2015年12月六级真题（第3套）.docx

大学英语六级考试2015年12月真题(第三套) Part Ⅰ Writing (30 minutes) Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay based on the picture below. You should focus on the difficulty in acquiring useful information in spite of advanced information technology. You are required to write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words. We just don’t have much useful information. ” 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) To test how responsive dolphins are to various signals. B) To see if dolphins can learn to communicate with each other. C) To examine how long it takes dolphins to acquire a skill. D) To find out if the female dolphin is cleverer than the male one. 2. A) Raise their heads above the water. C) Press the right-hand lever first. B) Swim straight into the same tank. D) Produce the appropriate sound. 3. A) Both dolphins were put in the same tank. B) The male dolphin received more rewards. C) Only one dolphin was able to see the light. D) The lever was beyond the dolphins’ reach. 4. A) Both the dolphins did a perfect job and were rewarded with fish. B) The male dolphin failed to press the levers in the correct order. C) The female dolphin made a mistake when communicating with the male dolphin. D) Dr. Bastian was surprised to see the dolphins weren’t as smart as expected. Conversation Two Questions 5 to 8 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 5. A) In a resort town. C) On a cattle farm. B) In a lecture room. D) In a botanical garden. 6. A) It is an ideal place for people to retire to. B) It has kept many traditions from Victorian times. C) It is at the centre of the fashion industry. D) It remains very attractive with its mineral waters. 7. A) It is located in the eastern part of Harrogate. B) It will be used as a centre for athletic training. C) It was named after a land owner in the old days. D) it is protected as parkland by a special law. 8. A) The beautiful flowers. C) The refreshing air. B) The vast grassland. D) The mineral waters. 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 12 are based on the passage you have just heard. 9. A) He provides counseling for university students. B) He teaches psychology at Ohio State University. C) He specializes in interpersonal relationships. D) He has experience tutoring black students. 10. A) Students who scored low on standardized tests. B) Students who are accustomed to living in dorms. C) Black students from families with low incomes. D) Black freshmen with high standardized test scores. 11. A) They generally spent more time together than white pairs. B) They moved out of the college dorms at the end of the semester. C) They were more appreciative of the university’s housing policy. D) They broke up more often than same-race roommates. 12. A) Their test scores rose gradually. B) They started doing similar activities. C) They grew bored of each other. D) Their racial attitudes improved. Passage Two Questions 13 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard. 13. A) It can help solve global food crises. C) It has attracted worldwide attention. B) It will change the concept of food. D) It will become popular gradually. 14. A) It has been drastically cut by NASA. C) It has been increased over the years. B) It comes regularly from its donors. D) It is still far from being sufficient. 15. A) They are not as natural as we believed. C) They are more nutritious and delicious. B) They are less healthy than we expected. D) They are not as expensive as before. 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 18 are based on the recording you have just heard. 16. A) Exhausting jobs and wasted time. B) Wrong eating habits and wasted time. C) Pollution and cognitive decline. D) Exhausting jobs and wrong eating habits. 17. A) Adequate sleep. C) Music. B) Laugh or smile. D) Exercise. 18. A) Massage helps to improve physical function and reduce stress. B) Massage plays a role in mood-boosting and is good for sleep. C) Essential oils used in massage help to eliminate various diseases. D) Essential oils used in massage do good to your memory and thinking. Questions 19 to 22 are based on the recording you have just heard. 19. A) They spent more money in promoting their political candidates. B) They attracted more members and focused on candidates’ characters. C) They had more influence over the selection of political candidates. D) They received more money from sponsors as campaign funds. 20. A) It made politics seem more intimate to citizens. B) It provided detailed information about a candidate’s behaviour. C) It allowed news coverage of political candidates. D) It placed political issues within a historical context. 21. A) Politicians dislike explaining their own positions on specific issues to citizens. B )Politicians make claims without providing arguments for the claims. C)Politicians enjoy explaining issues and arguing with competitors. D) Politicians take stronger positions on political issues than in the past. 22. A) They can obtain more television coverage for themselves. B)They can create more time to discuss political issues. C) They can spend more time talking to citizens in person. D)They can engage in debates with their opponents. Questions 23 to 25 are based on the recording you have just heard. 23. A) They are not based on a representative sampling. B) They are used only on television broadcasting. C) They are not carefully worded and organized. D)They reflect political opinions from the public. 24. A) A large number of respondents taking part in the survey. B)Carefully worded and understandable questions. C) An interviewer’s ability to understand respondents’ feelings. D) A sociologist who is able to interpret the results. 25. A)Live interviews cost less money and energy. B)Live interviews can obtain more information. C)Live interviews are easier to carry out. D)Live interviews minimize the influence of the researcher. 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. As it is, sleep is so undervalued that getting by on fewer hours has become a badge of honor. Plus, we live in a culture that __26__ to the late-nighter, from 24-hour grocery stores to online shopping sites that never close. It’s no surprise, then, that more than half of American adults don’t get the 7 to 9 hours of shut-eye every night as __27__ by sleep experts. Whether or not we can catch up on sleep—on the weekend, say —is a hotly __28__ topic among sleep researchers. The latest evidence suggests that while it isn’t __29__ , it might help. When Liu, the UCLA sleep researcher and professor of medicine, brought __30__ sleep-restricted people into the lab for a weekend of sleep during which they logged about 10 hours per night, they showed __31__ in the ability of insulin(胰岛素) to process blood sugar. That suggests that catch-up sleep may undo some but not all of the damage that sleep __32__ causes, which is encouraging given how many adults don’t get the hours they need each night. Still, Liu isn’t __33__ to endorse the habit of sleeping less and making up for it later. Sleeping pills, while helpful for some, are not __34__ an effective remedy either. “A sleeping pill will __35__ one area of the brain, but there’s never going to be a perfect sleeping pill, because you couldn’t really replicate(复制) the different chemicals moving in and out of different parts of the brain to go through the different stages of sleep,” says Dr. Nancy Collop, director of the Emory University Sleep Center. K) presumption L) ready M) recommended N) surpasses O) target A) alternatively B) caters C) chronically D) debated E) deprivation F) ideal G) improvements H) necessarily I) negotiated J) pierce 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. Climate change may be real, but it’s still not easy being green How do we convince our inner caveman to be greener? We ask some outstanding social scientists. [A] The road to climate hell is paved with our good intentions. Politicians may tackle polluters while scientists do battle with carbon emissions. But the most pervasive problem is less obvious: our own behaviour. We get distracted before we can turn down the heating. We break our promise not to fly after hearing about a neighbour’s trip to India. Ultimately, we can’t be bothered to change our attitude. Fortunately for the planet, social science and behavioural economics may be able to do that for us. [B] Despite mournful polar bears and charts showing carbon emissions soaring, most people find it hard to believe that global warming will affect them personally. Recent polls by the Pew Research Centre in Washington, DC, found that 75-80 percent of participants regarded climate change as an important issue. But respondents ranked it last on a list of priorities. [C] This inconsistency largely stems from a feeling of powerlessness. “When we can’t actually remove the source of our fear, we tend to adapt psychologically by adopting a range of defense mechanisms,” says Tom Crompton, change strategist for the environmental organization World Wide Fund for Nature. [D] Part of the fault lies with our inner caveman. Evolution has programmed humans to pay most attention to issues that will have an immediate impact. “We worry most about now because if we don’t survive for the next minute, we’re not going to be around in ten years’ time,” says Professor Elke Weber of the Centre for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University in New York. If the Thames were lapping around Big Ben, Londoners would face up to the problem of emissions pretty quickly. But in practice, our brain discounts the risks —and benefits—associated with issues that lie some way ahead. [E] Matthew Rush worth, of the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, sees this in his lab every day. “One of the ways in which all agents seem to make decisions is that they assign a lower weighting to outcomes that are going to be further away in the future,” he says. “This is a very sensible way for an animal to make decisions in the wild and would have been very helpful for humans for thousands of years.” [F] Not any longer. By the time we wake up to the threat posed by climate change, it could well be too late. And if we’re not going to make rational decisions about the future, others may have to help us to do so. [G] Few political libraries are without a copy of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. They argue that governments should persuade us into making better decisions—such as saving more in our pension plans—by changing the default options. Professor Weber believes that environmental policy can make use of similar tactics. If, for example, building codes included green construction guidelines, most developers would be too lazy to challenge them. [H] Defaults are certainly part of the solution. But social scientists are most concerned about crafting messages that exploit our group mentality (心态). “We need to understand what motivates people, what it is that allows them to make change,” says Professor Neil Adger, of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Norwich. “It is actually about what their peers think of them, what their social norms are, what is seen as desirable in society.” In other words, our inner caveman is continually looking over his shoulder to see what the rest of the tribe are up to. [I] The passive attitude we have to climate change as individuals can be altered by counting us in —and measuring us against—our peer group. “Social norms are primitive and elemental,” says Dr. Robert Cialdini, author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. “Birds flock together, fish school together, cattle herd together.. .just perceiving norms is enough to cause people to adjust their behavior in the direction of the crowd. [J] These norms can take us beyond good intentions. Cialdini conducted a study in San Diego in which coat hangers bearing messages about saving energy were hung on people’s doors. Some of the messages mentioned the environment, some financial savings, others social responsibility. But it was the ones that mentioned the actions of neighbours that drove down power use. [K] Other studies show that simply providing the facility for people to compare their energy use with the local average is enough to cause them to modify their behaviour. The Conservatives plan to adopt this strategy by making utility companies print the average local electricity and gas usage on people’s bills. [L] Social science can also teach politicians how to avoid our collective capacity for self-destruc