2016年12月英语四级考试模拟试卷及答案(二)

　　Henning studied how students who are learning English as a second language remember vocabulary. The subjects in his experiment were 75 college students. They represented all levels of ability in English: beginning, intermediate, and native-speaking students.

　　To begin, the subjects listened to a recording of a native speaker reading a paragraph in English. Following the recording, the subjects took a 15-question test to see which words they remembered, each question had four choices. The subjects had to circle the word they had heard in the recording. Some of the questions had four choices that sound alike. For example, weather, whether, wither, and wetter are four words that sound alike. Some of the questions had four choices that have the same meaning. Method, way, manner, and system would be four words with the same meaning. Finally the subjects took a language proficiency test.

　　Henning found that students with a lower proficiency in English made more of their mistakes on words that sound alike; students with a higher proficiency made more of their mistakes on words that have the same meaning. Henning’s results suggest that beginning students hold the sound of words in their short-term memory, and advanced students hold the meaning of words in their short-term memory.

　　6. Henning made the experiment in order to study .

　　A. how students remember English vocabulary by short-term memory

　　B. how students learn English vocabulary

　　C. how to develop students’ ability in English

　　D. how long information in short-term memory is kept

　　7. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

　　A. Information in short-term memory is different from that in long-term memory.

　　B. Long-term memory can be achieved only by training.

　　C. It is easier to test short-term memory than long-term memory.

　　D. Henning gave a separate test on vocabulary to his students.

　　8. From Henning’s result we can see that .

　　A. beginners have difficulty distinguishing the pronunciation of words

　　B. advanced students remember words by their meaning

　　C. it is difficult to remember words that sound alike

　　D. it is difficult to remember words that have the same meaning

　　9. The word “subjects” in the passage means .

　　A. memory B. the theme of listening material

　　C. a branch of knowledge studied D. the students experimented on

　　Passage 3

　　Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following passage:

　　The cowboy is the hero of many movies,. He is, even today, a symbol of courage and adventure. But what was the life of the cowboy really like?

　　The cowboy’s job is clear from the word cowboy. Cowboy were men who took care of cows and other cattle. The cattle were in the West and in Texas. People in the cities of the East wanted beef these cattle. Trains could take the cattle east. But first the cattle had to get to the trains. Part of the cowboy’s job was to take the cattle hundreds of miles to the railroad town. The trips were called cattle drivers. A cattle drive usually took several months. Cowboys rode for sixteen hours a day. Because they rode so much, each cowboy brought along about eight horses. A cowboy changed horses several times each day.

　　The cowboys had to make sure that cattle arrived safely. Before starting on a drive, the cowboys branded the cattle. They burned a mark on the cattle to show who they belonged to. But these marks didn’t stop rustlers, or cattle thieves. Cowboys had to protect the cattle from rustlers. Rustlers made the dangerous trip even more dangerous.