2004专四口试真题

2004 TEM4 Oral English Test Paper

Task I: Retell a story

When she was 22 years old Pat Jones decided that she wanted to travel around the world and see as many foreign places as she could while she was young. When she finished college at home in Britain Pat chose to visit Latin America first, so she managed to get a job as an English teacher in a secondary school in Bolivia. Pat spoke a little Spanish, so she was able to communicate with her students even though they did not know much English. A sentence she had once read somewhere stuck in her mind: if you dream in a foreign language, it means that you have really mastered it. Pat repeated this sentence to her students and she hoped that someday she would dream in Spanish and they would dream in English. One day Tim, one of the worst students in her class, came up to her and explained in Spanish that he had not done his homework. He said that he had gone to bed early and had slept badly. Pat was quite angry with him, for she did not think that his explanation had anything to do with his homework. But Tim told her that he dreamed all night and his dream was in English. “In English!”Pat thought. She was greatly surprised, since Tim was such a bad student. She was also secretly jealous. Her dreams were still not in Spanish, but she decided to encourage her student and asked hi m to tell her about his dream. “All the pe ople in my dream spoke English,” Tim said. “And all the signs were in English. All the newspapers and magazines and all the TV programs were in Eng lish.” “But that’s wonderful,” said Pat. “What did all the people say to you?” she asked. “I’m sorry, Miss Jones. That’s why I slept so badl y all through the night. I didn’t understand a word they said. It was a nightmare!” Tim answered. (324 words)

Task II: Talk based on a given topic

Describe one of the most unpleasant dreams you’ve ever had.

Task III: Role-play

Student A: Nowadays higher education is getting more and more expensive. To quite a number of families it has become a big financial burden. You try to discuss this problem with student B. You think that parents should pay tuition for their children since college students do not yet have any regular income.

Student B: Nowadays higher education is getting more and more expensive. To quite a number of families, it has become a big financial burden. You try to discuss this problem with student A. Your opinion is that it is unfair to put this big burden on parents since college students are already adults. Students themselves should find ways to pay their own tuitions.