2020年9月大学英语四级考试听力原文及参考答案
【News report one】
A NASA satellite orbiting over Portugal took photographs that reveal the effects of pollution from ships. One of the photos shows a thin film of clouds above the brilliant blue of the north Atlantic, cut by white lines of thicker clouds that look like scars. (1) NASA officials explained those thicker clouds are signs of ship traffic below when ships power their way through the ocean, they pump exhaust into the atmosphere. Just as cars do.
And those massive amounts of particles can cause clouds to form, get enough of those particles in one place as from the exhaust of a ship. And they can lead to the creation of new clouds easily visible from space. These clouds can be huge. Some of them stretch hundreds of kilometers from end to end. (2) NASA officials said it's likely that these sorts of clouds are having some effect on the global climate, according to NASA officials.
But scientists aren't yet sure what effect it has. questions one and two are based on the news report you have just heard.
Question 1 What has caused the thick clouds in the photos taken by a NASA satellite? Question 2 What do NASA officials think about the thick clouds?
【News report two】
Staff at a suburban supermarket in Melbourne say they feel unsafe at work after security guards were removed. This came after a series of physical attacks and verbal abuse by customers. (3) More than 50 workers at the store have signed a letter calling for a permanent security guard following a series of incidents, including a customer threatening to attack a supervisor with a knife. A security worker had guard at the storm each night from seven pm until 12 am.
But that had stopped suddenly on Monday, employees said. One worker said an
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angry customer had thrown a chicken at his head after complaining about how long she had waited to be served. Another worker said the lack of protection at the storm made her feel uncomfortable at work. (4) However, the spokesman of the supermarket said the store had taken strong action in response to incidents. We have found very few instances of bad customer behavior at our store in the past year. In the rare cases, we have seen bad behavior. We have taken strong action in response, including banning a customer from the store.
Question 3 For what purpose did this staff at a supermarket in Melbourne sign a letter? Question 4 What did the spokesman of the supermarkets say regarding the employees demand?
【New report three】
(5) Drivers on their way to the polish capital of Warsaw on Wednesday morning found the road blocked by an unusual obstacle. Tons of liquid chocolate that spilled onto the motorway. A truck carrying the sweet load hit a road barrier and overturned, blocking two lanes. (6) The cracked tank spilled a pool of a rapidly hardening chocolate, which quickly covered the width of the road, while the driver was taken to hospital with a broken arm, firefighters struggled to remove a reported 12 tons of solid chocolate from the road. (7) A representative for the firefighters told the local TV that removing the chocolate was worse than dealing with snow. After contacting the chocolate manufacturer, the firefighters resorted to spraying hot, pressurized water to get rid of the sticky substance. The local TV also noted that the cleanup spanned more than a Mile because drivers simply drove through the chocolate after the crash, leaving a long chocolate trail. But despite the sticky situation, firefighters and police attending to the cleanup were reportedly cheerful about the long task ahead. After all, who could be mad about 12 tons of chocolate?
Question 5 What does drivers on the motorway to Warsaw find? Question 6 What does the report say about the accident?
Question 7 What are the firefighters representative tell the local TV?
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【Conversation one】
M: Lisa, why did you pay for your meal with cash instead of the payment apps on your phone?
W: Well, I’ve gone back to cash. I’m only using payment apps if that’s the only option. [8]I am trying to save money for a new phone. And I find that using cash rather than payment apps helps me to save.
M: But how? Money is money, isn’t it? I don’t think it matters whether you take it out of the bank and put it in your wallet will simply transfer from your bank account to the seller’s bank account using an app.
W: No, I believe it does matter. It’s a psychological phenomenon. [9] I believe we have less connection with the value of our money when we just have the approved buttons on our phones.
M: You might have a point. Since I stopped carrying cash around and started using my phone apps to pay, [10] I may have developed a tendency to buy more small or nonessential items.
W: That’s highly possible. Think about the amount of time we spend with our phones in our hands and all the things we do with our phones. It sometimes seems that our phone is buying the product for us, not ourselves. M: [11] So cashless payment affects our ability to budget?
W: I believe so. If we spend a hundred yuan in cash, we realize that we don’t have that hundred yuan to spend on something else. But if we’re spending electronically, we are less likely to make that mental calculation.
M: I stopped using my credit card because I found out spending excessively, perhaps I should take the same approach of paying using my phone. W: It’s worth considering.
Questions 8 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard. Question 8. Why did the woman decide to go back to cash for payment?
Question 9. What happens when people use that for payment according to the woman?
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2020年9月大学英语四级考试听力原文及参考答案
