大学英语四级试题及参考答案.docx

1、大学英语四级试题及参考答案2007年12月大学英语四级试题及参考答案2007年12月大学英语四级试题及参考答案 Part I Writing (30 minutes)What electives to choose1. 各大学开设了各种各样的选修课2. 学生因为各种原因选择了不同的选修课3. 以你自己为例Part II Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning ) (15 minutes)Universities Branch OutAs never before in their long history, universities have

2、become instruments of national competition as well as instruments of peace. They are the place of the scientific discoveries that move economies forward, and the primary means of educating the talent required to obtain and maintain competitive advantage. But at the same time, the opening of national

3、 borders to the flow of goods, services, information and especially people has made universities a powerful force for global integration, mutual understanding and students earn 30 percent of the doctoral degrees awarded in the United States and 38 percent of those in the United Kingdom. And the numb

4、er crossing borders for undergraduate study is growing as well, to 8 percent of the undergraduates at Americas best institutions and 10 percent of all undergraduates in the U.K. In the United States, 20 percent of the newly hired professors in science and engineering are foreign-born, and in China m

5、any newly hired faculty members at the top research universities received their graduate education abroad.Universities are also encouraging students to spend some of their undergraduate years in another country. In Europe, more than 140,000 students participate in the Erasmus program each year, taki

6、ng courses for credit in one of 2,200 participating institutions across the continent. And in the United States, institutions are helping place students in summer internships (实习) abroad to prepare them for global careers. Yale and Harvard have led the way, offering every undergraduate at least one

7、international study or internship opportunity-and providing the financial resources to make it possible.Globalization is also reshaping the way research is done. One new trend involves sourcing portions of a research program to another country. Yale professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute inve

8、stigator Tian Xu directs a research center focused on the genetics of human disease at Shanghais Fudan University, in collaboration with faculty colleagues from both schools. The Shanghai center has 95 employees and graduate students working in a 4,300-square-meter laboratory facility. Yale faculty,

9、 postdoctors and graduate students visit regularly and attend videoconference seminars with scientists from both campuses. The arrangement benefits both countries; Xus Yale lab is more productive, thanks to the lower costs of conducting research in china, and Chinese graduate students, postdoctors a

10、nd faculty get on-the-job training from a world-class scientist and his U.S. team.As a result of its strength in science, the United States has consistently led the world in the commercialization of major new technologies, from the mainframe computer and the integrated circuit of the 1960s to the In

11、ternet infrastructure (基础设施) and applications software of the 1990s. The link between university-based science and industrial application is often indirect but sometimes highly visible: Silicon Valley was intentionally created by Stanford University, and Route 128 outside Boston has long housed comp

12、anies spun off from MIT and Harvard. Around the world, governments have encouraged copying of this model, perhaps most successfully in Cambridge, England, where Microsoft and scores of other leading software and biotechnology companies have set up shop around the university.For all its success, the

13、United States remains deeply hesitant about sustaining the research-university model. Most politician recognize the link between investment in science and national economic strength, but support for research funding has been unsteady. The budget of the National Institutes of Health doubled between 1

14、998 and 2003, but has risen more slowly than inflation since then. Support for the physical sciences and engineering barely kept pace with inflation during that same period. The attempt to make up lost ground is welcome, but the nation would be better served by steady, predictable increases in scien

15、ce funding at the rate of long-term GDP growth, which is on the order of inflation plus 3 percent per year.American politicians have great difficulty recognizing that admitting more foreign students can greatly promote the national interest by increasing international understanding. Adjusted for inf

16、lation, public funding for international exchanges and foreign-language study is well below the levels of 40 years ago. In the wake of September 11, changes in the visa process caused a dramatic decline in the number of foreign students seeking admission to U.S. Universities, and a corresponding surge in enrollments in Australia, Singapore and the U.K. Objections from American university and business leaders led to improvements in the process and a revers