2023 年 6 月大学英语四级考试真题（第 2 套）

Part I Writing (30 minutes)

Directions: Suppose the student union of your university is organizing an online discussion on
college students doing community service. You are to write an essay on its benefits and the
service you can provide to the community. You will have 30 minutes for the task. You should
write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words.

PartⅡ Listening Comprehension (25 minutes)

Section A
Directions: In this section, you will hear three news reports. At the end of each news report,
you will hear two or three questions. Both the news report and the questions will be spoken
only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices
marked A）, B), C) and D).Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single
line through the centre.

Questions 1 and 2 are based on the news report you have just heard.
1. A) She was involved in a conflict with bird lovers.
B) She was charged with mistreating animals.
C) She was on bad terms with her neighbors.
D) She was accused of violating a city law.
2. A) It will take time to solve the rat problem.
B) All wild animals should be well protected.
C) The woman was not to blame for the situation.
D) No one should go unpunished for violating law.

Questions 3 and 4 are based on the news report you have just heard.
3. A) Communicate with astronauts in Mars Dune Alpha.
B) Work in an environment resembling Mars.
C) Build a Martian habitat in Houston.
D) Send in applications before Friday.
4. A) Ready-made food.
B) Food that is organic.
C) Food they grow.
D) Potatoes mostly.

Questions 5 to 7 are based on the news report you have just heard.
5. A) He apologized for scratching an athlete’s gold medal.
B) He was asked to present a gold medal to Miu Goto.
C) He bit a softball player’s Olympic gold medal.
D) He attracted public attention at a media event.
6. A) Have another picture taken with the Olympic medalist.
B) Apologize to the International Olympic Committee.
C) Get the damaged medal repaired.
D) Pay for the cost of a new medal.
7. A) Allow no one to touch them.
B) See them as symbols of honor.
C) Treat them as treasures.
D) Keep them in a safe place.

Section B
Directions: In this section, you will hear two long conversations. At the end of each
conversation, you will hear four questions. Both the conversation and the questions will be
spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four
choices marked A），B），C)and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet
1 with a single line through the centre.
Questions 8 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
8. A) She covered its screen with a plastic sheet.
B) She connected it with her smart phone.
C) She decorated it with colorful stickers.
D) She bought some new software for it.
9. A) It may not be simply blue.
B) It includes unnatural light.
C) It is more harmful to young people.
D) It induces people to fall asleep.
10. A) He has had much trouble falling asleep.
B) He has had some sort of health problems.
C) He has stayed up playing computer games.
D) He has been burdened with excessive work.
11. A) Exposure to blue light is the chief cause of obesity.
B) Sleep may be more important than people assumed.
C) Sleep may also be negatively affected by natural light.
D) Overuse of electronic devices may cause heart disease.

Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

12. A) What they wanted to be when grown up.
B) What their favorite cartoon character was.
C) What they learned from computer games.
D) What they liked to do most after school.
13. A) A stock broker.
B) A pop singer.
C) A mechanical engineer.
D) A basketball player.
14. A) Ambitious.
B) Sensible.
C) Imaginative.
D) Practical.
15. A) Relax their strict control of their kids.
B) Help their kids understand themselves.
C) Impose their own dreams on their kids.
D) Dismiss their high expectations of their kids.

Section C
Directions: In this section, you will hear three passages. At the end of each passage, you will
hear three or four questions. Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After
you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C)
and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the
centre.
Questions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard.
16. A) Set up company branches.
B) Improve its infrastructure.
C) Introduce iPhones into its markets.
D) Promote Internet-ready phones.
17. A) They cater to Africans’ needs.
B) They are more expensive models.
C) They are more powerful and capable.
D) They boast the longest battery life.
18. A) A large touchscreen.
B) An old-school keypad.
C) A voice-response device.
D) A digitally-designed system.

Questions 19 to 21 are based on the passage you have just heard.

19. A) It ensured sustainable economic growth.
B) It was strongly opposed by manufacturers.
C) It was cheaper than using fossil fuel plastic.
D) It satisfied consumer demands on the whole.
20. A) The capacity to mass-produce it.
B) The U.S. federal government’s regulations.
C) A boom in market demand for clear plastic bottles.
D) A rapid increase in U.S. petroleum chemical production.
21. A) Require companies to use 30% of new plastic.
B) Increase the supply of new plastic in the market.
C) Reduce the amount of plastic pollution in local areas.
D) Take measures to promote the use of recycled plastic.
Questions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.
22. A) It studies dreams.
B) It rents a place for nap-takers.
C) It is a hotel for business people.
D) It is a nap research institute.
23. A) To find out creative people’s work performance.
B) To see how many people can go without napping.
C) To understand the obvious importance of napping.
D) To feel how difficult it is to get his idea across.
24. A) They decline due to pointless meetings.
B) They depend on his ability to concentrate.
C) They enable him to enjoy a creative career.
D) They are affected by the overuse of social media.
25. A) Some bosses associate napping with laziness.
B) Many office workers nap during work hours.
C) Some bosses can concentrate without napping.
D) Many of his friends daydream in the office.

Part III Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)

Section A
Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one
word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read
the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified
by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single
line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once．

Whether you’re just having a down day or a down period, taking a walk can instantly lift
your mood, especially when you go outdoors. Not only can walking make you less depressed,
but according to a new study, depression sufferers who took a 26 walk showed just as
much improvement in their 27 as people taking medicine. In fact, 60-70 percent of the
participants in the study could no longer even be 28 as depressed.
Bone density may not be one of the most exciting health benefits of walking, but it’s an
important one. People with stronger bones avoid osteoporosis (骨质疏松症) and all the
problems that 29 with it, like breaks and other disabilities. And the best way to get
strong, healthy bones is by doing weight-bearing exercises like running, dancing and walking,
according to a large study. But as regards bones, it’s 30 use it or lose it: To keep your
bones strong you have to keep exercising. The researchers found that adults who walked
regularly had better bone density throughout their lives than their 31 friends.
Taking a walk can be great for 32 your head or blowing off some steam. It also
provides a great opportunity to 33 with friends and family, far away from electronics and
other 34 at home. Even better, you set a powerful example because when they see you
35 the benefits of walking, they’ll be encouraged to walk more, too.
 A) accompany F) come K) inactive

B) approved G) daily L) occurrences

C) bond H) definitely M) reaping

D) classifield I) distractions N) symptoms

E) clearing J) exclusively O) typical

Section B
Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it.
Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph
from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each
paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter
on Answer Sheet 2.
A Club Where Lions Dance and Traditions Take Root
A) The first thing you notice in the staircase to the fourth-floor studio on Canal Street in
Manhattan, New York, is the measured thumping (嘭嘭声) coming from behind a metal
door. Just beyond the entrance, large lion masks were twisting and turning to the drum-beat.
On a recent Friday evening, the teenagers made their way across the studio floor as they
practiced Chinese lion dancing.
B) “You want to play in a circle,” Victor Fong, aged 24, told his students at the New York
Chinese Freemasons Athletic Club. “Take it slow and do it again.” The dance group, made
up of 60 members, performs throughout the year but was now preparing for its biggest
events, Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations, which will begin on Saturday and conclude
on February 15. Teenagers comprise about half of the group, many of whom began lion
dancing at the age of 14. About 100 current and past members of the dance group—which
has been performing since 1956—will be among the 220 groups marching through
Chinatown in Manhattan for the 18th Lunar New Year Parade on February 5.
C) Mr. Fong has been involved in the organization since he was 15 and began teaching lion
dancing three years ago. But the club also acts as a recreation center and safe haven (庇护
所) for teenagers, with video games readily available. As many as 20 students show up
after school. “The basic requirement for hanging out here is you have to learn how to lion
dance,” Mr. Fong said. While that is not a formal requirement for being a member, everyone
finds a way to participate in the Lunar New Year Parade, whether it’s by dancing, carrying
a flag or beating a drum.
D) Alvin Chau, aged 26, is an environmental consultant by day and a lion dancer on weekends.
He has been a club member for 10 years and joined because of an interest in lion dance.
“We’re a big family,” he said, shaking hands with other members as they walked through
the door. “You know everyone.”
E) It is believed that the lion dance began in the third century. Stories vary about how lion
dancing came to be, but most of them include a monster named Nian who would terrorize
a village. The villagers finally banded together and scared the beast away with firecrackers
 (爆竹) and drums. While lions are not native to China, some versions of the story include
the villagers creating a monster of their own in the shape of a lion to fight off the beast.
F) Today, the dancers travel across Chinatown going from business to business to bring good
luck for the coming year. The new year—according to the Chinese lunar calendar—will
begin on Saturday and marks the Year of the Rooster (鸡年), which is thought to be a
symbol of positivity. “It’s almost like the dark night is ending and the sun is coming up,”
said Ya Yung Teng, the digital collections coordinator for the Museum of Chinese in
America. “It’s hopeful that we’re going to have a new day.” Roosters and chickens are not
particularly strong creatures, Ms. Teng said, but they are numerous. “In a way,” she said,
the rooster “stands for ‘We the People.’”
G) The lion head and tail are operated by two people. As one person controls the head, a second
follows under a train of fabric representing the body. The dancers move in harmony as they
imitate the animal’s natural movements in the wild, including the aggressiveness of an
attack. A lion head figure weighs under 10 pounds and sits squarely on the dancer’s
shoulders. Inside, the dancer manipulates strings that open and close the lion’s eyes, shake
its ears and open its mouth to reveal a fire-orange tongue.
H) “A good lion dancer will imitate a living creature,” said Karlin Chan, aged 59, who heads
the athletic club’s community public relations. “I started lion dancing when I was a kid,”
he said. “Chinatown was much smaller then and it was a celebration with fireworks and
firecrackers, which added a lot of flavor and meaning to it.”
I) Mr. Chan buys a new lion head each year when he travels to China. A head costs about
$1,500. “If you want the good stuff, the quality, you have to see it for yourself,” he said.
“I’ll inspect the product before we put it in the container and ship it over.” Mr. Chan, who
has been involved with the club for nearly 50 years, said that passing the dance from one
generation to the next was vital. “You need to pass on the traditions and the culture, and
this is a part of our culture,” he said. “It’s a great way to promote cultural understanding
and exchange; we welcome that.”
J) For Sara Pore, aged 17, another club member, lion dance is more than just tradition; it
provides a creative outlet. “Lion dancing started 2,000 years ago—that’s incredible,” she
said. “But what makes you a competent lion dancer is that there’s a sense of imagination
involved. Lion dancing teaches competence in leadership because of this. You’re constantly
forced to push yourself past your limit.”
K) Back at rehearsal (排练), Justin Le, aged 18, tied a red ribbon around his waist to practice
jumping. The dancers use the ribbons to pull themselves up over their partners’ heads. The
room’s ceilings are too low to wear the lion heads for jumping practice, so once up on his
partner’s head, Mr. Le held out his arms as if in offering.
L) Mr. Le comes by the dance as a legacy (传承). “I was born into it,” Mr. Le said, noting that
his uncle and father were club members. “Growing up, I would always watch my family
and see the lion dance, and I slowly grew interested in it.” By the age of 14, he was fully
enrolled in the athletic club’s lion dance group. “I value my culture and tradition, being
Chinese or Asian-American. I have a lot of pride in that,” he said. “I want to contribute and
give back to the community.”
36. The lion dancers perform from door to door to bring New Year wishes to business people.
37. The New York dance club also serves as a place for entertainment where youngsters can
enjoy themselves safely.
38. Lion dancers need to have a little imagination to perform well.
39. There are a number of different versions about the origin of the lion dance.
40. Some 50% of the members of a New York lion dance club are teenagers.
41. One club member says he feels proud of his cultural tradition.
42. Two dancers coordinate their movements, one manipulating the lion’s head and the other
its body.
43. One lion dancer compares their New York dance club to a family.
44. Lion dance should be handed down to future generations as part of Chinese culture.
45. One lion dancer learned how to perform from his elders.

Section C
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions
or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D).
You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2
with a single line through the centre.

Passage One

Questions 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.

Team-building exercises have become popular for managers trying to increase

organisational and team harmony and productivity. Unfortunately many employees resent
compulsory bonding and often regard these exercises as a nuisance.
A paper published this week by University of Sydney researchers in Social Networks has
reported participants’ feelings about team-building interventions (干预), revealing ethical
implications in forcing employees to take part.
“Many people see team-building activities as a waste of time, so we decided to look in
more depth at what’s behind this,” said the paper’s lead researcher, Dr. Peter Matous.
“Teams are formed, combined and restructured. Staff are relocated and office spaces
redesigned. All this is done with the aim of improving workplace efficiency, collaboration and
cohesion. But does any of this work?” said Dr. Matous.
The study found that team-building exercises which focused on the sharing of and
intervening into personal attitudes and relationships between team members were considered
too heavy-handed and intrusive, although the researchers say some degree of openness and
vulnerability is often necessary to make deep, effective connections with colleagues.
“Some participants were against team-building exercises because they were implicitly
compulsory. They didn’t welcome management’s interest in their lives beyond their direct work
performance,” said Matous. “Many people don’t want to be forced into having fun or making
friends, especially not on top of their busy jobs. They feel management is being too nosy or
trying to control their lives too much.”
In this study the researchers recommended a self-disclosure (表露) approach where
participants were guided through a series of questions that allowed them to increasingly
disclose personal information and values. The method is well-tested and has been shown to
increase interpersonal closeness. However, to be successful it must be voluntary.
The researchers said there are numerous schools of thought that propose differing
psychological methods for strengthening relationships. “With caution, many relational methods
to improve teams and organisations can be borrowed from other fields. The question is how to
apply them effectively to strengthen an entire collective, which is more than just the sum of
individual relationships,” said Dr. Matous.

46. Why are many employees opposed to team-building exercises?

A) They consider such exercises annoying.
B) They deem these exercises counter-productive.
C) They see such exercises as harmful to harmony.
D) They find these exercises too demanding.
47. What did Dr. Matous and his team do to find out whether team-building activities would
improve productivity?
A) They relocated team leaders and their offices.
B) They rearranged the staff and office spaces.
C) They redesigned the staff ’s work schedules.
D) They reintroduced some cohesive activities.
48. What did the study by Matous’ team find about some team-building exercises?
A) They were intended to share personal attitudes and relationships.
B) They implicitly added to the vulnerability of team members.
C) They invariably strengthened connections among colleagues.
D) They were regarded as an intrusion into employees’ private lives.
49. How can the self-disclosure approach succeed in increasing interpersonal closeness?
A) By allowing participants freedom to express themselves.
B) By applying it to employees who volunteer to participate.
C) By arranging in proper order the questions participants face.
D) By guiding employees through a series of steps in team building.
50. What does Matous think of the various psychological methods borrowed from other fields
for strengthening relationships?
A) They must be used in combination for an entire collective.
B) They prioritise some psychological aspects over others.
C) They place too much stress on individual relationships.
D) They have to be applied cautiously to be effective.

Passage Two

Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.

There are close to 58,000 homeless people in Los Angeles county. That’s a shocking and
tragic number for a region that’s home to some of the richest people in the world. At last, the
problem became so acute—and so visible—that Los Angeles took extraordinary action. The
citizens of this county voted in November 2016 and again in March 2017 to raise their own
taxes. The purpose of such action is to fund an enormous multibillion-dollar, 10-year program
of housing and social services for the homeless.
As a result, Los Angeles now has its best chance in decades to combat homelessness. This
is an opportunity that surely all can agree must not be wasted. It is neither desirable nor morally
acceptable nor practical for this county to tolerate the signs of deprivation more commonly
associated with the slums (贫民窟) of Rio de Janiero.
How did we get here? For as long as there are homeless people, there is a tendency to
blame the victims themselves for their condition—to see their failure to thrive as an issue of
character, of moral weakness, of laziness. But contrary to popular belief, the homeless in Los
Angeles are not mostly mentally ill or drug addicted or frightening, although a sizable minority
meet some of those descriptions. Today, a greater and greater proportion of people living on
the streets are there because of bad luck or a series of mistakes, or because the economy forgot
them—they lost a job or were evicted (逐出) or fled an abusive marriage just as the housing
market was growing increasingly unforgiving.
The challenges are enormous, even if everyone is pulling in the same direction. That reality
was driven home this month by a new Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority report
showing that the county’s homeless population is growing faster than the supply of new housing.
In the world’s richest nation, homelessness on this scale should be shameful and shocking.
But most Los Angeles residents are no longer either shocked or shamed. Increasingly, we are
uncomfortable, annoyed, disgusted, scared or unaware. Compassion (同情心) is being replaced
by resignation.

51. Why did the citizens of Los Angeles vote to raise their own taxes?
A) To combat the county’s homelessness.
B) To reform the county’s service system.
C) To fund the development of local infrastructure.
D) To narrow the gap between the rich and the poor.
52. What do people tend to believe about the homeless?
A) They seldom meet the descriptions of homelessness.
B) They are the victims of fast economic development.
C) They are responsible for their own condition.
D) They account for the majority of drug addicts.
53. What is one of the causes for more and more people in Los Angeles to become homeless?
A) They find it increasingly difficult to afford a place to live.
B) The divorce rate in the county has been on a steady rise.
C) They have been compelled to take low-paying jobs.
D) The society fails to forgive them for their mistakes.
54. What do we learn from the new Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority report?
A) Supplying enough job opportunities for the homeless remains a challenge.
B) Everyone is pulling in the same direction to solve the homelessness problem.
C) The increase in new housing falls short of the demand of the growing homeless
population.
D) Los Angeles’ homeless condition is deteriorating faster than many people predict.
55. How do most Los Angeles residents now feel about homelessness?
 A) They are increasingly ashamed about its scale.
B) They find it no more scaring than it appears.
C) They are less and less indifferent to it.
D) They no longer find it shocking.

Part Ⅳ Translation (30 minutes)

Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to translate a passage from Chinese
into English. You should write your answer on Answer Sheet 2.

改革开放 40 多年以来，中国政府对高等教育越来越重视，高等教育已经进入稳步发展
阶段。高校学生总数已接近 4700 万人，位居世界第一。随着我国经济的快速发展，人民生
活水平不断提高，越来越多的人渴望接受高等教育。我国高校的数量和学科专业持续增加，
招生人数逐年上升，教学质量也在不断改进，为更多年轻人创造了接受高等教育的机会。