12月英语六级听力真题原文
2017年12月英语六级听力原文 （第二套） Conversation-1 W: You are going to give a short speech of thanks for the speaker this evening, aren’t you, Bill M: Yes. W: You don’t sound very enthusiastic. It’s not that bad, is it M: No, I don’t mind, really. But I can never forget the first speech of thanks I did. W: Why What happened M: Well, I was in my early twenties. I joined the local history society. W: Yes M: Anyway, I went along to a lecture by a Miss Bligh. W: Oh. Do go on. M: She was going to talk with slides about our town in the mid-18th century. She had just published a book on the subject which was reckoned to be quite good. So I went along. When I arrived, the secretary asked me if I could give the speech of thanks. Rather stupidly, I said yes. W: We’ve all done it. M: Anyway, from that point on, I was scared. What should I say I decided to make notes during the lecture and refer to interesting parts and thank her on behalf of the society. In fact, by the time Miss Bligh stood up to talk, I was feeling much better. But she was so nervous that she kept forgetting what to say, and she spoke almost in a whisper. People at the back kept calling out “We can’t hear.” It was embarrassing. W: I can imagine it. M: At least the slides were good, that is, until the bulb in the projector blew. And she had to finish her talk with no illustrations. W: So what did you say in your speech of thanks M: What can you say You have be polite. I mentioned the interesting facts, referred to the excellent slides, and the finished by saying “We’d all like to thank Miss Bligh for blowing out her slides.” W: Oh, no. M: I felt terrible. I tried to apologize, not very successfully. W: And the speech of thanks this evening M: I’ll write down exactly what I’m going to say and read it carefully. 1. What is the man asked to do this evening 2. What do we learn about the man 3. What does the man say about Miss Bligh 4. What does the man say about the first time he gave a speech of thanks Conversation-2 W: Another cup of tea, Paul M: No, thanks. Well, what’s new, Laurie W: Nothing dramatic. But there is something you should know about. M: What’s that W: Well, our rivals are offering extended credit terms to some of the retailers in the area. M: Oh Which rival is this We only have two. W: Barratts Company. M: Oh, them. Well, they are hardly a threat. W: I know they are smaller than us, but we can’t afford to ignore them. M: Yes, you are right, Laurie. But I don’t like extended credit. It ties up cash we could put to better use elsewhere. But, I’ll look into it on Monday. W: Yes. And there is something else. M: Don’t tell me! The letter from the tax revenue office W: Right. How did you know M: Tara told me. What’s the problem W: Well. Tome got this letter late yesterday and then went frantic trying to find copies of last year’s accounts. M: Did he find them W: No. And he was away before I could get hold of the letter. M: How about a drive down to the office now And we’ll see if everything’s all right. There’s another reason why I wanted a chat with you before Monday. W: I thought as much. Well, go on. Surprise me. M: How about selling that new motorcycle of yours in Indonesia W: What You mean export Paul, I think you’ve been away too long. This is Jayal Motors. We’ve never sold a bike abroad. M: Don’t worry, Laurie. I’m not crazy. I’ve been studying the possibility and I think we should give it a go. W: It’s not as easy as that, though, is it We’ll have to reorganize the whole company. M: Don’t be silly. I don’t intend starting next week. We’d have to plan it properly. Of course, there will be a few problems. W: A few problems I can see hundreds. For one thing, transport. I have enough trouble delivering bikes to shops only 40 miles away, never mind 5,000 miles! M: That’s what forwarding agents are for. 5. What does the woman think the man should know 6. What does the woman think of Barrats Company. 7. What did the woman say about the letter from the tax revenue office 8. What is the man think of doing Passage 1 A report on sleep and nutrition released this month found that people who consistently went to bed earlier than 11 . took in fewer calories and ate more healthy food. In contrast, “night owls” who go to bed between 11 . and 3 . tend to consume more coffee, alcohol, refined sugars and processed meats than early risers. This report corresponds with the existing scientific literature on bedtime and wellness. The relationship between geeing more sleep and making better food choices is well-documented. A study published last year in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that people who sleep more tend to eat less unhealthy food than their peers who don’t get much rest. And a 2015 study from the University of California, Berkeley, found that teens who go to bed late are more likely to gain weight over a five-year period. As a group, “night owls” types tend to eat less healthy food and take in more calories overall than early risers. The later one goes to bed, the more calories one records the next day. As yet a challenge to explain the cause-and-effect relationship between sleep and nutrition, there may be a third factor that impacts both of them. Or the relationship could be reversed, that is, people who eat less fall asleep earlier. Still, if late sleepers want to lose a few pounds, they can go to bed earlier than they usually do, thereby, reducing their chance of taking snacks before bedtime. do we learn about the report released this month 10. What does the study from the University of California, Berkeley, find about teens who go to bed late 11. What should “night owls” do to reduce their consumption of unhealthy food Passage 2 Researchers have found not just a diversity problem in Hollywood but actually an inclusion crisis.
英语考级-2022.12六级真题第1套听力原文
[00:00.71]College English Test Band6<ch>大学英语六级考试[00:03.66]PartⅡListening Comprehension<ch>第二部分听力理解[00:06.33]Section A Directions:In this section,you will hear two long conversations.<ch>A节说明：在本节中，你将听到两篇长对话。
[00:12.01]At the end of each conversation,you will hear four questions.<ch>在每一篇对话的最后，你将会听到四个问题。
[00:15.60]Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once.<ch>对话和问题均播放一遍。
[00:19.84]After you hear a question,you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A),B),C)and D).<ch>听到问题后，你需要从A)、B)、C)和D)四个选项中选出最佳答案。
[00:27.41]Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet1with a single line through the centre.<ch>然后将相应的答案涂在答题卡1上。
[00:33.00]Conversation One<ch>对话一[00:35.65]M:How's your dissertation going?<ch>男：你的论文进展如何？[00:37.87]I'm proofreading my first draft and will submit it to my professor tomorrow.<ch>我正在校对我的初稿，明天会提交给我的教授。
2018年12月英语六级真题及答案解析和听力原文(卷一)
2018年12月英语六级真题及答案解析和听力原文（卷一）2018年12月英语六级真题（卷一）Part I Writing (30 minutes)For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay on how to balance academic study and extracurricular activities. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.Part II Listening Comprehension (25 minutes)Section ADirections: In this section, you will hear two long conversations. At the end of each conversation, you will hear four questions. Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.Questions 1 to 4 are based on the conversation you have just heard.1.A)It can benefit professionals and non-professionals alike.B)It lists the various challenges physicists are confronting.C)It describes how some mysteries of physics were solved.D)It is one of the most fascinating physics books ever written.2.A)Physicists’ contribution to humanity.B)Stories about some female physicists. C)Historical evolution of modern physicists.D)Women’s changing attitudes to physics.3.A)By exposing a lot of myths in physics.B)By describing her own life experiences. C)By including lots of fascinating knowledge.D)By telling anecdotes about famous professors.4.A) It avoids detailing abstract concepts of physics.B)It contains a lot of thought-provoking questions.C)It demonstrates how they can become physicists.D)It provides experiments they can do themselves.Questions 5 to 8 are based on the conversation you have just heard.5.A)He is too busy to finish his assignment in time.B)He does not know what kid of topic to write on.C)He does not understand the professor’s instructions.D)He has no idea how to proceed with his dissertation.6.A)It is too broad. B)It is outdated. C)It is challenging. D)It is interesting.7.A)Biography. B)Nature. C) Photography. D)Beauty.8.A)Improve his cumulative grade.B)Develop his reading ability. C)Stick to the topic assigned.D)List the parameters first.Section BDirections: In this section, you will hear two passages. At the end of each passage, you will hear three or four questions. Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.Questions 9 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard.9.A)The unprecedented high temperature in Greenland.B)The collapse of ice on the northern tip of Greenland.C)The unusual cold spell in the Arctic area in October.D)The rapid change of Arctic temperature within a day.10.A)It has created a totally new climate pattern.B)It will pose a serious threat to many species.C)It typically appears about once every ten years.D)It has puzzled the climate scientists for decades.11.A)Extinction of Arctic wildlife.B)Iceless summers in the Arctic. C)Emigration of indigenous people.D)Better understanding of ecosystems.Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.12.A)A good start. B)A detailed plan. C)A strong determination. D)A scientific approach.13.A)Most people get energized after a sufficient rest.B)Most people tend to have finite source of energy.C)It is vital to take breaks between demanding mental tasks.D)It is most important to have confidence in one’s willpower.14.A)They could keep on working longer. C)They found it easier to focus on work at hand.B)They could do more challenging tasks. D)They held more positive attitudes toward life.15.A)They are part of their nature.B)They are subject to change.C)They are related to culture.D)They are beyond control.Section CDirections: In this section, you will hear three recordings of lectures or talks followed by three or four questions. The recordings will be played only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through centre.Questions 16 to 18 are based on the recording you have just heard.16.A)About half of current jobs might be automated.B)The jobs of doctors and lawyers would be threatened.C)The jobs market is becoming somewhat unpredictable.D)Machine learning would prove disruptive by 2013.17.A)They are widely applicable for massive open online courses.B)They are now being used by numerous high school teachers.C)They could read as many as 10000 essays in a single minute.D)They could grade high-school essays just like human teacher.18.A)It needs instructions throughout the process.B)It doses poorly on frequency, high-volume tasks.C) It has to rely on huge amounts of previous data.D) It is slow when it comes to tracking novel things.Questions 19 to 22 are based on the recording you have just heard.19.A)The engineering problems with solar power.B)The generation of steam with the latest technology.C)The importance of exploring new energy sources.D)The theoretical aspects of sustainable energy.20.A)Drive trains with solar energy.B)Upgrade the city’s train facilities. C)Build a new ten-kilometre railway line.D)Cut-down the city’s energy consumption.21.A)Build a tank for keeping calcium oxide.B)Find a new material for storing energy. C)Recover super-heated steam.D)Collect carbon dioxide gas.22.A)The lack of supervision by both the nation and local government.B)The impact of the current economics crisis at home and abroad.C)The poor management of day centres and home help services.D)The poor relation between national heath and social care services.Questions 23 to 25 are based on the recording you have just heard.23.A)It was mainly provided by voluntary services.B)It mainly caters to the need of privileged.C)It called for a sufficient number of volunteers.D)It has deteriorated over the past sixty years.24.A)Their longer lifespans.B)Fewer home helpers available. C)Their preference for private services.D)More of them suffering serious illness.25.A)They are unable to pay for health services.B)They have long been discriminated against.C)They are vulnerable to illness and diseases.D)They have contributed a great deal to society.Part ⅢReading Comprehension （40 minutes）Section ADirections: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.Surfing the Internet during class doesn't just steal focus from the educator, it also hurts students who're already struggling to 26 the material . A new study from Michigan State University, though, argues that all students -- including high achievers -- see a decline in performance when they browse the Internet during class for non-academic purposes.To measure the effects of Internet-based distractions during class researchers 27 500 students taking an introductory psychology class at Michigan State University. Researchers used ACT scores as a measure of intellectual 28 . Because previous research has shown that people with high intellectual abilities are better at 29 out distractions, researchers believed students with high ACT scores would not show a 30 decrease in performance due to theiruse of digital devices. But students who surfed the web during class did worse on their exams regardless of their ACT scores, suggesting that even the academically smartest students are harmed when they’re distracted in class.College professors are increasingly 31 alarm bells about the effects smartphones laptops, and tablets have on academic performance.One 2013 study of college students found that 80% of students use their phones or laptops during class, with the average student checking their digital device 11 times in a 32 class.A quarter of students report that their use of digital devices during class causes their grades to 33 . Professors sometimes implement policies designed to 34 students' use of digital devices, and some instructors even confiscate tablets and phones. In a world where people are increasingly dependent on their phones, though, such strategies often fail. One international study found that 84% of people say they couldn't go a day without their smartphones. Until students are able to 35 the pull of social networking, texting, and endlessly surfing the web, they may continue to struggle in their classes.A)aptitudeB) eradicationC) evaluated D) evaporatedE)filteringF)graspG)legacyH)minimizeI)obscureJ) obsessK) raisingL)resistM) significantN) sufferO) typicalSection BDirections: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.Resilience Is About How You Recharge, Not How You Endure[A] As constant travelers and parents of a 2-year-old, we sometimes fantasize about how much work we can do when one of us gets on a plane, undistracted by phones, friends, or movies. We race to get all our ground work done: packing, going through security, doing a last-minute work call, calling each other, then boarding the plane. Then, when we try to have that amazing work session in flight, we get nothing done. Even worse, after refreshing our email or reading the same studies over and over, we are too exhausted when we land to soldier on with（继续处理）the emails that have inevitably still piled up.[B] Why should flying deplete us? We’re just sitting there doing nothing. Why can’t we be tougher, more resilient（有复原力的）and determined in our work so we can accomplish all of the goals we set for ourselves? Based on our current research, we have come to realize that the problem is not our hectic schedule or the plane travel itself; the problem comes from a misconception of what it means to be resilient, and the resulting impact of overworking.[C] We often take a militaristic, “tough” approach to resilience and determination like a Marine pulling himself through the mud, a boxer going one more round, or a football player picking himself up off the ground for one more play. We believe that the longer we tough it out, the tougher we are, and therefore the more successful we will be. However, this entire conception is scientifically inaccurate.[D] The very lack of a recovery period is dramatically holding back our collective ability to be resilient and successful. Research has found that there is a direct correlation between lack of recovery and increased incidence of health and safety problems. And lack of recovery —whether by disrupting sleep with thoughts of work or having continuous cognitive arousal by watching our phones —is costing our companies $62 billion a year in lost productivity.[E] And just because work stops, it does n’t mean we are recovering. We “stop” work sometimes at 5pm, but then we spend the night wrestling with solutions to work problems, talking about our work over dinner, and falling asleep thinking about how much work we’ll do tomorrow. In a study just released, researchers from Norway found that 7.8% of Norwegians have become workaholics（工作狂）. The scientists cite a definition “workaholism”as “being overly concerned about work, driven by an uncontrollable work motivation, and investing so much time and effort in work that it im pairs other important life areas.”[F] We believe that the number of people who fit that definition includes the majoriy of American workers, which prompted us to begin a study of workaholism in the U.S. Our study will use a large corporate dataset from a major medical company to examine how technology extends our working hours and thus interferes with necessary cognitive recovery, resulting in huge health care costs and turnover costs for employers.[G] The misconception of resilience is often bred from an early age. Parents trying to teach their children resilience might celebrate a high school student staying up until 3am to finish ascience fair project. What a distortion of resilience! A resilient child is a well-rested one. When an exhausted student goes to school, he risks hurting everyone on the road with his impaired driving; he doesn’t have the cognitive resources to do well on his English test; he has lower self-control with his friends; and at home, he is moody with his parents. Overwork and exhaustion are the opposite of resilience and the bad habits we acquire when we’re young only magnify when we hit the workforce.[H] As Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz have written, if you have too much time in the performance zone, you need more time in the recovery zone, otherwise you risk burnout. Gathering your resources to “try hard” requires burning energy in order to overcome your currently low arousal level. It also worsens exhaustion. Thus the more imbalanced we become due to overworking, the more value there is in activities the allow us to return to a state of balance. The value of a recovery period rises in proportion to the amount of work required of us.[I] So how do we recover and build resilience? Most people assume that if you stop doing a task like answering emails or writhing a paper, your brain will naturally recover, so that when you start again later in the day or the next morning, you’ll have your energy back. But surely everyone reading this has had times when you lie in bed for hours, unable to fall asleep because your brains is thinking about work. If you lie in bed for eight hours, you may have rested, but you can still feel exhausted the next day. That’s because rest and recovery are not the same thing. Stopping does not equal recovering.[J] If you’re trying to build resilience at work, you need adequate internal and external recovery periods. As researchers Zijlstra, Cropley and Rydstedt write in their 2014 paper: “Internal recovery refers to the shorter periods of relaxation that take plac e within the frames of the work day or the work setting in the form of short scheduled or unscheduled breaks, by shifting attention or changing to other work tasks when the mental or physical resources required for the initial task are temporarily depleted or exhausted. External recovery refers to actions that take place outside of work—e.g. in the free time between the work days, and during weekends, holidays or vacations.” If after work you lie around on your bed and get irritated by political commentary on your phone or get stressed thinking about decisions about how to renovate your home, your brain has not received a break from high mental arousal states. Our brains need a rest as much as our bodies do.[K] If you really want to build resilience, you can start by strategically stopping. Give yourself the resources to be tough by creating internal and external recovery periods. Amy Blankson describes how to strategically stop during the day by using technology to control overworking. She suggests downloading the Instant or Moment apps to see how many times you turn on your phone each day. You can also use apps like Offtime or Unplugged to create tech free zones by strategically scheduling automatic airplane modes. The average person turns on their phone 150 times every day. If every distraction took only 1 minute, that would account for 2.5 hours a day.[L] In addition, you can take a cognitive break every 90 minutes to charge your batteries. Try to not have lunch at your desk, but instead spend time outside or with your friends—not talking about work. Take all of your paid time off, which not only gives you recovery periods, but raises your productivity and likelihood of promotion.[M] As for us, we’ve started using our plane time as a work-free zone, and thus time to dip into the recovery phase. The results have been fantastic. We are usually tired already by the time we get on a plane, and the crowded space and unstable internet connection make work more challenging. Now, instead of swimming upstream, we relax, sleep, watch movies, or listen to music. And when we get off the plane, instead of being depleted, we feel recovered and ready to return to the performance zone.36. It has been found that inadequate recovery often leads to poor health and accidents.37. Mental relaxation is much needed, just as physical relaxation is.38. Adequate rest not only helps one recover, but also increases one’s work efficiency.39. The author always has a hectic time before taking a flight.40. Recovery may not take place even if one seems to have stopped working.41. It is advised that technology be used to prevent people from overworking.42. Contrary to popular belief, rest does not equal recovery.43. The author has come to see that his problem results from a misunderstanding of the meaning of resilience.44. People’s distorted view about resilience may have developed from their upbringing.45. People tend to think the more determined they are, the greater their success will be. Section CDirections: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questionsor unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C)and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.Passage OneQuestions 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.Children with attention problems in early childhood were 40 percent less likely to graduate from high school, says a new study from Duke University that examines how early childhood characteristics affect academic performance.“There’s not a lot out there about how early attention problems affect academic outcomes over such a long time frame,” said David Rabiner, an associate dean of Duke’s Trinity College of Arts & Sciences and a faculty fellow of the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy. “This study is one of the first to focus on how attention problems as early as first grade relate to such an important educational outcome as high school graduation.”The study, published in School Psychology Review, included 386 kindergarteners from schools in the Fast Track Project, a multi-site clinical trial in the U.S. that in 1991 began tracking how children developed across their lives.With this study, researchers examined early academic, attention and socioemotional skills and how each contributed to academic success into young adulthood.They found early attention skills were the most consistent predictor of academic success, but that likability also had a modest effect on academic performance.By fifth grade, children with early attention difficulties had lower grades and reading achievement scores than their peers. As fifth-graders, children with early attention problems experienced average reading scores at least 3 percent lower than their contemporaries' and grades at least 8 percent lower than those of their peers. This was after controlling for IQ, socioeconomic status and academic skills at school entry.Although these may not seem like large effects, the impact of early attention problems continued to reverberate throughout the children's academic careers. Lower reading achievement scores and grades in fifth grade contributed to reduced grades in middle school and thereby contributed to a 40 percent lower high school graduation rate."The children we identified as having attention difficulties were not diagnosed with ADHD,although some may have had the disorder. Our findings suggest that even more modest attention difficulties can increase the risk for negative academic outcomes," said Rabiner, whose research has focused on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, and interventions to improve academic performance in children with attention difficulties.Social acceptance by peers in early childhood also predicted grades in fifth grade. Children who were not as liked by their first-grade peers had slightly lower grades in fifth grade, while those with higher social acceptance had higher grades.Researchers said this is the first study to use children's own reports of their peers' likability to look at whether peer relations can help predict academic outcomes when accounting for other factors such as early academic skills and attention problems."This study shows the importance of so-called 'non-cognitive' or soft skills in contributing to children's positive peer relationships, which, in turn, contribute to their academic success," said Kenneth A. Dodge, the director of the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy and a professor of public policy and neuroscience at the university.The results highlight the need to develop effective early interventions to help those with attention problems stay on track academically and for educators to encourage positive peer relationships，the researchers said.“We are learning that student success requires a more comprehensive approach, one that incorporates not only academic skills but also social, self-regulatory and attention skills,” Dodge said. “If we neglect any of these areas, the child’s development lags. If we attend to these areas, a child’s success may reinforce itself with positive feedback loops.”46. What is the focus of the new study from Duke University?A) The contributor to children’s early attention.B) The predictors of children’s academic success.C) The factors that affect children’s emotional well-being.D) The determinants of children’s development of social skills.47. How did the researchers ensure that their findings are valid?A) By attaching equal importance to all possible variables examined.B) By collecting as many typical samples as were necessary.C) By preventing them from being affected by factors not under study.D) By focusing on the family background of children being studied.48. What do we learn from the findings of the Duke study?A) Modest students are generally more attentive than their contemporaries.B) There are more children with attention difficulties than previously thought.C) Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder accounts for most academic failures.D) Children’s academic pe rformance may suffer from even slight inattention.49. What does the Duke study find about children better accepted by peers?A) They do better academically.B) They are easy to get on with.C) They are teachers’ favorites.D) They care less about grades.50. What can we conclude from the Duke study?A) Children’s success is related to their learning environment.B) School curriculum should cover a greater variety of subjects.C) Social skills are playing a key role in children’s development.D) An all-round approach should be adopted in school education.Passage TwoQuestions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.On Jan. 9,2007, Steve Jobs formally announced Apple’s “revolutionary mobile phone”—a device that combined the functionality of an iPod, phone and Internet communication into a single unit, navigated by touch.It was a huge milestone in the development of smartphones, which are now owned by a majority of American adults and are increasingly common across the globe.As smartphones have multiplied, so have questions about their impact on how we live and how we work. Often the advantages of convenient, mobile technology are both obvious and taken for granted, leaving more subtle topics for concerned discussion: Are smartphones disturbing children’s sleep? Is an inability to get away from work having a negative impact on health? And what are the implications for privacy?But today, on the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, let’s take a moment to consider a less obvious advantage: the potential for smartphone technology to revolutionize behavioral science.That’s because, for the first time in human history, a large proportion of the species is in continuous contact with technology that can record key features of an individual’s behavior and environment.Researchers have already begun to use smartphones in social scientific research, either to query people regularly as they engage in their normal live or to record activity using the device’s built-in sensors. These studies are confirming, challenging and extending what’s been found using more traditional approaches, in which people report how they behaved in real life or participate in relatively short and artificial laboratory-based tasks.Such studies are just first steps. As more data are collected and methods for analysis improve, researchers will be in a better position to identify how different experiences, behaviors and environments relate to each other and evolve over time, with the potential to improve people’s productivity and wellbeing in a vari ety of domains. Beyond revealing population-wide patterns, the right combination of data and analysis can also help individuals identify unique characteristics of their own behavior, including conditions that could indicate the need for some form of intervention—such as an unusual increase in behaviors that signal a period of depression.Smartphone-based data collection comes at an appropriate time in the evolution of psychological science. Today, the field is in transition, moving away from a focus on laboratory studies with undergraduate participants towards more complex, real-world situations studied with more diverse groups of people. Smartphones offer new tools for achieving these ambitions, providing rich data about everyday behaviors in a variety of contexts.So here’s another way in which smartphones might transform the way we live and work: by offering insights into human psychology and behavior and, thus, supporting smarter social science.51.What does the author say about the negative impact of smartphones?A)It has been overshadowed by the positive impact.B)It has more often than not been taken for granted.C)It is not so obvious but has caused some concern.D)It is subtle but should by no means be overstated.52.What is considered a less obvious advantage of smartphone technology?A)It systematically records real human interactions.B)It helps people benefit from technological advances.C)It brings people into closer contact with each other.D)It greatly improves research on human behavior.53.What characterizes traditional psychological research?A)It is based on huge amounts of carefully collected data.B)It relies on lab observations and participants’ reports.C)It makes use of the questionnaire method.D)It is often expensive and time-consuming.54.How will future psychological studies benefit individuals?A)By helping them pin down their unusual behaviors.B)By helping them maintain a positive state of mind.C)By helping them live their lives in a unique way.D)By helping them cope with abnormal situations.55.What do we learn about current psychological studies?A)They are going through a period of painful transition.B)They are increasingly focused on real-life situations.C)They are conducted in a more rigorous manner.D)They are mainly targeted towards undergraduates.Part ⅣTranslation (30 minutes)Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to translate a passage from Chinese into English. You should write your answer on Answer Sheet 2.中国越来越重视公共图书馆，并鼓励人们充分加以利用。
2022年大学六级真题听力原文答案详解
12月大学英语六级真题Part I Writing (30 minutes) Directions:For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled The Way to Success bycommenting on Abraham Lincoln's famous remark,"Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I willspend, the first four sharpening the axe." You shouldwrite at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.The Way to Success注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。
Part II Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes)Directions:In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer thequestions on AnswerSheet 1. For questions 1-7, choose the best answerfrom the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Forquestions 8-10, complete the sentences with theinformation given in the passage.Google's Plan for World's Biggest Online Library: PhilanthropyOr Act of Piracy?In recent years, teams of workers dispatched by Google have been working hard to make digital copies of books. So far, Google has scanned more than 10 million titles from libraries in America and Europe - including half a million volumes held by the Bodleian in Oxford. The exact method it uses is unclear; the company does not allow outsiders to observe the process.Why is Google undertaking such a venture? Why is it even interested in all those out-of-printlibrary books, most of which have been gathering dust on forgotten shelves for decades? Thecompany claims its motives are essentially public-spirited. Its overall mission, after all, is to "organise the world's information", so it would be odd if that information did not include books.The company likes to present itself as having lofty aspirations. "This really isn't about making money. We are doing this for the good of society." As Santiago de la Mora, head of Google Books for Europe, puts it: "By making it possible to search the millions of books that exist today, we hope to expand the frontiers of human knowledge."Dan Clancy, the chief architect of Google Books, does seem genuine in his conviction that thisis primarilya philanthropic (慈善旳) exercise. "Google's core business issearch and find, soobviously what helps improve Google's search engine is good for Google," he says. "But we havenever built a spreadsheet (电子数据表) outlining the financial benefits of this, and I have neverhad to justify the amount I am spending to the company's founders."It is easy, talking to Clancy and his colleagues, to be swept along by their missionary passion. But Google's book-scanning project is proving controversial. Several opponents have recently emerged, ranging from rival tech giants such as Microsoft and Amazon to small bodies representing authors and publishers across the world. In broad terms, these opponents have levelled two sets of criticisms at Google.First, they have questioned whether the primary responsibility for digitally archiving the world's books should be allowed to fall to a commercial company. In a recent essay in the New YorkReview of Books, Robert Darnton, the head of Harvard University's library, argued that because such books are a common resource – the possession of us all – only public,not-for-profit bodiesshould be given the power to control them.The second related criticism is that Google's scanning of books is actually illegal. This allegation has led to Googlebecoming mired in (陷入) a legal battle whose scope and complexity makes the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case in Charles Dickens' Bleak House look straightforward.At its centre, however, is one simple issue: that of copyright. The inconvenient fact about most books, to which Google has arguably paid insufficient attention, is that they are protected by copyright. Copyright laws differ from country to country, but in general protection extends for the duration of an author's life and for a substantial period afterwards, thus allowing the author's heirs to benefit. (In Britain and America, this post-death period is 70 years.) This means, of course, that almost all of the books published in the 20th century are still undercopyright – and the last century saw more books published than in all previous centuries combined. Of the roughly 40 million books in US libraries, for example, an estimated 32 million are in copyright. Of these, some 27 million are out of print.Outside the US, Google has made sure only to scan books that are out of copyright and thus in the "public domain" (works such as the Bodleian's first edition of Middlemarch, which anyone canread for free on Google Books Search).But, within the US, the company has scanned bothin-copyright and out-of-copyright works. Inits defence, Google points out that it displays only small segments of books that are in copyright– arguing that such displays are "fair use". But critics allege that by making electronic copies of these books without first seeking the permission of copyright holders, Google has committed piracy."The key principle of copyright law has always been that works can be copied only once authors have expressly given their permission," says Piers Blofeld, of the Sheil Land literary agency in London. "Google has reversed this – it has simply copied all these works without bothering toask."In , the Authors Guild of America, together with a group of US publishers, launched a class action suit (集团诉讼) against Google that, after more than two years of negotiation, endedwith an announcement last October that Google and the claimants had reached an out-of-courtsettlement. The full details are complicated - the text alone runs to 385pages– and trying tosummarise it is no easy task. "Part of the problem is that it is basically incomprehensible," saysBlofeld, one of the settlement's most vocal British critics.Broadly, the deal provides a mechanism for Google to compensate authors and publishers whose rights it has breached (including giving them a share of any future revenue it generates fromtheir works). In exchange for this, the rights holders agree not to sue Google in future.This settlement hands Google the power - but only with the agreement of individual rights holders – to exploit its database of out-of-print books. It can include them in subscription deals sold to libraries or sell them individually under a consumer licence. It is these commercial provisions that are proving the settlement's most controversial aspect.Critics point out that, by giving Google the right to commercially exploit its database, thesettlement paves the way for a subtle shift in the company's role from provider of information to seller. "Google's business model has always been to provide information for free, and sell advertising on the basis of the traffic this generates," points out James Grimmelmann, associate professor at New York Law School. Now, he says, because of the settlement's provisions, Google could become a significant force in bookselling.Interest in this aspect of the settlement has focused on "orphan" works, where there is noknown copyrightholder – these make up an estimated 5-10% of the books Google has scanned. Under the settlement, when no rights holders come forward and register their interest in a work, commercial control automatically reverts to Google. Google will be able to display up to 20% oforphan works for free, include them in its subscription deals to libraries and sell them to individual buyers under the consumer licence.It is by no means certain that the settlement willbe enacted (执行) – it is the subject of afairness hearing in the US courts. But if it is enacted, Google will in effect be off the hook as far as copyright violations in the US are concerned. Many people are seriously concerned by this - and the company is likely to face challenges in other courts around the world.No one knows the precise use Google will make of the intellectual property it has gained byscanning the world's library books, and the truth, as Gleick, an American science writer and member of the Authors Guild, points out, is that the company probably doesn't even know itself. But what is certain is that, in some way or other, Google's entrance into digital bookselling will have a significant impact on the book world in the years to come.注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。
2021年12月英语考试六级听力原文
2021年12月英语考试六级听力原文Section ADirections: In this section, you will hear 8 short conversations and2 long conversations. At the end of each conversation, one or more questions will be asked about what was said. Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once. After each question there will be a pause. During the pause, you must read the four choices marked A), B), C) and D), and decide which is the best answer. Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.11.M: I don’t know what to do. I have to drive to Chicago next Friday for my cousin’s wedding, but I have got a Psychology test to prepare for.W: Why don’t you record your notes so you can study on the way?Q: What does the woman suggest the man do?12.M: Professor Wright, you may have to find another studentto play this role, the lines are so long and I simply can’t remember them all.W: Look, Tony. It is still a long time before the first show.I don’t expect you to know all the lines yet. Just keep practicing.Q: What do we learn from the conversation?13.M: Hello, this is Dr. Martin from the Emergency Department.I have a male patient with a fractured ankle.W: Oh, we have one bed available in ward 3, send him here and I will take care of him.Q: What are the speakers talking about?14.W: Since Simon will graduate this May, the school paper needs a new editor. So if you are interested, I will be happy to nominate you.M: Thanks for considering me. But the baseball team is starting up a new season. And I’m afraid I have a lot on my hands.Q: What does the man mean?15. W: Have you heard the news that Jame Smeil has resigned his post as prime minister?M: Well, I got it from the headlines this morning. It’s reported that he made public at this decision at the last cabinet meeting.Q: what do we learn about Jame Smeil?16. W: The morning paper says the space shuttle is taking off at 10 a.m. tomorrow.M: Yeah, it’s just another one of this year’s routine missions. The first mission was undertaken a decade ago and broadcast live then worldwide.Q: what can we infer from this conversation?17. M: We do a lot of camping in the mountains. What would you recommend for two people?W: You’d probably be better off with the four real drive vehicle. We have several off-road trucks in stock, both new and used.Q: Where does the conversation most probably take place?18. W: I hear you did some serious shopping this past weekend.M: Yeah, the speakers of my old stereo finally gave out and there was no way to repair them.Q: What did the man do over the weekend?Conversation OneW: Now, could you tell me where the idea for the business first came from?M: Well, the original shop was opened by a retired printer by the name of Gruby. Mr Gruby being left-handed himself, thought of the idea to try to promote a few products for left-handers.W: And how did he then go about actually setting up the business?M: Well, he looked for any left-handed products that might already be on the market which were very few. And then contacted the manufactures with the idea of having products produced for him, mainly in the scissors range to start with.W: Right. So you do commission some part of your stock.M: Yes, very much so. About 75 percent of our stock is specially made for us.W: And the rest of it?M: Hmm, the rest of it now, some 25, 30 years after Mr. Gruby’s initial efforts, there are more left-handed product actually on the market. Manufactures are now beginning to see that there is a market for left-handed products.W: And what’s the range of your stock?M: The range consists of a variety of scissors from childrenscissors to scissors for tailors, hairdressers etc. We also have a large range of kitchen ware.W: What’s the competition like? Do you have quite a lot of competition?M: There are other people in the business now in specialists, but only as mail-order outlets. But we have a shop here in central London plus a mail-order outlet. And we are without any doubt the largest supplier of the left-handed items.Q19: What kind of business does the man engaged in?Q20: What does the man say about his stock of products?Q21: What does the man say about other people in his line of business?Conversation TwoM: Can we make you an offer? We would like to run the campaign for four extra weeks.W: well, can we summarize the problem from my point of view? First of all, the campaign was late. It missed two important trade affairs. The ads also did not appear into key magazines. As a result, the campaign failed. Do you accept that summary of what happened?M: well, the delay wasn’t entirely our fault. You did in fact make late changes to the specifications of theadvertisements.W: Uh, actually, you were late with the initial proposals so you have very little time and in fact, we only asked for small changes.M: Well whatever, can we repeat our offer to run the campaign for 4 extra weeks?W: That’s not really the point. The campaign missed two key trade affairs. Because of this, we are asking you either to repeat the campaign next year for free, or we only pay 50% of the fee for this year.M: Could we suggest a 20% reduction to the fee together with the four week sustention to the campaign.W: We are not happy. We lost business.M: I think we both made mistakes. The responsibility is on both sides.W: Ok, let’s suggest a new solution. How about a 40% cut in fee, or a free repeat campaign?M: Well, let’s take a break, we’re not getting very far. Perhaps we should think about this.22: What do we learn about the man’s company?23: Why was the campaign delayed according to the man?24: What does the woman propose as a solution to the problem?25: What does the man suggest they do at the end of the conversation? Section BPassage OneThe University of Tennessee’s Walters Life Sciences building, is a model animal facility, spotlessly clean, careful in obtaining prior approval for experiments from an animal care committee. Of the 15,000 mice house there in a typical year, most give their lives for humanity. These are good mice and as such won the protection of the animal care committee. At any given time however some mice escape and run free. These mice are pests. They can disrupt experiments with the bacteria organisms they carry. They are bad mice and must be captured and destroyed. Usually, this is accomplished by means of sticky traps, a kind of fly paper on which they become increasingly stuck. But the real point of the cautionary tale, says animal behaviorist Herzau, is that the labels we put on things can affect our moral responses to them. Using stick traps or the more deadly snap traps would be deemed unacceptable for good mice. Yet the killing of bad mice requires no prior approval. Once the research animal hits the floor and becomes an escapee, says Herza, its moral standard is instantly diminished. In Herzau’s own home, there was more ironic example when his youngson’s pet mouse Willy died recently, it was accorded a tearful ceremonial burial in garden. Yet even as they mourned Willy, says Herzau, he and his wife were setting snap traps to kill the pest mice in their kitchen with the bare change in labels from pet to pest, the kitchen mice obtained totally different moral standardsQuestions:26, What does the passage say about most of the mice used for experiments?27, Why did the so-called bad mice have to be captured and destroyed?28, When are mice killed without prior approval?29, Why does the speaker say what the Herzau’s did at home is ironical?Passage TwoThere are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter —the city that is swallowed up by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest ofsomething. Of these three trembling cities the greatest is the last, the city of final destination, the city that has a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York's high-strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from Italy to set up a small grocery store in a slum, or a young girl arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh eyes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company.Questions 30 to 32 are based on the passage you have just heard.30. What does the speaker say about the natives of New York?31. What does the speaker say commuters give to New York?32. What do we learn about the settlers of New York?Passage Three“If you asked me television is unhealthy”, I said to my roommate Walter, as I walked into the living room.“While you are sitting passively in front of the TV set, your muscles are turning to fat, your complexion is fading, and your eyesight is being ruined.”“Shh~”Walter put his finger to his lips, “This is an intriguing murder mystery.”“Really?” I replied.“But you know, the brain is destroyed by TV viewing. Creativity is killed by that box. And people are kept from communicating with one another. From my point of view, TV is the cause of the declining interest in school and the failure of our entire educational system.”“Ah ha, I can’t see your point.” Walter said softly. “But see? The woman on the witness stand in this story is being questioned about the murder that was committed one hundred years ago.”Ignoring his enthusiastic description of the plot, I went on with my argument.“As I see it,” I explained, “not only are most TV programs badly written and produced, but viewers are also manipulated by the mass media. As far as I am concerned, TV watchers arecut off from reality from nature, from the other people, from life itself! I was confident in my ability to persuade.After a short silence, my roommate said, “Anyway, I’ve been planning to watch the football game. I am going to change the channel.”“Don’t touch that dial!” I shouted, “I wanted to find out how the mystery turns out!”I am not sure I got my point to cross.Questions 33- 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.33. As the speaker walked into the living room, what was being shown on TV?34. What does the speaker say about watching television?35. What can we say about the speaker?Section C Compound DictationIn the past, one of the biggest disadvantages of machines has been their inability to work on a micro scale. For example, doctors did not have devices allowing them to go inside the human body to detect health problems or to perform delicate surgery. Repair crews did not have a way of identifying broken pipes located deep within a high-rise apartment building. However, that’s about to change. Advances in computers andbiophysics have started a micro miniature revolution that allows scientists to envision and in some cases actually build microscopic machines. These devices promise to dramatically change the way we live and work.Micromachines already are making an impact. At Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, research scientists have designed a 4-inch silicon chip that holds 700 tiny primitive motors. At Lucas Nova Sensor in Fremont, California, scientists have perfected the world’s first microscopic blood-pressure sensor. Threaded through a person’s blood vessels, the sensor can provide blood pressure readings at the valve of the heart itself.Although simple versions of miniature devices have had an impact, advanced versions are still several years away.Auto manufacturers, for example, are trying to use tiny devices that can sense when to release an airbag and how to keep engines and breaks operating efficiently. Some futurists envision nanotechnology also being used to explore the deep sea in small submarine, or even to launch finger-sized rockets packed with micro miniature instruments.“There is an explosion of new ideas and applications,”So, when scientists now think about future machines doing largeand complex tasks, they’re thinking smaller than ever before.。
2016年12月大学英语六级考试真题(第1套)听力原文
2016.12六级真题第1套听力原文2016年12月大学英语六级考试真题（第1套）听力原文Section AConversation OneW:Professor Henderson, could you give us a brief overview of what you do, where you work and your main area of research?M: [1] Well, the Center for Climate Research where I work links the science of climate change to issues around economics and policy. Some of our research is to do with the likely impacts of climate change and all of the associated risks.W:And how strong is the evidence that climate change is happening that it’s really something we need to be worried about.M:Well, most of the science of climate change particularly that to do with global warming is simply fact. But other aspects of the science are less certain or at least more disputed. And so we’re really talking about risk, what the economics tells us is that [2] it’s probably cheaper to avoid climate change to avoid the risk than it has to deal with the likely consequences.W:So what are we doing? What can we do about it?M:Well, I would argue that we need to develop the science specifically to understand the likely impacts of climate change in different contexts. [3] As I said we need to understand the best ways of avoiding climate change and this will involve a huge transition to low carbon energy systems and the transition is a tremendous priority. And for this to happen, we may need action on a global scale.From a political perspective, we need to understand the terms on which major countries like China and the USA might sign up to a global agreement because at the moment we don’t have that consensus.W:Right.M: [4] And we also need to plan ahead so that we’re in a position to deal with the likely levels of climate change which are already inevitable and even more so,too, for the levels that are likely if we don’t get those global agreements. Questions 1 to 4 are based on the conversation you have just heard.1.What does Professor Henderson say about his main area of research?2.What does Professor Henderson say about climate change?3.What does Professor Henderson say is a top priority in combating climate change?4.What does Professor Henderson advise us to do to better deal with climate change?Conversation TwoW:I have many business English students. [5] When I teach the classroom, we often end up talking about things like success and what leads to success. And it’s interesting that many of them mention the element of luck.M:Right.W:Luck is important to success. But since you’ve seen that fantastic video on the TED Talks website by Richard St. John, he doesn’t mention luck at all.M:Well, I’m a firm believer that people can make their own luck. I mean what people regard as luck, you can actually create, to a degree.W:Sure. [6] I think a lot of what people consider luck is attributed to how you respond to the opportunities that come your way.M:Yes. Very good point.W:Seizing the opportunities. But was there any point in the video that you thought was particularly interesting?M:Yes. Actually there was. Something very impressive to me as many people think that luck is important and that natural talent is something you must have in order to be successful. [7] And in the video we saw, the point about getting good at something is not about having some natural talent. It’s all about practice, practice, practice.W:Definitely, yeah. Natural talent helps in some way but at the end of the day you really do need to work hard and get really really good at what you do.M:Sure.W:I thought one interesting thing in the video was the idea of passion being so important and that people who really love what they do, of course you’re going to want to work harder and put the time and effort into it. [8] And the funny thing is that if you love what you do and are really passionate about it and work really hard, the money kind of comes automatically.Questions 5 to 8 are based on the conversation you have just heard.5.What are the speakers mainly talking about?6.What is the woman’s view of luck?7.What is the chief point the TED Talks video makes?8.What does the woman think is the funny thing in the TED Talks video?Section BPassage One[9] Devil’s Tower, the first national monument in America, could almost be mistaken for the stump of an enormous tree. Its sheer rock size sweeps up from a broad base until they cut off abruptly at the flat summit. Rising more than 1,000 feet in the middle of the gently rolling plains at Wyoming. The massive column of rock looks as though it was dropped down into this location from a different time and place. In a sense it was, Devil’s Tower is a relic of the past—when the melted rock of the earth’s core forced its way to the surface to form the throat of a volcano. As the centuries passed, the rock cooled and hardened, shrinking and cracking into long columns. [10] Born in fire and fury, Devil’s Tower was then shaped by the slow, gentle work of wind and water. The outer layers of the volcano were worn away until the hard core stood completely exposed. [11] Small wonder then an Indian legend described Devil’s Tower as being formed by supernatural powers. [12] The legend says that when seven girls were attacked by bears, they took refuge on top of a small rock, and appealed to the rock god for help.The god caused the rock to grow and to lift the girls far above the ground, while its sides were scored by the claws of the angry bears. Even today, says the legend, the girls can be seen above the tower in rock as seven shining stars in the night’s sky.Questions 9 to 12 are based on the passage you have just heard.9.What does Devil’s Tower look like?10.What caused the volcano’s outer layer to wear away?11.What does the Indian legend say about Devil’s Tower?12.How did the rock god help the seven girls in the Indian legend?Passage Two[13] It’s no accident that most gas stations have convenient stores attached. Few of us can fill up the tank without buying a few snacks, cigarettes, soft drinks or other items we can live without. “I deserve it!”That’s what hard-working men and women say to justify their lavish vacations, big stereo systems or regular restaurant meals. They do deserve such indulgences. However, they also deserve a home of their own, a secure retirement and freedom from worrying about unpaid bills.No one should have to live with what a taxes mother described as constant stress tension even fear about the money. [14] Sadly, the pleasure that comes from extravagancies often disappears long before the bills do. The video camera that one single mother bought for a special occasion, for example, is not much fun now. She’s figured out that it will take her another three years to pay it off a 30 dollars a month.And the New Yorkers who spent a bundle on an outdoor hot tub, now admit that they rarely use it because we can’t afford to heat it in winter. The solution, said priorities, add up the annual cost of each item, then consider what else she could buy with the same money. That will help you to decide which item is really worth it.[15] One Chicago woman, for example, discovered the daily lunches withco-workers cost her 2,000 dollars a year. She decided to take lunch to work instead. “I now put 20 dollars a week into my vacation fund, and another 20 into retirement savings,”she says, “those mean more to me than lunch.”Questions 13 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard.13.What does the speaker say about drivers who stop at gas stations?14.What does the speaker say about extravagancies?15.What does the speaker want to show by the example of the Chicago woman? Section CRecording OneLet’s say you start to brain storm a list of all the emotions you ever experienced. Just for fun, try it now.What’s on your list? Chances are, you included things like happy, sad, excited, angry, afraid, grateful, proud, scared, confused, stressed, relaxed and amazed. Now sort your list into two categories: positive emotions and negative emotions.[16] Feeling both positive and negative emotions is a natural part of being human. We might use the word “negative”to describe more difficult emotions but it does not mean those emotions are bad or we shouldn’t have them. Still, most people were probably rather feel a positive emotion than a negative one. It’s likely you prefer to feel happy instead of sad or confident instead of insecure.What matters is how our emotions are balanced. How much of each type of the emotion positive or negative we experience.Negative emotions warn us of threats or challenges that we may need to deal with. For example, fear can alert us to possible danger. It’s a signal that we might need to protect ourselves. Angry feelings warn us that someone is stepping on our toes, crossing a boundary or violating our trust. Anger can be a signal that we might have to act on our own behalf.Negative emotions focus our awareness. They help us to zero in on a problem so we can deal with it. [17] But too many negative emotions can make us feel overwhelmed, anxious, exhausted or stressed out. When negative emotions are out of balance, problems might seem too big to handle.The more we dwell on our negative emotions, the more negative we begin to feel. Focusing on negativity just keeps it going.[18] Positive emotions balance out negative ones, but they have other powerful benefits, too. Instead of narrowing our focus, like negative emotions do, positive emotions affect our brains in ways that increase our awareness, attention and memory. They help us take in more information, hold several ideas in mind at once and understand how different ideas relate to each other.When positive emotions open us up to new possibilities, we are more able to learn and build on our skills. That leads to doing better on tasks and tests.People who have plenty of positive emotions in their everyday lives tend to be happier, healthier, learn better and get along well with others.Questions 16 to 18 are based on the recording you have just heard.16.What does the speaker say about negative emotions?17.What happens to people whose negative emotions are out of balance?18.How do positive emotions affect us?Recording TwoIn the past few months, I’ve been travelling for weeks at a time with only one suitcase of clothes. One day, I was invited to an important event, and I wanted to wear something special for it. I looked through my suitcase but couldn’t find anything to wear. I was lucky to be at the technology conference then, and I had access to 3D printers. [19] So I quickly designed a skirt on my computer, and I loaded the file on the printer. It just printed the pieces overnight. The next morning, I just took all the pieces, assembled them together in my hotel room, and this is actually the skirt that I’m wearing right now.So it wasn’t the first time that I printed clothes. [20] For my senior collection at fashion design school, I decided to try and 3D print an entire fashion collection from my home. The problem was that I barely knew anything about 3D printing, and I had only nine months to figure out how to print five fashionable looks.I always felt most creative when I worked from home. I love experimenting with new materials, and I always tried to develop new techniques to make the most unique textiles for my fashion projects.One summer break, I came here to New York for an internship at a fashion house in Chinatown. We worked on two incredible dresses that were 3D printed. They were amazing—like you can see here. [21] But I had a few problems with them. They were made from hard plastics and that’s why they were very breakable. Themodels couldn’t sit in them, and they even got scratched from the plastics under their arms.So now, the main challenge was to find the right material for printing clothes with, I mean the material you feed the printer with. [22] The breakthrough came when I was introduced to Filaflex, which is a new kind of printing material. It’s strong, yet very flexible. And with it, I was able to print the first garment, a red jacket that had the word “freedom”embedded into it. And actually, you can easily download this jacket, and change the word to something else. For example, your name or your sweetheart’s name.So I think in the future, materials will evolve, and they will look and feel like fabrics we know today, like cotton or silk.Questions 19 to 22 are based on the recording you have just heard.19.What does the speaker say about the skirt she is wearing now?20.When did the speaker start experimenting with 3D printing?21.What was the problem with the material the speaker worked on at a New York fashion house?22.What does the speaker say about Filaflex?Recording ThreeWelcome to the third lecture in our series on the future of small businesses in Europe. [23] The purpose of today’s lecture, as you have seen from the title and the abstract, is to examine in more detail the problems facing small and medium-sized enterprises which arise at least in part from having to adapt to rapid advances intechnology. And I want to look at these both from a financial and from a personnel point of view and to offer a few hopefully effective solutions.Here we have three of the most important problems facing small businesses that I want to look at today. First, keeping up with the pace of technological change, recruiting high quality staff at a time of skills shortages in IT as a whole and in a highly competitive market, and the issue of retaining staff once they’ve been recruited and trained. Now, all of these problems involve significant costs for all businesses. But there are particularly challenging issue for small and medium-sized enterprises. And those costs would vary depending on the size and scale of the businesses.So let’s come to the first issue on our list which is keeping pace with developments in technology. [24] Now we all know that the technology industry is intensely competitive with new products being launched all year round as the various companies strive to compete with each other, rather than, say once a year or every couple of years. And this is a real headache for smaller businesses. So, let’s imagine we have a small company which is doing OK. It’s just about making a profit and it spends most of its income on the overheads. So for a company in this situation, keeping up to date with the latest technology, even if it’s only for the benefit of key staff, this can be hugely expensive.So in my view, some creative thinking needs to come in here to find ways to help companies in this situation to stay ahead in the game, but at the same time, to remain technologically competitive.Well, there’s a possibility that small groups of companies with similar requirements but not directly competing with each other, they could share the cost of upgrading in much the same way as, let’s say, an intranet operates within large organizations. [25] In fact, cost sharing could be a very practical solution, especially in times of financial difficulty. If there’s a downward pressure on costs, because of a need for investment in other areas, I would argue that this is a perfectly feasible solution.Questions 23 to 25 are based on the recording you have just heard.23.What does the speaker say about the problem facing small and medium-sized enterprises?24.What does the speaker say about the technology industry?25.What is a practical solution to the problems of small and medium-sized businesses?音频链接：/yxsp/cets/4257。
2016年12月大学英语六级听力真题及答案
2016 年 12 月大学英语六级听力真题及答案（第二套）听力稿原文Section A NEWS News1 A 16th century castle in Scotland is on the verge of collapse after chunks of soil were washed away by floods, threatening its foundations. On Sunday, the castle's owner, John Gordon, 76, was forced to evacuate his property after the River Dee swept away about 60 feet of land, leaving the castle dangerously close to the river, according to the Scottish Daily Record. Abergeldie castle, located in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, was built by Sir Alexander Gordon of Midmar who later became the Earl of Huntly. The castle, which is located on 11,700 acres, was leased to members of the royal family between 1848 and 1970, including King Edward VII and George V. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has issued more than 35 flood warnings covering several regions as Scotland continues to clean up after Storm Frank hit the country last Wednesday. "This means that rivers will rise more slowly but then stay high for much longer," the environmental agency said. Q1. Why did John Gordon move out of Abergeldie castle? A. It was dangerous to live in. B. It was going to be renovated. C. He could no longer pay the rent. D. He had sold it to the royal family. 答案:A Q2. What happenedin Scotland last Wednesday? A. A strike. B. A storm C. A forest fire. D. A terrorist attack. 答案:B News2 Rescue efforts were underway Thursday morning for 17 miners who were stuck in an elevator below ground. a Cargill rock salt mine in Lansing, N.Y. ccording to Marcia Lynch, public information officer with Tompkins County’s emergency response department. Emergency workers have made contact with the miners through a radio, and they all appear to be uninjured, said Jessica Verfuss, the emergency department’s assistant director.Crews have managed to provide heat packs and blankets to the miners so that they can keep warm during the rescue operation, Verfuss said. Details about what led to the workers’ being trapped in the elevator weren’t immediately available. The mine, near New York's Cayuga Lake, processes salt used for road treatment. It produces about 2 million tons of salt that is shipped to more than 1,500places in the northeastern United States.The rock salt mine is one of three operated by Cargill, with the other two beingin Louisiana and Ohio. Q3. What does the news report say about the salt miners? A. They lost contact with the emergency department. B. They were trapped in an underground elevator. C. They were injured by suddenly falling rocks. D. They sent calls for help via a portable radio. 答案 B Q4. What did the rescue team do? A. They tried hard to repair the elevator. B. They released the details of the accident. C. They sent supplies to keep the miners warm. D. They provided the miners with food and water. 答案 C News3 The U.S. Postal Service announced today that it is considering closing about 3,700 post offices over the next year because of falling revenues. Facing an $8.3 billion budget deficit this year, closing post offices is one of several proposals the Postal Service has put forth recently to cut costs. Last week for example, Postmaster General Pat Donahoe announced plans to stop mail delivery on Saturdays, a move he says could save $3 billion annually. "We are losing revenue as we speak," Donahoe said. "We do not want taxpayer money. We want to be self-sufficient. So like any other business, you have to make choices." Dean Granholm, the vice president for delivery and post office operations, said the first wave of closings would begin this fall.He estimated that about 3,000 postmasters, 500 station managers and between 500 and 1,000 postal clerks could lose their jobs. Q5. What is the US Postal Service planning to do? A. Raise postage rates. B. Improve its services. C. Redesign delivery routes. D. Close some of its post office. 答案 D Q6. What measure has been planned to save costs? A. Shortening business hours. B. Closing offices on holidays. C. Stopping mail delivery on Saturdays. D. Computerising mail sorting processes. 答案 C Q7. What will happen when the proposed measure comes into effect? A. Many post office staff will lose their jobs. B. Many people will begin to complain. C. Taxpayers will be very pleased. D. A lot of controversy will arise.答案 A Section B Conversation conversation 1 M: Mrs. Hampton, we’ve got trouble in the press room this morning. W: Oh, dear. What it about? M: One of the press operators arrived one hour and half late. W: But that’s a straightforward affair. He will simply lose part of his pay. That’s why we have a clock-in system. M: But the point is the man was clocked in at eight o’clock. We have John standing by the time clock and he swears he saw nothing irregular. W: Is John reliable? M: Yes, he is. That’s why we chose him for the job. W: Have you spoken to the man who is late? M: Not yet. I thought I’d have a word with you first. He is a difficult man and I think there has been some trouble on the shop floor. I’ve got a feeling that a trade union representative is behind this. The manager told me that Jack Green’s been very active around the shop the last few days. W: Well. What do you want me to do? M: I was wondering if you’d see Smith, the man who was late, because you are so much better at handling things like this. W: Oh, all right. I will see him. I must say I agree with you about there being bad feelings in the works. I’ve have the idea for sometime that Jack Green’s been busy stirring things up in connection with the latest wage claim. He’s always tried to make trouble. Well, I will get the manager to send Smith up here. Q8. What will happen to the press operator who is late for work according to the woman? Q9. What does the man say about John who stands by the time clock? Q10. Why does the man suggest the woman see the worker who was late?Q11. What does the woman say about Jack Green?conversation 2 W: Our topic today is about something that foreigners nearly always say when they visit Britain. It’s why are the British so cold and they are talking about the British personality, the famous British reserve. It means that we aren’t very friendly； we aren’t very open. M: So do you think it is true? W: it is a difficult one. So many people who visit Britain say it’s difficult to make friends with British people. They say we are cold, reserved and unfriendly. M: I think it’s true. Look at Americans or Australians. They speak the same language, but they are much more open. And you see it when you travel, people, I mean strangers speak to you on the street or on the train. British people seldom speak on the train or the bus not in London anyway. W: Not in London. That’s it. Capital cities are full of tourists and are never friendly. People are different in other parts of the country. M: Not completely. I met a woman once, an Italian. She has been working in Manchester for 2 years and no one, not one of the colleagues had ever invited her to their home. They were friendly to her at work but nothing else. She can’t believe it. She said that it would never happen in Italy. W: You know what they says. An Englishman’s home is his castle. It is really difficult to get inside. M: Yeah it’s about being private. You go home to your house and your garden and you close the door. It’s your place. W: That’s why the British don’t like flats. They prefer to living in the houses. M: That’s true.Q12 What do foreigners generally think of British people according to the woman? Q13 What may British people typically do on train according to the man? Q14 What does the man say about the Italian woman working in Manchester? Q15 Why do British people prefer houses to flats?Section C Passage Passage1 In college, time is scarce and consequently very precious. At the same time, expenses in college pile up surprisingly quickly. A part-time job is a good way to balance costs while insuring there is enough time left over for both academic subjects and after-class activities. If you are a college student looking for a part-time job, the best place to start your job search is right on campus. There are tons of on-campus job opportunities and as a student, you’ll automatically be given hiring priority. Plus, on-campus jobs eliminate commuting time, and could be a great way to connect with academic and professional resources at your university. Check with your school’s career service or employment office for help to find a campus job. Of course, there are opportunities for part-time work off campus, too. If you spend a little time digging for the right part-time jobs, you’ll save yourself time when you find a job that leaves you with enough time to get your schoolwork done, too. If you were a college student looking for work, but worried you won’t have enough time to devote to academic subjects, consider working as a study hall or library monitor. Responsibility is generally include supervising study spaces, to insure that a quiet atmosphere is maintained. It’s a pretty easy job. But one with lots of done time, which means you’ll have plenty of time to catch up on reading, do homework or study for an exam.16. What does the speaker say about college students applying for on campus jobs? 17. What can students do to find a campus job according to the speaker? 18. What does the speaker say is a library monitor’s responsibility?Passage2 Agricultural workers in green tea fields near Mountain Kenya are gathering the tea leaves. It is beautiful to see the rows of tea bushes are straight. All appears to be well. But the farmers who planted the bushes are worried.Nelson Kibara is one of them. He has been growing tea in the Kerugoya area for 40 years. He says the prices this year have been so low that he has made almost no profit. He says he must grow different kinds of tea if he is to survive. Mr. Kibara and hundreds of other farmers have been removing some of their tea bushes and planting a new kind of tea developed by the Tea Research Foundation of Kenya. Its leaves are purple and brown. When the tea is boiled, the drink has a purple color. Medical researchers have studied the health benefits of the new tea. They say it is healthier than green tea and could be sold for a price that is three to four times higher than the price of green tea. But Mr. Kibara says he has not received a higher price for his purple tea crop. He says the market for the tea is unstable and he is often forced to sell his purple tea for the same price as green tea leaves. He says there are not enough buyers willing to pay more for the purple tea. Q 19 Why have tea farmers in Kenya decided to grow purple tea? Q 20 What researchers say about the purple tea ? Q 21 What Mr. Kibara found about the purple tea?Passage3 Today's consumers want beautiful hand crafted s to wear and the help them to home. They prefer something unique and they demand quality. Craftsman today are meeting this demand, people in homes are showing great change as more and more unique handcrafted items become available. Handcrafts are big business, no longer does good craftsman have to work the job they dislikes all day, and then try to create at night. He has earned his professional status, he has now are respected member of the society. Part of the fun of being a craftsman is meeting other craftsman, they love to share their ideas and materials and help others find market for their work. Craftsman have helped educated consumers to make wise choices, they help them to become aware of design and the technique, they help them to relay their choices to its intended use. They often involve in the consumers in trying the craft themselves. When a group of craftsman expands to include more members, a small craftsman organization is formed, such organization does a lot in training work shops in special media and crafts marketing techniques, crafts fail in sales, first of all TV appearances and demonstrations. State art councils help sponsor local art and crafts festivals, which draw crowds in tourist consumers, this blew the local economy considerably because this not only by crafts but it also used by the restaurant and hotels and other services of the area Q22 what does the speaker say about today's consumers? Q23 what does the speaker say about the good craftsman in the past? Q24 what does craftsman help consumers do? Q25 why do state art councils help to sponsor local arts and crafts festivals?[/hide]听力参考答案：第一套 Section A1. [A] It was dangerous to live in. 2. [B] A storm 3. [B] They were trapped in an underground elevator. 4. [C] They sent supplies to keep the miners warm. 5. [D] Close some of its post office. 6. [C] Stopping mail delivery on Saturdays. 7. [A] Many post office staff will lose their jobs.Section B 8. [D] He will lose part of his pay. 9. [B] He is a trustworthy guy. 10.[D] She is better at handling such matters. 11.[C] He is always trying to stir up trouble. 12. [D] Reserved 13. [A] They stay quiet 14. [C] She was never invited to a colleague’s home. 15. [B] Houses provide more privacySection C 16. [D] They will automatically be given hiring priority. 17. [C] Visit the school careers service. 18. [B] Supervising study spaces to ensure a quiet atmosphere.19. [C] It may be sold at a higher price. 20. [A] It is healthier than green tee. 21. [D] It does not have a stable market. 22. [B] They prefer unique s of high quality. 23. [B] They could only try to create at night. 24. [A] Make wise choices. 25. [A] To boost the local economy.第二套 SectionA 1 [C] They were all good at cooking. 2 [C] His parents’s friends. 3 [A] No one of the group ate it. 4 [B] It was rather disappointing. 5 [C] The business success of the woman’s shop. 6 [A] Keep down its expense. 7 [D]They are sold at lower prices than in other shops. 8 [A] To maintain friendly relationship with other shops.Section B 9 [C]They deliver pollutants from the ocean to their nesting sites. 10[A]They originate from Devon Island in the Aretie area.11[B]They were carried by the wind. 12[C]The harm Arctic seabirds may cause to humans. 13[D]It has decreased. 14[A]It is now the second leading cause of death for centenarians. 15[D]Their minds fail before their bodies do.Section C 16[C]They are focused more on attraction than love. 17[C]It is not love if you don’t wish to maintain the relationship. 18[C]How the relationship is to be defined if any one is missing. 19[B]Social work as a profession. 20[D]They help enhance the well-being of the underprivileged. 21[C]They all have an academic degree in social work. 22[A]Social works’ job options and responsibilities. 23[A]To fight childhood obesity. 24[C]They impress kids more than they do adults. 25[D]Message positive behaviors at all times.。
2010年12月大学英语六级(CET-6)真题试卷(含答案和听力原文)
2010年12月大学英语六级考试真题Part I Writing (30 minutes)Direction: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled My Views on University Ranking. You should write at least 150 words following the outline given below.1. 目前高校排名相当盛行;2. 对于这种做法人们看法不一;3. 在我看来……My Views on University RankingPart II Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes)Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on Answer Sheet 1. For questions 1-7, choose the best answer from the four choices marked [A], [B], [C] and [D]. For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.Into the UnknownThe world has never seen population ageing before. Can it cope?Until the early 1990s nobody much thought about whole populations getting older. The UN had the foresight to convene a “world assembly on ageing” back in 1982, but that came and went. By 1994 the World Bank had noticed that something big was happen ing. In a report entitled “Averting the Old Age Crisis”, it argued that pension arrangements in most countries were unsustainable.For the next ten years a succession of books, mainly by Americans, sounded the alarm. They had titles like Young vs Old, Gray Dawn and The Coming Generational Storm, and their message was blunt: health-care systems were heading for the rocks, pensioners were taking young people to the cleaners, and soon there would be intergenerational warfare.Since then the debate has become less emotional, not least because a lot more is known about the subject. Books, conferences and research papers have multiplied. International organisations such as the OECD and the EU issue regular reports. Population ageing is on every agenda, from G8 economic conferences to NATO summits. The World Economic Forum plans to consider the future of pensions and health care at its prestigious Davos conference early next year. The media, including this newspaper, are giving the subject extensive coverage.Whether all that attention has translated into sufficient action is another question. Governments in rich countries now accept that their pension and health-care promises will soon become unaffordable, and many of them have embarked on reforms, but so far only timidly. That is not surprising: politicians with an eye on the next election will hardly rush to introduce unpopular measures that may not bear fruit for years, perhaps decades.The outline of the changes needed is clear. To avoid fiscal (财政) meltdown, public pensions and health-care provision will have to be reined back severely and taxes may have to go up. By far the most effective method to restrain pension spending is to give people the opportunity to work longer, because it increases tax revenues and reduces spending on pensions at the same time. It may even keep them alive longer. John Rother, the AARP‟s head of policy and strategy, points to studies showing that other things being equal, people who remain at work have lower death rates than their retired peers.Younger people today mostly accept that they will have to work for longer and that their pensions will be less generous. Employers still need to be persuaded that older workers are worth holding on to. That may be because they have had plenty of younger ones to choose from, partly thanks to the post-war baby-boom and partly because over the past few decades many more women have entered the labor force, increasing employers‟ choice. But the reservoir of women able and willing to take u p paid work is running low, and thebaby-boomers are going grey.In many countries immigrants have been filling such gaps in the labor force as have already emerged (and remember that the real shortage is still around ten years off). Immigration in the developed world is the highest it has ever been, and it is making a useful difference. In still-fertile America it currently accounts for about 40% of total population growth, and in fast-ageing Western Europe for about 90%.On the face of it, it seems the perfect solution. Many developing countries have lots of young people in need of jobs; many rich countries need helping hands that will boost tax revenues and keep up economic growth. But over the next few decades labor forces in rich countries are set to shrink so much that inflows of immigrants would have to increase enormously to compensate: to at least twice their current size in western Europe‟s most youthful countries, and three times in the older ones. Japan would need a large multiple of the few immigrants it has at present. Public opinion polls show that people in most rich countries already think that immigration is too high. Further big increases would be politically unfeasible.To tackle the problem of ageing populations at its root, “old” countries would have to rejuvenate (使年轻) themselves by having more of their own children. A number of them have tried, some more successfully than others. But it is not a simple matter of offering financial incentives or providing more child care. Modern urban life in rich countries is not well adapted to large families. Women find it hard to combine family and career. They often compromise by having just one child.And if fertility in ageing countries does not pick up? It will not be the end of the world, at least not for quite a while yet, but the world will slowly become a different place. Older societies may be less innovative and more strongly disinclined to take risks than younger ones. By 2025 at the latest, about half the voters in America and most of those in western European countries will be over 50—and older people turn out to vote in much greater number than younger ones. Academic studies have found no evidence so far that older voters have used their power at the ballot box to push for policies that specifically benefit them, though if in future there are many more of them they might start doing so.Nor is there any sign of the intergenerational warfare predicted in the 1990s. After all, older people themselves mostly have families. In a recent study of parents and grown-up children in 11 European countries, Karsten Hank of Mannheim University found that 85% of them lived within 25km of each other and the majority of them were in touch at least once a week.Even so, the shift in the centre of gravity to older age groups is bound to have a profound effect on societies, not just economically and politically but in all sorts of other ways too. Richard Jackson and Neil Howe of America‟s CSIS, in a thoughtful book called The Graying of the Great Powers, argue that, among other things, the ageing of the developed countries will have a number of serious security implications.For example, the shortage of young adults is likely to make countries more reluctant to commit the few they have to military service. In the decades to 2050, America will find itself playing an ever-increasing role in the developed world‟s defense effort. Because America‟s population will still be growing when that of most other developed countries is shrinking, America will be the only developed country that still matters geopolitically (地缘政治上).Ask me in 2020There is little that can be done to stop population ageing, so the world will have to live with it. But some of the consequences can be alleviated. Many experts now believe that given the right policies, the effects, though grave, need not be catastrophic. Most countries have recognized the need to do something and are beginning to act.But even then there is no guarantee that their efforts will work. What is happening now is historically unprecedented. Ronald Lee, director of the Centre on the Economics and Demography of Ageing at the University of California, Berkeley, puts it briefly and clearly: “We don‟t really know what population ageing will be like, because nobody has done it yet. “注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。
2018年12月英语六级听力试题答案原文
2018年12月大学生英语六级考试真题卷一（听力部分）PartⅡ Listening Comprehension (30 minutes)Section ADirections: In this section, you will hear two long conversations. At the end of each conversation, you will hear four questions. Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A），B），C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.Questions 1 to 4 are based on the conversation you have just heard.1. A) It can benefit professionals and non-professionals alike.B) It lists the various challenges physicists are confronting.C) It describes how some mysteries of physics were solved.D) It is one of the most fascinating physics books ever written.2. A) Physicists’ contribution to humanity.B) Stories about some female physicists.C) Historical evolution of modern physics.D) Women’s changing attitudes to physics.3. A)By exposing a lot of myths in physics.B) By describing her own life experiences.C) By including lots of fascinating knowledge.D) By telling anecdotes about famous professors.4. A) It avoids detailing abstract concepts of physics.B) It contains a lot of thought-provoking questions.C) It demonstrates how they can become physicists.D)It provides experiments they can do themselves.Questions 5 to 8 are based on the conversation you have just heard.5. A) He is too busy to finish his assignment in time.B) He does not know what kid of topic to write on.C) He does not understand the professor’s instructions.D) He has no idea how to proceed with his dissertation.6. A) It is too broad.B) It is outdated.C) It is challenging.D) It is interesting.7. A) Biography.B) Nature.C) Photography.D) Beauty.8. A) Improve his cumulative grade.B) Develop his reading ability.C) Stick to the topic assigned.D) List the parameters first.Section BDirections: In this section, you will hear two passages. At the end of each passage, you will hear three or four questions. Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A)，B)，C) and D). Then mark the co rresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.Questions 9 to 11 are based on the passage you have just heard.9. A) The unprecedented high temperature in Greenland.B) The collapse of ice on the northern tip of Greenland.C) The unusual clod spell in the Arctic area in October.D) The rapid change of Arctic temperature within a day.10. A) It has created a totally new climate pattern.B) It will pose a serious threat to many species.C) It typically appears about once every ten years.D) It has puzzled the climate scientists for decades.11. A) Extinction of Arctic wildlife.B) Iceless summers in the Arctic.C) Emigration of indigenous people.D) Better understanding of ecosystems.Questions 12 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard.12. A) A good start.B) A detailed plan.C) A strong determination.D) A scientific approach.13. A) Most people get energized after a sufficient rest.B) Most people tend to have finite source of energy.C) It is vital to take breaks between demanding mental tasks.D) It is most important to have confidence in one’s willpower.14. A) They could keep on working longer.B) They could do more challenging tasks.C) They found it easier to focus on work at hand.D) They held more positive attitudes toward life.15. A) They are part of their nature.B) They are subject to change.C) They are related to culture.D) They are beyond control.Section CDirections: In this section, you will hear three recordings of lectures or talks followed by three or four questions. The recordings will be played only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.Questions 16 to 18 are based on the recording you have just heard.16. A) About half of current jobs might be automated.B) The jobs of doctors and lawyers would be threatened.C) The jobs market is becoming somewhat unpredictable.D) Machine learning would prove disruptive by 2013.17. A) They are widely applicable for massive open online courses.B) They are now being used by numerous high school teachers.C) They could read as many as 10,000 essays in a single minute.D) They could grade high-school essays just like human teacher.18. A) It needs instructions throughout the process.B) It dose poorly on frequency, high-volume tasks.C) It has to rely on huge amounts of previous data.D) It is slow when it comes to tracking novel things.Questions 19 to 21 are based on the recording you have just heard.19. A) The engineering problems with solar power.B) The generation of steam with the latest technology.C) The importance of exploring new energy sources.D) The theoretical aspects of sustainable energy.20. A) Drive trains with solar energy.B) Upgrade the city’s train facilities.C) Build a new ten-kilometre railway line.D) Cut-down the city’s energy consumption.21. A) Build a tank for keeping calcium oxide.B) Find a new material for storing energy.C) Recover super-heated steam.D) Collect carbon dioxide gas.Questions 22 to 25 are based on the recording you have just heard.22. A) The lack of supervision by both the nation and local government.B) The impact of the current economics crisis at home and abroad.C) The poor management of day centres and home help services.D) The poor relation between national heath and social care services.23. A) It was mainly provided by voluntary services.B) It mainly caters to the need of privileged.C) It called for a sufficient number of volunteers.D) It has deteriorated over the past sixty years.24. A) Their longer lifespans.B) Fewer home helpers available.C) Their preference for private services.D) More of them suffering serious illness.25. A) They are unable to pay for health services.B) They have long been discriminated against.C) They are vulnerable to illness and diseases.D) They have contributed a great deal to society.参考答案1. A) It can benefit professionals and non-professionals alike.2. B) Stories about some female physicists.3. C) By including lots of fascinating knowledge.4. D) It provides experiments they can do themselves.5. D）He has not idea how to proceed with his dissertation.6. A) It is too broad.7. B) Nature.8. C) Stick to the topic assigned.9. A) The unprecedented high temperature in Greenland.10. C) It typiaclly appears about once every ten years.11. B) Iceless summers in the Arctic.12. C) A strong determination.13. D) It is most important to have confidence in one`s willpower.14. A) They could keep on working longer.15. B) They are subject to change.16. A) About half of current jobs might be automated.17. D) They could grade high-school essays just like human teachers.18. C) It has to rely on huge amounts of previous data.19. D) The theoretical aspects of sustainable energy.20. A) Drive trains with solar energy.21. B) Find a new material for storing energy.22. D) The poor relation between national health and social care services.23. A) It was mainly provided by voluntary services.24. C) Their preference for private services.25. B) They have long been discriminated against.听力原文Conversation 1A: Hey, I just read a great book about physics. I think you‘d like it. It’s called the physics of the world. It‘s written by a scientist named Sylvia Mendez.B: Oh, I read that book. It was great. The writer is a warm and competent guide to the mysteries of physics. I think it promises enrichment for any reader from those who know little about science to the career physicist.A: And it‘s refreshing to see a strong curious clever woman adding her voice to the scientific discourse and a field that has been traditionally dominated by men. I think she has to be commended for making an effort to include anecdotes about little known female scientists. You know they were often victims of a generation firmly convinced that the woman’s place was in the hom e.B: I like how the book is clearly written with each chapter brought to life by pieces of fascinating knowledge. For example in one chapter she exposes a myth that I‘ve heard taught by university physics professors. I’ ve often heard that medieval glass windows are thicker at the bottom because glass flows like a fluid. This, she shows, is not true. The distortion is actually thanks to a peculiarity of the glassmakers process.A: Yeah I like how she cultivates scientific engagement by providing a host of Do It Yourself experiments that bring the same foundational principles of classical physics that govern everything from the solar system to your kitchen table. From using complex laws of physics to test whether a spinning egg is cooked to measuring atmospheric pressure by lifting a piece of cardboard. Her hands-on examples make her book a truly interactive read.B: Yes I must say this a equation-free book is an ideal read for scientists of all stripes, anyone teaching science and even people who dislike physics.Question 1. what does the woman say about the book the man recommended?A) It can benefit professionals and non-professionals alike.Question 2. what can we find in the book the man recommended?B) Stories about some female physicists.Question 3. How does the author bring her book to life?C) By including lots of fascinating knowledge.Question 4. How does the book cultivate readers interest in physics.D)It provides experiments they can do themselves.Conversation 2A: Hi professor. I was hoping I could have a moment of your time if you‘re not too busy. I’m having some problems getting started on my dissertation and I was hoping you could give me some advice on how to begin.B: Sure. I have quite a few students though. So can you remind me what your topic is?A: The general topic I chose is aesthetics, but that’s as far as I’ve got I don‘t really know where to go from there.B: Yeah，that’s much too large a topic. You really need to narrow it down in order to make it more accessible. Otherwise you’ll be writing a book.A: Exactly. That’s what I wanted to ask you about. I was hoping it would be possible for me to change topics. I’m really more interested in nature than beauty.B: I‘m afraid you have to adhere to the assigned topic. Still, If you’re interested in nature, then that certainly can be worked into your dissertation. We‘ve talked about Hume before in class right.A: Oh yeah, he’s the philosopher who wrote about where our ideas of beauty come from.B: Exactly. I suggest you go to the library and get a copy of his biography. Start from there. But remember to stick to the parameters of the assignment. This paper is a large part of your cumulative grade. So make sure to follow the instructions. If you take a look at his biography. You can get a good idea of how his life experiences manifest themselves in his theories of beauty. specifically the way he looked towards nature as the origin of what we find beautiful.A: Great. Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, Professor. I‘ll let you get back to class now.B: If there’s anything else you need, please come see me in my office any time.Question 5. What is the man‘s problem?D) He has not idea how to proceed with his dissertation.Question 6. What does the professor think of the man‘s topic?A) It is too broadQuestion 7. What’s the man really more interested in?B) Nature.Question 8. What does the professor say the man has to do?C) Stick to the topic assigned.Passage 1During the arctic winter from October to March, the average temperature in the frozen north typically hovers around minus 20 degrees Celsius. But this year the Arctic is experiencing much higher temperatures. On February the 20th the temperature in Greenland climbed above freezing or zero degrees Celsius and it stayed there for over 24 hours. Then on February the 24th the temperature on Greenland’s northern tip reached six degrees Celsius. Climate scientists describe the phenomenon as stunning. Weather conditions that drive this bizarre temperature surge have visited the Arctic before. They typically appear about once in a decade. However, the last such increase in temperature took place two years ago. This is troubling as climbing arctic temperatures combined with rapid sea ice loss are creating a new type of climate feedback loop which could accelerate Arctic warming. Indeed, sea ice cover in the Arctic is melting faster than expected. Without those masses of cooling sea ice, warm air brought to the Arctic can penetrate further inland than it ever did before. The air can stay warmer longer too. This drives additional melting. Overall earth is warming at a rapid pace. 2014 through 2017 rank as the hottest years on record and the Arctic is warming twice as fast as any place else on earth. This raises unique challenges for Arctic wildlife and indigenous people who depend on Arctic ecosystems to survive. Previously climate forecasts predicted that Arctic summer ice would disappear entirely by around 2060, but based on what scientists are seeing now the Arctic may be facing summers without ice within 20 years.Question 9. What did climate scientists describe as stunning?A) The unprecedented high temperature in Greenland.Question 10. What does the passage say about that temperature surge in the Arctic?C) It typiaclly appears about once every ten years.Question 11. W hat may occur in 20 years according to scientists’ recent observations?B) Iceless summers in the Arctic.Passage2A good dose of willpower is often necessary to see any task through whether it’s sticking to a spending plan or finishing a great novel. And if you want to increase that willpower, a new study suggests you just simply have to believe you have it. According to this study, what matters most is what we think about our willpower. If we believe it’s a finite resource, we act that way, we feel exhausted and need breaks between demanding mental tasks. However, people who view their willpower as a limitless resource get energized instead. The researchers used a psychological assessment tool to test the validity of the study. They asked 1100 Americans and1600 Europeans to grade different statements such as after a challenging mental activity, my energy is depleted and I must rest to get it refueled again or I can focus on a mental task for long periods without feeling tired.Although there was little difference between men and women overall. Americans were more likely to admit to needing breaks after completing mentally challenging tasks European participants on the other hand claimed they were able to keep going. Based on the findings, the researchers suggest that the key to boosting your willpower is to believe that you have an abundant supply of it. Your feelings about your willpower affect the way you behave. But these feelings are changeable, they said. Changing your beliefs about the nature of your self-control can have positive effects on character development. This leads to healthier behaviors and perceptions of other people.Question 12. What is often necessary for carrying through a task?C) A strong determination.Question 13. What is the finding of the new study?D) It is most important to have confidence in one`s willpower.Question 14. What do we learn about European participants as compared with their American counterparts?A) They could keep on working longer.Question 15. What do the research say conce rning people‘s feelings about willpower?B) They are subject to change.Lecture 1Here is my baby niece Sarah. Her mum is a doctor and her dad is a lawyer. By the time Sarah goes to college the jobs her parents do are going to look dramatically different. In 2013，researchers at Oxford University did a study on the future of work. They concluded that almost one in every two jobs has a high risk of being automated by machines. Machine learning is the technology that’s responsible for most of this disruption. It’s the most powerful branch of artificial intelligence. It allows machines to learn from data and copy some of the things that humans can do. My company, Kaggle, operates on the cutting edge of machine learning. We bring together hundreds of thousands of experts to solve important problems for industry and academia. This gives us an unique perspective on what machines can do, what they can‘t do and what jobs they might automate or threaten. Machine learning started making its way into industry in the early 90s. It started with relatively simple tasks. It started with things like assessing credit risk from loan applications, sorting the mail by reading handwritten zip codes. Over the past few years, we havemade dramatic breakthroughs. Machine learning is now capable of far, far more complex tasks. In 2012, Kaggle challenged its community to build a program that could grade high school essays. The winning programs were able to match the grades given by human teachers. Now given the right data, machines are going to outperform humans at tasks like this. A teacher might read 10000 essays over a 40-year career. A machine can read millions of essays within minutes. We have no chance of competing against machines on frequent high-volume tasks, but there are things we can do that machines cannot. Where machines have made very little progress is in tackling novel situations. Machines can’t handle things they haven’t seen many times before. The fundamental limitation of machine learning is that it needs to learn from large volumes of past data. But humans don’t. We have the ability to connect seemingly different threads to solve problems we’ve never seen before.Question 16. What did the researchers at Oxford University conclude?A) About half of current jobs might be automated.Question 17. What do we learn about Kaggle companies winning programs?D) They could grade high-school essays just like human teachers.Question 18. What is the fundamental limitation on machine learning?C) It has to rely on huge amounts of previous data.Lecture 2We’ve talked recently about the importance of sustainable energy. We’ve also talked about the different theories on how that can be done. So far, our discussions have all been theoretical. Now I have a practical question for you all. Can you run a 140,000 kilogram train on just the steam generated by solar power? Well, one engineer, Tim Casselman, believes it‘s possible. And his home city of Sacramento, California s hould see the technology’s first test as part of the upgrading of its rail yard. Casselman, who is an inventor and self-proclaimed steam visionary, is campaigning for a new steam train that runs without any fire and could run on an existing 10 kilometer line drawing tourists and perhaps offering city commuters a green alternative to their cars. Casselman wants to build an array of solar magnifying mirrors at one end of the line to collect and focus heat onto water filled tubes. This would generate steam that could be used to fill tanks on a small steam train without the use of fire. Supplying power to trains in this way would offer the shortest distance from well to wheels he says with the least amount of energy lost. According to Harry Valentijn, a Canadian engineer who is researching modern steam technology, a special tank measuring 2 by 10 metres could store over 750 kilowatt hours of energy as high pressure steam enough to pull a two car train for an hour or so. Energy to drive a steam locomotive can be stored in other materials besides water for example a team at Tohoku University in Japan has studied materials that can store large amounts of heat when heated. These materials turn from a solidinto a liquid absorbing energy as they change phase. The liquid is maintained above its melting point until steam is required at which point the liquid is allowed to turn back into a solid releasing its stored energy another team at Nagoya University in Japan has tested calcium compound as an energy storage material. Heating this chemical compound drives off carbon dioxide gas leaving calcium oxide the gas can be stored under pressure and attain to recover the energy the gas is fed back over the calcium oxide. In theory says Valentijn this can create a high enough temperature to generate superheated steam.Question 19. What has the speaker previously talked about?D) The theoretical aspects of sustainable energy.Question 20. What is Tim Casselman trying to do in Sacramento?A) Drive trains with solar energy.Question 21. What has a Japanese research team tried to do?B) Find a new material for storing energy.Lecture 3Today’s crisis in care for older people in England has two main causes.First，people are living longer with a lot more complex needs. Second, they rely on a system that has long been marked by a poor relation between national health and social-care services.Current services originate in two key measures. They are the National Health Service and the 1948 National Assistance Act. This required local government to provide residential accommodation for older people and supervise care homes run by independent organizations.They also provided home and community services including meals, day centers and home helpers and other subsidized services. The National Health Service was free and wholly publicly provided. It delivered the best health-care for all. No such vision guided residential and community care though. The care was substantially provided by voluntary services which worked together with local authorities as they long had with eligibility based on income. Today, life expectancy has risen from 66 for a male at birth in 1948 to around 80 now. In addition, there is better overall health and improved medical knowledge and care. This means an unprecedented number of people are surviving longer in conditions requiring expert support. Families provide at least as much care as they ever did. Even so, they can rarely without subsidised support address serious personal needs. Care for older people faced persistent criticism as these trends became apparent. From the early 1960s, local authorities were required to plan health and welfare services. The aim was to enable older people to remain in their own homes for as long as possible, but this increasedconcern about the lack of coordination between free health and paid-for social care. Through the 1970s, a number of measures sought to improve matter. However at a time of financial crisis, funding diminished and little changed. In the 1980s, the government cut spending. Meanwhile, preference for private over public services made management even more difficult. Simultaneously, the number of sick older people grew. Governments emphasized the need to improve services. They did so though while doing little to stop the erosion of available aid. Services were irregular across authorities. Unless you were prepared to pay, they were increasingly difficult to obtain for any but the most severely disabled. Why has 60 years of criticism produced so little change. Discrimination against older people has a long history. Additionally, those affected by inadequate health and social care are too vulnerable to launch the protests that have addressed other forms of discrimination.Question 22. What is one cause of the current crisis in care for the elderly in England?D) The poor relation between national health and social care services.Question 23. What does the speaker say about residential and community care?A) It was mainly provided by voluntary services.Question 24. What made management of care for the elderly more difficult in the 1980s?C) Their preference for private services.Question 25. What does the speaker say about older people in England?B) They have long been discriminated against.。
2007年12月大学英语六级真题和答案解析及听力原文
2007年12月大学英语六级真题Part Ⅰ Writing (30 minutes)Directions：For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled The Digital Age. You shouldwrite at least 150 words following the outline given below.1.如今数字化产品得到越来越广泛的使用，例如…2.数字化产品的使用对人们工作、学习和生活产生的影响The Digital AgePart Ⅱ Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes)本题客观选择题共计7分，每小题1分。
Directions: In this part you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on Answer Sheet 1. For questions 1-7, choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.Seven Ways to Save the WorldForget the old idea that conserving energy is a form of self-denial—riding bicycles, dimming the lights, and taking fewer showers. These days conservation is all about efficiency: getting the same—or better—results from just a fraction of the energy. When a slump in business travel forced Ulrich Romer to cut costs at his family-owned hotel in Germany, he replaced hundreds of the hotel’s wasteful light bulbs, getting the same light for 80 percent less power. He bought a new water boiler with a digitally controlled pump, and wrapped insulation around the pipes. Spe nding about €100,000 on these and other improvements, he slashed his €90,000 fuel and power bill by €60,000. As a bonus, the hotel’s lower energy needs have reduced its annual carbon emissions by more than 200 metric tons. “For us, saving energy has been v ery, very profitable,” he says. “And most importantly, we’re not giving up a single comfort for our guests.”Efficiency is also a great way to lower carbon emissions and help slow global warming. But the best argument for efficiency is its cost—or, mor e precisely, its profitability. That’s because quickly growing energy demand requires immense investment in new supply, not to mention the drain of rising energy prices.No wonder efficiency has moved to the top of the political agenda. On Jan. 10, the European Union unveiled a plan to cut energy use across the continent by 20 percent by 2020. Last March, China imposed a 20 percent increase in energy efficiency by 2020. Even Greorge W. Bush, the Texas oilman, is expected to talk about energy conservation in his State of the Union speech this week.The good news is that the world is full of proven, cheap ways to save energy. Here are the seven that could have the biggest impact:InsulateSpace heating and cooling eats up 36 percent of all the w orld’s energy. There’s virtually no limit to how much of that can be saved, as prototype “zero-energy homes” in Switzerland and Germany have shown. There’s been a surge in new ways of keeping heat in and cold out(or vice versa). The most advanced insulation follows the law of increasing returns: if you add enough, you can scale down or even eliminate heating and air-conditioning equipment, lowering costs even before you start saving on utility bills. Studies have shown that green workplaces(ones thatdon’t constantly need to have the heat or air-conditioner running)have higher worker productivity and lower sick rates.Change BulbsLighting eats up 20 percent of the world’s electricity, or the equivalent of roughly 600,000 tons of coal a day. Forty percent of that powers old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs—a 19th-century technology that wastes most of the power it consumes on unwanted heat.Compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs, not only use 75 to 80 percent less electricity than incandescent bulbs to generate the same amount of light, but they also last 10 times longer. Phasing old bulbs out by 2030 would save the output of 650 power plants and avoid the release of 700 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year.Comfort ZoneWater boilers, space heaters and air conditioners have been notoriously inefficient. The heat pump has altered that equation. It removes heat from the air outside or the ground below and uses it to supply heat to a building or its water supply. In the summer the system can be reversed to cool buildings as well.Most new residential buildings in Sweden are already heated with ground-source heat pumps. Such systems consume almost no conventional fuel at all. Several countries have used subsidies to jump-start the market, including Japan, where almost 1 million heat pumps have been installed in the past two years to heat water for showers and hot tubs.Remake FactoriesFrom steel mills to paper factories, industry eats up about a third of the world’s energy. The opportunities to save are vast. In Ludwigshafen, German chemicals giant BASF runs an interconnected complex of more than €200 chemical factories, where heat produced by one chemical process is used to power the next. At the Ludwigshafen site alone, such recycling of heat and energy saves the company 200 million a year and almost half its CO2 emissions. Now BASF is doing the same for new plants in China. “Optimizing（优化）energy efficiency is a decisive competitive advantage,” says BASF CEO Jürgen Hambrecht.Green DrivingA quarter of the world’s energy—including two thirds of the annual production of oil—is used for transportation. Some savings come free of charge: you can boost fuel efficiency by 6 percent simply by keeping your car’s tires properly inflate d(充气). Gasoline-electric hybrid(混合型的)models like the Toyota Prius improve mileage by a further 20 percent over conventional models.A Better FridgeMore than half of all residential power goes into running household appliances, producing a fifth of the world’s carbon emissions. And that’s true even though manufacturers have already hiked the efficiency of refrigerators and other white goods by as much as 70 percent since the 1980s. According to an lnternational Energy Agency study, if consumers chose those models that would save them the most money over the life of the appliance, they’d cut global residential power consumption(and their utility bills)by 43 percent.Flexible PaymentWho says you have to pay for all your conservation investments? “Ener gy service contractors” will pay for retrofitting(翻新改造)in return for a share of the client’s annual utility-bill savings. In Beijing, Shenwu Thermal Energy Technology Co. specializes in retrofitting China’s steel furnaces. Shenwu puts up the initial invest ment to install a heat exchanger that preheats the air going into the furnace, slashing the client’s fuel costs. Shenwu pockets a cut ofthose savings, so both Shenwu and the client profit.If saving energy is so easy and profitable, why isn’t everyon e doing it? It has to do with psychology and a lack of information. Most of us tend to look at today’s price tag more than tomorrow’s potential savings. That holds double for the landlord or developer, who won’t actually see a penny of the savings his investment in better insulation or a better heating system might generate. In many people’s minds, conservation is still associated with self-denial. Many environmentalists still push that view.Smart governments can help push the market in the right dire ction. The EU’s 1994 law on labeling was such a success that it extended the same idea to entire buildings last year. To boost the market value of efficiency, all new buildings are required to have an “energy pass” detailing power and heating consumption. Countries like Japan and Germany have successively tightened building codes, requiring an increase in insulation levels but leaving it up to builders to decide how to meet them.The most powerful incentives, of course, will come from the market itself. Over the past year, sky-high fuel prices have focused minds on efficiency like never before. Ever-increasing pressure to cut costs has finally forced more companies to do some math on their energy use.Will it be enough? With global demand and emissions rising so fast, we may not have any choice but to try. Efficient technology is here now, proven and cheap. Compared with all other options, it’s the biggest, easiest and most profitable bang for the buck.1. What is said to be the best way to conserve energy nowadays?A) Raising efficiency.B) Cutting unnecessary costs.C) Finding alternative resources.D) Sacrificing some personal comforts.2. What does the European Union plan to do?A) Diversify energy supply.B) Cut energy consumption.C) Reduce carbon emissions.D) Raise production efficiency.3. If you add enough insulation to your house, you may be able to________.A) improve your work environmentB) cut your utility bills by halfC) get rid of air-conditionersD) enjoy much better health4. How much of the power consumed by incandescent bulbs is converted into light?A) A small portion.B) Some 40 percent.C) Almost half.D) 75 to 80 percent.5. Some countries have tried to jump-start the market of heat pumps by________.A) upgrading the equipmentB) encouraging investmentsC) implementing high-techD) providing subsidies6. German chemicals giant BASF saves 200 million a year by________.A) recycling heat and energyB) setting up factories in ChinaC) using the newest technologyD) reducing the CO2 emissions of its plants7. Global residential power consumption can be cut by 43 percent if________.A) we increase the insulation of walls and water pipesB) we choose simpler models of electrical appliancesC) we cut down on the use of refrigerators and other white goodsD) we choose the most efficient models of refigerators and other white goods8. Energy service contractors profit by taking a part of clients’ ________.9. Many environmentalists maintain the view that conservation has much to do with ________.10. The strongest incentives for energy conservation will derive from________.Part ⅢListening Comprehension (35 minutes)本题Section A&B共计25分，每小题1分。
2006年12月六级听力真题及答案
2006年12月24日大学英语六级(CET-6)真题试卷(A卷)Part III Listening Comprehension (35 minutes)Section ADirections: In this section, you will hear 8 short conversations and 2 long conversations. At the end of each conversation, one or more questions will be asked about what said. Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once. After each question there will be a pause. During the pause, you must read the four choices marked A) B) C) and D), and decide which is the best answer. Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
11. A) Dr. Smith’s waiting room isn’t tidy.B) Dr. Smith enjoys reading magazines.C) Dr. Smith has left a good impression on her.D) Dr. Smith may not be a good choice.12. A) The man will rent the apartment when it is available.B) The man made a bargain with the landlady over the rent.C) The man insists on having a look at the apartment first.D) The man is not fully satisfied with the apartment.13. A) Packing up to go abroad.B) Drawing up a plan for her English course.C) Brushing up on her English.D) Applying for a visa to the United Sates.14. A) He is anxious to find a cure for his high blood pressure.B) He doesn’t think high blood pressure is a problem for him.C) He was not aware of his illness until diagnosed with it.D) He did not take the symptoms of his illness seriously.15. A) To investigate the cause of AIDS.B) To raise money for AIDS patients.C) To rally support for AIDS victims in Africa.D) To draw attention to the spread of AIDS in Asia.16. A) It has a very long history.B) It is a private institution.C) It was founded by Thomas Jefferson.D) It stresses the comprehensive study of nature.17. A) They can’t fit into the machine.B) They have not been delivered yet.C) They were sent to the wrong address.D) They were found to be of the wrong type.18. A) The food served in the cafeteria usually lacks variety.B) The cafeteria sometimes provides rare food for the students.C) The students find the service in the cafeteria satisfactory.D) The cafeteria tries hard to cater to the students’ needs.Questions 19 to 22 are based on the conversation you have just heard.19. A) He picked up some apples in his yard.B) He cut some branches off the apple tree.C) He quarreled with his neighbor over the fence.D) He cleaned up all the garbage in the woman’s yard.20. A) Trim the apple trees in her yard.B) Pick up the apples that fell in her yard.C) Take the garbage to the curb for her.D) Remove the branches from her yard.21. A) File a lawsuit against the man.B) Ask the man for compensation.C) Have the man’s apple tree cut down.D) Throw garbage into the man’s yard.22. A) He was ready to make a concession.B) He was not intimidated.C) He was not prepared to go to court.D) He was a bit concerned.Questions 23 to 25 are based on the conversation you have just heard.23. A) Bad weather.B) Breakdown of the engines.C) Human error.D) Failure of the communications system.24. A) Two thousand feet.B) Twenty thousand feet.C) Twelve thousand feet.D) Twenty-two thousand feet.25. A) Accurate communication is of utmost importance.B) Pilots should be able to speak several foreign languages.C) Air controllers should keep a close watch on the weather.D) Cooperation between pilots and air controllers is essential.Section BDirections: In this section, you will hear 3 short passages. At the end of each passage, you will hear some questions. Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choice marked A) B) C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。