2002 年 6 月英语四级真题及答案
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) At the office.
B) In the waiting room.
C) At the airport.
D) In a restaurant.
From the conversation we know that the two were talking about some work they had
to finish in the evening. This is most likely to have taken place at the office.
Therefore, A) “At the office” is the best answer. You should choose [A] on the
Answer Sheet and mark it with a single line through the center.
Sample Answer [A] [B] [C] [D]
1. A) His father.
B) His mother.
C) His brother.
D) His sister.
2. A) A job opportunity.
B) A position as general manager.
C) A big travel agency.
D) An inexperienced salesman.
3. A) Having a break.
B) Continuing the meeting.
C) Moving on to the next item.
D) Waiting a little longer.
4. A) The weather forecast says it will be fine.
B) The weather doesn’t count in their plan.
C) They will not do as planned in case of rain.
D) They will postpone their program if it rains.
5. A) He wishes to have more courses like it.
B) He finds it hard to follow the teacher.
C) He wishes the teacher would talk more.
D) He doesn’t like the teacher’s accent.
6. A) Go on with the game.
B) Draw pictures on the computer.
C) Review his lessons.
D) Have a good rest.
7. A) She does not agree with Jack.
B) Jack’s performance is disappointing.
C) Most people will find basketball boring.
D) She shares Jack’s opinion.
8. A) The man went to a wrong check-in counter.
B) The man has just missed his flight.
C) The plane will leave at 9:14.
D) The plane’s departure time remains unknown.
9. A) At a newsstand.
B) At a car dealer’s
C) At a publishing house.
D) At a newspaper office.
10. A) He wants to get a new position.
B) He is asking the woman for help.
C) He has left the woman a good impression.
D) He enjoys letter writing.
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) They are interested in other kinds of reading.
B) They are active in voluntary services.
C) They tend to be low in education and in income.
D) They live in isolated areas.
12. A) The reasons why ?people don’t read newspapers are more complicated than
assumed.
B) There are more uneducated people among the wealthy than originally expected.
C) The number of newspaper readers is steadily increasing.
D) There are more nonreaders among young people nowadays.
13. A) Lowering the prices of their newspapers.
B) Shortening their news stories.
C) Adding variety to their newspaper content.
D) Including more advertisements in their newspapers.
Passage Two
Questions 14 to 17 are based on the passage you have just heard.
14. A) A basket.
B) A cup
C) A egg.
D) An oven.
15. A) To let in the sunshine.
B) To serve as its door.
C) To keep the nest cool.
D) For the bird to lay eggs.
16. A) Branches.
B) Grasses.
C) Mud.
D) Straw.
17. A) Some are built underground.
B) Some can be eaten.
C) Most are sewed with grasses.
D) Most are dried by the sun.
Passage Three
Questions 18 to 20 are based on the passage you have just heard.
18. A) To examine the chemical elements in the Ice Age.
B) To look into the pattern of solar wind activity.
C) To analyze the composition of different trees.
D) To find out the origin of carbon-14 on Earth.
19. A) The lifecycle of trees.
B) The number of trees.
C) The intensity of solar burning.
D) The quality of air.
20. A) It affects the growth of trees.
B) It has been increasing since the Ice Age.
C) It is determined by the chemicals in the air.
D) It follows a certain cycle.
Part II 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:
In the 1960s, medical researchers Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe developed a
checklist of stressful events. They appreciated the tricky point that any major
change can be stressful. Negative events like “serious illness of a family member”
were high on the list, but so were some positive life-changing events, like marriage.
When you take the Holmes-Rahe test you must remember that the score does not reflect
how you deal with stress — it only shows how much you have to deal with. And we
now know that the way you handle these events dramatically affects your chances of
staying healthy.
By the early 1970s, hundreds of similar studies had followed Holmes and Rahe. And
millions of Americans who work and live under stress worried over the reports.
Somehow, the research got boiled down to a memorable message. Women’s magazines
ran headlines like “Stress causes illness!” If you want to stay physically and
mentally healthy, the articles said, avoid stressful events.
But such simplistic advice is impossible to follow. Even if stressful events are
dangerous, many — like the death of a loved one — are impossible to avoid.
Moreover, any warning to avoid all stressful events is a prescription (处方) for
staying away from opportunities as well as trouble. Since any change can be stressful,
a person who wanted to be completely free of stress would never marry, have a child,
take a new job or move.
The notion that all stress makes you sick also ignores a lot of what we know about
people. It assumes we’re all vulnerable (脆弱的) and passive in the face of adversity
(逆境). But what about human initiative and creativity? Many come through periods
of stress with more physical and mental vigor than they had before. We also know
that a long time without change or challenge can lead to boredom, and physical and
metal strain.
21. The result of Holmes-Rahe’s medical research tells us __________.
A) the way you handle major events may cause stress
B) what should be done to avoid stress
C) what kind of event would cause stress
D) how to cope with sudden changes in life
22. The studies on stress in the early 1970’s led to _________.
A) widespread concern over its harmful effects
B) great panic over the mental disorder it could cause
C) an intensive research into stress-related illnesses
D) popular avoidance of stressful jobs
23. The score of the Holmes-Rahe test shows ________.
A) how much pressure you are under
B) how positive events can change your life
C) how stressful a major event can be
D) how you can deal with life-changing events
24. Why is “such simplistic advice” (Line 1, Para. 3) impossible to follow?
A) No one can stay on the same job for long.
B) No prescription is effective in relieving stress.
C) People have to get married someday.
D) You could be missing opportunities as well.
25. According to the passage people who have experienced ups and downs may become
________.
A) nervous when faced with difficulties
B) physically and mentally strained
C) more capable of coping with adversity
D) indifferent toward what happens to them
Passage Two
Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage:
Most episodes of absent-mindedness — forgetting where you left something or
wondering why you just entered a room — are caused by a simple lack of attention,
says Schacter. “You’re supposed to remember something, but you haven’t encoded
it deeply.”
Encoding, Schacter explains, is a special way of paying attention to an event that
has a major impact on recalling it later. Failure to encode properly can create
annoying situations. If you put your mobile phone in a pocket, for example, and don’t
pay attention to what you did because you’re involved in a conversation, you’
ll probably forget that the phone is in the jacket now hanging in you wardrobe (衣
柜). “Your memory itself isn’t failing you,” says Schacter. “Rather, you didn’
t give your memory system the information it needed.”
Lack of interest can also lead to absent-mindedness. “A man who can recite sports
statistics from 30 years ago,” says Zelinski, “may not remember to drop a letter
in the mailbox.” Women have slightly better memories than men, possibly because
they pay more attention to their environment, and memory relies on just that.
Visual cues can help prevent absent-mindedness, says Schacter. “But be sure the
cue is clear and available,”he cautions. If you want to remember to take a medication
(药物) with lunch, put the pill bottle on the kitchen table — don’t leave it in
the medicine chest and write yourself a note that you keep in a pocket.
Another common episode of absent-mindedness: walking into a room and wondering why
you’re there. Most likely, you were thinking about something else. “Everyone does
this from time to time,” says Zelinski. The best thing to do is to return to where
you were before entering the room, and you’ll likely remember.
26. Why does the author think that encoding properly is very important?
A) It helps us understand our memory system better.
B) It enables us to recall something form our memory.
C) It expands our memory capacity considerably.
D) it slows down the process of losing our memory.
27. One possible reason why women have better memories than men is that ________.
A) they have a wider range of interests
B) they are more reliant on the environment
C) they have an unusual power of focusing their attention
D) they are more interested in what’s happening around them
28. A note in the pocket can hardly serve as a reminder because _________.
A) it will easily get lost
B) it’s not clear enough for you to read
C) it’s out of your sight
D) it might get mixed up with other things
29. What do we learn from the last paragraph?
A) If we focus our attention on one thing, we might forget another.
B) Memory depends to a certain extent on the environment.
C) Repetition helps improve our memory.
D) If we keep forgetting things, we’d better return to where we were.
30. What is the passage mainly about?
A) The process of gradual memory loss.
B) The causes of absent-mindedness.
C) The impact of the environment on memory.
D) A way if encoding and recalling.
Passage Three
Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage:
It is hard to track the blue whale, the ocean’s largest creature, which has almost
been killed off by commercial whaling and is now listed as an endangered species.
Attaching radio devices to it is difficult, and visual sightings are too unreliable
to give real insight into its behavior.
So biologists were delighted early this year when, with the help of the Navy, they
were able to track a particular blue whale for 43 days, monitoring its sounds. This
was possible because of the Navy’s formerly top-secret system of underwater
listening devices spanning the oceans.
Tracking whales is but one example of an exciting new world just opening to civilian
scientists after the cold war as the Navy starts to share and partly uncover its
global network of underwater listening system built over the decades to track the
ships of potential enemies.
Earth scientists announced at a news conference recently that they had used the
system for closely monitoring a deep-sea volcanic eruption (爆发) for the first time
and that they plan similar studies.
Other scientists have proposed to use the network for tracking ocean currents and
measuring changes in ocean and global temperatures.
The speed of sound in water is roughly one mile a second — slower than through land
but faster than through air. What is most important, different layers of ocean water
can act as channels for sounds, focusing them in the same way a stethoscope (听
诊器) does when it carries faint noises from a patient’s chest to a doctor’s ear.
This focusing is the main reason that even relatively weak sounds in the ocean,
especially low-frequency ones, can often travel thousands of miles.
31. The passage is chiefly about ________.
A) an effort to protect an endangered marine species
B) the civilian use of a military detection system
C) the exposure of a U.S. Navy top-secret weapon
D) a new way to look into the behavior of blue whales
32. The underwater listening system was originally designed ________.
A) to trace and locate enemy vessels
B) to monitor deep-sea volcanic eruptions
C) to study the movement of ocean currents
D) to replace the global radio communications network
33. The deep-sea listening system makes use of ________.
A) the sophisticated technology of focusing sounds under water
B) the capability of sound to travel at high speed
C) the unique property of layers of ocean water in transmitting sound
D) low-frequency sounds traveling across different layers of water
34. It can be inferred from the passage that ________.
A) new radio devices should be developed for tracking the endangered blue whales
B) blue whales are no longer endangered with the use of the new listening system
C) opinions differ as to whether civilian scientists should be allowed to use
military technology
D) military technology has great potential in civilian use
35. Which of the following is true about the U.S. Navy underwater listening network?
A) It is now partly accessible to civilian scientists.
B) It has been replaced by a more advanced system.
C) It became useless to the military after the cold war.
D) It is indispensable in protecting endangered species.
Passage Four
Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage:
The fitness movement that began in the late 1960s and early 1970s centered around
aerobic exercise (有氧操). Millions of individuals became engaged in a variety of
aerobic activities, and literally thousands of health spas developed around the
country to capitalize (获利) on this emerging interest in fitness, particularly
aerobic dancing for females. A number of fitness spas existed prior to this aerobic
fitness movement, even a national chain with spas in most major cities. However,
their focus was not on aerobics, but rather on weight-training programs designed
to develop muscular mass, strength, and endurance in their primarily male
enthusiasts. These fitness spas did not seem to benefit financially form the aerobic
fitness movement to better health, since medical opinion suggested that
weight-training programs offered few, if any, health benefits. In recent years,
however, weight training has again become increasingly popular for males and for
females. Many current programs focus not only on developing muscular strength and
endurance but on aerobic fitness as well.
Historically, most physical-fitness tests have usually included measures of
muscular strength and endurance, not for health-related reasons, but primarily
because such fitness components have been related to performance in athletics.
However, in recent years, evidence has shown that training programs designed
primarily to improve muscular strength and endurance might also offer some health
benefits as well. The American College of Sports Medicine now recommends that weight
training be part of a total fitness program for healthy Americans. Increased
participation in such training is one of the specific physical activity and fitness
objectives of Healthy People 2000: National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
Objectives.
36. The word “spas” (Line 3, Para. 1) most probably refers to _________.
A) sports activities
B) places for physical exercise
C) recreation centers
D) athletic training programs
37. Early fitness spas were intended mainly for __________.
A) the promotion of aerobic exercise
B) endurance and muscular development
C) the improvement of women’s figures
D) better performance in aerobic dancing
38. What was the attitude of doctors towards weight training in health improvement?
A) Positive.
B) Indifferent.
C) Negative.
D) Cautious.
39. People were given physical fitness tests in order to find out ________.
A) how ell they could do in athletics
B) what their health condition was like
C) what kind of fitness center was suitable for them
D) whether they were fit for aerobic exercise
40. Recent studies have suggested that weight training __________.
A) has become an essential part of people’s life
B) may well affect the health of the trainees
C) will attract more people in the days to come
D) contributes to health improvement as well
Part III Vocabulary and Structure (20 minutes)
Directions: There are 3.0. 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.
41. You would be ______ a risk to let your child go to school by himself.
A) omitting B) attaching
C) affording D) running
42. He is always here; it’s ______ you’ve never met him.
A) unique B) strange