2021年英语四级6月模拟考题

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.

Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a letter to a foreign friend who wants to teach English. Please recommend a city to him. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.

中国，地球上最吸引人的国家之一，有5000多年的历史，是目前全球第二大经济体(the second largest economy)。随着广泛的经济改革，中国正经历着显著、快速的变化。1949年以前的中国极端贫困、收入不平衡(incomeinequalities)、国家不安全。由于经济改革，从1980年开始，人民的生活水平开始提升至基本水平之上。全国人口有了足够的食物、衣服和住房，普通家庭可以吃得起各种各样的食物，穿得上时尚的衣服。

鱼是春节前夕餐桌上不可或缺的一道菜，因为汉语中“鱼”字的发音与“余”字的发音相同。正由于这个象征性的意义，春节期间鱼也作为礼物送给亲戚朋友。鱼的象征意义据说源于中国传统文化。中国人有节省的传统，他们认为节省得愈多，就感到愈为安全。今天，尽管人们愈来愈富裕了，但他们仍然认为节省是一种值得弘扬的美德。

生活在中国不同地区的人们饮食多种多样。北方人主要吃面食，南方人大多吃米饭。在沿海地区，海鲜和淡水水产品在人们饮食中占有相当大的比例，而在其他地区人们的饮食中，肉类和奶制品更为常见。四川、湖南等省份的居民普遍爱吃辛辣食物，而江苏和浙江人更喜欢甜食。然而，因为烹饪方式各异，同类食物的味道可能会有所不同。

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 that'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 conceived 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 diferent 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. According to an urban design professor, it is difficult for city designers to foresce what will happen in the future.

45. Park Yeon Soo, who envisioned Songdo, feels a parental connction with the city.

中国汉族人的全名由姓和名组成。中文姓名的特点是，姓总是在前，名跟在其后。千百年来，父姓一直世代相传。然而，如今，孩子跟母亲姓并不罕见。一般来说，名有一个或两个汉字，通常承载父母对孩子的愿望。从孩子的名字可以推断出父母希望孩子成为什么样的人，或者期望他们过什么样的生活。父母非常重视给孩子取名，因为名字往往会伴随孩子一生。

When travelling overseas, do you buy water in plastic bottles or take your chances with tap water? Imagine you are wandering about on a Thai island or __26__ the ruins of Angkor. It's hot so you grab a bottle of water from a local vendor. It's the safe thing to do, right? The bottle is __27__ , and the label says "pure water". But maybe what's inside is not so __28__ . Would you still be drinking it if you knew that more than 90 percent of all bottled water sold around the world __29__ microplastics?

That's the conclusion of a recently __30__ study, which analysed 259 bottles from 11 brands sold in nine countries, __31__ an average of 325 plastic particles per litre of water. These microplastics included a __32__ commonly known as PET and widely used in the manufacture of clothing and food and __33__ containers. The study was conducted at the State University of New York on behalf of Orb Media, a journalism organisation. About a million bottles are bought every minute, not only by thirsty tourists but also by many of the 2.1 billion worldwide who live with unsafe drinking water.

Confronted with this __34__ , several bottled-water manufacturers including Nestle and Coca-Cola undertook their own studies using the same methodology. These studies showed that their water did contain microplastics, but far less than the Orb study suggested. Regardless, the World Health Organisation has launched a review into the __35__ health risks of drinking water from plastic bottles.

A) adequate

B) admiring

C) contains

D) defending

E) evidence

F) instant

G) liquid

H) modified

I) natural

J) potential

K) released

L) revealing

M) sealed

N) solves

O) substance

Professor Ashok Goel of Georgia Tech developed an artificially intelligent teaching assistant to help handle the enormous number of student questions in the online class, Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence. This online course is a core requirement of Georgia Tech's online Master of Science in Computer Science program. Professor Goel already had eight teaching assistants, but that wasn't enough to deal with the overwhelming number of daily questions from students.

Many students drop out of online courses because of the lack of teaching support. When students feel isolated or confused and reach out with questions that go unanswered, their motivation to continue begins to fade. Professor Goel decided to do something to remedy this situation and his solution was to create a virtual assistant named Jill Watson, which is based on the IBM Watson platform.

Goel and his team developed several versions of Jill Watson before releasing her to the online forums. At first, the virtual assistant wasn't too great. But Goel and his team sourced the online discussion forum to find all the 40,000 questions that had ever been asked since the class was launched. Then they began to feed Jill with the questions and answers. After some adjustments and sufficient time, Jill was able to answer the students' questions correctly 97% of the time. The virtual assistant became so advanced and realistic that the students didn't know she was a computer. The students, who were studying artificial intelligence, were interacting with the virtual assistant and couldn't tell it apart from a real human being. Goel didn't inform them about Jill's true identity until April 26. The students were actually very positive about the experience.

The goal of Professor Goel's virtual assistant next year is to take over answering 40% of all the questions posed by students on the online forum. The name Jill Watson will, of course, change to something else

茅台(Moutai)是中国最有名的白酒，在新中国成立前夕，被选为国宴用酒。

据说赤水沿岸的村民四千年前就开始酿造茅台。在西汉时期，那里的人们生产出了高质量的茅台，并把它贡给皇帝。自唐朝开始，这种地方酒通过海上丝绸之路运往海外。

茅台味道柔和，有一种特殊的香味;适量饮用可以帮助缓解疲劳，有镇静作用，因而广受国内外消费者的喜爱。

茶拥有5000年的历史。传说，神农氏( Shen Nong)喝开水时，几片野树叶子落进壶里开水顿时散发出宜人的香味。他喝了几口，觉得很提神。茶就这样发现了。

自此，茶在中国开始流行。茶园遍布全国，茶商变得富有。昂贵、雅致的茶具成了地位的象征。

今天，茶不仅是一种健康的饮品，而且是中国文化的一个组成部分。越来越多的国际游客一边品茶， 一边了解中国文化。

裸婚(down-to-earth marriage )是一种新的结婚方式，指的是一对恋人没有房子、没有车、不办婚礼、不度蜜月甚至没有婚戒，只领取结婚证（marriage certificate)的结婚方式。这种形式的结婚最低成本只有9元钱。现代年轻人的生活压力较大，而且强调爱情的独立，必须有房再结婚或者大肆操办婚事的传统在年轻一代中被削弱。许多人都相信裸婚是两个人纯粹爱情的见证。

微博名人的言论

当下，名人微博（Weibo)已成为信息发布和舆论制造的重要源头。各种媒体也热衷于对名人微博的言论进行传播，共同推动其成为舆论热点。名人与公众人物，拥有很多的粉丝、更多的话语权，正因为如此，名人必须有比普通人更多的义务，对这个社会多承担一些责任；名人在进行微博发言时需以负责任的态度谨慎使用手中的话语权。

火锅

火锅中，重庆火锅（hotpot)最著名，也最受欢迎。重庆人认为以麻辣 (peppery and hot)著称的火锅是当地特色。人们喜欢围在用木炭(charcoal)、 电热或天然气加热的火锅旁边吃边聊美味和有营养的食物。人们可以选择辣汤、清汤以及鸳鸯（combo)锅底，再将肉片、鱼片、各种豆腐产品和蔬菜加进火锅，之后蘸上特制酱料即可食用。在寒冷的冬天里，吃火锅成为一件惬意十足的事情。

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.

The things people make, and the way they make them, determine how cities grow and decline, and influence how empires rise and fall. So, any disruption to the world’s factories 26_____. And that disruption is surely coining. Factories are being digitised, filled with new sensor and new computers to make them quicker, more 27_____, and more efficient.

Robots are breaking free from the cages that surround them, learning new skills and new ways of working. And 3D printers have long 28_____ a world where you can make anything, anywhere, from a computerised design. That vision is 29_____ closer to reality. These forces will lead to cleaner factories, producing better goods at lower prices, personalised to our individual needs and desires. Humans will be 30_____ many of the dirty, repetitive, and dangerous jobs that have long been a 31_____ of factory life.

Greater efficiency 32_____ means fewer people can do the same work. Yet factory bosses in many developed countries are worried about a lack of skilled human workers—and see 33_____ and robots as a solution. But economist Helena Leurent says this period of rapid change in manufacturing is a 34_____ opportunity to make the world a better place. “Manufacturing is the one system where you have got the biggest source of innovation, the biggest source of economic growth, and the biggest source of great jobs in the past. You can see it changing. That’s an opportunity to 35_____ that system differently, and if we can, it will have tremendous significa

普洱(Pu'er)茶深受中国人喜爱,最好的普洱茶产自云南的西双版纳(Xishuangbanna)，那里的气候和环境为普洱茶树的生长提供了最佳条件。普洱茶颜色较深,味道与其他的茶截然不同。普洱茶泡(brew)的时间越长越有味道。许多爱喝的人尤其喜欢其独特的香味和口感。普洱茶含有多种有益健康的元素,常饮普洱茶有助于保护心脏和血管,还有减肥、消除疲劳和促进消化的功效。

铁观音 (Tieguanyin) 是中国最受欢迎的茶之一，原产自福建省安溪县西坪镇。如今安溪全县普遍种植，但该县不同地区生产的铁观音又各具风味。铁观音一年四季均可采摘，尤以春秋两季采摘的茶叶品质最佳。铁观音加工非常复杂，需要专门的技术和丰富的经验。铁观音含有多种维生素，喝起来口感独特。常饮铁观音有助于预防心脏病、降低血压、增强记忆力。

龙井 (Longing) 是一种绿茶，主要产自中国东部沿海的浙江省。龙井茶独特的香味和口感为其赢得了“中国名茶”的称号，在中国深受大众的欢迎，在海外饮用的人也越来越多。龙井茶通常手工制作，其价格可能极其昂贵，也可能比较便宜。这取决于生长地、采摘时间和制作工艺。龙井茶富含维生素C和其它多种有益健康的元素。经常喝龙井茶有助于减轻疲劳，延缓衰老。

Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay on whether violent video games online will cause students’ violent behaviors. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.

Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay on are people becoming addicted to technology. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.