[外语类试卷]大学英语四级改革适用（听力）模拟试卷154

Section C

0 April is National Poetry Month in the United States. The Academy of American Poets started the【B1】______ in 1996. The goal was to help more Americans add poetry to their lives.

The academy chose April as National Poetry Month because of a【B2】______ in a poem. T.S. Eliot called April "the【B3】______ month" in his poem The Waste Land. And many Americans share the same view, for they must pay their income taxes by April 15th.

National Poetry Month brings together【B4】______, booksellers, poetry groups, libraries, schools and poets around the country. They【B5】______ people to write, read, and listen to poetry. In the southern state of Florida, the O, Miami Poetry Festival 【B6】______ bring a poem to every one of the 2.5 million people who live in the area. The group has dropped poems out of airplanes,【B7】______ clothes, and put them on every bus in the city.

Poetry is very popular in the United States. America even has a【B8】______ poet, known as the Poet Laureate(桂冠诗人). Robert Pinsky was the Poet Laureate from 1997 until 2000. He started the Favorite Poem Project, to【B9】______ which poems Americans liked best. Thousands of Americans wrote to Mr. Pinsky about their favorite poems. He chose 200 poems by poets from the United States and from many other countries. The poems are included in a book called Americans' Favorite Poems. It was【B10】______ by Robert Pinsky and Maggie Dietz.

1 【B1】

2 【B2】

3 【B3】

4 【B4】

5 【B5】

6 【B6】

7 【B7】

8 【B8】

9 【B9】

10 【B10】

10 Earth Hour is an annual global campaign that encourages people and businesses around the world to switch off【B1】______ at the same time for one hour. It started in Australia in 2007 when 2.2 million people in the city of Sydney turned off all non-essential lights for an hour. Since then it has grown to a【B2】______ global event. Every year well-known buildings around the world【B3】______ and "go dark" for Earth Hour.

Earth Hour is organised by the World Wide Fund for Nature(WWF). It was started by Andy Ridley,【B4】______ from Britain, who is executive director of Earth Hour Global, WWF. He【B5】______ the idea of Earth Hour because he wanted to 【B6】______ awareness of environmental issues by asking people to do something positive to help the planet. Switching off the lights for an hour can make a small difference to the 【B7】______ of energy we use, but Earth Hour is also a【B8】______ event to make people think about the problems of climate change.

Earth Hour is held worldwide annually from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. on the last Saturday in March. Reason for this is that the end of March is around the time of the spring and autumn equinoxes(春分；秋分 )in the northern and southern hemispheres(半球)【B9】______, so sunset times in both hemispheres are at similar times. This means that a global "lights out" event has most【B10】______ impact at this time of year.

11 【B1】

12 【B2】

13 【B3】

14 【B4】

15 【B5】

16 【B6】

17 【B7】

18 【B8】

19 【B9】

20 【B10】

20 Young people legally become adults at the age of 18. They can【B1】______ and sign contracts. But adulthood is more than a legal【B2】______. Many Americans do not really consider young people "adults" until they【B3】______ their parents' home and start a career.

These days, people in their 20s are often criticized for delaying adulthood. Yet some researchers say this criticism may be misplaced(错放). Jeffrey Jensen Arnett is a research professor of 【B4】______ at Clark University in Massachusetts. He studies people in their 20s—or "20-somethings." Mr. Arnett says 20-somethings today are different than their parents and grandparents were at that age. He says now that people stay in education longer, they get married later, they have their first child later, the 20s are a period of really trying out different 【B5】______ and moving from one thing to another. As a result, the 20s are no longer about【B6】______. Instead they are increasingly about【B7】______.

外语类试卷大学英语四级改革适用（听力）模拟试卷154.doc