2017年英语专业四级考试真题及答案解析

(1) When I was a young girl living in Ireland, I was always pleased when it rained, because that meant I could go treasure hunting. What’s the connection between a wet day and a search for buried treasure? Well, it’s quite simple. Ireland, as some of you may already know, is the home of Leprechauns—little men who possess magic powers and, perhaps more interestingly, pots of gold. (2) Now, although Leprechauns are interesting characters, I have to admit that I was more interested in the stories of their treasure hoard. This, as all of Ireland knows, they hide at the end of the rainbow. Leprechauns can be fearsome folk but if you can discover the end of the rainbow, they have to unwillingly surrender their gold to you. So whenever it rained, I would look up in the sky and follow the curve of the rainbow to see where it ended. I never did unearth any treasure, but I did spend many happy, showery days dreaming of what I could do with the fortune if I found it. (3) As I got older, and started working, rainy days came to be just another nuisance and my childhood dreams of finding treasure faded. But for some people the dream of striking it lucky never fades, and for a fortunate few, the dream even comes true! Such is the case of Mel Fisher. His dream of finding treasure also began in childhood, while reading the great literature classics “Treasure Island” and “Moby Dick”. However, unlike me, he chased his dream and in the end managed to become one of the most famous professional treasure hunters of all time, and for good reason. In 1985, he fished up the priceless cargo of the sunken Spanish ship Atocha, which netted him an incredible 400 million dollars! (4) After the ship sank in 1622 off the coast of Florida, its murky waters became a treasure- trove （埋藏的宝 藏） of precious stones, gold bars and silver coins known as “pieces of eight”. The aptly-named Fisher, who ran a commercial salvaging operation, had been trying to locate the underwater treasure for over 16 years when he finally hit the jackpot! His dreams had come true but finding and keeping the treasure wasn’t all plain sailing. After battling with hostile conditions at sea, Fisher then had to battle in the courts. In fact, the State of Florida took Fisher to court over ownership of the find and the Federal government soon followed suit. After more than 200 hearings, Fisher agreed to donate 20% of his findings for public display, and so now there is a museum in Florida which displays hundreds of the objects which were salvaged from the Atocha. (5) This true story seems like a modern-day fairytale: a man pursues his dream through hardship and in the end, he triumphs over the difficulties—they all live happily ever after, right? Well, not exactly. Archaeologists object to the fact that with commercial salvaging operations like Fisher’s, the objects are sold and dispersed, and UNESCO are also worried about protecting our underwater heritage from what it describes as “pillaging”（ 抢 劫 、 掠 夺 ） . (6) The counter-argument is that in professional, well-run operations such as Fisher’s, each piece is accurately and minutely recorded and that it is this information which is more important than the actual object, and that such operations help increase our wealth of archaeological knowledge.indeed, as in Fisher’s case, they make history more accessible to people through museum donations and information on web sites. (7) The distinction of whether these treasure hunters are salvaging or pillaging our underwater heritage may not be clear, but what is clear is that treasure hunting is not just innocent child’s play anymore but profitable big business. I have learnt that the end of the rainbow is beyond my reach, but in consolation, with just a click of the mouse, I too can have a share in the riches that the Atocha has revealed. As Friedrich Nietzsche so wisely said: “Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge.”

(1) Paul was dissatisfied with himself and with everything. The deepest of his love belonged to his mother. When he felt he had hurt her, or wounded his love for her, he could not bear it. Now it was spring and there was battle between him and Miriam, his girlfriend. This year he had a good deal against her. She was vaguely aware of it. The old feeling that she was to be sacrifice to this love, which she had had when she prayed, was mingled in all her emotions. She did not at the bottom believe she ever would have him. She did not believe in herself primarily: doubted whether she could ever be what he would demand of her. Certainly she never saw herself living happily through a lifetime with him. She saw tragedy, sorrow, and sacrifice ahead. And in sacrifice she was proud, in renunciation she was strong, for she did not trust herself to support everyday life. She was prepared for the big things and the deep things, like tragedy. It was the sufficiency of the small day-life she could not trust. (2) The Easter holidays began happily. Paul was his own frank self. Yet she felt it would go wrong. On the Sunday afternoon she stood at her bedroom window, looking across at the oak trees of the wood, in whose branches a twilight was tangled, below the bright sky of the afternoon. Grey-green rosettes of honeysuckle leaves hung before the window, some already, she fancied, showing bud. It was spring, which she loved and dreaded. (3) Hearing the clack of the gate she stood in suspense. It was a bright grey day. Paul came into the yard with his bicycle, which glittered as he walked. Usually he rang his bell and laughed towards the house. Today he walked with shut lips and cold, cruel bearing, that had something of a slouch and a sneer in it. She knew him well by now, and could tell from keen-looking what was happening inside him. There was a cold correctness in the way he put his bicycle in its place, that made her heart sink. (4) She came downstairs nervously. She was wearing a new net blouse that she thought became her. It had a high collar with a tiny ruff, making her, she thought, look wonderfully a woman, and dignified. At twenty she was full-breasted and luxuriously formed. Her face was still like a soft rich mask, unchangeable. But her eyes, once lifted, were wonderful. She was afraid of him. He would notice her new blouse. (5) He, being in a hard, ironical mood, was entertaining the family to a description of a service given in the Primitive Methodist Chapel. He sat at the head of the table, his mobile face, with the eyes that could be so beautiful, shining with tenderness or dancing with laughter, now taking on one expression and then another, in imitation of various people he was mocking. His mockery always hurt her; it was too near the reality. He was too clever and cruel. She felt that when his eyes were like this, hard with mocking hate, he would spare neither himself nor anybody else. But Miriam’s mother was wiping her eyes with laughter, and her father, just awake from his Sunday nap, was rubbing his head in amusement. The three brothers sat with ruffled, sleepy appearance in their shirt-sleeves, giving a guffaw from time to time. The whole family loved a “take-off” more than anything.

(1) I’ve written this article and you’re reading it. So we are members of the same club. We’re both literate — we can read and write. And we both probably feel that literacy is essential to our lives. But millions of people all over the world are illiterate. Even in industrialised Western countries, such as the UK and the the USA, approximately 20% of the population have “low literacy levels”. But what exactly does that mean? (2) My parents both left school at 14. They could read and write, but except for a quick look at the daily newspaper, reading and writing didn’t play a big part in their lives. There were very few books in the house. My mother was amazed because the woman who lived next door always wrote a list of what she needed before she went to the supermarket. Why couldn’t she remember? We laughed about that for weeks. Our family didn’t write lists! And when I was only 14 years old my father gave me an important letter that he’d written to the bank and asked me to check it for grammar and spelling mistakes. And there were quite a lot. He never usually wrote letters or postcards or even Christmas cards. So when he had to write he wasn’t comfortable or confident. Does that mean that my father had a “low level of literacy”? I don’t think so. (3) There are lots of different definitions of literacy. Some experts define it as having the reading and writing skills that you need to be independent in your everyday life. So, for example, if you can read instructions, write a cheque, fill in a form—anything that you need to do in everyday life—then you are “functionally literate”. (4) Other people say that you are illiterate if you think that you are illiterate. In other words, if you feel that you can’t read or write as well as you would like to. (5) If you live in a society where most people are literate, then you will feel ashamed or embarrassed and avoid situations in which you have to read or write. The father of a friend of mine finally admitted to his family that he couldn’t read when he was 45 years old. He bought the newspaper every day and pretended to read it —and believe it or not, his family had no idea. (6) We often forget that writing is a recent invention. Many years ago, the word “literate” meant being able to communicate well in speaking, in other words what we now call “articulate” . Story telling was an important activity in the past and still is today in some societies. Reading was often a co-operative activity—someone would read aloud to a group, often from a religious text such as the Koran or the Bible. (7) Only a hundred years ago, in the United States, you were considered to be literate if you could sign your name to a piece of paper. It was an important skill. You were not allowed to vote if you couldn’t sign the voting register, so literacy was connected with political rights, and many people were excluded from the democratic process. (8) Nowadays we see reading and writing as being connected, but that wasn’t so in the past. Many people could read, but not write. Writing was a skilled profession. If you needed something written then you paid an expert to write it for you. (9) And of course, rich and important people have always employed people to write things for them. Important company bosses dictated letters to their secretaries or personal assistants. And now with new computer software you can dictate directly to your computer. (10) Being illiterate can have a big effect on people’s lives. For example, a study in the UK showed that people who write and spell badly are seen as careless, immature and unreliable, and often unintelligent. So it is more difficult for them to find jobs, even when reading and writing are not necessary for the work. (11) World wide statistics show that literacy problems are associated with poverty and a lack of political power. More women than men are illiterate. Illiterate people have worse health, bigger families and are more likely to go to prison. So literacy campaigns must be a good thing. But don’t forget that an illiterate person, or someone with a low level o literacy, isn’t necessarily stupid or ignorant, and may not be unhappy at all. Knowledge and wisdom isn’t only found in writing.