2025 年 12 月大学英语四级考试真题（第 3 套）

Earth Day is an annual celebration that honors the achievements of the environmental movement and raises awareness of the need to protect Earth's natural resources for future generations. Earth Day is celebrated on April 22 in the United States and on either April 22 or the day the spring equinox (春分) occurs throughout the ___26___ of the world.

Environmental activism during the 1960s ___27___ Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson to create a ___28___ celebration uniting the environmental movement. With the help of Denis Hayes, a graduate student at Harvard University, Nelson organized the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, educating participants in the ___29___ of environmental protection. Attended by 20 million people across the United States, the event ___30___ support for legislation such as the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act.

In 1990, Hayes organized a global Earth Day, with more than 200 million participants in 140 countries. Earth Day now brings ___31___ citizens and activists from around the world to raise awareness and take action regarding such environmental ___32___ as global warming and renewable energy.

Today, the Earth Day Network, which rallies more than 20,000 ___33___ and organizations in 190 countries, supports the Earth Day mission year-round. This mission is founded on the proposition that all people, regardless of race, gender, income, or ___34___, have a moral right to a healthy, sustainable environment. The Earth Day Network ___35___ this mission through education, public policy, and activism campaigns.

New York's Eleven Madison Park became the first vegan restaurant to receive three Michelin stars, the highest rating a restaurant can achieve. The award, in the 2024 Michelin guide, was a major milestone for plant-based dining.

Eleven Madison Park was founded in 1998 and became one of the world's most celebrated restaurants, earning three Michelin stars in 2017 for its lavish tasting menus featuring high-end ingredients like lobster and duck. In 2021, chef Daniel Humm made the dramatic decision to remove all animal products from the menu, a move that shocked the fine dining world.

Humm said he wanted to help build a more sustainable food system. He believed the current food system, with its heavy reliance on animal agriculture, was not sustainable. "We knew this was going to be the hardest thing we've ever done," Humm said. "But even if we fail, it was worth trying."

The restaurant lost its three-star rating following the switch to a fully plant-based menu. Michelin's 2022 New York guide awarded Eleven Madison Park only one star but praised the restaurant's "bold and forward-thinking vision" for the future of fine dining.

However, the restaurant persisted, and the gamble paid off. In 2024, Michelin restored all three stars, making Eleven Madison Park the first vegan restaurant in the world to achieve this distinction. Gwendal Poullennec, the international director of the Michelin Guides, said the award was "a recognition of the increasing importance of plant-based cuisine in the fine dining world."

Genetic tests are being used for a growing number of purposes, from diagnosing diseases to finding out about our ancestors. But how accurate are these tests? And what does accuracy even mean in this context? There are important things to understand about genetic testing accuracy.

The accuracy of a genetic test depends on the specific question being asked and how complex the genetics behind a trait are. For relatively simple genetic conditions where a single gene is responsible, tests tend to be quite reliable. For example, tests for conditions like cystic fibrosis (囊性纤维化) or sickle cell disease (镰状细胞病) are generally very accurate because we understand the genetic basis of these diseases well.

However, for most common diseases, the picture is more complicated. Conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and most cancers are influenced by hundreds of genes, each contributing a small amount of risk. They are also affected by environmental factors and lifestyle choices. For these multi-factorial conditions, genetic health tests can only identify a fraction of the potential disease risk on their own.

What makes genetic tests for multi-factorial traits particularly tricky to interpret is the interaction between genes. Even if we know that hundreds of genes are involved in a trait, predicting how those genes will interact with each other is extremely difficult. The combined effect of multiple genes is not simply the sum of their individual effects.

Some companies also offer DNA tests that claim to predict personality traits, athletic ability, or even help you find a romantic partner. At present, using DNA to predict such complex traits does not have a solid scientific basis. The genetics behind personality and talents involve thousands of genes and complex environmental interactions, making any predictions essentially meaningless with current technology.