2013年英语专业四级考试真题及答案解析

(1) The art of public speaking began in ancient Greece over 2,000 years ago. Now, twitter, instant messaging, e-mail, blogs and chat forums offer rival approaches to communication—but none can replace the role of a great speech. (2) The spoken word can handle various vital functions: persuading or inspiring, informing, paying tribute, entertaining, or simply introducing someone or something or accepting something. (3) Over the past year, the human voice has helped guide us over the ups and downs of what was certainly a stormy time. (4) Persuasion is used in dealing with or reconciling different points of view. When the leaders met in Copenhagen in December 2009, persuasive words from activists encouraged them to commit themselves to firmer action. (5) Inspirational speeches confront the emotions. They focus on topics and matters that are close to people’s hearts. During wars, generals used inspiring speeches to prepare the troops for battle. (6) A speech that conveys knowledge and enhances understanding can inform us. The information must be clear, accurate, and expressed in a meaningful and interesting way. When the H1 N 1 pandemic （ 流 行 病 ） was announced, the idea of “ swine flu” （ 猪 流 感 ） scared many people. Informative speeches from World Health Organization officials helped people to keep their panic under control so they could take sensible precautions. (7) Sad events are never easy to deal with but a speech that pays tribute to the loss of a loved one and gives praise for their contribution can be comforting. Madonna’s speech about Michael Jackson, after his death, highlighted the fact that he will continue to live on through his music. (8) It’s not only in world forums where public speaking plays an important role. It can also be surprisingly helpful in the course of our own lives. (9) If you’re taking part in a debate you need to persuade the listeners of the soundness of your argument. In sports, athletes know the importance of a pep talk（ 鼓 舞 士 气 的 讲 话 ） before a match to inspire teammates. You yourself may be asked to do a presentation at college or work to inform the others about an area of vital importance. (10) On a more personal level, a friend may be upset and need comforting. Or you might be asked to introduce a speaker at a family event or to speak at a wedding, where your language will be needed to move people or make them laugh. (11) Great speaking ability is not something we’re born with. Even Barack Obama works hard to perfect every speech. For a brilliant speech, there are rules that you can put to good use. To learn those rules you have to practice and learn form some outstanding speeches in the past.

(1) Every business needs two things, says Skullcandy CEO Rick Alden: inspiration and desperation. In 2001, Alden had both. He’d sold two snowboarding businesses, and he was desperately bored. But be had an idea: He wanted to make a new kind of headphone. (2) “I kept seeing people missing their cell phone calls because they were listening to music,” he explains. “Then I’m in a chairlift（索道）, I’ve got my headphones on, and I realize my phone is ringing. As I take my gloves off and reach for my phone, I think, ‘It can’t be that tough to make headphones with two plugs, one for music and one for your cell phone.’” Alden described what he wanted to a designer, perfected a prototype, and outsourced（外 包）manufacturing overseas. (3) Alden then started designing headphones into helmets, backpacks—anywhere that would make it easy to listen to music while snowboarding. “Selling into board and skate shops wasn’t a big research effort,” he explains. “Those were the only guys I knew!” (4) Alden didn’t want to be a manufacturer. And by outsourcing, he’d hoped he could get the business off the ground without debt. But he was wrong. But he was wrong. So he asked his wife, “Can I put a mortgage（抵押贷 款）on the house? She said, ‘What is the worst thing that can happen? We lose the house, we sell our cars, and we start all over again. ’ I definitely married the right woman!” (5) For the next two years, Alden juggled mortgage payments and payments to his manufacturers. “Factories won’t ship your product till they get paid,” he says. “But it takes four or five months to get a mortgage company so upset that they knock on your door. So we paid the factory first.” (6) Gradually, non-snowboarders began to notice the colourful headphones. In 2006, the company started selling them in 1,400 FYE (For Your Entertainment) stores. “We knew that nine out often people walking into that store would be learning about Skullcandy for the first time. Why would they look at brands they knew and take home a new brand instead? We had agreed to buy back anything we didn’t sell, but we were dealing with huge numbers. It’d kill us to take back all the products.” (7) Alden’s fears faded as Skullcandy became the No. 1 headphone seller in those stores and tripled its revenue to $120 million in one year. His key insight was that headphones weren’t gadgets; they were a fashion accessory. “In the beginning,” he says, “that little white wire that said you had an iPod—that was cool. But now wearing the white bud means you’re just like everyone else. Headphones occupy this critical piece of cranial real estate and are highly visible.” (8) Today, Skullcandy is America’s second-largest headphone supplier, after Sony. With 79 employees, the company is bigger than Alden ever imagined.

(1) I was standing in my kitchen wondering what to have for lunch when my friend Taj called. (2) “Sit down,” she said. (3) I thought she was going to tell me she had just gotten the haircut from hell. I laughed and said, “It can’t be that bad.” (4) But it was. Before the phone call, I had 30 years of retirement saving in a “safe” fund with a brilliant financial guru（金融大亨）. When I put down the phone, my savings were gone. I felt as ifI had died and, for some unknown reason, was still breathing. (5) Since Bernie Madoff’s arrest on charges of running a $65 million Ponzi scheme, I’ve read many articles about how we investors should have known what was going on. I wish I could say I had reservations about Madoff before “the Call”, but I did not. (6) On New Year’s Eve, three weeks after we lost our savings, six of us Madoff people gathered at Taj’s house for dinner. As we were sitting around the table, someone asked, “If you could have your money back right now, bot it would mean giving up what you have learned by losing it, would you take the money or would you take what losing the money has given you?” (7) My husband was still in financial shock. He said, “I just want the money back.” I wasn’t certain where I stood. I knew that losing our money had cracked me wide open. I’d been walking around like what the Buddhists call a hungry ghost: always focused on the bite that was yet to come, not the one in my mouth. No matter how much I ate or had or experienced, it didn’t satisfy me, because I wasn’t really taking it in, wasn’t absorbing it. Now I was forced to pay attention. Still, I couldn’t honestly say that if someone had offered me the money back, I would turn it down. (8) But the other four all said that what they were seeing about themselves was incalculable, and they didn’t think it would have become apparent without the ground of financial stability being ripped out from underneath them. (9) My friend Michael said, “I’d started to get complacent. It’s as if the muscles of my heart started to atrophy （萎缩）. Now they’re awake, alive—and I don’t want to go back.” (10) These weren’t just empty words. Michael and his wife needed to take in boarders to meet their expenses. Taj was so broke that she was moving into someone’s garage apartment in three weeks. Three friends had declared bankruptcy and weren’t sure where or how they were going to live.

(1) In he 19th century, there used to be a model of how to be a good person. There are all these torrents of passion flowing through you. Your job, as captain of your soul, is to erect dams to keep these passions in check. Your job is to just say no to laziness, lust, greed, drug use and the other sins. (2) These days that model is of fashion. You usually can’t change your behaviour by simply resolving to do something. Knowing what to do is not the same as being able to do it. Your willpower is not like a dam that can block the torrent of self-indulgence. It’s more like a muscle, which tires easily. Moreover, you’re a social being. If everybody around you is overeating, you’ll probably do so, too. (3) The 19th-century character model was based on an understanding of free will. Today, we know that free will is bounded. People can change their lives, but ordering change is not simple because many things, even within ourselves, are beyond our direct control. (4) Much of our behaviour, for example, is guided by unconscious habits. Researchers at Duke University calculated that more than 40 percent of the actions we take are governed by habit, not actual decisions. Researchers have also come to understand the structure of habits—cue, routine, reward. (5) You can change your own personal habits. If you leave running shorts on the floor at night, that’ll be cue to go running in the morning. Don’t try to ignore your afternoon snack craving. Every time you feel the cue for a snack, insert another routine. Take a walk. (6) Their research thus implies a different character model, which is supposed to manipulate the neural（神经 系统）networks inside. (7) To be an effective person, under this model, you are supposed to coolly examine your own unconscious habits, and the habits of those under your care. You are supposed to devise strategies to alter the cues and routines. Every relationship becomes slightly manipulative, including your relationship with yourself. You’re trying to arouse certain responses by implanting certain cues. (8) This is a bit disturbing, because the important habitual neural networks are not formed by mere routine, nor can they be reversed by clever cues. They are burned in by emotion and strengthened by strong yearnings, like the yearnings for admiration and righteousness. (9) If you think you can change your life in a clever way, the way an advertiser can get you to buy an air freshener, you’re probably wrong. As the Victorians understood, if you want to change your life, don’t just look for a clever cue. Commit to some larger global belief.