2015年06月六级真题（第1套）.docx

大学英语六级考试2015年6月真题(第一套) Part I Writing (30minutes) Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on the saying “Knowledge is a treasure, but practice is the key to it. ” You can cite one example or two to illustrate your point of view. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words. Part Ⅱ Listening Comprehension (30 minutes) Section A Directions: 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. Conversation One Questions 1 to 4 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 1. A) Persuade the man to join her company. C) Export bikes to foreign markets. B) Employ the most up-to-date technology. D) Expand their domestic business. 2. A) The state subsidizes small and medium enterprises. B) The government has control over bicycle imports. C) They can compete with the best domestic manufacturers. D) They have a cost advantage and can charge higher prices. 3. A) Extra costs might eat up their profits abroad. B) More workers will be needed to do packaging. C) They might lose to foreign bike manufacturers. D) It is very difficult to find suitable local agents. 4. A) Report to the management. C)Conduct a feasibility study. B) Attract foreign investments. D) Consult financial experts. Conversation Two Questions 5 to 8 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 5. A) Coal burnt daily for the comfort of our homes. B) Anything that can be used to produce power. C) Fuel refined from oil extracted from underground. D) Electricity that keeps all kinds of machines running. 6. A) Oil will soon be replaced by alternative energy sources. B) Oil reserves in the world will be exhausted in a decade. C) Oil consumption has given rise to many global problems. D) Oil production will begin to decline worldwide by 2025. 7. A) Minimize the use of fossil fuels. B) Start developing alternative fuels. C) Find the real cause for global warming. D) Take steps to reduce the greenhouse effect. 8. A) They release harmful substances when they are burned. B) They dissolve in the water and cause a waste of water. C) They release poisonous gas and lead to pollution. D) They are burned inefficiently resulting in a waste of resources. Section B Directions: 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. Passage One Questions 9 to 11 are based on the passage you have just heard. 9. A) The ability to predict fashion trends. C) Years of practical experience. B) A refined taste for artistic works. D) Strict professional training. 10. A) Promoting all kinds of American hand-made specialties. B) Strengthening cooperation with foreign governments. C) Conducting trade in art works with dealers overseas. D) Purchasing handicrafts from all over the world. 11. A) She has access to fashionable things. B) She is doing what she enjoys doing. C) She can enjoy life on a modest salary. D) She is free to do whatever she wants. Passage Two Questions 12 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard. 12. A) Join in neighborhood patrols. B) Get involved in his community. C) Voice his complaints to the city council. D) Make suggestions to the local authorities. 13. A) Deterioration in the quality of life. B) Increase of police patrols at night. C) Renovation of the vacant buildings. D) Violation of community regulations. 14. A) They may take a long time to solve. B) They need assistance from the city. C) They have to be dealt with one by one. D) They are too big for individual efforts. 15. A) He had got some groceries at a big discount. B) He had read a funny poster near his seat. C) He had done a small deed of kindness. D) He had caught the bus just in time. Section C Directions: 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 19 are based on the recording you have just heard. 16. A) The difficulties of industrialization in North America. B) The influence of industrialization on people’s life. C) The negative effect of industrialization in North America. D) Improved ways of organizing the manufacturing of goods. 17. A) To provide an example of how entrepreneurs increased output by using an extended work system. B) To provide an example of how entrepreneurs used technological improvements to increase output. C) To provide an example of how rural workers responded to shoe bosses. D) To provide an example of how changes in the work system improved the quality of shoes. 18. A)They were located away from large cities. B)They used new technology to produce power. C)They did not allow flour to cool before it was placed in barrels. D) They combined technology with the work system. 19. A) It became easier for factory owners to find workers and customers. B)Manufacturers had to employ more highly skilled workers. C) The amount of power required for factories’ operation was reduced. D)Factories could operate more than one engine at a time. Questions 20 to 22 are based on the recording you have just heard. 20. A) The Civil War. B) An economic depression. C) A recognition that romanticism was unpopular. D) An increased interest in the study of common speech. 21. A) Because he wrote humorous stories and novels. B) Because he rejected romanticism as a literary approach. C) Because he was the first realist writer in the United States. D) Because he influenced American prose style through his use of common speech. 22. A) He mainly wrote about historical subjects such as the Civil War. B) His novels often contained elements of humor. C) He viewed himself more as a social observer than as a literary artist. D) He believed writers should emphasize the positive aspects of life. Questions 23 to 25 are based on the recording you have just heard. 23. A) They have remained basically unchanged from their original forms. B) They have been able to adapt to ecological changes. C) They have caused rapid change in the environment. D) They are no longer in existence. 24. A) Extinction of species has occurred from time to time throughout Earth’s history. B) Extinctions on Earth have generally been massive. C) There has been only one mass extinction in Earth’s history. D) Dinosaurs became extinct much earlier than scientists originally believed. 25. A) Extinctions during the past 25 million years have tended to be more intense every 2.6 million years. B) The theory that the periodic extinction had something to do with the Earth’s movement is only a speculation. C) This finding was already confirmed by the most prestigious scientists in the world. D) A species’ survival totally depends on its ability or inability to adapt. Part Ⅲ Reading Comprehension (40 minutes) Section A. Directions：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. Questions 26 to 35 are based on the following passage. Innovation, the elixir (灵丹妙药) of progress, has always cost people their jobs. In the Industrial Revolution hand weavers were __26__ aside by the mechanical loom. Over the past 30 years the digital revolution has __27__ many of the mid-skill jobs that supported 20th-century middle-class life. Typists, ticket agents, bank tellers and many production-line jobs have been dispensed with, just as the weavers were. For those who believe that technological progress has made the world a better place, such disruption is a natural part of rising __28__ . Although innovation kills some jobs, it creates new and better ones, as a more __29__ society becomes richer and its wealthier inhabitants demand more goods and services. A hundred years ago one in three American workers was __30__ on a farm. Today less than 2% of them produce far more food. The millions freed from the land were not rendered __31__, but found better-paid work as the economy grew more sophisticated. Today the pool of secretaries has __32__, but there are ever more computer programmers and web designers. Optimism remains the right starting-point, but for workers the dislocating effects of technology may make themselves evident faster than its __33__ Even if new jobs and wonderful products emerge, in the short term income gaps will widen, causing huge social dislocation and perhaps even changing politics. Technology’s __34__ will feel like a tornado (旋风)，hitting the rich world first, but __35__ sweeping through poorer countries too. No government is prepared for it. K) rhythm L) sentiments M) shrunk N) swept O) withdrawn A) benefits B) displaced C) employed D) eventually E) impact F) jobless G) primarily H) productive I) prosperity J) responsive Section B Directions：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. Why the Mona Lisa Stands Out [A] Have you ever fallen for a novel and been amazed not to find it on lists of great books? Or walked around a sculpture renowned as a classic, struggling to see what the fuss is about? If so, you’ve probably pondered the question a psychologist, James Cutting, asked himself: How does a work of art come to be considered great? [B] The intuitive answer is that some works of art are just great: of intrinsically superior quality. The paintings that win prime spots in galleries, get taught in classes and reproduced in books are the ones that have proved their artistic value over time. If you can’t see they’re superior, that’s your problem. It’s an intimidatingly neat explanation. But some social scientists have been asking awkward questions of it, raising the possibility that artistic canons (名作目录) are little more than fossilised historical accidents. [C] Cutting, a professor at Cornell University, wondered if a psychological mechanism known as the “mere-exposure effect” played a role in deciding which paintings rise to the top of the cultural league. Cutting designed an experiment to test his hunch (直觉). Over a lecture course he regularly showed undergraduates works of impressionism for two seconds at a time. Some of the paintings were canonical, included in art-history books. Others were lesser known but of comparable quality. These were exposed four times as often. Afterwards, the students preferred them to the canonical works, while a control group of students liked the canonical ones best. Cutting’s students had grown to like those paintings more simply because they had seen them more. [D] Cutting believes his experiment offers a clue as to how canons are formed. He points out that the most reproduced works of impressionism today tend to have been bought by five or six wealthy and influential collectors in the late 19th century. The preferences of these men bestowed (给予) prestige on certain works, which made the works more likely to be hung in galleries and printed in collections. The fame passed down the years, gaining momentum from mere exposure as it did so. The more people were exposed to, the more they liked it, and the more they liked it, the more it appeared in books, on posters and in big exhibitions. Meanwhile, academics and critics created sophisticated justifications for its preeminence (卓越). After all, it’s not just the masses who tend to rate what they see more often more highly. As contemporary artists like Warhol and Damien Hirst have grasped, critics’ praise is deeply entwined (交织) with publicity. “Scholars”, Cutting argues, “are no different from the public in the effects of mere exposure.” [E] The process described by Cutting evokes a principle that the sociologist Duncan Watts calls “cumulative advantage”: once a thing becomes popular, it will tend to become more popular still. A few years ago, Watts, who is employed by Microsoft to study the dynamics of social networks, had a similar experience to Cutting‘s in another Paris museum. After queuing to see the “Mona Lisa” in its climate- controlled bulletproof box at the Louvre, he came away puzzled: why was it considered so superior to the three other Leonardos in the previous chamber, to which nobody seemed to be paying the slightest attention? [F] When Watts looked into the history of “the greatest painting of all time”, he discovered that, for most of its life, the “Mona Lisa” remained in relative obscurity. In the 1850s, Leonardo da Vinci was considered no match for giants of Renaissance art like Titian and Raphael, whose works were worth almost ten times as much as the “Mona Lisa”. It was only in the 20th century that Leonardo’s portrait of his patron’s wife rocketed to the number-one spot. What propelled it there wasn’t a scholarly re- evaluation, but a theft. [G] In 1911 a maintenance worker at the Louvre walked out of the museum with the “Mona Lisa” hidden under his smock (工作服). Parisians were shocked at the theft of a painting to which, until then, they had paid little attention. When the museum reopened, people queued to see the gap where the “Mona Lisa” had once hung in a way they had never done for the painting itself. From then on, the “Mona Lisa” came to represent Western culture itself. [H] Although many have tried, it does seem improbable that the painting’s unique status can be attributed entirely to the quality of its brushstrokes. It has been said that the subject’s eyes follow the viewer around the room. B