2013年6月六级考试真题（三）.doc

2013年6月六级考试真题（第三套） PartⅠ Writing Directions： For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on the remark “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.” You can cite examples to illustrate your point. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words . Part II Listening Comprehension 说明：2013年6月六级真题全国共考了两套听力。本套（即第三套）的听力内容与第二套的内容完全相同，只是选项的顺序不一样而已，故在本套中没有重复给出。 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 36 to 45 are based on the following passage. Children are losing the ability to play properly because they are being given too many toys, according to a new research. The studies show that children — especially those under five — are often 36 and actually play less than those with fewer toys. “0ur studies show that giving children too many toys or toys of the 37 type can actually be doing them harm. They get spoiled and cannot 38 on any one thing long enough to learn from it”, said Lerner, a childhood development researcher. Her conclusions have been backed up by British research looking at children with 39 few toys, whose parents spend more time reading, singing or playing with them. It showed such children 40 youngsters from richer backgrounds — even those who had access to computers. Kathy Sylva, professor of educational psychology at Oxford University, reached her 41 from a study of 3,000 children from the ages of three to five. In her opinion, there is a complex relationship between children’s progress, the type of toys they are given and the time parents spend on them. When the children have a large number of toys there seems to be a distraction element, and when children are 42 they do not learn or play well. Some parents notice the 43 early. Orhan Ismail, a researcher from Colchester, Essex, saw a change for the worse in Cameron, his 10-month-old son, after he was given 44 toys last Christmas. He observed that if there are too many toys in front of Cameron, he will just keep moving round them and then end up going away and finding something like a slipper to play with. Experts 45 to put a figure on the number of toys children should have, but many believe two dozen is enough for children of pre-school age. A) impact I) surpass B) concentrate J) innumerable C) overwhelmed K) decisions D) reasonably L) inaccurate E) conclusions M) relatively F) exquisite N) distracted G) embarrassed O) lag H) hesitate 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. Norman Borlaug: “Father of the Green Revolution” [A] Few people have quietly changed the world for the better more than this rural lad from the midwestem state of Iowa in the United States. The man in focus is Norman Borlaug, the “Father of the Green Revolution”, who died on 12 September 2009 at age 95. Norman Borlaug spent most of his 60 working years in the farmlands of Mexico, South Asia and later in Africa, fighting world hunger, and saving by some estimates up to a billion lives in the process. An achievement, fit for a Nobel Peace Prize. Early Years [B] “I’m a product of the great depression” is how Borlaug described himself. A great-grandson of Norwegian immigrants to the United States, Borlaug was born in 1914 and grew up on a small farm in the northeastern comer of Iowa in a town called Cresco. His family had a 40-hectrare (公顷)farm on which they grew wheat, maize (玉米)and hay and raised pigs and cattle. Norman spent most of his time from age 7-17 on the farm, even as he attended a one-room, one-teacher school at New Oregon in Howard County. [C] Borlaug didn’t have money to go to college. But through a Great Depression era programme, known as the National Youth Administration, Borlaug was able to enroll in University of Minnesota at Minneapolis to study forestry. He excelled in studies and received his PhD in plant pathology (病理学）and genetics in 1942. [D] From 1942 to 1944, Borlaug was employed as a microbiologist at DuPont in Wilmington. However, following the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Borlaug tried to join the military, but was rejected under wartime labour regulations. In Mexico [E] In 1944, many experts warned of mass starvation in developing nations where populations were expanding faster than crop production. Borlaug began work at a Rockefeller Foundation- funded project in Mexico to increase wheat production by developing higher-yielding varieties of the crop. It involved research in genetics, plant breeding, plant pathology, entomology（昆虫学），agronomy（农艺学）,soil science, and cereal technology. The goal of the project was to boost wheat production in Mexico, which at the time was importing a large portion of its grain. [F] Borlaug said that his first couple of years in Mexico were difficult. He lacked trained scientists and equipment. Native farmers were hostile towards the wheat programme because of serious crop losses from 1939 to 1941 due to stem rust. [G] Wheat varieties that Borlaug worked with had tall, thin stalks. While taller wheat competed better for sunlight, they had a tendency to collapse under the weight of extra grain — a trait called lodging. To overcome this, Borlaug worked on breeding wheat with shorter and stronger stalks, which could hold on larger seed heads. Borlaug’s new semi-dwarf, disease-resistant varieties, called Pitic 62 and Penjamo 62, changed the potential yield of Mexican wheat dramatically. By 1963 wheat production in Mexico stood six times more than that of 1944. Green Revolution in India [H] During the 1960s, South Asia experienced severe drought condition and India had been importing wheat on a large scale from the United States. Borlaug came to India in 1963 along with Dr Robert Anderson to duplicate his Mexican success in the sub-continent. The experiments began with planting a few of the high-yielding variety strains in the fields of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute at Pusa in New Delhi, under the supervision of Dr M. S. Swaminathan. These strains were subsequently planted in test plots at Ludhiana, Pantnagar, Kanpur, Pune and Indore. The results were promising, but large-scale success, however, was not instant. Cultural opposition to new agricultural techniques initially prevented Borlaug from going ahead with planting of new wheat strains in India. By 1965, when the drought situation turned alarming, the Government took the lead and allowed wheat revolution to move forward. By employing agricultural techniques he developed in Mexico, Borlaug was able to nearly double South Asian wheat harvests between 1965 and 1970. [I] India subsequently made a huge commitment to Mexican wheat, importing some 18,000 tonnes of seed. By 1968, it was clear that the Indian wheat harvest was nothing short of revolutionary. It was so productive that there was a shortage of labour to harvest it, of bull carts to haul it to the threshing floor（打谷场）of jute（黄麻）bags to store it. Local governments in some areas were forced to shut down schools temporarily to use them as store houses. [J] United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) observed that in 40 years between 1961 and 2001,“India more than doubled its population, from 452 million to more than 1 billion. At the same time, it nearly tripled its grain production from 87 million tonnes to 231 million tonnes. It accomplished this feat while increasing cultivated grain acreage （土地面积）a mere 8 percent.” It was in India that Norman Borlaug’s work was described as the “Green Revolution.” In Africa [K] Africa suffered widespread hunger and starvation through the 70s and 80s. Food and aid poured in from most developed countries into the continent, but thanks to the absence of efficient distribution system, the hungry remained empty-stomach. The then Chairman of the Nippon Foundation, Ryoichi Sasakawa wondered why the methods used in Mexico and India were not extended to Africa. He called up Norman Borlaug, now leading a semi-retired life, for help. He managed to convince Borlaug to help with his new effort and subsequently founded the Sasakawa Africa Association. Borlaug later recalled, “but after I saw the terrible circumstances there, I said, ‘Let’s just start growing’”. [L] The success in Africa was not as spectacular as it was in India or Mexico. Those elements that allowed Borlaug’s projects to succeed, such as well-organised economies and transportation and irrigation systems, were severely lacking throughout Africa. Because of this, Borlaug’s initial projects were restricted to developed regions of the continent. Nevertheless, yields of maize, sorghum (高粱) and wheat doubled between 1983 and 1985. Nobel Prize [M] For his contributions to the world food supply, Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. Norwegian officials notified his wife in Mexico City at 4:00 am, but Borlaug had already left for the test fields in the Toluca valley, about 65km west of Mexico City. A chauffeur (司机）took her to the fields to inform her husband. In his acceptance speech, Borlaug said, “the first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind. Food is the moral right of all who are born into this world. Yet, 50 percent of the world population goes hungry.” Green Revolution vs Environmentalists [N] Borlaug’s advocacy of intensive high-yield agriculture came under severe criticism from environmentalists in recent years. His work faced environmental and socio-economic criticisms, including charges that his methods have created dependence on monoculture crops, unsustainable fanning practices, heavy indebtedness among subsistence farmers, and high levels of cancer among those who work with agriculture chemicals. There are also concerns about the long-term sustainability of fanning practices encouraged by the Green Revolution in both the developed and the developing world. [O] In India, the Green Revolution is blamed for the destruction of India crop diversity, drought vulnerability, dependence on agro-chemicals that poison soils but reap large-scale benefits mostly to the American multi-national corporations. What these critics overwhelmingly advocate is a global movement towards “organic” or “sustainable” farming practices that avoid using chemicals and high technology in favour of natural fertilisers, cultivation and pest-control porgrammes. 46. Farmers’ rejection of his planting techniques initially prevented Borlaug from achieving large- scale success in India. 47. In both developed and developing countries there are concerns whether in the long run Borlaug’s farming practice will be sustainable. 48. Borlaug’s Pitic 62 and Penjamo 62 has short and strong stems and can resist to diseases. 49. Borlaug’s success in Africa was not as spectacular as in India or Mexico because Africa lacked the necessary supporting facilities. 50. In India, critics attribute the destruction of Indian crop diversity to the Green Revolution. 51. Borlaug emphasised that adequate food for all mankind is essential in ensuring social justice in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. 52. In recent years Borlaug’s Green Revolution has been attacked by environmentalists. 53. Borlaug’s wheat programme had been stuck in trouble during his first couple of years in Mexico. 54. According to United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, in 40 years between 1961 and 2001 India’s grain production increased nearly three times. 55. Norman Borlaug won a Nobel Prize for his 60 years work on combating world hunger. Section C Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or 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 One Questions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage. “Depression” is more than a serious economic downturn. What distinguishes a depression from a harsh recession is paralysing fear — fear of the unknown so great that it causes consumers, businesses, and investors to retreat and panic. They save up cash and desperately cut spending. They sell stocks and other assets. A shattering loss of confidence inspires behaviour that overwhelms the normal self-correcting mechanisms that usually prevent a recession from becoming deep and prolonged: a depression. Comparing 1929 with 2007-09, Christina Romer, the head of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, finds the initial blow to confidence far greater now than then. True, stock prices fell a third from September to December 1929, but fewer Americans then owned stocks. Moreover, home prices barely dropped. From December 1928 to December 1929, total household wealth declined only 3%. By contrast, the loss in household wealth between December 2007 and December 2008 was 17%. Both stocks and homes, more widely held, dropped more. Thus traumatised (受到创伤），the economy might have gone into a free fall ending in depression. Indeed, it did go into free fall. Shoppers refrained from buying cars, appliances, and other big- ticket items. Spending on such “durables” dropped at a 12% annual rate in 2008’s third quarter, a 20% rate in the fourth. And businesses shelved investment projects. That these huge declines didn’t lead to depression mainly reflects, as Romer argues, counter-measures taken by the government. Private markets for goods, services, labor, and securities do mostly self-correct, but panic feeds on itself and disarms these stabilising tendencies. In this situation, only the government can protect the economy as a whole, because most individuals and companies are involved in the self-defeating behaviour of self-protection. Government’s failure to perform this role in the early 1930s transformed recession into depression. Scholars will debate which interventions this time — the Federal Reserve’s support of a failing credit system, guarantees of bank debt, Obama’s “stimulus” plan and bank “stress test” 一 counted most in preventing a recurrence. Re