2015月6月大学英语四级考试试题及答案解析_第8页

　　Passage Three

　　One of the greatest heartbreaks for firefighters occurs when they fail to rescue a child from a burning building because the child—frightened by smoke and noise—hides under a bed or in a closet and is later found dead.

　　Saddest of all is when children catch a glimpse of the masked firefighter but hide because they think they have seen a monster.

　　To prevent such tragedies, firefighter Eric Velez gives talks to children in his community, explaining that they should never hide during a fire. He displays firefighters’ equipment, including the oxygen mask, which he encourages his listeners to play with and put on. “If you see us,” Velez tells them, “don’t hide. We are not monsters. We have come to rescue you.”

　　Velez gives his presentations in English and Spanish. Growing up in San Francisco, he learned Spanish from his immigrant parents.

　　Velez—and other firefighters throughout North America who give similar presentations—will never know how many lives they save through their talks, but it’s a fact that informative speaking saves lives. For example, several months after listening to an informative speech, Pete Gentry in North Carolina rescued his brother, who was choking on food, by using the method taught by student speaker Julie Parris.

　　In addition to saving lives, informative speakers help people learn new skills, solve problems, and acquire fascinating facts about the exciting world in which they live.

　　Questions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.

　　22. Why do some children trapped in a burning building hide from masked firefighters?

　　23. What does the passage tell us about firefighter Eric Velez?

　　24. What do we learn about Pete Gentry?

　　25. What message is the speaker trying to convey?

　　Section C

　　Directions: In this section, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read for the first time, you should listen carefully for its general idea. When the passage is read for the second time, you are required to fill in the blanks with the exact words you have just heard. Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, you should check what you have written.

　　Almost every child, on the first day he setsfoot in a school building, is smarter, more (26) curious, less afraid of what he doesn’t know, better at finding and (27) figuring things out, more confident, resourceful(机敏的), persistent and (28) independent than he will ever be again in his schooling – or, unless he is very unusual and very lucky, for the rest of his life. Already, by paying close attention to and (29) interacting with the world and people around him, and without any school-type formal instruction, he has done a task far more difficult, complicated and (30) abstract than anything he will be asked todo in school, or than any of his teachers has done for years. He has solved the(31) mystery of language. He has discovered it – babies don’t even know that language exists – and he has found out how it works and learned to use it (32) appropriately. He has done it by exploring, by experimenting, by developing his own model of the grammar of language, by (33) trying it out and seeing whether it works, by gradually changing it and (34) refining it until it does work. And while he has been doing this, he has been learning other things as well, including many of the (35) “concepts” that the schools think only they can teach him, and many thatare more complicated than the ones they do try to teach him.