2017年6月大学英语四级短文阅读听力原文

Passage OneWild c arrots probably evolved with the other flowering plants about 360 million years ago.Like apples, carrots are native to Central Asia. That's why horses,which also come from Central Asia, like both apples and carrots so much. With wild carrots,the roots are white, small and skinny, so you'd have to pick a lot of wild carrots to get enough to eat.Doctors used carrot seeds and roots as medicine, on the theory that foods that taste bad must be good for you.Around 800 AD, people in Central Asiamanaged to develop a new kind of carrot—a purple carrot—that attracted more interest from international traders. Then, in the late1500s,food scientists in the Netherlandscultivated large, straight, sweet, red carrots like the ones we eat today.But people still mostly fed carrots to horses,donkeys and pigs, and didn't eat them themselves.In the 1600s,people in China used carrots as medicine, but they also ate carrots boiledin soup. The red color was popular for Chinese New Year celebrations. But carrots got their biggest boost during the two world wars,when food shortages forced people to eat them, and governments told everyone how healthy carrots were. Today, cooler countriesgrow most of the world's carrots.Machines do most of the planting and picking, and carrots are easy to store and ship, so they are cheap almost everywhere.Questions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard.16. What do we learn from the talk about wild carrots?17. What does the speaker say about carrots in the late 1500s?18. Why did people turn to carrots for food during the two world wars?Passage TwoKatherine loved Facebook. With Facebook,she could stay connected with her family no matter how far away they were. She could see their photos and read their status updates. With Facebook,she could keep her relatives up-to-date on what she was doing.Another thing Katherine loved about Facebook was that she didn't have to think about time zones when updating family.Whenever she called her parents or other relatives, she always had to think about the time difference so that she wouldn't wake someone up or call when she knew they were at church. Facebook was so convenient.When Katherine joined Facebook, some of her classmates at high school started to add her as a friend. At first, this didn't bother her.She loved learning about the success of people she knew when she was just a teenager.She loved finding out people were getting married, having babies, and traveling. Soon, however, Katherine found herself comparing herself with the people she was reading about on Facebook. It began to make her feel badthat some people seemed to be doing so much better than she was.She was also spending a lot of time on Facebook. It took a lot of time and energyto keep up with everyone's status updates. Katherine started to think.She looked at the list of over 500 friends she had on Facebook and realizedsome of them were not really friends at all. Questions 19 to 21 are based on the passage you have just heard.19. What was one particular convenience Katherine loved about Facebook? 20. How did Katherine feelwhen her classmates added her as a Facebook friend?21. What made Katherine feel bad about herself later on? Passage ThreeDo you know where a mule comes from? It is the child of a donkey and a horse. Mules have strong muscles like horses, but they eat less, can work longer, and are gentler, like donkeys.George Washington was the first person in the United States to own mules.He had heard that mules made good farm animals and he contacted the U.S. ambassador in Spain to ask about them.In 1785, King Charles Ⅲof Spainsent Washington a male donkey as a gift. That male donkey becamethe father of the mule industry in the U.S. Every April,Maury County holds a Mule Day celebration. Held in Columbia, Tennessee,Mule Day had its beginnings as "Breeder's Day" in the 1840s.Farmers and farm animal breederswould bring their animals to market every April to show, buy, and trade.This was an important business before the days of tractors,when many families made a living from farming and mules were used as work animals. Eventually, tractors began to replace mules,making them less in demand.A parade was added to Mule Day in 1934 to attract more people.Over the years other activities have been added, and today more than 200,000 people show up each year to watch and participate.If you visit during Mule Day celebrations, you might see mule-driving contests, square dances, horse showsor even tree-cutting competitions.Questions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.22. What does the speaker say about mules? 23. What do we learn about the donkey which is said to bethe father of the U.S. mule industry?24. What did farmers usually do on Mule Day in the 1840s?25. What made mules less in demand in America? This is the end of listening comprehension.Team spirit[A] Teams have become the basic building blocks of organizations.Recruitment advertisements routinely call for “team players”.Business schools grade their students in part on their performance in group projects. Office managers knock down walls to encourage team building. Teams are as old as civilization, of course: even Jesus had 12 co-workers. But a new report by Deloitte, “Global Human Capital Trends”,based on a survey of more than 7,000 executives in over 130 countries, suggests that the fashion for teamwork has reached a new high. Almost half of those surveyed said their companies were either in the middle of restructuring or about to embark on (开始）it; and for the most part, restructuring meant putting more emphasis on teams.[B] Companies are abandoning conventional functional departments and organising employees into cross-disciplinary teams that focus on particular products, problems or customers. These teams are gaining more power to run their own affairs. They are also spending more time working with each other rather than reporting upwards. Deloitte argues that a new organisational form is on the rise:a network of teams is replacing the conventional hierarchy (等级体制).[C] The fashion for teams is driven by a sense that the old way of organising people is too rigid for both the modem marketplace and the expectations of employees. Technological innovation places greater value on agility (灵活性).John Chambers, chairman of Cisco Systems Inc., a worldwide leader in electronics products,says that “we compete against market transitions (过渡)，not competitors. Product transitions used to take five or seven years; now they take one or two. ”Digital technology also makes it easier for people to co-ordinate their activities without resorting to hierarchy. The “millennials”(千禧一代) who will soon make up half the workforce in rich countries were raised from nursery school onwards to work in groups.[D] The fashion for teams is also spreading from the usual corporate suspects (such as GE and IBM) to some more unusual ones. The Cleveland Clinic, a hospital operator, has reorganised its medical staff into teams to focus on particular treatment areas; consultants, nurses and others collaborate closely instead of being separated by speciality (专业)and rank. The US Army has gone the same way. In his book, “Team of Teams' General Stanley McChrystal describes how the army’s hierarchical structure hindered its operations during the early stages of the Iraq war. His solution was to learn something from the insurgents it was fighting: decentralise authority to self-organising teams.[E] A good rule of thumb is that as soon as generals and hospital administrators jumpon a management bandwagon, it is time to ask questions. Leigh Thompson of Kellogg School of Management in Illinois warns that, ‘Teams are not always the answer—teams may provide insight, creativity and knowledge in a way that a person working independently cannot; but teamwork may also lead to confusion, delay and poor decision-making.”The late Richard Hackman of Harvard University once argued, “I have no question that when you have a team, the possibility exists that it will generate magic, producing something extraordinary... But don’t count on it.”[F] Hackman (who died in 2013) noted that teams are hampered by problems ofco-ordination and motivation that chip away at the benefits of collaboration. High-flyers forced to work in teams may be undervalued and free-riders empowered. Groupthink may be unavoidable. In a study of 120 teams of senior executives, he discovered that less than 10% of their supposed members agreed on who exactly was on the team. If it is hard enough to define a team’s membership, agreeing on its purpose is harder still.[G] Profound changes in the workforce are making teams trickier to manage. Teams work best if their members have a strong common culture.This is hard to achieve when, as is now thecase in many big firms, a large proportion of staff are temporary contractors. Teamwork improves with time: America’s National Transportation Safety Board found that 73% of the incidents in its civil-aviation database occurred on a crew’s first day of flying together. However, as Amy Edmondson of Harvard points out, organisations increasingly use “team”as a verb rather than a noun: they form teams for specific purposes and then quickly disband them.[H] The least that can be concluded from this research is that companies need to think harder about managing teams. They need to rid their minds of sentimentalism (感情用事)：the most successful teams have leader s who are able to set an overall direction and take immediate action. They need to keep teams small and focused: giving in to pressure to be more “inclusive”is a guarantee of dysfunction. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s boss, says that “If I see more than two pizzas for lunch, the team is too big.”They need to immunize teams against group-think: Hackman argued that the best ones contain “deviants”(离经叛道者）who are willing to do something that maybe upsetting to others.[I] A new study of 12,000 workers in 17 countries by Steelcase, a furniture-maker which also does consulting, finds that the best way to ensure employees are “engaged”is togive them more control over where and how they do their work―which may mean liberating them from having to do everything in collaboration with others.[J] However, organisations need to learn something bigger than how to manage teams better: they need to be in the habit of asking themselves whether teams are the best tools for the job. Teambuilding skills are in short supply: Deloitte reports that only 12% of the executives they contacted feel they understand the way people work together in networks and only 21% feel confident in their ability to build cross-functional teams. Loosely managed teams can become hotbeds of distraction―employees routinely complain that they can’t get their work done because they are forced to spend too much time in meetings or compelled to work in noisy offices. Even in the age ofopen-plan offices and social networks some work is best left to the individual.36.Successful team leaders know exactly where the team should go and are able to take prompt action.37.Decentralisation of authority was also found to be more effective in military operation s.38.In many companies, the conventional form of organisation is giving way toa network of teams.39.Members of poorly managed teams are easily distracted from their work.40.Teamwork is most effective when team members share the same culture.41.According to a report by Deloitte, teamwork is becoming increasingly popular among companies.42.Some team members find it hard to agree on questions like membership and the team’s purpose.43.Some scholars think teamwork may not always be reliable, despite its potential to work wonders.44.To ensure employees’commitment, it is advisable to give them more flexibility as to where and how they work.45.Product transitions take much less time now than in the past.。

2017年6月大学英语四级真题及答案(第一套)Part I Writing (25 minutes) (请于正式开考后半小时内完成该部分，之后将进行听力考试)Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an advertisement on your campus website to sell a computer you used at college. Your advertisement may include its brand, specifications/features, condition and price, and your contact information.You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.Part II Listening Comprehension (30 minutes) Section ADirections: In this section, you will hear three news reports. At the end of each news report, you will hear two or three questions. Both the news report and questions will be spoken only once. After you hear questions, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。

Part II Listening ComprehensionSection A News ReportNews Report OneOne of Google's self-driving cars crashed into a bus in California last month. There were no injuries. It is not the first time one of Google's famed self-driving cars has been involved in a crash, but it may be the first time it has caused one. On February 14th the self-driving car, traveling at 2mph (3km/h), pulled out in front of a public bus going 15mph (24km/h). The man in the Google vehicle reported that he assumed the bus would slow down to let the car out, and so he did not switch to the manual mode. In a statement, Google said: "We clearly bear some responsibility, because if our car hadn't moved, there wouldn't have been a crash." That said, our test driver believed the bus was going to slow or stop to allow us to merge into the traffic, and that there would be sufficient space to do that." The company's self-driving cars have done well over a million miles across various states in the US, and until now have only reported minor accidents.News Report TwoThousands of bees left a town after landing on the back of a car when their queen got stuck in its boot. Tom Moses who works at a nearby national park, noticed a “brown patch” on the back of the car after the owner parked it to do some shopping. When he looked closer he realized it was a huge group of bees. Moses said: “I have never seen that many bees in one spot. It was very unusual. They were very close together and there was a lot of noise and movements, it was interesting to see such a strange sight. But there were a lot of people around and I was a bit worried about the bees and the people stopping to look. I thought that someone might do something stupid. Moses called two local bees specialists who helped removed the bees by attracting them into a box. Moses spent three hours looking after the bees and was stung five times, he said, “my stings are a bit painful but I am pleased that all worked out and I could help, people need to realize that bees are valuable and they should be looked after.”News report ThreeA new species of snake has been discovered on a remote island in the Bahamas. Scientists identified 20 of the onemeter-long snakes during two trips to the Caribbean islands. The second trip was made in October last year. One of the creaturesmade a dramatic appearance by moving on to the head of the team leader as he slept. The snake has been named Silver Boa because it’s sliver colored and the first specimen found was climbing a silver palm tree. The team was led by Dr. Graham Reynolds, from Harvard University, the scientist confirmed the snake was a previously unknown species after conducting a genetic analysis of tissue samples. Commenting on the find, snake expert Robert Henderson from the Museum of Natural History, said: “Worldw ide new species of frogs are being discovered and described quite regularity. New species of snakes, however, are much rarer.Section B ConversationConversation OneW: Did you enjoy your stay with us, Mr. Brown?M: Yes, very much. I had a wonderful time here. Now I'm going to the airport. My flight leaves in less than 2 hours. So, could you tell me, what's the quickest way to get there?W: Well, we can call a taxi for you. We also have a free airport shuttle service.M: That sounds great, but will the shuttle get me to the airport in time?W: Yes, it should. The next shuttle leaves in 15 minutes. And it takes some 25 minutes to get to the airport.M: Fantastic! I'll just wait in the lobby. Will you please let me know when it's leaving?W: Of course, sir.M: Now I would like to settle my mini-bar bill. How much is that?W: Let's see. It comes to $37.50. How would you like to pay for it?M: I'll pay with my credit card. Thanks. But I'll need a receipt, so I can charge it to my company.W: Absolutely! Here you are, sir. If you like, I can leave your bags with the porter. And he can load them onto the shuttle for you when it arrives.M: That would be great. Thank you.W: Would you like to leave a comment on our web page when you have time?M: Sure. I had a really good stay here, and I'd like to recommend your hotel to my friends and colleagues.W: That’s very kind of you. Thank you again for staying at Sheraton Hotel.Conversation TwoM: You know, Ben’s given up making tho se terrible faces he used to make. The other day, he came home from school almost in tears. His teacher said if he went on like that, his face would get stuck when the winds changed.W: And he believed her?M: Yeah, he’s only a little boy. Don’t you re member all those things we used to believe when we were little? I remember my aunt Mary used to say if you swallow a cherrystone, a tree would grow out of your mouth. And I’m still terrified today, sort of subconsciously. You know, if I swallow one by mist ake…W: Yeah, I suppose you're right. The one that used to get me was that swans could break your leg when they blow of the wing.M: They can, can’t they? I always thought they could.W: No, they are not that strong. But there’s another one even more terrifying. That is, if you put a post stamp on upside down, you will go to prison.M: No, never heard of that. But my grandmother was a terror for that kind of thing. For example, she would say, you will get a spot on your tongue if you tell a lie. If you eat stale bread, your hair will curl. And here’s one more. We went on a campaign trip once in Italy, and my wife spent the whole time worrying about bats gettinginto her hair. She said her grandmother reckoned you had to shave your head to get it out. My wife was really terrified.W: Silly, isn’t it? But that’s how some parents try to keep their kids from doing the wrong thing or getting into trouble.Section C PassagePassage OneIf I could go back in history and live when I liked, I wouldn't go back very far. In fact, I'd like to relive a period I've already lived –the 1960s. I was in my twenties, and everything was being renewed. People would come in out of a formal and almost Victorian attitude, and you really felt anything was possible. Meeting people was the thing, and you went to coffee bars where you met friends and spent the evening. The cinema, the theater, all that was every exciting with new things coming out. In fact, we seemed to be out, all the time! I don't really remember working – of course, I was a student –or sitting around at home very much. That just wasn't where the scene was, even eating! It was the first time, ordinary people started going out to eat. We were beginning to be adventurous about food, but we were more interested in meeting people than in eating or drinking. And dress, yes, that was the revolution. I mean, girls went around in really short skirts, and wore flowers in their hair.And men were in jeans, and could wear their hair long too. It was a wonderful period. It was like living in an age you could never have imagined, and that never has come back. We didn't have much money, but it didn't matter. And there was plenty of opportunity to do whatever you felt like doing.Passage TwoDogs, man's best friends, have a clear strategy for dealing with angry owners—they look away. New research shows that dogs limit their eye contact with angry humans. The scientists suggest this may be an attempt to calm humans down. This behavior may have evolved as dogs gradually learned they could benefit from avoiding conflicts with humans. To conduct the tests, the University of Helsinki researchers trained 31 dogs to rest in front of a video screen. Facial photos of dogs and humans were displayed on the screen for 1.5 seconds. They showed threatening, pleasant and neutral s. Nearby cameras tracked the dogs' eye movements. Dogs in the study looked most at the eyes of humans and other dogs to sense their emotions. When dogs looked at expressions of angry dogs, their eyes rested more on the mouth, perhaps to interpret the threatening s. And when looking at angry humans, they tended to turn away their gaze. Dogs may have learned to detect threat signsfrom humans and respond by trying to make peace, according to researcher Sanni Somppi. Avoiding conflicts may have helped dogs develop better bonds with humans. The researchers also note that dogs scan faces as a whole to sense how people are feeling, instead of focusing on a given feature. They suggest this indicates that dogs aren't sensing emotions from a single feature, but piecing together information from all facial features just as humans do.Passage ThreeWinter in many places is very cold. There is lots of snow around, and the ground freezes, which can make life difficult for animals. People in cold places live in warm houses and have learned to adapt. What do animals do? There are three main ways that animals survive the cold in winter: sleep, adapt or migrate. Some animals, such as bears, frogs and snakes, sleep all winter. They sleep very deeply and need little or no food. While sleeping, their body temperature drops, and their heart beat slows down. To prepare for this before winter, these animals eat extra food to become fat, which gives them the energy they need while they sleep. Other animals adapt. For example, by staying active in winter. It is often hard for them to find food. So some animals, such as mice, collect extra food before winter, and hide it. When wintercomes, they return to their hiding places to eat the food. Some animals grow thicker fur, or live in tree holes or underground to stay warm. Some birds migrate by flying to a warmer place for the winter, where they can find more food. Some fly very long distances, including one kind of bird that flies from the remote north of the world, all the way to the distant south. Some birds fly in groups for safety, while others fly alone.。

2016年-2017年6月份四级考试真题（附带答案解析及听力原文）考试时间安排：一般在6月18日和12月17日左右大学英语四级考试流程¬8：50---9：00试音时间¬9：00---9：10播放考场指令，发放作文考卷¬9：10取下耳机，开始作文考试¬9：35发放含有快速阅读的试题册（但9：40才允许开始做）¬9：40---9：55做快速阅读¬9：55---10：00收答题卡一（即作文和快速阅读）¬9：55---10：00重新戴上耳机，试音寻台，准备听力考试¬10：00开始听力考试，电台开始放音¬听力结束后完成剩余考项。

¬11：20全部考试结束。

Part ⅠWriting (30minutes)Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled Excessive Packaging following the outline given below. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.1.目前许多商品存在过度包装的现象2.出现这一现象的原因3.我对这一现象的看法和建议On Excessive PackagingPart Ⅱ Reading Comprehension(Skimming and Scanning)(15minutes)Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on Answer sheet 1. 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.Small Schools RisingThis year’s list of the top 100 high schools shows that today, those with fewer students are flourishing.Fifty years ago, they were the latest thing in educational reform: big, modern, suburban high schools with students counted in the thousands. As baby boomers(二战后婴儿潮时期出生的人) came of high-school age, big schools promised economic efficiency. A greater choice of courses, and, of course, better football teams. Only years later did we understand the trade-offs this involved: the creation of excessive bureaucracies(官僚机构)，the difficulty of forging personal connections between teachers and students.SAT scores began dropping in 1963;today,on average,30% of students do not complete high school in four years, a figure that rises to 50% in poor urban neighborhoods. While the emphasis on teaching to higher, test-driven standards as set in No Child Left Behind resulted in significantly better performance in elementary(and some middle)schools, high schools for a variety of reasons seemed to have made little progress.Size isn’t everything, but it does matter, and the past decade has seen a noticeable countertrend toward smaller schools. This has been due ,in part ,to theBill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has invested $1.8 billion in American high schools, helping to open about 1,000 small schools-most of them with about 400 kids each with an average enrollment of only 150 per grade, About 500 more are on the drawing board. Districts all over the country are taking notice, along with mayors in cities like New York, Chicago and San Diego. The movement includes independent public charter schools, such as No.1 BASIS in Tucson, with only 120 high-schoolers and 18 graduates this year. It embraces district-sanctioned magnet schools, such as the Talented and Gifted School, with 198 students, and the Science and Engineering Magnet,with383,which share a building in Dallas, as well as the City Honors School in Buffalo, N.Y., which grew out of volunteer evening seminars for students. And it includes alternative schools with students selected by lottery(抽签)，such as H-B Woodlawn in Arlington, Va. And most noticeable of all, there is the phenomenon of large urban and suburban high schools that have split up into smaller units of a few hundred, generally housed in the same grounds that once boasted thousands of students all marching to the same band.Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, Calif, is one of those, ranking No.423—among the top 2% in the country—on Newsweek’s annual ranking of America’s top high schools. The success of small schools is apparent in the listings. Ten years ago, when the first Newsweek list based on college-level test participation was published, only three of the top 100 schools had graduating Classes smaller than 100 students. This year there are 22. Nearly 250 schools on the full ,Newsweek list of the top 5% of schools nationally had fewer than 200 graduates in 2007.Although many of Hillsdale’s students came from wealthy households, by the late 1990 average test scores were sliding and it had earned the unaffectionate nickname (绰号) “Hillsjail. ” Jeff Gilbert. A Hillsdale teacher who became principal last year, remembers sitting with other teachers watching students file out of a graduation ceremony and asking one another in astonishment, “How did that student graduate?”So in 2003 Hillsdale remade itself into three “houses,” romantically named Florence, Marrakech and Kyoto. Each of the 300 arriving ninth graders are randomly(随机地) assigned to one of the houses. Where they will keep the same four core subject teachers for two years, before moving on to another for 11th and 12th grades. The closeness this system cultivates is reinforced by the institution of “advisory”classes Teachers meet with students in groups of 25, five mornings a week, for open-ended discussions of everything from homework problems to bad Saturday-night dates. The advisers also meet with students privately and stay in touch with parents,so they are deeply invested in the students’ success.“We’re constantly talking about one another’s advisers,” says English teacher Chris Crockett. “If you hear that yours isn’t doing well in math, or see them sitting outside the dean’s office, it’s like a personal failure.” Along with the new structure came a more demanding academic program, the percentage of freshmen taking biology jumped from 17 to 95.“It was rough for some. But by senior year, two-thirds have moved up to physics,”says Gilbert “Our kids are coming to school in part because they know there are adults here who know them and care for them.”But not all schools show advances after downsizing, and it remains to be seen whether smaller schools will be a cure-all solution.The Newsweek list of top U.S. high schools was made this year, as in years past, according to a single metric, the proportion of students taking college-level exams. Over the years this system has come in for its share of criticism for its simplicity. But that is also its strength: it’s easy for readers to understand, and to do the arithmetic for their own schools if they’d like.Ranking schools is always controversial, and this year a group of 38 superintendents(地区教育主管)from five states wrote to ask that their schools be excluded from the calculation.“It is impossible to know which high schools are ‘the best’ in the nation, ”their letter read. in part. “Determining whether different schools do or don’t offer a high quality of education requires a look at man different measures, including students’ overall academic accomplishments and their subsequent performance in college. And taking into consideration the unique needs of their communities.”In the end, the superintendents agreed to provide the data we sought, which is, after all, public information. There is, in our view, no real dispute here, we are all seeking the same thing, which is schools that better serve our children and our nation by encouraging students to tackle tough subjects under the guidance of gifted teachers. And if we keep working toward that goal, someday, perhaps a list won’t be necessary.注意：此部分试题请在答卡1上作答.1． Fifty years ago. big. Modern. Suburban high schools were established in the hope of __________.A) ensuring no child is left behindB) increasing economic efficiencyC) improving students’ performance on SATD)providing good education for baby boomers2. What happened as a result of setting up big schools?A)Teachers’ workload increased.B)Students’ performance declined.C)Administration became centralized.D)Students focused more on test scores.3.What is said about the schools forded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation?A)They are usually magnet schools.B)They are often located in poor neighborhoods.C)They are popular with high-achieving students.D)They are mostly small in size.4.What is most noticeable about the current trend in high school education?A)Some large schools have split up into smaller ones.B)A great variety of schools have sprung up in urban and suburban areas.C)Many schools compete for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funds.D)Students have to meet higher academic standards.5.Newsweek ranked high schools according to .A)their students’ academic achievementB)the number of their students admitted to collegeC)the size and number of their graduating classesD)their college-level test participation6.What can we learn about Hillsdale’s students in the late 1990s?A)They were made to study hard like prisoners.B)They called each other by unaffectionate nicknames.C)Most of them did not have any sense of discipline,D)Their school performance was getting worse.7.According to Jeff Gilbert, the “advisory” classes at Hillsdale were set up so that students could .A)tell their teachers what they did on weekendsB)experience a great deal of pleasure in learningC)maintain closer relationships with their teachersD)tackle the demanding biology and physics courses8. is still considered a strength of Newsweek’s school ranking system in spite of the criticism it receives.9.According to the 38 superintendents, to rank schools scientifically, it is necessary to use .10.To better serve the children and our nation, schools students totake .Part ⅢListening Comprehension (35minutes)Section ADirections: in this section you will hear 8 short conversations, 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 Answer sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.注意：此部分试题请在答案卡2上作案。

2017 年 6 月大学英语四级真题及答案详解2017年6月大学英语四级真题及答案详解(第一套)Part I Writing(25 minutes)( 请于正式开考后半小时内完成该部分，之后将进行听力考试)Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an advertisement on your campus website to sell a computer you used at college. Your advertisement may include its brand, specifications/features, condition and price, and your contact information.You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.Part II Listening Comprehension(30 minutes)Section ADirections: In this section, you will hear three newsreports. At the end of each newsreport, you will hear two or three questions. Both the news report and questions will be spoken only once. After you hear questions, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1xx 作答。

6月英语四级听力sectionC原文2017年6月英语四级听力section C原文You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.以下是店铺为大家搜索整理的2017年6月英语四级听力section C原文，希望能给大家带来帮助!、Contrary to the old warning that time waits for no one, time slows down when you are on the move. It also slows down more as you move faster, which means astronauts someday may survive so long in space that the would return to an Earth of the distant future. If you could move at the speed of light, 186,282miles a second, your time would stand still. If you could move faster than light, your time would move backward.Although no form of matter yet discovered moves as fast or faster than light, scientific experiments have confirmed that accelerated motion causes a voyager's, or traveler's, time to be stretched. Albert Einstein predicted this in 1905, when he introduced the concept of relative time as part of his Special Theory of Relativity.A search is now under way to confirm the suspected existence of particles of matter that move faster than light and therefore possibly might serve as our passports to the past.An obsession with time-saving, gaining, wasting, losing, and mastering it-seems to have been part of humanity for as long as humans have existed. Humanity also has been obsessed with trying to capture the meaning of time. Einstein used a definition of time, for experimental purposes, as that which is measured by a clock.Thus, time and time's relativity are measurable by any sundial, hourglass, metronome, alarm clock, or an atomic clock that canmeasure a billionth of a second.Scientists have demonstrated that an ordinary airplane flight is like a brief visit to the Fountain of youth. In 1972, for example, scientists who took four atomic clocks on an airplane trip around the world discovered that the moving clocks moved slightly slower than atomic clocks which had remained on the ground. If you fly around the world, preferably going eastward to gain the advantage of the added motion of the Earth's rotation, the atomic clocks show that you'll be younger by only 40 billionths of a second. Even such an infinitesimal saving of time proves that time can be stretched. Moreover, atomic clocks have demonstrated that the stretching of time increases with speed.Here is an examples of what you can expect if tomorrow's space-flight technology enables you to move at ultrahigh speeds. Imagine you're an astronaut with a twin who stays home. If you travel back and forth to the nearest star at about half the speed of light, you'll be gone for 18 Earth years. When you return, your twin will be 18 years older, but you'll have aged only 16 years. Your body will be two years younger than your twin's because time aboard the flying spaceship will have moved more slowly than time on Earth. You will have aged normally, but you have been in a slower time zone. If your spaceship moves at about 90% of lightspeed, you'll age only 50% as much as your twin. If you whiz along at 99.86% of lightspeed, you'll age only five percent as much. These examples of time-stretching, of course, cannot be tested with any existing spacecraft. They are based on mathematical projections of relativity science.Speed is not the only factor that slows time; so does gravity. Einstein determined in his General Theory of Relativity that the force of an object's gravity "curves" the space in the object'sgravitational field. When gravity curves space, Einstein reasoned, gravity also must curve time, because space and time ar linked.Numerous atomic clock experiments have confirmed Einstein's calculation that the closer you are to the Earth's center of gravity, which is the Earth's core, the slower you will age. In one of these experiments, an atomic clock was taken from the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C., near sea level, and moved to mile-high Denver. The results demonstrated that people in Denver age more rapidly by a tiny amount than people in Washington.If you would like gravity's space-time warp to extend your life, get a home at the beach and a job as a deep-sea dever. Avoid living in the mountains or working in a skyscraper. That advice, like the advice about flying around the world, will enable you to slow your aging by only a few billionths of a second. Nevertheless, those tiny fractions of a second add up to more proof that time-stretching is a reality.According to scientific skeptics, time reversal ―travel to the past ―for humans would mean an unthinkable reversal of cause and effect.This reversal would permit you to do something in the past that changes the present. The skeptics worry that you even might commit an act that prevents your own birth.Some scientists believe we should keep an open mind about time reversal. Open-minders speculate that time-travelers who change the past would be opening doors to alternative histories, rather than interfering with history as we know it. For example, if you prevented the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, then a new line of historical development would be create. The alternative history ― the one withoutLincoln's assassination ― would have a completely separate, ongoing existence. Thus, no change would be made in anybody's existing history. Another possibility is that nature might have an unbreakable law preventing time travelers from changing the past.If we did discover a source of energy that would enable us to travel beyond lightspeed, we might have access not only to the past, but also to the future. Suppose you went on a super-lightspeed trek to the Spiral Nebula in the Andromeda Galaxy. that location is separated from Earth by 1,500,000 lightyears, the distance light travels in 1,500,000 years. Suppose you make the round trip in just a few moments. If all goes well, you'll return to the Earth 3,000,000 years into its future, because that's how much Earth time will have elapsed.Time is an abstraction. In other words, it cannot be seen, touched, smelled, or tasted. It seems to have no existence apart from the events it measures, but something tells us that time is out there, somewhere. "When we pursue the meaning of time," according the time-obsessed English novelist-playwright J.B.Priently, "We are like a knight on a quest, condemned to wander through innumerable forests, bewildered and baffled, because the magic beast he is looking for is the horse he is riding."What about our quest for particles that travel faster than light? If we find them, will we be able to control their energy to tour the past? If we find them, will we be able to control their out mistakes and suffer the same consequences? Or will we be able to use our experience to make everything turn out better the second time around?Will we ever be able to take instant trips to the distant future,the way people do in the movies, with a twist of a dial and a "Zap!, Zap!" of sound effects?One cannot resist the temptation to respond that only time will tell.。

2017年6月大学英语四级真题及答案(第一套)Part I Writing (25 minutes)(请于正式开考后半小时内完成该部分，之后将进行听力考试) Directions:For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an advertisement on your campus website to sell a computer you used at college. Your advertisement may include its brand, specifications/features, condition and price, and your contact information.You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.Part II Listening Comprehension (30 minutes)Section ADirections:In this section, you will hear three news reports. At the end of each news report, you will hear two or three questions. Both the news report and questions will be spoken only once. After you hear questions, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。

2017年6月英语四级听力考试原文，是广大考生备考英语四级听力考试的重要参考资料。

本文通过对2017年6月英语四级听力原文的整理和编排，为考生提供了易于阅读和复习的素材，帮助考生更好地备考英语四级听力考试。

【正文】2017年6月英语四级听力原文Part I听力文本一W: So, Jerry, how long do you plan to go on your trip?M: Well, I plan to be away for about four weeks. I’ve been saving up for this trip for a long time and I want to make the most of it.【1】女：杰瑞，你打算旅行多久？【2】男：嗯，我打算出去大概四个星期。

我为这次旅行存了很长时间的钱，我想要充分利用。

W: I got a letter from the bank that says there’s some problem with my account.M: There is? What are they saying?【3】女：我从银行收到一封信，说我的账户有些问题。

【4】男：有吗？他们说什么啦？听力文本三M: Mary, have you heard that the science museum downtown will exhibit some of Da Vinci's works next month?W: Really? I'd love to go. I’ve read a lot about him.【5】男：玛丽，你听说了吗？市区的科学博物馆下个月会展出一些达芬奇的作品。

【6】女：真的吗？我很想去呢。

我读了很多关于他的事情。

听力文本四W: Excuse me, is there a pharmacy near here?M: Yes, there’s one three blocks str本人ght ahead. You can’tmiss it.【7】女：对不起，这附近有药店吗？【8】男：有，就往前走三个街区，直走就到，你不会错过的。

2017年6月四级听力第一套听力原文（1）对话一女士：I'm going to the library. Do you want me to pick up a book aboutputer programming for you?男士：Yes, I'd appreciate that. I want to learn some basic programming skills.（2）对话二男士：I'm thinking of buying a newputer. Any rmendations?女士：You should go for a model with a big memory and a fast processor.男士：Thanks for the advice. I'll keep that in mind.（3）对话三男士：I'm having trouble with my laptop. It keeps freezing.女士：You should get it checked out. It might be a problem with the hardware.男士：I'll take it to a rep本人r shop tomorrow.（4）对话四女士：I need to upgrade my operating system. Any suggestions?男士：You should consider switching to Linux. It's free and it's very reliable.女士：I'll look into that. Thanks for the tip.（5）短文一When ites toputer programming, it's important to start with the basics. Learning a programming language like Python can be a good way to get started. Once you have a good grasp of the basics, you can move on to more advanced topics.（6）短文二Computer hardware is the physicalponent of aputer system, including the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. It's important to choose hardware that ispatible with your software, and to keep it well-m本人nt本人ned to ensure the smooth running of yourputer system.（7）短文三Operating systems are the software that managesputer hardware and software resources. There are different types of operating systems, such as Windows, MacOS, and Linux. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, so it's important to choose the right one for your needs.通过以上听力原文，我们可以了解到一些关于计算机和信息技术的基本知识。

2017年6月一．新闻听力【News Report 1】One of Google's self-driving cars crashed into a bus in California last month. There were no injuries.It is not the first time one of Google's famed self-driving cars has been involved in a crash, but it may be the first time it has caused one.On February 14th the self-driving car, travelling at 2mph (3km/h), pulled out in front of a public bus going 15mph (24km/h).The man in the Google vehicle reported that he assumed the bus would slow down to let the car out, and so he did not switch to the manual mode.In a statement, Google said: "We clearly bear some responsibility, because if our car hadn't moved, there wouldn't have been a crash."That said, our test driver believed the bus was going to slow or stop to allow us to merge into the traffic, and that there would be sufficient space to do that." The company's self-driving cars have done well over a million miles across various states in the US, and until now have only reported minor accidents.Q1: According to Google, what was the cause of the accident?Q2: How have Google’s self-driving cars performed so far?【News Report 2】Thousands of bees left a town after landing on the back of a car when their queen got stuck in its boot. Tom Moses who works at a nearby national park, noticed a “brown patch” on the back of the car after the owner parked it to do some shopping. When he looked closer he realized it was a huge group of bees.Moses said: “I have never seen that many bees in one spot. It was very unusual. They were very close together and there was a lot of noise and movements, itwas interesting to see such a strange sight. But there were a lot of people around and I was a bit worried about the bees and the people stopping to look.I thought that someone might do something stupid.Moses called two local bees specialists who helped removed the bees by attracting them into a box.Moses spent three hours looking after the bees and was stung five times, he said my stings are a bit painful but I am pleased that all worked out and I could help, people need to realize that bees are valuable and they should be looked after.Q3. What do we learn about Tom Moses?Q4. What do we know about the bees on the back of the car?【News report 3】A new species of snake has been discovered on a remote island in the Bahamas. Scientists identified 20 of the one meter-long snakes during two trips to the Caribbean islands. The second trip was made in October last year.One of the creatures made a dramatic appearance by moving on to the head of the team leader as he slept.The snake has been named silver boa because it is metallic colored and the first specimen found was climbing a silver palm tree.The team was led by Dr. Graham Reynolds, from Harvard University, the scientist confirmed the snake was a previously unknown species after conducting a genetic analysis of tissue samples.Commenting on the find, snake expert Robert Henderson from the Museum of Natural History, said: “Worldwide n ew species of frogs are being discovered and described quite regularity. New species of snakes, however, are much rarer.Q5. What is the news report mainly about?Q6. What do we learn about the scientific team leader?Q7. How did the newly discovered creature get its name?二．对话听力【Conversation 1】W: Did you enjoy your stay with us, Mr. Brown?M: Yes, very much. I had a wonderful time here. Now I'm going to the airport. My flight leaves in less than 2 hours. So, could you tell me, what's the quickest way to get there?W: Well, we can call a taxi for you. We also have a free airport shuttle service. M: That sounds great, but will the shuttle get me to the airport in time?W: Yes, it should. The next shuttle leaves in 15 minutes. And it takes some 25 minutes to get to the airport.M: Fantastic! I'll just wait in the lobby. Will you please let me know when it's leaving?W: Of course, sir.M: Now I would like to settle my mini-bar bill. How much is that?W: Let's see. It comes to $37.50. How would you like to pay for it?M: I'll pay with my credit card. Thanks. But I'll need a receipt, so I can charge it to my company.W: Absolutely! Here you are, sir. If you like, I can leave your bags with the porter. And he can load them onto the shuttle for you when it arrives.M: That would be great. Thank you.W: Would you like to leave a comment on our web page when you have time? M: Sure. I had a really good stay here, and I'd like to recommend your hotel to my friends and colleagues.W: That’s very kind of you. Thank you again for staying at Sheraton Hotel.Q8. Why does the man ask about the quickest way to the airport?Q9. How is the man going to pay his bill?Q10. What did the man ask the woman to do?Q11. What favor does the woman ask of the man?【Conversation 2 】M: You know, Ben’s giv en up making those terrible faces he used to make. The other day, he came home from school almost in tears. His teacher said if he went on like that, his face would get stuck when the winds changed.W: And he believed her?M: Yeah, he’s only a little boy. Don’t you remember all those things we used to believe when we were little? I remember my aunt Mary used to say if you swallow a cherrystone, a tree would grow out of your mouth. And I’m still terrified today, sort of subconsciously. You know, if I swallow one by mistake…W: Yeah, I suppose you're right. The one that used to get me was that swans could break your leg when they blow of the wing.M: They can, can’t they? I always thought they could.W: No, they are not that strong. But there’s another one eve n more terrifying. That is, if you put a post stamp on upside down, you will go to prison.M: No, never heard of that. But my grandmother was a terror for that kind of thing. For example, she would say, you will get a spot on your tongue if you tell a lie. If you eat stale bread, your hair will curl. And here’s one more. We went on a campaign trip once in Italy, and my wife spent the whole time worrying about bats getting into her hair. She said her grandmother reckoned you had to shave your head to get it out. My wife was really terrified.W: Silly, isn’t it? But that’s how some parents try to keep their kids from doing the wrong thing or getting into trouble.Q12: What does the man say about Ben?Q13: What did aunt Marry used to do when the man was a child?Q14: What does the woman believe swans could do?Q15: What did the grandmother of the man’s wife say?三．短文听力【Passage 1】If I could go back in history and live when I liked, I wouldn't go back very far. In fact, I'd like to relive a period I've already lived – the 1960s.I was in my twenties, and everything was being renewed. People would come in out of a formal and almost Victorian attitude, and you really felt anything was possible. Meeting people was the thing, and you went to coffee bars where you met friends and spent the evening. The cinema, the theater, all that was every exciting with new things coming out. In fact, we seemed to be out, all the time!I don't really remember working – of course, I was a student – or sitting around at home very much. That just wasn't where the scene was, even eating! It was the first time, ordinary people started going out to eat. We were beginning to be adventurous about food, but we were more interested in meeting people than in eating or drinking. And dress, yes, that was the revolution. I mean, girls went around in really short skirts, and wore flowers in their hair. And men were in jeans, and could wear their hair long too. It was a wonderful period. It was like living in an age you could never have imagined, and that never has come back. We didn't have much money, but it didn't matter. And there was plenty of opportunity to do whatever you felt like doing.Question 16 – 18 are based on the passage you have just heard: 16. Why does the speaker say he would like to relive the 1960s?17. What does the speaker say was the most popular thing to do at that time?18. What do we learn about the speaker?【Passage 2】Dogs, man's best friends, have a clear strategy for dealing with angry owners—they look away.New research shows that dogs limit their eye contact with angry humans. The scientists suggest this may be an attempt to calm humans down. This behavior may have evolved as dogs gradually learned they could benefit from avoiding conflicts with humans.To conduct the tests, the University of Helsinki researchers trained 31 dogs to rest in front of a video screen. Facial photos of dogs and humans were displayed on the screen for 1.5 seconds. They showed threatening, pleasant and neutral expressions. Nearby cameras tracked the dogs' eye movements. Dogs in the study looked most at the eyes of humans and other dogs to sense their emotions. When dogs looked at expressions of angry dogs, their eyes rested more on the mouth, perhaps to interpret the threatening expressions. And when looking at angry humans, they tended to turn away their gaze. Dogs may have learned to detect threat signs from humans and respond by trying to make peace, according to researcher Sanni Somppi. Avoiding conflicts may have helped dogs develop better bonds with humans.The researchers also note that dogs scan faces as a whole to sense how people are feeling, instead of focusing on a given feature. They suggest this indicates that dogs aren't sensing emotions from a single feature, but piecing together information from all facial features just as humans do.Q19. What do dogs do when they are faced with angry humans?Q20. What does a dog do when it sees the expressions of angry dogs?Q21. How does a dog sense people's feelings?【Passage 3】Winter in many places is very cold. There is lots of snow around, and the ground freezes, which can make life difficult for animals. People in cold places live in warm houses and have learned to adapt. What do animals do? There are three main ways that animals survive the cold in winter: sleep, adapt or migrate. Some animals, such as bears, frogs and snakes, sleep all winter. They sleep very deeply and need little or no food. While sleeping, their body temperature drops, and their heart beat slows down. To prepare for this before winter, these animals eat extra food to become fat, which gives them the energy they need while they sleep.Other animals adapt. For example, by staying active in winter. It is often hard for them to find food. So some animals, such as mice, collect extra food before winter, and hide it. When winter comes, they return to their hiding places to eat the food. Some animals grow thicker fur, or live in tree holes or underground to stay warm.Some birds migrate by flying to a warmer place for the winter, where they can find more food. Some fly very long distances, including one kind of bird that flies from the remote north of the world, all the way to the distant south. Some birds fly in groups for safety, while others fly alone.Questions 22-25 are based on the passage you have just heard.22. What does the speaker say about animals in winter?23. What do we learn about animals that sleep through winter?24. How do animals like mice adapt to the severe winter?25. Why do some birds fly in groups when migrating, according to the speaker?。