see his uncle.
10. A) To attend a party at a classmate’s home.
 B) To do homework with her classmate.
 C) To attend an evening class.
 D) To have supper out with her classmate.

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
Question 11 to 13 are based on the passage you have just heard.
11. A) He fell into the river but couldn’t swim.
 B) He fell into the river together with his bike.
 C) He had his foot caught between two posts in the river.
 D) He dived into the river but couldn’t reach the surface.
12. A) He jumped into the river immediately.
 B) He took off his coat and jumped into the water.
 C) He dashed down the bridge to save the boy.
 D) He shouted out for help.
13. A) He asked what the young man’s name was.
 B) He asked the young man to take him home.
 C) He gave his name and then ran away.
 D) He thanked the young man and then ran away.

Passage Two
Questions 14 to 16 are based on the passage you have just heard.
14. A) Alcohol helps develop people’s intelligence.
 B) Heavy drinking is not necessarily harmful to one’s health.
 C) Controlled drinking helps people keep their wits as they age.
 D) Drinking, even moderately, may harm one’s health.
15. A) Worried.
 B) Pleased.
 C) Surprised.
 D) Unconcerned.
16. A) At a conference.
 B) In a newspaper.
 C) On television.
 D) In a journal.

Passage Three
Questions 17 to 20 are based on the passage you have just heard.
17. A) To seek adventure there.
 B) To be with her mother on Christmas.
 C) To see the animals and plants there.
 D) To join her father on Christmas.
18. A) She was seriously injured.
 B) She survived the accident.
 C) She lost consciousness.
 D) She fell into a stream.
19. A) To avoid hostile Indians.
 B) To avoid the rain.
 C) To avoid the strong sunlight.
 D) To avoid wild animals.
20. A) They gave Julia food to eat.
 B) They drove Julia to a hospital.
 C) They invited Julia to their hut.
 D) They took Julia to a village by boat.

Part II Vocabulary and Structure (20 minutes)
Directions: There are 30 incomplete sentences in this part. For each sentence there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Choose the ONE that best completes the sentence. Then mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the center.

21 After the robbery, the shop installed a sophisticates alarm system as an insurance _________ further losses.
 A) for B) from
 C) against D) towards
22 ___________ the earth to be flat, many feared that Columbus would fall off the edge of the earth.
 A) Having believed B) Believing
 C) Believed D) Being believed
23 A healthy life is frequently thought to be _______ with the open countryside and homegrown food.
 A) tied B) bound
 C) involved D) associated
24 Sir Denis, who is 78, has made it known that much of his collection _________ to the nation.
 A) has left B) is to leave
 C) leaves D) is to be left
25 Before the first non-stop flight made in 1949, it ________ necessary for all planes to land for refueling.
 A) would be B) has been
 C) had been D) would have been
26 In Britain today women ______ 44% of the workhorse, and nearly half the mothers with children are in paid work.
 A) build up B) stand for
 C) make up D) conform to
27 __________ might be expected, the response to the question was very mixed.
 A) As B) That
 C) It D) What
28 If I correct someone, I will do it with as much good humor and self-restraint as if I were the one ____________.
 A) to correct B) correcting
 C) having corrected D) being corrected
29 Features such as height, weight, and skin color _______ from individual to individual and from face to face.
 A) change B) vary
 C) alter D) convert
30 I make notes in the back of my diary _________ thing to be mended or replaced.
 A) by B) in
 C) with D) of
31 The room is in a terrible mess; it _________ cleaned.
 A) can’t have been B) mustn’t have been
 C) shouldn’t have been D) wouldn’t have been
32 A well-written composition __________ good choice of words and clear organization among other things.
 A) calls on B) calls for
 C) calls up D) calls off
33 The traditional approach _________ with complex problems is to break them down into smaller, more easily managed problems.
 A) to dealing B) in dealing
 C) dealing D) to deal
34 It has been revealed that some government leaders _________ their authority and position to get illegal profits for themselves.
 A) employ B) take
 C) abuse D) overlook
35 We were struck by the extent ___________ which teachers’ decisions served the interests of the school rather than those of the students.
 A) to B) for
 C) in D) with
36 Shelly had prepared carefully for her biology examination so that she could be sure of passing it on her first ____________.
 A) intention B) attempt
 C) purpose D) desire
37 The ancient Egyptians are supposed _________ rockets to the moon.
 A) to send B) to be sending
 C) to have sent D) to have been sending
38 The store had to ___________ a number of clerks because sales were down.
 A) lay out B) lay off
 C) lay aside D) lay down
39 All the students in this class passed the English exam ________ the exception of Li Ming.
 A) on  B) in
 C) for D) with
40 Young adults ________ older people are more likely to prefer pop songs.
 A) other than B) more than
 C) less than D) rather than
41 Writing is a slow process, requiring ________ thought, time, and effort.
 A) significant B) considerable
 C) enormous D) numerous
42 ___________ right now, she would get there on Sunday.
 A) Would she leave B) If she leaves
 C) Were she to leave D) If she had left
43 It’s already 5 o’clock now. Don’t you think it’s about time __________?
 A) we are going home B) we go home
 C) we went home D) we can go home
44 Lightning is a ________ of electrical current from a cloud to the ground or from one cloud to another.
 A) rush B) rainbow
 C) rack D) ribbon
45 Today, _________ major new products without conducting elaborate market research.
 A) corporations hardly introduce ever
 B) corporations hardly ever introduce
 C) hardly corporations introduce ever
 D) hardly corporations ever introduce
46 I’ve already told you that I’m going to buy it, _________.
 A) however much it costs B) however does it costs much
 C) how much does it cost D) no matter how it costs
47 New York ____ second in the production of apples, producing 850,000,000 pounds this year.
 A) ranked B) occupied
 C) arranged D) classified
48 Melted iron is poured into the mixer much _________ tea is poured into a cup from a teapot.
 A) in the same way like B) in the same way which
 C) in the same way D) in the same way as
49 By success I don’t mean ________ usually thought of when that word is used.
 A) what is B) that we
 C) as you D) all is
50 I caught a __________ of the taxi before it disappeared around the corner of the street.
 A) vision B) glimpse
 C) look D) scene

Part III Reading Comprehension (35 minutes)
Direction: There are 4 passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B) C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet with a single line through the center.

Passage One
Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage:
 Exchange a glance with someone, then look away. Do you realize that you have made a statement? Hold the glance for a second longer, and you have made a different statement. Hold it for 3 seconds, and the meaning has changed again. For every social situation, there is a permissible time that you can hold a person’s gaze without being intimate, rude, or aggressive. If you are on an elevator, what gaze-time are you permitted? To answer this question, consider what you typically do. You very likely give other passengers a quick glance to size them up（打量）and to assure them that you mean no threat. Since being close to another person signals the possibility of interaction. You need to emit a signal telling others you want to be left alone. So you cut off eye contact, what sociologist Erving Goffman (1963) calls “a dimming of the lights.” You look down at the floor, at the indicator lights, anywhere but into another passenger’s eyes. Should you break the rule against staring at a stranger on an elevator, you will make the other person exceedingly uncomfortable, and you are likely to feel a bit strange yourself.
 If you hold eye contact for more than 3 seconds, what are you telling another person? Much depends on the person and the situation. For instance, a man and a woman communicate interest in this manner. They typically gaze at each other for about 3 seconds at a time, then drop their eyes down for 3 seconds, before letting their eyes meet again. But if one man gives another man a 3-second-plus stare, he signals, “I know you”, “I am interested in you,” or “You look peculiar and I am curious about you.” This type of stare often produces hostile feelings.
51. It can be inferred form the first paragraph that _______.
 A) every glance has its significance
 B) staring at a person is an expression of interest
 C) a gaze longer than 3 seconds is unacceptable
 D) a glance conveys more meaning than words
52. If you want to be left alone on an elevator, the best thing to do is __________.
 A) to look into another passenger’s eyes
 B) to avoid eye contact with other passengers
 C) to signal you are not a threat to anyone
 D) to keep a distance from other passengers
53. By “a dimming of the lights” (Para.1, Line 9) Erving Goffman means “_______”.
 A) closing one’s eyes
 B) turning off the lights
 C) creasing to glance at others
 D) reducing gaze-time to the minimum
54. If one is looked at by a stranger for too long, he tends to feel ___________.
 A) depressed
 B) uneasy
 C) curious
 D) amused
55. The passage mainly discusses __________.
 A) the limitations of eye contact
 B) the exchange of ideas through eye contact
 C) proper behavior in situations
 D) the role of eye contact in interpersonal communication

Passage Two
Questions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage:
 The picnics, speeches, and parades of today’s Labor Day were all part of the first celebration, held in New York City in 1882. Its promoter was an Irish-American labor leader named peter J. McGuire. A carpenter by trade, McGuire had worked since the age of eleven, and in 1882 was president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners (UBCJ). Approaching the City’s Central Labor Union that summer, he proposed a holiday that would applaud（赞许）”the industrial spirit-the great vital force of every nation,” On September 5 his suggestion bore fruit, as an estimated 10,000 workers, many of them ignoring their bosses’ warnings, left work to march from Union square up Fifth Avenue to 42nd Street. The event gained national attention, and by 1893 thirty states had made Labor Day an annual holiday.
 The quick adoption of the scheme may have indicated less about the state lawmakers’ respect for working people than about a fear of risking their anger. In the 1880s the United States was a land sharply divided between the immensely wealthy and the very poor. Henry George was accurate in describing the era as one of “progress and poverty.” In a society in which factory, owners rode in private Pullmans while ten-year-olds slaved in the mines, strong anti-capitalist feeling ran high. Demands for fundamental change were common throughout the labor press. With socialists demanding an end to “wage slavery” and anarchists（无政府主义）singing the praises of the virtues of dynamite（炸药）, middle-of-the-roaders like Samuel Gompers and McGuire seemed attractively mild by comparison. One can imagine practical capitalists seeing Labor Day as a bargain: A one-day party certainly cost them less than paying their workers decent wages.
56. Judging from the passage, McGuire was ____________.
 A) a moderate labor leader
 B) an extreme-anarchist in the labor movement
 C) a devoted socialist fighting against exploitation of man by man
 D) a firm anti-capitalist demanding the elimination of wage slavery
57. We can see from the first paragraph that the first Labor Day march _________.
 A) immediately won nationwide support
 B) involved workers from 30 states
 C) was opposed by many factory owners
 D) was organized by the UBCJ
58. Which of the following is the key factor in the immediate approval of Labor Day as a national holiday?
 A) The lawmakers’ respect for the workers
 B) The worker’s determination to have a holiday of their own.
 C) The socialists’ demands for thorough reform
 D) The politicians’ fear of the workers’ anger.
59. We lean from the passage that the establishment of Labor Day ____________.
 A) was accepted by most bosses as a compromise
 B) marked a turning point in the workers’ struggle for more rights
 C) indicated the improvement of the workers’ welfare
 D) signaled the end of “wage slavery”
60. McGuire proposed Labor Day in order to ___________.
 A) draw people’s attention to the striking contrast between the rich and the poor
 B) make prominent the important role of the working class in society
 C) win for the workers the right to shorter working hours
 D) expose the exploitation of the workers by their bosses

Passage Three
Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage:
 In the old day, children were familiar with birth and death as part of life. This is perhaps the first generation of American youngsters（年轻人）who have never been close by during the birth of a baby and have never experienced the death of a family member.
 Nowadays when people grow old, we often send them to nursing homes. When they get sick, we transfer them to a hospital, where children are forbidden to visit terminally ill patients-even when those patients are their parents. This deprives（剥夺）the dying patient of significant family members during the last few days of his life and it deprives the children of an experience of death, which is an important learning experience.
 Some of my colleagues and I once interviewed and followed approximately 500 terminally ill patients in order to find out what they could teach us and how we could be of more benefit, not just to them but to the members of their families as well. We are most impressed by the fact that even those patients who were not told of their serious illness were quite aware of its potential outcome.
 It is important for family members, and doctors and nurses to understand these patients’ communications in order to truly understand their needs, fears, and fantasies（幻想）. Most of our patients welcomed another human being with whom they could talk openly, honestly, and frankly about their trouble. Many of them shared with us their tremendous need to be informed, to be kept up-to-date on their medical condition and to be told when the end was near. We found out that patients who had been dealt with openly and frankly were better able to cope with the approach of death and finally to reach a true stage of acceptance prior to death.
61. The elders of contemporary Americans ___________.
 A) were often absent when a family member was born or dying
 B) were quite unfamiliar with birth and death
 C) usually witnessed the birth or death of a family member
 D) had often experienced the fear of death as part of life
62. Children in America today are denied the chance __________.
 A) to learn how to face death
 B) to visit dying patients
 C) to attend to patients
 D) to have access to a hospital
63. Five hundred critically ill patients were investigated with the main purpose of _________.
 A) observing how they reacted to the crisis of death
 B) helping them and their families overcome the fear of death
 C) finding out their attitude towards the approach of death
 D) learning how to best help them and their families
64. The need of a dying patient for company shows ____________.
 A) his desire for communication with other people
 B) his fear of approaching death
 C) his pessimistic attitude towards his condition
 D) his reluctance to part with his family
65. It may be concluded from the passage that __________.
 A) dying patients are afraid of being told of the approach of death
 B) most doctors and nurses understand what dying patients need
 C) dying patients should be truthfully informed of their condition
 D) most patients are unable to accept death until it is obviously inevitable

Passage Four
Questions 66 to 70 are based on the following passage:
 Faces, like fingerprints, are unique. Did you ever wonder how it is possible for us to recognize people. Even a skilled writer probably could not describe all the features that make one face different from another. Yet a very young child-or even an animal, such as a pigeon-can learn to recognize faces, we all take this ability for granted.
 We also tell people apart by how they behave. When we talk about someone’s personality, we mean the ways in which he or she acts, speaks thinks and feels that make that individual different from others.
 Like the human face, human personality is very complex. But describing someone’s personality in words is somewhat easier than describing his face. If you were asked to describe what a “nice face” looked like, you probably would have a difficult time doing so. But if you were asked to describe a “nice person”, you might begin to think about someone who was kind considerate, friendly, warm, and so forth.
 There are many words to describe how a person thinks, feels and acts. Gordon Allport, an American psychologist, found nearly 18,000 English words characterizing differences in people’s behavior. And many of us use this information as a basis for describing, or typing, his personality. Bookworms, conservatives, military types-people are described with such terms.
 People have always tried to “type” each other. actors in early Greek drama wore masks to show the audience whether they played the villain’s（坏人）or the hero’s role. In fact, the words “person” and “personality” come from the Latin persona, meaning “mask”. Today, most television and movie actors do not wear masks. But we can easily tell the “good guys” from the “bad guys” because the two types differ in appearance as well as inactions.
66. By using the example of finger prints, the author tells us that __________.
 A) people can learn to recognize faces
 B) people have different personalities
 C) people have difficulty in describing the features of finger prints
 D) people differ from each other in facial features
67. According to this passage, some animals have the gift of ___________.
 A) telling people apart by how they behave
 B) typing each other
 C) telling good people from had people
 D) recognizing human faces
68. Who most probably knows best how to describe people’s personality?
 A) The ancient Greek audience
 B) The movie actors
 C) Psychologists
 D) The modern TV audience
69. According to the passage, it is possible for us tell one type of person from another because ________.
 A) people differ in their behavioral and physical characteristics
 B) human fingerprints provide unique information
 C) people’s behavior can be easily described in words
 D) human faces have complex features
70. Which of the following is the major point of the passage?
 A) Why it is necessary to identify people’s personality
 B) Why it is possible to describe people
 C) How to get to know people
 D) How best to recognize people

参考答案：

1. C  2. B  3. D  4. B  5. C  6. D  7. A  8. B  9. A  10. A
11. C 12. A 13. D 14. C 15. B 16. A 17. D 18. B 19. C 20. D
21. C 22. B 23. D 24. D 25. C 26. C 27. A 28. D 29. B 30. D
31. A 32. B 33. A 34. C 35. A 36. B 37. C 38. B 39. D 40. D
41. B 42. C 43. C 44. A 45. B 46. A 47. A 48. D 49. A 50. B
51. A 52. B 53. C 54. B 55. D 56. A 57. C 58. D 59. A 60. B
61. C 62. B 63. D 64. A 65. C 66. D 67. D 68. C 69. A 70. B
71. 你很可能给其他乘客很快的一瞥，打量他们一下，以此让他们确信你对他们没有威胁。
72. 十九世纪八十年代的美国是一个贫富分化极为分明的国家。
73. 给我们留下极深印象的事实是：即使那些没有被告知严重病情的病人，对其疾病的潜在后果也是非常清楚的。
74. 即使是很老到的作家也很可能不能描述出区分人脸的全部特征。

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