公共英语四级-415

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公共英语四级-415
[单项选择]It has been a wretched few weeks for America’s celebrity bosses. AIG’s Maurice Greenberg has been dramatically ousted from the firm through which he dominated global insurance for decades. At Morgan Stanley a mutiny is forcing Philip Purcell, a boss used to getting his own way, into an increasingly desperate campaign to save his skin. At Boeing, Harry Stonecipher was called out of retirement to lead the scandal-hit firm and raise ethical standards, only to commit a lapse of his own, being sacked for sending e-mails to a lover who was also an employee. Carly Fiorina was the most powerful woman in corporate America until a few weeks ago, when Hewlett-Packard (HP) sacked her for poor performance. The fate of Bernie Ebbers is much grimmer. The once high-profile boss of World-Corn could well spend the rest of his life behind bars following his conviction last month on fraud charges.
In different ways, each of these examples appears to point to the same, welcome conclusion: that the
A. citing America’s celebrity bosses
B. listing a number of America’s celebrity bosses
C. depicting the plight of some reputed American bosses
D. writing some most powerful persons in American firms.
[单项选择]Prior to the 20^th century, many languages with small numbers of speakers survived for centuries. The increasingly interconnected modern world makes it much more difficult for small language communities to live in relative isolation, which is a key factor in language maintenance and preservation.
It remains to be seen whether the world can maintain its linguistic and cultural diversity in the centuries ahead. Many powerful forces appear to work against it. population growth, which pushes migrant populations into the world’s last isolated locations; mass tourism; global telecommunications and mass media; and the spread of gigantic global corporations. All of these forces appear to signify a future in which the language of advertising, popular culture, and consumer products become similar. Already English and a few other major tongues have emerged as global languages of commerce and communication. For many of the world’s peoples, learning one of these languages is view
A. an increasingly interconnected world
B. maintaining small numbers of speakers
C. relatively isolated language communities
D. following the tradition of the 20^th century
[单项选择]The hotels are full, Japanese tourists throng the designer stores of Waikiki, and the unemployment rate is a mere 3% of the workforce. So what could possibly knock Hawaii, the "aloha" or "welcome" state, off its wave The answer is that Hawaii’s 1.2million residents may one day get fed up with playing host to overseas visitors, 7million of them this year.
Indeed, some residents are already fed up. KAHEA, an alliance of environmentalists and defenders of native Hawaiian culture, bemoans the pollution caused by the cruise ships and the risk posed by the tourist hordes to creatures such as the dark-rumped petrel and the Oahu tree snail, or to plants like the Marsilea villosa fern. KAHEA has a point, the US Fish ＆ Wildlife Service currently lists some 317 species, including 273 plants, in the Hawaiian islands as threatened or endangered--the highest number of any state in the nation. Even the state flower, the hibiscus brackenridgei, is on the danger list. The loss of species, says
A. Hawaii is in short of the hotels now.
B. Japanese tourists account for the most part of the travelers.
C. The unemployment rate in Hawaii is very low.
D. Hawaii may change its "welcome" policy.
[单项选择]Names have gained increasing importance in the competitive world of higher education. As colleges strive for market share, they are looking for names that project the image they want or reflect the changes they hope to make. Trenton State College, for example, became the College of New Jersey nine years ago when it began raising admissions standards and appealing to students from throughout the state.
"All I hear in higher education is, ’Brand, brand, brand,’" said Tim Westerbeck, who specializes in branding and is managing director of Lippmann Hearne, a marketing firm based in Chicago that works with universities and other nonprofit organizations. "There has been a sea change over the last 10 years. Marketing used to be almost a dirty word in higher education. "
Not all efforts at name changes are successful, of course. In 1997, the New School for Social Research became New School University to reflect its growth into a collection of eight colleges, offering a list of
A. They prefer higher education competition.
B. They try to gain advantage in market share.
C. They want to project their image.
D. They hope to make some changes.
[多项选择]Study the following cartoon carefully and write an essay on it. In your essay, you should
(1) describe the cartoon briefly,
(2) interpret its meaning and
(3) give your comments.
You should write 160-200 words neatly on ANSWER SHEET 2.
[*]
[单项选择]High oil prices have not yet produced an economic shock among consuming countries, but further rises, especially sharp (21) , would undoubtedly hurt the world economy, and (22) would inevitably harm producers, too. Beyond this obvious point, (23) , higher prices could even do harm to both oil firms and producers.
Big oil firms (24) rolling in money today, but that disguises the fact that their longer-term prospects are (25) Behind the reserves-accounting scandal at Royal Dutch/ Shell (26) a problem bedeviling all of the majors: replacing their dwindling reserves. (27) existing fields in Alaska and the North Sea are rapidly declining; OPEC countries and Russia are (28) them out. (29) they are to survive in the long term, the big oil firms must embrace other sources of energy (30) oil.
(31) it is to believe, higher oil prices could be bad news for produc
A. ones
B. shock
C. prices
D. countries
[简答题]Time was when the solar system had two watery worlds. 61) Directly next door to the warm, wet, loamy Earth was the warm, wet, loamy Mars, both planets covered with oceans and running with rivers—and both possibly teeming with life. Billions of years ago, however, the low-gravity Mars had both its air and water leak away, causing the planet to become the dead, freeze-dried place it is today.
That is what the prevailing thinking has been. Now, it appears that thinking may be wrong. 62) Recently, NASA released new images from the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft that suggest water may be flowing up and streaming onto the Martian surface—dramatically increasing the likelihood that at least part of the planet is biologically alive. "If these results prove true," says Ed Weiler, associate administrator of NASA’s Office of Space Science," [they have] profound implications for the possibility of life. "
Finding liquid water on Mars’ surface has never been easy—beca
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