2018年英语专四真题答案解析（含听力原文）

PART I DICTATION

Emotional Reaction to Music

　　No matter who you are, where you live, / or what your cultural background is, / people get some pleasure from listening to their favorite music. / However, some people are simply not capable of enjoying music. / This is not because they can’t experience pleasure at all. / They don’t have trouble hearing music properly, either. / Instead, they’re just indifferent to music. / Researchers have conducted studies to find out / why some people have no emotional reaction to music. / However, despite their efforts, the mystery remains.

PART II LISTENING COMPREHENSION

　　SECTION A TALK

　　1. seven

　　2. sounds

　　3. cognitive

　　4. a sound changes

　　5. six-month-old

　　6. discriminate the

　　7. their first birthda

　　8. totally equivalen

　　9. incredible differe

　　10. taking statistics

　　SECTION B CONVERSATIONS

　　Conversation One

　　1. According to the man, what is a British characteristic?

　　答案：C. The British are unable to speak a foreign language.

　　2. What is the second most-spoken language in the UK?

　　答案：B. Polish.

　　3. Why was the 1,000 Words Campaign launched?

　　答案：A. To help improve international trade.

　　4.According to the man, which is not considered an advantage of learning a foreign language?

　　答案：D. It makes you work hard.

　　5. What’s the most probable relationship between the man and the woman?

　　答案：B. Schoolmates.

　　Conversation Two

　　6. According to Alice, what is a phobia?

　　答案：A. An unreasonable fear.

　　7. What are the chances of getting knocked off one’s bicycle and killed in a one-mile journey?

　　答案：C. One in fourteen million.

　　8. What kind of event do people tend to worry about?

　　答案：B. Catastrophic events.

　　9. Which may involve a chronic risk?

　　答案：D. Smoking cigarettes.

　　10. Why do some people enjoy risks?

　　答案：A. They get pleasure from risks.

　　婴儿的语言天赋

　　The Linguistic Gift of Babies

　　大家早上好。在今天的课上，我要讲一些你们看不到的东西。也就是：婴儿的大脑里是如何运转的。

　　Good morning, everyone. In today's lecture, I'm going to talk about something you can't see. That is, what's going on in the little brain of a baby.

　　例如，婴儿如何学习一门语言。

　　For example, how babies learn a language.

　　这是一个大家很感兴趣的问题。

　　It is always a question people show great interest in.

　　婴儿和七岁之前的儿童都是天才，七岁后就会出现系统性的衰退。

　　Babies and children are geniuses until they turn seven, and then there's a systematic decline.

　　我的实验室里工作的重点就是发育的第一个关键时期，在这个关键时期，婴儿试图掌握在他们的语言中用到的音。

　　Work in my lab is focused on the first critical period in development, and that is the period in which babies try to master which sounds are used in their language.

　　我们认为，通过研究声音是如何习得的，我们将建立一个适用于语言其他方面的模型，也可能适用于儿童时期可能存在的社交、情感和认知发展关键时期的模型。

　　We think, by studying how the sounds are learned, we'll have a model for the rest of language, and perhaps for critical periods that may exist in childhood for social, emotional and cognitive development.

　　所以我们一直在通过实验来研究这些婴儿。

　　So we've been studying the babies by conducting an experiment.

　　在我们的实验中，婴儿，通常是6个月大的婴儿，坐在父母的膝盖上，我们训练他们当音变化的时候转过头去，比如从“啊”变成“咿”的时候。

　　During our experiment, the baby, usually a six-monther, sits on a parent's lap, and we train them to turn their heads when a sound changes—like from "ah" to "ee".

　　如果他们在正确的时候这样做，黑盒子就会亮起来，熊猫就会敲鼓。我们学到了什么?

　　If they do so at the appropriate time, the black box lights up and a panda bear pounds a drum. What have we learned?

　　全世界的婴儿就是我所说的“世界公民”。

　　Well, babies all over the world are what I like to describe as "citizens of the world".

　　他们可以区分所有语言的所有音，不管我们测试的是哪个国家，用的是什么语言，这很了不起，因为你知道，我做不到。

　　They can discriminate all the sounds of all languages, no matter what country we're testing and what language we're using, and that's remarkable because you know, I can't do that.

　　我们的听力受到了文化限制。

　　We're culture-bound listeners.

　　我们能分辨出自己语言的音，却分辨不出外语的音。

　　We can discriminate the sounds of our own language, but not those of foreign languages.

　　所以问题就来了：这些世界公民什么时候会变成我们这样只能听懂某一种语言的人?

　　So the question arises: When do those citizens of the world turn into the language-bound listeners that we are?

　　答案是：在他们一周岁之前。

　　And the answer: before their first birthdays.

　　这里是东京和美国西雅图参加测试的婴儿在转头实验中的表现，此时他们听到了“ra”和“la”，这是英语中很重要的发音，日语中却不重要。

　　What you see here is performance on that head-turn task for babies tested in Tokyo and the United States, here in Seattle, as they listened to the "ra" and "la" — sounds important to English, but not to Japanese.

　　所以在6到8个月大的时候，婴儿们的表现是完全一样的。

　　So at six to eight months, the babies are totally equivalent.

　　两个月后，一些不可思议的事情发生了。

　　Two months later, something, something incredible occurs.

　　美国的婴儿表现越来越好，而日本的婴儿表现越来越差。

　　The babies in the United States are getting a lot better while babies in Japan are getting a lot worse.

　　问题是，在这两个月的关键时期发生了什么?

　　So the question is: What's happening during this critical two-month period?

　　我们知道这是辩声能力发展的关键时期，但是究竟发生了什么?

　　We know this is the critical period for sound development, but what's going on up there?

　　也许发生了两件事。

　　Maybe there are two things going on.

　　首先，婴儿们全神贯注地听我们说话，他们一边听我们说话一边做统计——他们在做统计。

　　The first is that the babies are listening intently to us, and they're taking statistics as they listen to us talk—they're taking statistics.

　　也就是说，两个婴儿听他们自己的母亲说妈妈语——我们和孩子说话时使用的通用语。

　　That is to say, the two babies listen to their own mother speaking motherese—the universal language we use when we talk to kids.

　　在产生语言的过程中，当婴儿听的时候，他们所做的就是做统计，也就是说，他们听到的语言的声音分布。

　　During the production of speech, when babies listen, what they're doing is taking statistics, that is, sound distribution on the language that they hear.

　　这些声音分布不断完善，婴儿就吸收更多。

　　And those sound distributions grow and babies absorb more.

　　我们发现，婴儿对统计数据很敏感，而且日语和英语的统计数据非常非常不同。

　　And what we've learned is that babies are sensitive to the statistics, and the statistics of Japanese and English are very, very different.

　　我的意思是，两种语言的声音分布是不同的。

　　I mean, the sound distribution of both languages is different.

　　所以婴儿会吸收语言的统计数据，这会改变他们的大脑;

　　So babies absorb the statistics of the language and it changes their brains;

　　这使他们从世界公民变成了我们这些受到文化限制只能听懂某一种语言的人，因为我们成年后就不再吸收这些数据。

　　it changes them from the citizens of the world to the culture-bound listeners that we are because we as adults are no longer absorbing those statistics.

　　当然，在这种情况下，我们认为声音分布趋于稳定时，语言的学习可能会减慢。

　　In this case, of course, we're arguing that the learning of language material may slow down when our distribution stabilizes.

　　好的。今天，我们刚刚讨论了最近的一个关于婴儿语言能力发展的项目。

　　OK. Today, we just talked about a recent project on babies' language development.

　　在下一讲中，我们将集中讨论双语者，双语者如何同时记住两组数据。

　　In our next lecture, we will concentrate on bilingual people, how bilinguals keep two sets of statistics in mind at once.

PART I DICTATION

　　Emotional Reaction to Music

　　No matter who you are, where you live, / or what your cultural background is, / people get some pleasure from listening to their favorite music. / However, some people are simply not capable of enjoying music. / This is not because they can’t experience pleasure at all. / They don’t have trouble hearing music properly, either. / Instead, they’re just indifferent to music. / Researchers have conducted studies to find out / why some people have no emotional reaction to music. / However, despite their efforts, the mystery remains.

PART II LISTENING COMPREHENSION

　　SECTION A TALK

　　1. seven

　　2. sounds

　　3. cognitive

　　4. a sound changes

　　5. six-month-old

　　6. discriminate the

　　7. their first birthda

　　8. totally equivalen

　　9. incredible differe

　　10. taking statistics

　　SECTION B CONVERSATIONS

　　Conversation One

　　1. According to the man, what is a British characteristic?

　　答案：C. The British are unable to speak a foreign language.

　　2. What is the second most-spoken language in the UK?

　　答案：B. Polish.

　　3. Why was the 1,000 Words Campaign launched?

　　答案：A. To help improve international trade.

　　4.According to the man, which is not considered an advantage of learning a foreign language?

　　答案：D. It makes you work hard.

　　5. What’s the most probable relationship between the man and the woman?

　　答案：B. Schoolmates.

　　Conversation Two

　　6. According to Alice, what is a phobia?

　　答案：A. An unreasonable fear.

　　7. What are the chances of getting knocked off one’s bicycle and killed in a one-mile journey?

　　答案：C. One in fourteen million.

　　8. What kind of event do people tend to worry about?

　　答案：B. Catastrophic events.

　　9. Which may involve a chronic risk?

　　答案：D. Smoking cigarettes.

　　10. Why do some people enjoy risks?

　　答案：A. They get pleasure from risks.

　　婴儿的语言天赋

　　The Linguistic Gift of Babies

　　大家早上好。在今天的课上，我要讲一些你们看不到的东西。也就是：婴儿的大脑里是如何运转的。

　　Good morning, everyone. In today's lecture, I'm going to talk about something you can't see. That is, what's going on in the little brain of a baby.

　　例如，婴儿如何学习一门语言。

　　For example, how babies learn a language.

　　这是一个大家很感兴趣的问题。

　　It is always a question people show great interest in.

　　婴儿和七岁之前的儿童都是天才，七岁后就会出现系统性的衰退。

　　Babies and children are geniuses until they turn seven, and then there's a systematic decline.

　　我的实验室里工作的重点就是发育的第一个关键时期，在这个关键时期，婴儿试图掌握在他们的语言中用到的音。

　　Work in my lab is focused on the first critical period in development, and that is the period in which babies try to master which sounds are used in their language.

　　我们认为，通过研究声音是如何习得的，我们将建立一个适用于语言其他方面的模型，也可能适用于儿童时期可能存在的社交、情感和认知发展关键时期的模型。

　　We think, by studying how the sounds are learned, we'll have a model for the rest of language, and perhaps for critical periods that may exist in childhood for social, emotional and cognitive development.

　　所以我们一直在通过实验来研究这些婴儿。

　　So we've been studying the babies by conducting an experiment.

　　在我们的实验中，婴儿，通常是6个月大的婴儿，坐在父母的膝盖上，我们训练他们当音变化的时候转过头去，比如从“啊”变成“咿”的时候。

　　During our experiment, the baby, usually a six-monther, sits on a parent's lap, and we train them to turn their heads when a sound changes—like from "ah" to "ee".

　　如果他们在正确的时候这样做，黑盒子就会亮起来，熊猫就会敲鼓。我们学到了什么?

　　If they do so at the appropriate time, the black box lights up and a panda bear pounds a drum. What have we learned?

　　全世界的婴儿就是我所说的“世界公民”。

　　Well, babies all over the world are what I like to describe as "citizens of the world".

　　他们可以区分所有语言的所有音，不管我们测试的是哪个国家，用的是什么语言，这很了不起，因为你知道，我做不到。

　　They can discriminate all the sounds of all languages, no matter what country we're testing and what language we're using, and that's remarkable because you know, I can't do that.

　　我们的听力受到了文化限制。

　　We're culture-bound listeners.

　　我们能分辨出自己语言的音，却分辨不出外语的音。

　　We can discriminate the sounds of our own language, but not those of foreign languages.

　　所以问题就来了：这些世界公民什么时候会变成我们这样只能听懂某一种语言的人?

　　So the question arises: When do those citizens of the world turn into the language-bound listeners that we are?

　　答案是：在他们一周岁之前。

　　And the answer: before their first birthdays.

　　这里是东京和美国西雅图参加测试的婴儿在转头实验中的表现，此时他们听到了“ra”和“la”，这是英语中很重要的发音，日语中却不重要。

　　What you see here is performance on that head-turn task for babies tested in Tokyo and the United States, here in Seattle, as they listened to the "ra" and "la" — sounds important to English, but not to Japanese.

　　所以在6到8个月大的时候，婴儿们的表现是完全一样的。

　　So at six to eight months, the babies are totally equivalent.

　　两个月后，一些不可思议的事情发生了。

　　Two months later, something, something incredible occurs.

　　美国的婴儿表现越来越好，而日本的婴儿表现越来越差。

　　The babies in the United States are getting a lot better while babies in Japan are getting a lot worse.

　　问题是，在这两个月的关键时期发生了什么?

　　So the question is: What's happening during this critical two-month period?

　　我们知道这是辩声能力发展的关键时期，但是究竟发生了什么?

　　We know this is the critical period for sound development, but what's going on up there?

　　也许发生了两件事。

　　Maybe there are two things going on.

　　首先，婴儿们全神贯注地听我们说话，他们一边听我们说话一边做统计——他们在做统计。

　　The first is that the babies are listening intently to us, and they're taking statistics as they listen to us talk—they're taking statistics.

　　也就是说，两个婴儿听他们自己的母亲说妈妈语——我们和孩子说话时使用的通用语。

　　That is to say, the two babies listen to their own mother speaking motherese—the universal language we use when we talk to kids.

　　在产生语言的过程中，当婴儿听的时候，他们所做的就是做统计，也就是说，他们听到的语言的声音分布。

　　During the production of speech, when babies listen, what they're doing is taking statistics, that is, sound distribution on the language that they hear.

　　这些声音分布不断完善，婴儿就吸收更多。

　　And those sound distributions grow and babies absorb more.

　　我们发现，婴儿对统计数据很敏感，而且日语和英语的统计数据非常非常不同。

　　And what we've learned is that babies are sensitive to the statistics, and the statistics of Japanese and English are very, very different.

　　我的意思是，两种语言的声音分布是不同的。

　　I mean, the sound distribution of both languages is different.

　　所以婴儿会吸收语言的统计数据，这会改变他们的大脑;

　　So babies absorb the statistics of the language and it changes their brains;

　　这使他们从世界公民变成了我们这些受到文化限制只能听懂某一种语言的人，因为我们成年后就不再吸收这些数据。

　　it changes them from the citizens of the world to the culture-bound listeners that we are because we as adults are no longer absorbing those statistics.

　　当然，在这种情况下，我们认为声音分布趋于稳定时，语言的学习可能会减慢。

　　In this case, of course, we're arguing that the learning of language material may slow down when our distribution stabilizes.

　　好的。今天，我们刚刚讨论了最近的一个关于婴儿语言能力发展的项目。

　　OK. Today, we just talked about a recent project on babies' language development.

　　在下一讲中，我们将集中讨论双语者，双语者如何同时记住两组数据。

In our next lecture, we will concentrate on bilingual people, how bilinguals keep two sets of statistics in mind at once.

Conversation Two

　　对话2

　　Questions 6 to 10 are based on Conversation Two.

　　根据对话2回答第6题到第10题

　　W: Hello, and welcome to today's program. I'm Alice.

　　女：大家好，欢迎来到今天的节目。我是爱丽丝。

　　M: And I'm Jack. Hello.

　　男：我是杰克。大家好。

　　W: Hello, Jack. You're off on holiday

　　tomorrow, aren't you?

　　女：你好，杰克。你明天休假，是吗?

　　M: I am and you know, and I'm dreading it. I hate flying!

　　男：是的，你知道，我很害怕。我讨厌坐飞机!

　　W: Do you? I didn't know you had a phobia— and that means a strong and

　　unreasonable fearof something.

　　女：是吗?我不知道你有恐惧症——就是对某种事物强烈而不合理的恐惧。

　　M: Well, I don't think this is a phobia

　　because it isn't unreasonable. Flying

　　thousands of feet upin the sky, you know,

　　that's not safe!

　　男：嗯，我不认为这是恐惧症，因为它并非没有道理。你知道，在几千英尺的高空飞行很不安全!

　　W: Flying is safer than you think, Jack. It's much riskier to drive or cycle to work. And, actually, risk taking is the subject of today's show!

　　女：乘飞机比你想象得要安全，杰克。开车或骑车上班风险更大。冒险!就是今天节目的主题!

　　Risk means the chances of something bad happening. For example, did you know that your chance of being knocked off your bicycle and killed during a onemile journey is the

　　same as your chances of winning the lottery?

　　风险是指发生坏事的可能性。例如，你知道一英里之内你骑自行车被撞倒撞死的几率和你中彩票的几率是一样大的吗?

　　M: I didn't know that.

　　男：我不知道。

　　W: Can you guess what are the chances of either of these two things happening?

　　女：你能猜到这两种情况发生的概率是多少吗?

　　M: I have no idea. One in a million?

　　男：我不知道。一百万分之一吗?

　　W: No, it's one in 14 million. You are as likely to win the national lottery from a single ticket asyou are to be knocked off your bicycle and killed during a one-mile journey.

　　女：不，是1千4百万分之一。你中全国彩票头奖的可能性就像一英里之内你骑自行车被撞倒撞死的可能性一样大。

　　M: But why are we bad at assessing risk?

　　男：但是为什么我们不善于评估风险呢?

　　W: People typically fear anything which is small probability but it's extremely

　　catastrophicifit were to happen…

　　女：通常人们害怕的都是发生的可能性很小，但如果发生的话，将会是一场灾难的事情……

　　Recently we have another increase in these birds' virus outbreaks. People read about that.

　　最近这些鸟类病毒爆发事件又增加了。大家都知道这些。

　　And they may pay a lot of attention to that in the news but they may forget to get their flu shot.

　　他们可能会在新闻中注意到这一点，但他们可能会忘记注射流感疫苗。

　　M: That's right. We tend to worry about big or catastrophic events such as catching bird flu ordying in a plane crash because we reacte

　　motionally to them.

　　男：对。我们倾向于担心重大或灾难性的事件，如感染禽流感或飞机失事伤亡，因为我们情绪上会对它们产生反应。

　　W: Yeah. Catastrophic events feel like very real threats, while we tend to forget about thesmall but chronic risks that become more likely over time.

　　女：是的。灾难性的事件感觉起来是非常真实的威胁，而我们往往会忘记那些随着时间的推移变得更有可能发生的，小而长期的风险。

　　M: We do. So for example, what if there was a cigarette that killed you as soon as you smokedit?

　　男：是的。举个例子，如果有一根烟，你一抽完就会死，会出现什么样的情况?

　　Nobody would do that, would they?

　　没有人会那样做，对不对?

　　W: No, they wouldn't.

　　女：对，没有人会那样做。

　　M: But plenty of people are happy to smoke for years, and put off worrying about the healthrisksfor the future.

　　男：但是很多人很乐意吸烟很多年，并没有担心未来可能出现的健康风险。

　　W: Yes, that's a good point, Jack! People feel they are in control of risks that stretch overtime. You know, they think,"I could stop tomorrow" or "I could smoke less".

　　女：是的，说得好，杰克!随着时间的推移，人们觉得他们能够控制住风险。你知道，他们会想，“我明天可以停下来”或者“我可以少抽烟”。

　　But what about people who really enjoy

　　taking big risks— those thrill seekers out there?

　　但是那些真正喜欢冒险的人——那些寻求刺激的人呢?

　　M: People who enjoy extreme sports actually seek out danger— it gives them extremepleasure!

　　男：喜欢极限运动的人实际上是在寻找危险，那给了他们极大的乐趣!

　　If the risk is really high, it means that the pleasure needs to be equally high, or hopefully evenhigher...

　　如果风险真的很高，那就意味着其中乐趣需要同样高，甚至更高……

　　W: You're right.

　　女：你说的对。

　　PART III LANGUAGE USAGE

　　11. C. is believed to have been

　　12. D. has been maintaining

　　13. B. otherwise

　　14. C. hazy blue Virginia

　　15. A. the evil

　　16. D. are of war

　　17. A. its most basic

　　18. C. to reveal an undesirable consequence

　　19. B. Jim turned to speak to the person standing behind him.

　　20. A. a hypothesis

　　21. C. trial

　　22. B. Arguably

　　23. C. offset

　　24. D. recollection

　　25. B. constitutes

　　26. D. extra

　　27. A. filed

　　28. D. wreck

　　29. C. countless

　　30. D. maritime

　　PART IV CLOZE

　　31. M. unknown

　　32. B. automatically

　　33. F. kind

　　34. I. one

　　35. C. couple

　　36. N. virtue

　　37. E. indebtedness

　　38. D. goes

　　39. O. widespread

　　40. L. subscribe

　　PART V READING COMPREHENSION

　　SECTION A MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS

　　41. D. successful competition is essential in American society

　　42. B. Cause and effect.

　　43. C. Sarcastic.

　　44. A. They would enjoy a much larger readership.

　　45. D. Awards ceremonies are held for all sorts of reasons.

　　46. C. source of funding

　　47. B. promote market rather than achievements

　　48. C. Her sister Josephine told her.

　　49. B. sat in an armchair all the time

　　50. A. She was indifferent now.

　　SECTION B SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS

　　51. Individual freedom.

　　52. Some awards aren’t rewards for real achievements.

　　53. Some awards for sports fail to achieve positive social effects.

　　54. Her mood changed from distress to excitement and joy.

　　55. The real cause was her extreme disappointment.