1、 2016年12月英语四级真题（卷三）Part IWriting(30 minutes)Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay. Suppose you have two options upon graduation: one is to find a job somewhere and the other to start a business of your own. You are to make a decision. Write an essay to explain the r
2、easons for your choice. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180words.说明：由于2016年12月四级考试全国共考了2套听力，本套真题听力与前2套内容完全一样，只是顺序不一样，因此在本套真题中不再重复出现。Part III Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)Section ADirections: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one
3、 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 th
4、e centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.When someone commits a criminal act, we always hope the punishment will match the offense. But when it comes to one of the crudest crimesanimal fightingthings _26_ work out that way. Dog-fighting victims are _27_ and killed for pr
5、ofit and “sport,” yet their criminal abusers often receive a _28_ sentence for causing a lifetime of pain. Roughly half of all federally-convicted animal fighters only get probation （缓刑）.Some progress has been made in the prosecution（起诉）of animal fighters. But federal judges often rely heavily on th
6、e U.S. Sentencing Guidelines when they _29_ penalties, and in the case of animal fighting, those guidelines are outdated and extremely _30_ .The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which _31_ these sentencing guidelines, is revisiting them, proposing to raise the minimum sentence from 6-12 to 21-27 months.
7、This is a step in the right _32_ , but wed like to see the U.S. Sentencing Commission make further changes to the guidelines.Along with this effort, were working with animal advocates and state and federal lawmakers to _33_ anti-cruelty laws across the country, as well as supporting laws and policie
8、s that assist overburdened animal _34_ that care for animal fighting victims. This help is_35_ important because the high cost of caring for animal victims is a major factor that prevents people from getting involved in cruelty cases in the first place.A) convenient B) creates C) critically D) deter
9、mine E) direction F) hesitate G) inadequateH) inspired I) method J) minimal K) rarely L) shelters M) strengthen N) sufferingsO) torturedSection BDirections: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the pa
10、ragraphs. 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.When Work Becomes a GameA)What motivates employees to do their jobs we
11、ll? Competition with coworkers, for some. The promise of rewards, for others. Pure enjoyment of problem-solving, for a lucky few.B)Increasingly, companies are tapping into these desires directly through what has come to be known as “gamification”: essentially, turning work into a game. “Gamification
12、 is about understanding what it is that makes games engaging and what game designers do to create a great experience in games, and taking those learnings and applying them to other contexts such as the workplace and education,” explains Kevin Werbach, a gamification expert who teaches at the Wharton
13、 School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.C)It might mean monitoring employee productivity on a digital leaderboard and offering prizes to the winners, or giving employees digital badges or stars for completing certain activities. It could also mean training employee
14、s how to do their jobs through video game platforms. Companies from Google to LOreal to IBM to Wells Fargo are known to use some degree of gamification in their workplaces. And more and more companies are joining them. A recent report suggests that the global gamification market will grow from $1.65
15、 billion in 2015 to $11.1 billion by 2020.D)The concept of gamification is not entirely new, Werbach says. Companies, marketers and teachers have long looked for fun ways to engage peoples reward-seeking or competitive spirits. Cracker Jacks has been “gamifying” its snack food by putting a small pri
16、ze inside for more than 100 years, he adds, and the turn-of- the-century steel magnate（巨头）Charles Schwab is said to have often come into his factory and written the number of tons of steel produced on the past shift on the factory floor, thus motivating the next shift of workers to beat the previous
17、 one.E)But the word “gamification” and the widespread, conscious application of the concept only began in earnest about five years ago, Werbach says. Thanks in part to video games, the generation now entering the workforce is especially open to the idea of having their work gamified. “ We are at a p
18、oint where in much of the developed world the vast majority of young people grew up playing video games, and an increasingly high percentage of adults play these video games too，” Werbach says.F)A number of companies have sprung upGamEffective, Bunchball and Badgeville, to name a fewin recent years
19、offering gamification platforms for businesses. The platforms that are most effective turn employees ordinary job tasks into part of a rich adventure narrative. “What makes a game game-like is that the player actually cares about the outcome,” Werbach says. “The principle is about understanding what
20、 is motivating to this group of players, which requires some understanding of psychology.”G)Some people, Werbach says, are motivated by competition. Sales people often fall into this category. For them, the right kind of gamification might be turning their sales pitches into a competition with other
21、 team members, complete with a digital leaderboard showing who is winning at all times. Others are more motivated by collaboration and social experiences. One company Werbach has studied uses gamification to create a sense of community and boost employees morale （士气）.When employees log in to their c
22、omputers, theyre shown a picture of one of their coworkers and asked to guess that persons name.H)Gamification does not have to be digital. Monica Cometti runs a company that gamifies employee trainings. Sometimes this involves technology, but often it does not. She recently designed a gamification
23、strategy for a sales training company with a storm-chasing theme. Employees formed “storm chaser teams” and competed in storm-themed educational exercises to earn various rewards. “Rewards do not have to be stuff,” Cometti says. “Rewards can be flexible working hours.” Another training, this one for
24、 pay roll law, used a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs theme. “Snow White” is available for everyone to use, but the “dwarfs” are still under copyright, so Cometti invented sound-alike characters (Grumpy Gus, Dopey Dan) to illustrate specific pay roll law principles.I)Some people do not take naturall
25、y to gamified work environments, Cometti says. In her experience, people in positions of power or people in finance or engineering do not tend to like the sound of the word. “If we are designing for engineers, Im not talking about a gameat all,” Cometti says. “Im talking about a simulation（模拟） ，Im t
26、alking about being able to solve this problem. ”J) Gamification is “not a magic bullet,” Werbach warns. A gamification strategy that is not sufficiently thought through or well tailored to its players may engage people for a little while, but it will not motivate people in the long term. It can also
27、 be exploitative, especially when used with vulnerable populations. For workers, especially low-paid workers, who desperately need their jobs yet know they can be easily replaced, gamification may feel more like the Hunger Games. Werbach gives the example of several Disneyland hotels in Anaheim, Cal
28、ifornia, which used large digital leaderboards to display how efficiently laundry workers were working compared to one another. Some employees found the board motivating. To others, it was the opposite of fun. Some began to stop taking bathroom breaks, worried that if their productivity fell they wo
29、uld be fired. Pregnant employees struggled to keep up. In a Los Angeles Times article, one employee referred to the board as a “digital whip.” “It actually had a very negative effect on morale and performance, ” Werbach says.K) Still, gamification only stands to become more popular, he says, “as mor
30、e and more people come into the workforce who are familiar with the structures and expressions of digital games.” “We are far from reaching the peak,” Cometti agrees. “There is no reason this will go away.”36.Some famous companies are already using gamification and more are trying to do the same.37.
31、Gamification is not a miracle cure for all workplaces as it may have negative results.38.To enhance morale, one company asks its employees to identify their fellow workers when starting their computers.39.The idea of gamification was practiced by some businesses more than a century ago.40.There is r
32、eason to believe that gamification will be here to stay.41.Video games contributed in some ways to the wide application of gamification.42.When turning work into a game, it is necessary to understand what makes games interesting.43.Gamification in employee training does not always need technology.44
33、.The most successful gamification platforms transform daily work assignments into fun experiences.45.It is necessary to use terms other than “gamification” for some professions.Section CDirections: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished stateme
34、nts. 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 OneQuestions 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.Recently I attended several meetings
35、where we talked about ways to retain students and keep younger faculty members from going elsewhere.It seems higher education has become an industry of meeting-holders whose task it is to “solve” problems real or imagined. And in my position as a professor at three different colleges, the actual pro
36、blems in educating our young people and older students have deepened, while the number of people hirednot to teach but to hold meetingshas increased significantly. Every new problem creates a new job for an administrative fixer. Take our Center for Teaching Excellence. Contrary to its title, the cen
37、ter is a clearing house（信息交流中心）for using technology in classrooms and in online courses. Its an administrative sham（欺诈）of the kind that has multiplied over the last 30 years.I offer a simple proposition in response: Many of our problemsclass attendance, educational success, student happiness and wel
38、l-beingmight be improved by cutting down the bureaucratic（官僚的）mechanisms and meetings and instead hiring an army of good teachers. If we replaced half of our administrative staff with classroom teachers, we might actually get a majority of our classes back to 20 or fewer students per teacher. This w
39、ould be an environment in which teachers and students actually knew each other.The teachers must be free to teach in their own waythe curriculum should be flexible enough so that they can use their individual talents to achieve the goals of the course. Additionally, they should be allowed to teach,
40、and be rewarded for doing it well. Teachers are not people who are great at and consumed by research and happen to appear in a classroom. Good teaching and research are not exclusive, but they are also not automatic companions. Teaching is an art and a craft, talent and practice; it is not something
41、 that just anyone can be good at. It is utterly confusing to me that people do not recognize this, despite the fact that pretty much anyone who has been a student can tell the difference between their best and worst teachers.46.What does the author say about present-day universities?A)They are effec
42、tively tackling real or imagined problems.B)They often fail to combine teaching with research.C)They are over-burdened with administrative staff.D)They lack talent to fix their deepening problems.47.According to the author, what kind of people do universities lack most?A)Good classroom teachers.B)Ef
43、ficient administrators.C) Talented researchers.D) Motivated students.48.What does the author imply about the classes at present?A)They facilitate students independent learning.B)They help students form closer relationships.C)They have more older students than before.D)They are much bigger than is de
44、sirable.49.What does the author think of teaching ability?A)It requires talent and practice.B)It is closely related to research.C)It is a chief factor affecting students learning.D)It can be acquired through persistent practice.50.What is the authors suggestion for improving university teaching?A)Cr
45、eating an environment for teachers to share their teaching experiences.B)Hiring more classroom teachers and allowing them to teach in their own way.C)Using high technology in classrooms and promoting exchange of information.D)Cutting down meetings and encouraging administrative staff to go to classr
46、ooms.Passage TwoQuestions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.The secret to eating less and being happy about it may have been cracked years agoby McDonalds. According to a new study from Cornell Universitys Food and Brand Lab, small non-food rewardslike the toys in McDonalds Happy Mealsstim
47、ulate the same reward centers in the brain as food does.The researchers, led by Martin Reimann, carried out a series of experiments to see if people would choose a smaller meal if it was paired with a non-food item.They found that the majority of both kids and adults opted for a half-sized portion w
48、hen combined with a prize. Both options were priced the same.Even more interesting is that the promise of a future reward was enough to make adults choose the smaller portion. One of the prizes used was a lottery ticket（彩票）, with a S10, $50 or $100 payout, and this was as effective as a tangible gif
49、t in persuading people to eat less.“The fact that participants were willing to substitute part of a food item for the mere prospect of a relatively small monetary award is interesting,” says Reimann.He theorizes that it is the emotional component of these intangible prizes that make them effective. In fact,