2019年12月全国大学生英语四级试卷第三套（卷三）
Part I Writing (30 minutes)
Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a letter to a foreign friend who wants to study in China. Please recommend a university to him. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.
听力同第二套
Part Ⅲ Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)
Section A
Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.
Questions 26 to 35 are based on the following passage.
Millions of people travel by plane every single day. If you’re planning on being one of them soon, you might not be looking forward to the 26 feeling air travel often leaves you with.
Besides the airport crowds and stress, traveling at such a high altitude has real effects on the body. Although the pressure of the cabin is 27 to prevent altitude sickness, you could still 28 sleepiness or a headache. The lower oxygen pressure found in an aircraft cabin is 29 to that at 6,000 to 8,000 feet of altitude. A drop in oxygen pressure can cause headaches in certain 30 . To prevent headaches, drink plenty of water, and avoid alcohol and coffee.
Airplane food might not really be as tasteless as you 31 thought. The air you breathe in a plane dries out your mouth and nose, which can affect your sense of taste. Perception of sweet and salty foods dropped by almost 30 percent in a simulation of air travel. However, you can make your taste buds active by drinking water. A dry mouth may 32 taste sensitivity, but taste is restored with fluids.
Although in-flight infections 33 in dry environments like airplanes, your risk of getting sick from an airplane is actually low because of the air 34 used. Unless you’re sitting next to someone who is coughing or sneezing, you shouldn’t worry too much about getting sick. However, bacteria has been shown to live on cabin surfaces, so wash your hands 35 . A) adjusted F) frequently K) reduce B) channels G) individuals L) renovated C) equivalent H) originally M) smooth D) experience I) particular N) thrive E) filters J) primarily O) unpleasant
Section B
Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.
A South Korean City Designed for the Future Takes on a Life of Its Own
[A] Getting around a city is one thing—and then there’s the matter of getting from one city to another. One
vision of the perfect city of the future: a place that offers easy access to air travel. In 2011, a University of North Carolina business professor named John Kasarda published a book called Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next. Kasarda says future cities should be built intentionally around or near airports. The idea, as he has put it, is to offer businesses “rapid, long-distance connectivity on a massive scale.”
[B] “The 18th century really was a waterborne century, the 19th century a rail century, the 20th century a
highway, car, truck century—and the 21st century will increasingly be an aviation century, as the globe becomes increasingly connected by air,” Kasarda says. Songdo, a city built from scratch in South Korea, is one of Kasarda’s prime examples. It has existed for just a few years. “From the get-go, it was designed on the basis of connectivity and competitiveness,” says Kasada. “The government built the bridge directly from the airport to the Songdo International Business District. And the surface infrastructure was built in tandem with the new airport.”
[C] Songdo is a stone’s throw from South Korea’s Incheon Airport, its main international hub. But it takes a lot
more than a nearby airport to be a city of the future. Just building a place as an “international business district” doesn’t mean it will become one. Park Yeon Soo conceived this city of the future back in 1986. He considers Songdo his baby. “I am a visionary,” he says. Thirty years after he imagined the city, Park’s baby is close to 70 percent built, with 36.000 people living in the business district and 90,000 residents in greater Songdo. It’s about an hour outside Seoul, built on reclaimed tidal flats along the Yellow Sea, There’s a Coast Guard building and a tall trade tower, as well as a park, golf course and university.
D) Chances are you’ve actually seen this place. Songdo appears in the most famous music video ever to come
out of South Korea. “Gangnam Style” refers to the fashionable Gangnam district in Seoul. But some of the video was filmed in Songdo.” I don’t know if you remember, there was a scene in a subway station. That was not Gangnam. That was actually Songdo,” says Jung Won Son, a professor of urban development at London’s Bartlett School of Planning, “Part of the reason to shoot there is that it’s new and nice.”
[E] The city was supposed to be a hub for global companies, with employees from all over the world. But hat’s
not how it has turned out. Songdo’s reputation is as a futuristic ghost town. But the reality is more complicated. A bridge with big, light-blue loops leads into the business district. In the center of the main road, there’s a long line of flags of the world. On the corner, there’s a Starbucks and a 7-Eleven—all of the international brands that you see all over the world nowadays.
[F] The city is not empty. There are mothers pushing strollers, old women with walkers—even in the middle of
the day, when it’s 90 degrees out. Byun Young-Jin chairs the Songdo real estate association and started selling property here when the first phase of the city opened in 2005. He says demand has boomed in the past couple of years. Most of his clients are Korean. In fact, the developer says, 99 percent of the homes here are sold to Koreans. Young families move here because the schools are great. And that’s the problem: Songdo has become a popular Korean city—more popular as a residential area than a business one. It’s not yet the futuristic international business hub that planners imagined. “It’s a great place to live. And it’s becoming a great place to work,” says Scott Summers, the vice president of Gale International, the
developer of the city. The floor-to-ceiling windows of his company’s offices overlook Songdo Central Park, with a canal full of kayaks and paddle boats. Shimmering glass towers line the canal’s edge.
[G] “What’s happened is, because we focused on creating that quality of life first, which enabled the residents
to live here, what has probably missed the mark is for companies to locate here,” he says. “There needs to be strong economic incentives.” The city is still unfinished, and it feels a bit like a theme park. It doesn’t feel all that futuristic. There’s a high-tech underground trash disposal system. Buildings are environmentally friendly. Everybody’s television set is connected to a system that streams personalized language or exercise classes.
[H] But Star Trek this is not. And to some of the residents, Songdo feels hollow. “I’m, like, in prison for
weekdays. That’s what we call it in the workplace,” says a woman in her 20s. She doesn’t want to use her name for fear of being fired from her job. She goes back to Seoul every weekend. “I say I’m prison-breaking on Friday nights.” But she has to make the prison break in her own car. There’s no high-speed train connecting Songdo to Seoul, just over 20 miles away.
[I] The man who first imagined Songdo feels frustrated, too. Park says he built South Korea a luxury vehicle,
“like Mercedes or BMW. It’s a good car now. But we’re waiting for a good driver to accelerate.” But there are lots of other good cars out there, too. The world is dotted with futuristic, high-tech cities trying to attract the biggest international companies
[J] Songdo’s backers contend that it’s still early, and business space is filling up—about 70 percent of finished
offices are now occupied. Brent Ryan, who teaches urban design at MIT, says Songdo proves a universal principle. “There have been a lot of utopian cities in history. And the reason we don’t know about a lot of them is that a lot of them have vanished entirely.” In other words, when it comes to cities—or anything else—it is hard to predict the future.
36. Songdo’s popularity lies more in its quality of life than its business attraction.
37. The man who conceives Songdo feels disappointed because it has fallen short of his expectations. 38. A scene in a popular South Korean music video was shot in Songdo.
39. Songdo still lacks the financial stimulus for businesses to set up shop there.
40. Airplanes will increasingly become the chief means of transportation, according to a professor. 41. Songdo has ended up different from the city it was supposed to be.
42. Some of the people who work in Songdo complain about boredom in the workplace.
43. A business professor says that a future city should have easy access to international transportation.
44. Acording to an urban design professor, it is difficult for city designers to foresee what happen in the future. 45. Park Yeon So. Who envisioned Songdo, feels a parental connection with the city.
Section C
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. 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 Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. Passage One
Questions 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.
The fifth largest city in the US passed a significant soda tax proposal that will levy 1.5 cents per liquid ounce on distributors.
Philadelphia’s new measure was approved by a 13 to 4 city council vote. It sets a new bar for similar initiatives across the county. It is proof that taxes on sugary drinks can win substantial support outside super-liberal areas. Until now, the only city to successfully pass and implement a soda tax was Berkeley,
California, in 2014.
The tax will apply to regular and diet sodas, as well as other drinks with added sugar, such as Gatorade and iced teas. It’s expected to raise $410 million over the next five years, most of which will go toward funding a universal pre-kindergarten program for the city.
While the city council vote was met with applause inside the council room, opponents to the measure, including soda lobbyists made sharp criticisms and a promise to challenge the tax in court.
“The tax passed today unfairly singles out beverages—including low- and no-calorie choices,” said Lauren Kane, spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association. “But most importantly, it is against the law. So we will side with the majority of the people of Philadelphia who oppose this tax and take legal action to stop it.”
An industry backed anti-tax campaign has spent at least $4 million on advertisements. The ads criticized the measure. characterizing it as a “grocery tax.”
Public health groups applauded the approved tax as a step toward fixing certain lasting health issues that plague Americans. “The move to recapture a small part of the profits from an industry that pushes a product that contributes to diabetes, obesity and heart disease in poorer communities in order to reinvest in those communities will sure be inspirational to many other places,” said Jim Krieger, executive director of Healthy Food America. “Indeed, we are already hearing from some of them. It’s not just Berkeley’ anymore.”
Similar measures in California’s Albany, Oakland, San Francisco and Colorado’s Boulder are becoming hot-button issues Health advocacy groups have hinted that even more might be coming. 46. What does the passage say about the newly-approved soda tax in Philadelphia? A) It will change the lifestyle of many consumers. B) It may encourage other US cities to follow suit.
C) It will cut soda consumption among low-income communities. D) It may influence the marketing strategies of the soda business.
47. What will the opponents probably do to respond to the soda tax proposal? A) Bargain with the city council. B) Refuse to pay additional tax. C) Take legal action against it. D) Try to win public support. 48. What did the industry-backed anti-tax campaign do about the soda tax proposal? A) It tried to arouse hostile feelings among consumers. B) It tried to win grocers’ support against the measure. C) It kept sending letters of protest to the media. D) It criticized the measure through advertising.
49. What did public health groups think the soda tax would do? A) Alert people to the risk of sugar-induced diseases. B) Help people to fix certain long-time health issues. C) Add to the fund for their research on diseases. D) Benefit low-income people across the country.
50. What do we learn about similar measures concerning the soda tax in some other cities? A) They are becoming rather sensitive issues. B) They are spreading panic in the soda industry.
C) They are reducing the incidence of sugar-induced diseases. D) They are taking away lot of profit from the soda industry.
Passage Two
Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.
Popping food into the microwave for a couple of minutes may seem utterly harmless, but Europe’s stock of these quick-cooking ovens emit as much carbon as nearly 7 million cars, a new study has found. And the problem is growing. With costs falling and kitchen appliances becoming “status” items, owners are throwing away microwaves after an average of eight years. This is pushing sales of new microwaves which are expected to reach 135 million annually in the EU by the end of the decade.
A study by the University of Manchester calculated the emissions of CO2—the main greenhouse gas responsible for climate change—at every stage of microwaves, from manufacture to waste disposal. “It is electricity consumption by microwaves that has the biggest impact on the environment,” say the authors. The authors also calculate that the emissions from using 19 microwaves over a year are the same as those from using a car. According to the same study, efforts to reduce consumption should focus on improving consumer awareness and behaviour. For example, consumers could use appliances in a more efficient way by adjusting the time of cooking to the type of food.
However, David Reay, professor of carbon management, argues that, although microwaves use a great deal of energy, their emissions are minor compared to those from cars. In the UK alone, there are around 30 million cars. These cars emit more than all the microwaves in the EU. Backing this up, recent data show that passenger cars in the UK emitted 69 million tons of CO2 in 2015. This is 10 times the amount this new microwave oven study estimates for annual emissions for all the microwave ovens in the EU. Further, the energy used by microwaves is lower than any other from of cooking. Among common kitchen appliances used for cooking, microwaves are the most energy efficient, followed by a stove and finally a standard oven. Thus, rising microwave sales could be seen as a positive thing. 51. What is the finding of the new study?
A) Quick-cooking microwave ovens have become more popular. B) The frequent use of microwaves may do harm to our health. C) CO2 emissions constitute a major threat to the environment. D) The use of microwaves emits more CO2 than people think. 52. Why are the sales of microwaves expected to rise? A) They are becoming more affordable.
B) They have a shorter life cycle than other appliances. C) They are getting much easier to operate.
D) They take less time to cook than other appliances.
53. What recommendation does the study by the University of Manchester make? A) Cooking food of different varieties. B) Improving microwave users’ habits. C) Eating less to cut energy consumption. D) Using microwave ovens less frequently. 54. What does Professor David Reay try to argue?
A) There are far more emissions from cars than from microwaves. B) People should be persuaded into using passenger cars less often. C) The UK produces less CO2 than many other countries in the EU. D) More data are needed to show whether microwaves are harmful. 55. What does Professor David Reay think of the use of microwaves? A) It will become less popular in the coming decades. B) It makes everyday cooking much more convenient. C) It plays a positive role in environmental protection. D) It consumes more power than conventional cooking.