2013年12月大学英语六级考试真题(第二套)

20XX年12月大学英语四级考试真题(第2套)Directions: In this section, you will hear three news reports. At the end of each news report, you will hear two or three questions. Both the news report 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 and 2 are based on the news report you have just heard. 1. A) It tries to entertain its audience. B) It tries to look into the distance.C) It wants to catch people’s attention. D) It has got one of its limbs injured.(25 minutes)2. A) It was spotted by animal protection officials. B) It was filmed by a local television reporter. C) Its videos were posted on social media. D) Its picture won a photography prize.C) The spending on gas.D) The number of people travelling. C) Job growth is slowing down. D) Rush-hour traffic is worsening.Questions 5 to 7 are based on the news report you have just heard. 5. A) He told a stranger the sad story about himself.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.Questions 8 to 11 are based on the conversation you havejust heard. 8. A) Attended an economics lecture. B) Taken a walk on Charles Street. 9. A) Treat a college friend to dinner. B) Make preparations for a seminar. 10. A) Gather statistics forhis lecture. B) Throw a surprise birthday party.C) Meet with Jonathan’s friends on the weekend. D) Join him in his brother’s birthday celebration. 11. A) By car.Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.B) By train.C) By ta某i.D) By bus.C) Had a drink at Queen Victoria. D) Had dinner at a new restaurant. C) Attend his brother’s birthday party. D) Visit some of his high school friends. C) He raised a large sum of money for him. D) He offered him a scholarship for college. C)He is very good at making up stories. D) He has been disabled since boyhood.12. A) Taking a vacation abroad. B) Reviewing for his last e某am. 13. A) Preparing for his final e某ams. B) Negotiatingwith his boss for a raise. 14. A) Finish her term paper. B) Save enough money.15. A) He has rich sailing e某perience. B) He speaksSpanish fluently.Section C17. A) She fought bravely in a series of military operations.B) She developed X-ray facilities for military hospitals. C) She helped to set up several military hospitals. D) She made donations to save wounded soldiers. 18. A) Both died of blood cancer. B) Both fought in World War I.C) Both won military medals. D) Both married their assistants.Questions 19 to 21 are based on the passage you have just heard.C) The Vikings’ everyday life. D) The Europeans’ Arcti c discoveries.Questions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard. 22. A) Work hard for a better life. B) Make mistakes now and then.C) Dream about the future. D) Save against a rainy day.23. A) Teach foreign languages for the rest of his life. B) Change what he has for his past imaginary world. C) E某change his two-story house for a beach cottage. D) Dwell on the dreams he had dreamed when young. 24. A) Criminal law. B) City planning.25. A) Dream and make plans. B) Take things easy in life,Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word(40 minutes)C) Oriental architecture. D) International business. C) Be content with what you have. D) Enjoy whatever you are doing.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 maynot use any of the words in the bank more than once. Questions 26 to 35 are based on the following passage.。

2023年12月大学英语六级考试真题及答案（第二套）2023年12月大学英语六级考试真题及答案第二套英语六级听力第二套1.A) Spending their holidays in a novel way.2. D) He once owned a van.3. A) Generate their own electricity.4.C) Enjoying the freedom to choose where to go and work.5. C) Her job performance has worsened over the past month.6.B) Some problems at home7. B) The womans work proficiency.8. C) The woman will be off work on the next two Mondays.9. D) It can enable us to live a healthier and longer life.10.B) The spouses level of education can impact oneshealth.11.A) They had more education than their spouses.12.C) Forecasting flood risks accurately.13.D) To improve his mathematical flooding model.14.A) To forecast rapid floods in real time.15.B) They set up Internet-connected water-level sensors.16.B) To argue about the value of a college degree.17.D) The factor of wages.18.A) The sharp decline in marriage among men with no college degrees.19.C) More and more people prioritize animal welfare when buying things to wear.20.D)Avoided the use of leather and fur.21.A)Whether they can be regarded as ethical.22.D) The era we live in is the most peaceful in history.23.C) They believed the world was deteriorating.24.B) Our psychological biases.25.A) Paying attention to negative information.翻译第二篇在中国，随着老龄化社会的到来，养老受到普遍关注。

2019年12月大学英语六级考试真题(第2套) Part I Writing (30 minutes) Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay on the importance of having a sense of family responsibility.You shouldwrite at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.Part II 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) Magazine reporter.B) Fashion designer.C) Website designer.D) Features editors.2.A) Designing sports clothing.B) Consulting fashion experts.C) Answering daily emails.D) Interview job-seekers.3.A) It is challenging.B) It is fascinating.C) It is tiresome.D) It is fashionable.4.A) Her persistence.B) Her experience.C) Her competence.D) Her confidence.Questions 5 to 8 are based on the conversation you have just heard.5.A) It is enjoyable.B) It is educational.C) It is divorced from real life.D) It is adapted from a drama.6.A) All the roles are played by famous actors and actresses.B) It is based on the real-life experiences of some celebrities.C) Its plots and events reveal a lot about Frankie’s actual life.D) It is written, directed, edited and produced by Frankie himself.7.A) Go to the theater and enjoy it.B) Recommend it to her friends.C) Watch it with the man.D) Download and watch it.8.A) It has drawn criticisms from scientists.B) It has been showing for over a decade.C) It is a ridiculous piece of satire.D) It is against common sense.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 willbe spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the bestanswer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Then mark thecorresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through thecentre.Questions 9 to 11 are based on the passage you have just heard.9.A) They are likely to get hurt when moving too fast.B) They believe in team spirit.C) They need to keep moving to avoid getting hurt.D) They have to learn how to avoid body contact.10.A) They do not have many years to live after retirement.B) They tend to live longer with early retirement.C) They do not start enjoying life until full retirement.D) They keep themselves busy even after retirement.11.A) It prevents us from worrying.B) It slows down our aging process.C) It enables us to accomplish in life.D) It provides us with more chances to learn.Questions 12 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard.12.A) It tends to dwell upon their joyous experiences.B) It wanders for almost half of their waking time.C) It has trouble concentrating after a brain injury.D) It tends to be affected by their negative feelings.13.A) To find how happiness relates to daydreaming.B) To observe how one’s mind affects one’s behavior.C) To see why daydreaming impacts what one is doing.D) To study the relation between health and daydreaming.14.A) It helps them make good decisions.B) It helps them tap their potentials.C) It contributes to their creativity.D) It contributes to their thinking.15.A) Subjects with clear goals in mind outperformed those without clear goals.B) The difference in performance between the two groups was insignificant.C) Non-daydreamers were more confused on their tasks than daydreamers.D) Daydreamers did better than non-daydreamers in task performance.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. Afteryou hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choicesmarked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on AnswerSheet I with a single line through the centre.Questions 16 to 18 are based on the recording you have just heard.16.A) They are the oldest buildings in Europe.B) They are part of the Christian tradition.C) They are renovated to attract tourists.D) They are in worsening condition.17.A) They have a history of 14 centuries.B) They are 40 metres tall on average.C) They are without foundations.D) They consist of several storeys.18.A) Wood has harmonious with nature.B) Wooden buildings kept the cold out.C) Timber was abundant in Scandinavia.D) The Vikings liked wooden structures.Questions 19 to 21 are based on the recording you have just heard.19.A) Similarities between human babies and baby animals.B) Cognitive features of different newly born mammals.C) Adults’ influence on children.D) Abilities of human babies.20.A) They can distinguish a happy tune from a sad one.B) They love happy melodies more than sad ones.C) They fall asleep easily while listening to music.D) They are already sensitive to beats and rhythms.21.A) Infants’ facial expressions.B) Babies’ emotions.C) Babies’ interaction with adult.D) Infants’ behaviors.Questions 22 to 25 are based on the recording you have just heard.22.A) It may harm the culture of today’s workplace.B) It may hinder individual career development.C) It may result in unwillingness to take risks.D) It may put too much pressure on team members.23.A) They can hardly give expression to their original views.B) They can become less motivated to do projects of their own.C) They may find it hard to get their contributions recognized.D) They may eventually lose their confidence and creativity.24.A) They can enlarge their professional circle.B) They can get chances to engage in research.C) They can make the best use of their expertise.D) They can complete the project more easily.25.A) It may cause lots of arguments in a team.B) It may prevent making a timely decision.C) It may give rise to a lot of unnecessary expense.D) It may deprive a team of business opportunities.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 bankfollowing the passage. Read the passage through carefully before makingyour choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please markthe corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single linethrough the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more thanonce.When considering risk factors associated with serious chronic diseases, we often think about health indicators such as cholesterol, blood pressure, and body weight. But poor diet and physical inactivity also each increase the risk of heart disease and have a role to play in the development of some cancers. Perhaps worse, the 26 effects of an unhealthy diet and insufficient exercise are not limited to your body. Recent research has also shown that 27 in a high-fat and high-sugar diet may have negative effects on your brain, causing learning and memory 28 .Studies have found obesity is associated with impairments in cognitive functioning, as 29 by a range of learning and memory tests, such as the ability to remember a list of words presented some minutes or hours earlier. There is also a growing body of evidence that diet-induced cognitive impairments can emerge 30 - within weeks or even days. For example, one study found healthy adults 31 to a high-fat diet for five days showed impaired attention, memory, and mood compared with a low-fat diet control group. Another study also found eating a high-fat andhigh-sugar breakfast each day for as little as four days resulted in problems with learning and memory 32 to those observed in overweight and obese individuals.Body weight was not hugely different between the groups eating a healthy diet and those on high fat and sugar diets. So this shows negative 33 of poor dietary intake can occur even when body weight has not changed 34 . Thus, body weight is not always the best indicator of health and a thin person still needs to eat well and exercise 35 .A)assessedB)assignedC)consequencesD)conspicuouslyE)deficitsF)designatedG)detrimentalH)digestionI)excellingJ)indulgingK)loopholesL)rapidlyM)redundantN)regularlyO)similarSection 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 theparagraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived.You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is markedwith a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter onAnswer Sheet 2.Increased Screen Time and Wellbeing Decline in Youth[A] Have young people never had it so good? Or do they face more challenge than any previousgeneration? Our current era in the west is one of high wealth. This means minors enjoy material benefits and legal protections that would have been the envy of those living in the past. But there is an increasing suspicion that all is not well for our youth. And one of the most popular explanations, among some experts and the popular media, is that excessive “screen time” is to blame. (This refers to all the attention young people devote to their phones, tablets and laptops). However, this is a contentious theory and such claims have been treated skeptically by some scholars based on their reading of the relevant data.[B] Now a new study has provided another contribution to the debate, uncovering strongevidence that adolescent wellbeing in the United States really is experiencing a decline and arguing that the most likely cause is the electronic riches we have given them. The background to this is that from the 1960s into the early 2000s，measures of averagewellbeing went up in the US. This was especially true for younger people. It reflected the fact that these decades saw a climb in general standards of living and avoidance of mass societal traumas like full-scale war or economic deprivation. However, the “screen time”hypothesis, advanced by researchers such as Jean Twenge, is that electronic devices and excessive time spent online may have reversed these trends in recent years, causing problems for young people's psychological health[C] To investigate, Twenge and her colleagues dived into the “Monitoring the Future” datasetbased on annual surveys of American school students from grades 8, 10, and 12 that started in 1991. In total, 1.1 million young people answered various questions related to their wellbeing. Twenge’s team’s analysis of the answers confirmed the earlier, well-established wellbeing climb, with scores rising across the 1990s, and into the later 2000s. This was found across measures like self-esteem, life satisfaction, happiness and satisfaction with individual domains like job, neighborhood, or friends. But around 2012 these measures started to decline. This continued through 2016, the most recent year for which data is available.[D] Twenge and her colleagues wanted to understand why this change in average wellbeingoccurred. However, it is very hard to demonstrate causes using non-experimental data such as this. In fact, when Twenge previously used this data to suggest a screen time effect, some commentators were quick to raise this problem. They argued that her causal-sounding claims rested on correlational data, and that she had not adequately account for other potential causal factors. This time around, Twenge and her team make a point of saying that they are not trying to establish causes as such, but that they are assessing the plausibility of potential causes.[E] First, they explain that if a given variable is playing a role in affecting wellbeing, then weshould expect any change in that variable to correlate with the observed changes in wellbeing. If not, it is not plausible that the variable is a causal factor. So the researchers looked at time spent in a number of activities that could plausibly be driving the wellbeing decline. Less sport, and fewer meetings with peers correlated with lower wellbeing, as did less time reading print media (newspapers) and, surprisingly, less time doing homework.(This last finding would appear to contradict another popular hypothesis that it is our burdening of students with assignments that is causing all the problems). In addition, more TV watching and more electronic communication both correlated with lower wellbeing.All these effects held true for measures of happiness, life satisfaction and self-esteem, with the effects stronger in the 8th and 10th-graders[F] Next, Twenge’s team dug a little deeper into the data on screen time. They found thatadolescents who spent a very small amount of time on digital devices-a couple of hours a week-had the highest wellbeing. Their wellbeing was even higher than those who never used such devices. However, higher doses of screen time were clearly associated with lower happiness. Those spending 10-19 hours per week on their devices were 41 percent more likely to be unhappy than lower-frequency users. Those who used such devices 40 hours a week or more (one in ten of teenagers) were twice as likely to be unhappy. The data was slightly complicated by the fact that there was a tendency for kids who were social in the real world to also use more online communication, but by bracketing out different cases it became clear that the real-world sociality component correlated with greater wellbeing,whereas greater time on screens or online only correlated with poorer wellbeing.[G] So far, so plausible. But the next question is, are the drops in average wellbeing happeningat the same time as trends toward increased electronic device usage? It looks likes it-after all, 2012 was the tipping point when more than half of Americans began owning smartphones. Twenge and her colleagues also found that across the key years of 2013-16, wellbeing was indeed lowest in years where adolescents spent more time online, on social media, and reading news online, and when more youth in the United States had smartphones. And in a second analysis, they found that where technology went, dips in wellbeing followed. For instance, years with a larger increase in online usage were followed by years with lower wellbeing, rather than the other way around. This does not prove causality, but is consistent with it. Meanwhile, TV use did not show this tracking.TV might make you less happy, but this is not what seems to be driving the recent declines in young people’s average happiness.[H] A similar but reversed pattern was found for the activities associated with greater wellbeing.For example, years when people spent more time with friends were better years for wellbeing (and followed by better years). Sadly, the data also showed face-to-face socializing and sports activity had declined over the period covered by the survey.[I] There is another explanation that Twenge and her colleagues wanted to address: the impactof the great recession of 2007-2009, which hit a great number of American families and might be affecting adolescents. The dataset they used did not include economic data, so instead the researchers looked at whether the 2013-16 wellbeing decline was tracking economic indicators. They found some evidence that some crude measures, like income inequality, correlated with changes in wellbeing, but economic measures with a more direct impact, like family income and unemployment rates (which put families into difficulties) , had no relationship with wellbeing. The researchers also note that the recession hit some years before we see the beginning of the wellbeing drop, and before the steepest wellbeing decline, which occurred in 2013.J) The researchers conclude that electronic communication was the only adolescent activity that increased at the same time psychological wellbeing declined. I suspect that some experts in the field will be keen to address alternative explanations, such as unassessed variables playing a role in the wellbeing decline. But the new work does go further than previous research and suggests that screen time should still be considered a potential barrier to young people’s flourishing36. The year when most Americans began using smartphones was identified as a turning pointin young Americans’ level of happiness.37. Scores in various wellbeing measures began to go downward among young Americans inrecent years.38. Unfortunately, activities involving direct contact with people, which contributed to betterwellbeing, were found to be on the decline.39. In response to past critics, Twenge and her co-researchers stress they are not trying to provethat the use of digital devices reduces young people’s wellbeing40. In the last few decades of the 20th century, living standards went up and economicdepressions were largely averted in the US.4l. Contrary to popular belief, doing homework might add to students’ wellbeing.42. The author believes the researchers’ new study has gone a step further regarding the impactof screen time wellbeing.43. The researchers found that extended screen time makes young people less happy.44. Data reveals that economic inequality rather than family income might affect people’swellbeing.45. Too much screen time is widely believed to be the cause of unhappiness among today’syoung people.Section CDirections: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 OneQuestions 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.“The dangerous thing about lying is people don’t understand how the act changes us,” says Dan Ariely, behavioural psychologist at Duke University. Psychologists have documented children lying as early as the age of two. Some experts even consider lying a developmental milestone, like crawling and walking, because it requires sophisticated planning, attention and the ability to see a situation from someone else’s perspective to manipulate them. But, for most people, lying gets limited as we develop a sense of morality and the ability to self-regulate.Harvard cognitive neuroscientist Joshua Greene says, for most of us, lying takes work. In studies, he gave subjects a chance to deceive for monetary gain while examining their brains in a functional MRI machine, which maps blood flow to active parts of the brain. Some people told the truth instantly and instinctively. But others opted to lie, and they showed increased activity in their frontal parietal (颅腔壁的) control network, which is involved in difficult or complex thinking. This suggests that they were deciding between truth and dishonesty-and ultimately opting for the latter. For a follow-up analysis, he found that people whose neural(神经的) reward centers were more active when they won money were also more likely to be among the group of liars-suggesting that lying may have to do with the inability to resist temptation.External conditions also matter in terms of when and how often we lie. We are more likely to lie, research shows when we are able to rationalise it, when we are stressed and fatigued or see others being dishonest. And we are less likely to lie when we have moral reminders or when we think others are watching. “We as a society need to understand that, when we don’t punish lying, we increase the probability it will happen again,” Ariely said.In a 2016 study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Ariely and colleagues showed how dishonesty alters people’s brains, making it easier to tell lies in the future. When people uttered a falsehood, the scientists noticed a burst of activity in their amygdala. The amygdala is a crucial part of the brain that produces fear, anxiety and emotional responses-including that sinking, guilty feeling you get when you lie. But when scientists had their subjects play a game in which they won money by deceiving their partner, they noticed the negative signals from the amygdala began to decrease. Not only that, but when people faced no consequences for dishonesty, their falsehoods tended to get even more sensational. This means that if you give people multiple opportunities tolie for their own benefit, they start with little lies which get bigger over time.46. Why do some experts consider lying a milestone in a child’s development?A) It shows they have the ability to view complex situations from different angles.B) It indicates they have an ability more remarkable than crawling and walking.C) It represents their ability to actively interact with people around them.D) It involves the coordination of both their mental and physical abilities47. Why does the Harvard neuroscientist say that lying takes work?A) It is hard to choose from several options.B) It is difficult to sound natural or plausible.C) It requires speedy blood flow into one’s brain.D) It involves lots of sophisticated mental activity.48. Under what circumstances do people tend to lie?A) When they become too emotional.B) When they face too much peer pressure.C) When the temptation is too strong.D) When the consequences are not imminent49. When are people less likely to lie?A) When they’re worn out and stressed.B) When they are under watchful eyes.C) When they think in a rational way.D) When they have a clear conscience.50. What does the author say will happen when a liar does not get punished?A) They may feel justified.B) They will tell bigger lies.C) They will become complacent.D) They may mix lies and truths.Passage TwoQuestions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.Here’s how the Pacific Northwest is preparing for “The Big One”. It’s the mother of all disaster drills for what could be the worst disaster in American history. California has spent years preparing for “The Big One”- the inevitable earthquake that will undoubtedly unleash all kinds of havoc along the famous San Andreas fault(断层). But what if the fault that runs along the Pacific Northwest delivers a gigantic earthquake of its own? If the people of the Cascadia region have anything to do with it, they won’t be caught unawares.The region is engaged in a multi-day earthquake-and-tsunami (海啸) drill involving around 20,000 people. The Cascadia Rising drill gives area residents and emergency responders a chance to practice what to do in case of a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami along one of the nation’s dangerous-and underestimated-faults.The Cascadia Earthquake Zone is big enough to compete with San Andreas (it’s been called the most dangerous fault in America), but it’s much lesser known than its California cousin. Nearly 700 miles long, the earthquake zone is located by the North American Plate off the coast of Pacific British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and Northern California.Cascadia is what’s known as a “megathrust” fault. Megathrust are created in earthquake zones-land plate boundaries where two plates converge. In the areas where one plate is beneath another, stress builds up over time. During a megathrust event, all of that stress releases and some of the world’s most powerful earthquakes occur. Remember the 9.1 earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean off Sumatra in 2004? It was caused by a megathrust event as the India plate moved beneath the Burma micro-plate.The last time a major earthquake occurred along the Cascadia fault was in 1700, so officials worry that another event could occur any time. To prevent that event from becoming a catastrophe, first responders will join members of the public in rehearsals that involve communication, evacuation, search and rescue, and other scenarios.Thousands of casualties are expected if a 9.0 earthquake were to occur. First, the earthquake would shake metropolitan areas including Seattle and Portland. This could trigger a tsunami that would create havoc along the coast. Not all casualties can necessarily be prevented-but by coordinating across local, state, and even national borders, officials hope that the worst-case scenario can be averted. On the exercise’s website, officials explain that the report they prepare during this rehearsal will inform disaster management for years to come.For hundreds of thousands of Cascadia residents, “The Big One” isn’t a question of if, only when. And it’s never too early to get ready for the inevitable.51. What does “The Big One” refer to?A) A gigantic geological fault.B) A large-scale exercise to prepare for disasters.C) A massive natural catastrophe.D) A huge tsunami on the California coast.52. What is the purpose of the Cascadia Rising drill?A) To prepare people for a major earthquake and tsunami.B) To increase residents’ awareness of imminent disasters.C) To teach people how to adapt to post-disaster life.D) To cope with the aftermath of a possible earthquake.53. What happens in case of a megathrust earthquake according to the passage?A) Two plates merge into one.B) Boundaries blur between plates.C) A variety of forces converge.D) Enormous stress is released.54. What do the officials hope to achieve through the drills?A) Coordinating various disaster-relief efforts.B) Reducing casualties in the event of a disaster.C) Minimizing property loss caused by disasters.D) Establishing disaster and emergency management.55. What does the author say about “The Big One”?A) Whether it will occur remains to be seen.B) How it will arrive is too early to predict.C) Its occurrence is just a matter of time.D) It keeps haunting Cascadia residents.Part IV Translation (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.荷花(lotus flower)是中国的名花之一，深受人们喜爱。

2013年12月大学英语六级真题试卷（二）(题后含答案及解析)题型有：1. Writing 2. Listening Comprehension 3. 4. Reading Comprehension 5. TranslationPart I Writing1．For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay about the impact of the information explosion by referring to the saying “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. “ You can give examples to illustrate your point and then explain what you can do to avoid being distracted by irrelevant information. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.正确答案：Ways to Get Over Information Explosion As a popular saying goes, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”Nowadays we are in an era of information explosion. More and more people complain that they are lost in the information age. Admittedly, no one can deny the fact that the new information age has brought us so much convenience that we are allowed to get plenty of information just with a simple click sitting in front of the computers. Nevertheless, we are also confused, annoyed, distracted and upset by an incredibly large quantity of information. For example, when searching for something online, people are easily misguided by irrelevant information and forget their original plan. Besides, some information often turns out to be useless. Therefore, it may be time-consuming and troublesome to search information online. Then what can we do to avoid being distracted by irrelevant information? Here are some useful tips: Firstly, make a list of what you really want before your searching. You can avoid some appealing, yet irrelevant information by this way. Then, find some credible and professional sources or websites and then save and categorize them. In this case, you can easily leave some advertisements and useless information behind.Part II Listening ComprehensionSection A听力原文：W: Has my order arrived yet? I have been expecting it last week. M: I called the company this morning. They had some labor problems, so your order will be shipped late. It should be here by the end of the week. Q: What has caused the delay of the shipment?2．A．Labor problems.B．Weather conditions.C．An error in the order.D．Misplacing of goods.正确答案：A解析：事实细节题。

2018年12月大学英语六级真题试卷（二）(题后含答案及解析)题型有：1. Writing 2. Listening Comprehension 3. Reading Comprehension 4. TranslationPart I Writing1．For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay on how to balance job responsibilities and personal interests. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.正确答案：How to Balance Job Responsibilities and Personal Interests When it comes to the issue of how to balance job responsibilities and personal interests, the majority of people will be confused. Since both of them have a significant impact on our life, then how to strike a balance between the two. Here are my views. On the one hand, we should attach primary importance to job responsibilities, as our job can provide us regular income with which we can live the life we like. Besides, now that we’ve taken this job, we should regard it as our mission and be conscientious about it. On the other hand, important as it is, job is not everything of our life. It’ s also necessary for us to spend due time on our personal interests, so that we can take a rest from work. What’ s more, whether we can develop our personal interests also has a great effect on our life quality. All in all, it is high time that we placed great emphasis on the balance of job responsibilities and personal interests. We are supposed to ensure the time to develop our interests on the condition of finishing our job.解析：这是一篇议论文写作，话题是如何平衡工作责任与个人兴趣。

2014年12月大学英语六级考试真题(二)Part Ⅱ Listening Comprehension (30 minutes)Section A注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。

1.A． In a parking lot.B．At a grocery.C． At a fast food restaurant.D． In a car showroom.2.A． Change her position now and then.B．Stretch her legs before standing up.C． Have a little nap after lunch.D． Get up and take a short walk.3.A． The students should practice long-distance running.B．The students' physical condition is not desirable.C． He doesn't quite believe what the woman says.D． He thinks the race is too hard for the students.4.A． They will get their degrees in two years.B．They are both pursuing graduate studies.C． They cannot afford to get married right now.D． They do not want to have a baby at present.5.A． He must have been mistaken for Jack.B．Twins usually have a lot in common.C． Jack is certainly not as healthy as he is.D． He has not seen Jack for quite a few days.6.A． The woman will attend the opening of the museum.B．The woman is asking the way at the crossroads.C． The man knows where the museum is located.D． The man will take the woman to the museurn.7.A． They cannot ask the guy to leave.B．The guy has been coming in for years.C． The guy must be feeling extremely lonely.D． They should not look down upon the guy.8.A． Collect timepieces.B．Become time-conscious.C． Learn to mend clocks.D． Keep track of his daily activities.Questions 9 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard.9.A． It is eating into its banks.B．It winds its way to the sea.C． It is wide and deep.D． It is quickly rising.10.A． Try to speed up the operation by any means.B．Take the equipment apart before being ferried.C． Reduce the transport cost as much as possible.D． Get the trucks over to the Other side of the river.11.A． Find as many boats as possible.B．Cut trees and build rowing boats.C． Halt the operation until fu.rther orders.D． Ask the commander to send a helicopter.Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.12.A． Talk about his climbing experiences.B．Help him join an Indian expedition.C． Give up mountain climbing altogether.D． Save money to buy climbing equipment.13.A． He was the first to conquer Mr. Qomolangma.B．He had an unusual religious background.C． He climbed mountains to earn a living.D． He was very strict with his children.14.A． They are to be conquered.B．They are to be protected.C． They are sacred places.D． They are like humans.15.A． It was his father's training that pulled him through.B．It was a milestone in his mountain climbing career.C． It helped him understand the Sherpa view of mountains.D． It was his father who gave him the strength to succeed.Section BDirections: In this section, you will hear 3 short passages. At the end of each passage, you will.hear somequestions. Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, youmust choose the best answer from the four choices marked A ), B ), C ) and D ). Then mark thecorresponding letter on ,Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre. 注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。

2013年12月大学英语六级考试真题(一)答案详解Part 4 Translation参考译文与难点注释The Chinese garden has become a landscape of unique style after an evolution for more than 3 000 years. It includes not only the large gardens built as entertainment venues for the royal family, but also the private gardens built as secluded retreats for scholars, merchants and retired government officials. These gardens have constituted a miniature designed to express the harmonious relationship between man and nature. A typical Chinese garden is surrounded by walls, and in the garden there are ponds, rockwork, trees, flowers and all kinds of buildings linked by winding trails and corridors. Wandering in the gardens, people may feel that a series of well-designed scenery spreads out before us like a landscape scroll.1. 第一句中，"三千多年演变"可以译成an evolution for more than 3 000 years,不能译成more than 3 000 years of evolution;"独具一格的"可以用单个形容词unique来表达，也可以用短语of unique style来表达。

2013年12月大学英语六级考试真题之第二套（含答案）2013年12月大学英语六级考试真题（第II套）Part I Writing (30 minutes)（请于正式开考后半小时内完成该部分，之后将进行听力考试）Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay about the impact of the information explosion by referring to the saying “A wealth of information crea tes a poverty of attention.” You can give examples to illustrate your point and then explain what you can do to avoid being distracted by irrelevant information. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.Part II Listening Comprehension (30 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 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 1 with a single line through the centre.1. A) Labor problems.B) Weather conditions.C) An error in the order.D) Misplacing of goods.2. A) What the woman says makes a lot of sense.B) The rich are opposed to social welfare.C) He is sympathetic with poor people.D) He agrees with Mr. Johnson?s views.3. A) He will be practicing soccer.B) He has work to finish in time.C) He will be attending a meeting.D) He has a tough problem to solve.4. A) Mary should get rid of her pet as soon as possible.B) Mary will not be able to keep a dog in the building.C)Mary is not happy with the ban on pet animals.D)Mary might as well send her dog to her relative.5.A) The twins? voices are quite different.B) Lisa and Gale are not very much alike.C) He does not believe they are twin sisters.D) The woman seems a bit hard of hearing.6.A) The serious economic crisis in Britain.B) A package deal to be signed in November.C) A message from their business associates.D) Their ability to deal with financial problems.7.A) It is impossible to remove the stain completely.B) The man will be charged extra for the service.C) The man has to go to the main cleaning facility.D) Cleaning the pants will take longer than usual.8.A) European markets.B) A protest rally.C) Luxury goods.D) Imported products.Questions 9 to 12 are based on the conversation you have just heard.9.A) He made a business trip.B) He had a quarrel with Marsha.C) He talked to her on the phone.D) He resolved a budget problem.10.A) She may have to be fired for poor performance.B) She has developed some serious mental problem.C) She is in charge of the firm?s budget planning.D) She supervises a number of important projects.11.A) She failed to arrive at the airport on time.B) David promised to go on the trip in her place.C) Something unexpected happened at her home.D) She was not feeling herself on that day.12.A) He frequently gets things mixed up.B) He is always finding fault with Marsha.C) He has been trying hard to cover for Marsha.D) He often fails to follow through on his projects.Questions 13 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.13.A) They are better sheltered from all the outside temptations.B) They are usually more motivated to compete with their peers.C) They have more opportunities to develop their leadership skills.D) They make an active part in more extracurricular activities.14.A) Its chief positions are held by women.B) Its teaching staff consists of women only.C) Its students aim at managerial posts.D) Its students are role models of women.15.A) It is under adequate control.B) It is traditional but colourful.C) They are more or less isolated from the outside world.D) They have ample opportunities to meet the opposite sex.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 choicesmarked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1with a single line through the centre.Passage OneQuestions 16 to 19 are based on the passage you have just heard.16.A) By invading the personal space of listeners.B) By making gestures at strategic points.C) By speaking in a deep, loud voice.D) By speaking with the local accent.17.A) To promote sportsmanship among business owners.B) To encourage people to support local sports groups.C) To raise money for a forthcoming local sports event.D) To show his family?s contribution to the community.18.A) They are known to be the style of the sports world.B) They would certainly appeal to his audience.C) They represent the latest fashion in the business circles.D) They are believed to communicate power and influence.19.A) To cover up his own nervousness.B) To create a warm personal atmosphere.C) To enhance the effect of background music.D) To allow the audience to better enjoy his slides.Passage TwoQuestions 20 to 22 are based on the passage you have just heard.20.A) She was the first educated slave of John Whitley?s.B) She was the greatest female poet in Colonial America.C) She was born about the time of the War of Independence.D) She was the first African-American slave to publish a book.21.A) Revise in a number of times.B) Obtain consent from her owner.C) Go through a scholarly examination.D) Turn to the colonial governor for help.22.A) Literary works calling for the abolition of slavery.B) Religious scripts popular among slaves in America.C) A rich stock of manuscripts left by historical figures.D) Lots of lost works written by African-American women.Passage ThreeQuestions 23 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.23.A) It is a trait of generouscharacter.B) It is a reflection of self-esteem.C) It is an indicator of high intelligence.D) It is a sign of happiness and confidence.24.A) It was self-defeating.B) It was aggressive.C) It was the essence of comedy.D) It was something admirable.25.A) It is a double-edged sword.B) It is a feature of a given culture.C) It is a unique gift of human beings.D) It is a result of both nature and nurture.Section CDirections: In this section, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read for the first time, you should listen carefully for its general idea. When the passage is read for thesecond time, you are required to fill in the blanks with the exact words you have just heard. Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, you should check what you have written.It is important that we be mindful of the earth, the planet out of which we are born and by which we are nourished, guided, healed—the planet, however, which we have(26)_______to a considerable degree in these past two centuries of (27)_______ exploitation. This exploitation has reached such (28)_______ that presently it appears that some hundreds of thousands of species will be (29)_______ before the end of the century.In our times, human shrewdness has mastered the deep (30)_______ of the earth at a level far beyond the capacities of earlier peoples. We can break the mountains apart; we can drain the rivers and flood the valleys. We can turn the most luxuriant forests into throwaway paper products. We can (31)_______ the great grass cover of the western plains and pour (32)_______ chemicals into the soil until the soil is dead and blows away in the wind. We can pollute the air with acids, the rivers with sewage(污水), the seas with oil. We can invent computers (33)_______ processing ten million calculations per second. And why?To increase the volume and the speed with which we move natural resources through the consumer economy to the junk pile or the waste heap. Our managerial skills are measured by the competence (34)_______ in accelerating this process. If in these activities the physical features of the planet are damaged, if the environment is made inhospitable for (35)_______ living species, then so be it. We are, supposedly, creating a technological wonderworld.Part III Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)Section ADirections: Inthis 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 2with 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.Quite often, educators tell families of children who are learning English as a second language to speak only English, and not their native language, at home. Although theseeducators may have good36 ,their advice to families is misguided, and it 37 from misunderstandings about the process of language acquisition. Educators may fear that children hearing two languages will become 38 confused and thus their language development will be 39 ;this concern is not documented in the literature. Children are capable of learning more than one language, whether 40 or sequentially(依次地). In fact, most children outside of the United States are expected to become bilingual or even, in many cases, multilingual. Globally, knowing more than one language is viewed as an 41 and even a necessity in many areas.It is also of concern that the misguided advice that students should speak only English is given primarily to poor families with limited educational opportunities, not to wealthier families who have many educational advantages. Since children from poor families often are 42 as at-risk for academic failure, teachers believe that advising families to speak English only is appropriate.Teachers consider learning two languages to be too 43 for children from poor families, believing that the children are already burdened by their home situations.If families do not know English or have limited English skills themselves, how can they communicate in English? Advising non-English-speaking families to speak only English is 44 to telling them not to communicate with or interact with their children. Moreover, the 45message is that the family's native language is not important or valued.注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。

2013年12月大学英语六级考试真题（第1套）Part III Reading 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.Questions 36 to 45 are based on the following passage.Some performance evaluations require supervisors to take action. Employees who receive a very favorable evaluation may deserve some type of recognition or even a promotion. If supervisors do not acknowledge such outstanding performance, employees may either lose their36 and reduce their effort or search for a new job at a firm that will37 them for high performance. Supervisors should acknowledge high performance so that the employee will continue to perform well in the future.Employees who receive unfavorable evaluations must also be given attention. Supervisors must 38 the reasons for poor performance. Some reasons, such as a family illness, may have a temporary adverse 39 on performance and can be corrected. Other reasons, such as a bad attitude, may not be temporary. When supervisors give employees an unfavorable evaluation, they must decide whether to take any 40 actions. If the employees were unaware of their own deficiencies, the unfavorable evaluation can pinpoint(指出) the deficiencies that employees must correct. In this case, the supervisor may simply need to monitor the employees 41 and ensure that the deficiencies are corrected.If the employees were already aware of their deficiencies before the evaluation period, however, they may be unable or unwilling to correct them. This situation is more serious, and the supervisor may need to take action. The action should be 42 with the f irm‟s guidelines and may include reassigning the employees to new jobs, 43 them temporarily, or firing them. A supervisor‟s action toward a poorly performing worker can 44 the attitudes of other employees. If no 45 isimposed on an employee for poor performance, other employees may react by reducing their productivity as well.Section 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.The College Essay: Why Those 500 Words Drive Us CrazyA) Meg is a lawyer-mom in suburban Washington, D.C., where lawyer-moms are thick on theground. Her son Doug is one of several hundred thousand high-school seniors who had a painful fall. The deadline for applying to his favorite college was Nov. 1,and by early October he had yet to fill out the application. More to the point, he had yet to settle on a subject for the personal essay accompanying the application. According to college folklore, a well-turned essay has the power to seduce (诱惑) an admissions committee. “He wanted to do one thing ata time,”Meg says, explaining her son‟s delay. “But really, my son is a huge procrastinator (拖延者). The essay is the hardest thing to do, so he‟s put it off the longest.” Friends and other veterans of the process have warned Meg that the back and forth between editing parent and writing student can be traumatic (痛苦的).B) Back in the good old days—say, two years ago, when the last of my children suffered theordeal (折磨)—a high-school student applying to college could procrastinate all the way to New Year‟s Day of their senior year, assuming they could withstand the paren tal pestering (烦扰).But things change fast in the nail-biting world of college admissions.The recent trend toward early decision and early action among selective colleges and universities has pushed the traditional deadline of January up to Nov. 1 or early December for many students.C) If the time for heel-dragging has been shortened, the true source of the anxiety and panicremains what it has always been. And it‟s not the application itself. A college application is a relatively straightforward questionnaire asking for the basics: name, address, family history employment history. It would all be innocent enough—20 minutes of busy work—except it comes attached to a personal essay.D) “There are good reasons it causes such anxiety,” says Lisa Sohmer, directo r of collegecounseling at the Garden School in Jackson Heights, N.Y. “It‟s not just the actual writing. By noweverything else is already set. Your course load is set, your grades are set, your test scores are set. But the essay is something you can still control, and it‟s open-ended. So the temptation is to write and rewrite and rewrite.” Or stall and stall and stall.E) The application essay, along with its mythical importance, is a recent invention. In the1930s,when only one in 10 Americans had a degree from a four-year college, an admissionscommit tee was content to ask for a sample of applicants‟ school papers to assess their writing ability. By the 1950s, most schools required a brief personal statement of why the student had chosen to apply to one school over another.F) Today nearly 70 percent of graduating seniors go off to college, including two-year andfour-year institutions. Even apart from the increased competition, the kids enter a process that has been utterly transformed from the one baby boomers knew. Nearly all application materials are submitted online, and the Common Application provides a one-size-fits form accepted by more than 400 schools, including the nation‟s most selective.G) Those schools usually require essays of their own, but the longest essay, 500 words maximum,is generally attached to the Common Application. Students choose one of six questions.Applicants are asked to describe an ethical dilemma they‟ve faced and its impact on them, or discuss a public issue of special concern to them, or tell of a fictional character or creative work that has profoundly influenced them. Another question invites them to write about the importance (to them, again) of diversity―a word that has assumed magic power in American higher education. The most popular option: write on a topic of your choice.H) “Boys in particular look at the other questions and say, …Oh, that‟s too much work,‟” says JohnBoshoven, a counselor in the Ann Arbor, Mich., public schools. “They think if they do a topic of their choice, “I‟ll just go get that history paper I did last year on the Roman Empire and turn it into a first-person application essay!‟ And they end up producing something utterly ridiculous.”I) Talking to admissions professionals like Boshoven, you realize that the list of “don‟ts” in essaywriting is much longer than the “dos.”“No book reports, no history papers, no character studies,”says Sohmer.J) “It drives you cra zy, how easily kids slip into clichés(老生常谈),”says Boshoven. “They don‟t realize how typical their experiences arc. …I scored the winning goal in soccer against our arch-rival.‟…My grandfather served in World War II, and I hope to be just like him someday.‟That may mean a lot to that particular kid. But in the world of the application e ssay, it‟s nothing. You‟ll lose the reader in the first paragraph.”K) “The greatest strength you bring to this essay,” says the College Board‟s how-to book, “is 17 years or so of familiarity with the topic: YOU. The form and style are very familiar, and best of all, you are the world-class expert on the subject of YOU ... It has been the subject of your close scrutiny every morning since you were tall enough to see into the bathroom mirror.”Thekey word in the Common Application prompts is “you.”L) The college admission essay contains the grandest American themes―status anxiety, parental piety (孝顺), intellectual standards—and so it is only a matter of time before it becomes infected by the country‟s culture of excessive concern with self-esteem. Even if the question is ostensibly (表面上) about something outside the self (describe a fictional character or solve a problem of geopolitics), the essay invariably returns to the favorite topic: what is its impact on YOU?M)“For all the anxiety the essay causes,”says Bill McClintick of Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, “it‟s a very small piece of the puzzle. I was in college admissions for 10 years. I saw kids and parents beat themselves up over this. And at the vast majority of places, it is simply not a big variable in the college‟s decision-making process.”N) Many admissions officers say they spend less than a couple of minutes on each application, including the essay. According to a recent survey of admissions officers, only one in four private colleges sa y the essay is of “considerable importance” in judging an application.Among public colleges and universities, the number drops to roughly one in 10. By contrast,86 percent place “considerable importance” on an applicant‟s grades, 70 percent on “strengthof curriculum.”O) Still, at the most selective schools, where thousands of candidates may submit identically high grades and test scores, a marginal item like the essay may serve as a tie-breaker between two equally qualified candidates. The thought is certainly enough to keep the pot boiling under parents like Meg, the lawyer-mom, as she tries to help her son choose an essay topic. For a moment the other day, she thought she might have hit on a good one. “His father‟s fromFrance,” she says. “I said maybe you could write about that, as something that makes you different. You know: half French, half American. I said, …You could write about your identity issues.‟He said, …I don‟t have any identity issues!‟And he‟s right. He‟s a well-adjusted, normal kid. B ut that doesn‟t make for a good essay, does it?”注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。

2013年12月大学英语四级（第二套）考试真题答案解析写作导航: On the Overuse of the Mobile Phone第1段：描述图片，概述生活中出现过度使用手机的现象Having a cell phone in hand and at the ready, growing increasing dependent on their mobile phones第2段：详细介绍过度使用手机产生的不良后果trigger many health problemsan Immediate threat to their Iife, health and pro property less chance of face-to-face interactions第3段：进行总结，并提出建议use them appropriately and rationally参考范文On the Overuse of the Mobile Phone 【1】As is shown in the picture, having a mobile phone in hand and at the ready is the default mode while walking on the streets. 【2】What this cartoon symbolically reveals is that people nowadays, especially young people, are growing increasingly dependent on their mobile phones.【3】It is true that the mobile phone has brought great convenience to people's life. However, just as is illustrated in the picture, the overuse of it may lead to several bad consequences. 【4】To begin with, there is evidence that long-term exposure to electromagnetic radiation may trigger many health problems, such as insomnia, headaches and even cancers.【5】In addition, when people immerse themselves in the mobile phone, they tend to pay less attention to their surroundings, posing an immediate threat to their life, health and property.【6】Last but not least, excessive use of mobile phones means much less chance of face-to-face interactions with the people who populate their real lives.【7】In conclusion, while mobile phones have contributed a lot to making our life more convenient, we should use them appropriately and rationally.【1】开门见山,对图片进行简单描述。

2013年12月大学英语六级考试真题（第1套）Section CDirections:There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions orunfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Youshould decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2with asingle line through the centre.Passage OneQuestions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.Among the government’s most interesting reports is one that estimates what parents spend ontheir children. Not surprisingly, the costs are steep. For a middle-class, husband-and-wife family(average pretax income in 2009: $76,250), spending per child is about $12,000 a year. With.inflation the family’s spending on a child will total $286,050 by age 17The dry statistics ought to inform the ongoing deficit debate, because a budget is not just acatalog of programs and taxes. It reflects a society’s priorities and values. Our society does not despite rhetoric(说辞) to the contrary—put much value on raising children. Present budgetpolicies tax parents heavily to support the elderly. Meanwhile, tax breaks for children are modest.If deficit reduction aggravates these biases, more Americans may choose not to have children or tohave fewer children. Down that path lies economic decline.Societies that cannot replace their populations discourage investment and innovation. Theyhave stagnant (萧条的) or shrinking markets for goods and services. With older populations,theyresist change. To stabilize its population—discounting immigration—women must have an2.0.Many countries with struggling economiesaverage of two children. That’s a fertility rate ofare well below that.shaped by culture, religion, Though having a child is a deeply personal decision, it’sa good answer” asto why fertility varies amongeconomics, and government policy. “No one hascountries, says sociologist Andrew Cherlin of The Johns Hopkins University. Eroding religiousbelief in Europe may partly explain lowered birthrates. In Japan young women may be rebellingisolated lives of child rearing. General optimism and pessimism count.against their mothers’　Hopefulness fueled Ameri ca’s baby boom. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, says Cherlin,Russiaand Eastern Europe.“anxiety for the future” depressed birthrates inIn poor societies, people have children to improve their economic well-being by increasingthe number of family workers and providing supports for parents in their old age. In wealthysocieties, the logic often reverses. Government now supports the elderly, diminishing the need forchildren. By some studies, the safety nets for retirees have reduced fertility rates by 0.5 children inthe United States and almost 1.0 in Western Europe, reports economist Robert Stein in the journalNational Affairs. Similarly, some couples don’t have children because they don’t want to sacrificetheir own lifestyles to the lime and expense of a family.Young Americans already face a bleak labor market that cannot instill (注入) confidenceabout having children. Piling on higher t axes won’t help, “If higher taxes make it more expensiveto raise children,” says Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, “peopletwice about having another child.” That seems like common sense, despite the multiple influences on becoming parents.注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。

2013年12月大学英语六级真题及详解（第二套）Part I Writing(30minutes)Directions:For this part,you are allowed30minutes to write an essay on happiness by referring to the saying“Happiness is not the absence of problems,butthe ability to deal with them.”You can cite examples to illustrate yourpoint and then explain how you can develop your ability to deal withproblems and be happy.You should write at least150words but no morethan200words.【审题构思】这是一篇典型的六级分析型习作，需要考生就“幸福/快乐不是没有问题，而是培养能力解决问题”展开讨论并给出建议。

考生应首先弄清题意，对现象进行分析，并在第一段阐明自己的观点。

第二段结合具体实例予以具体说明，并给出具体的解决策略，注意论述条理清晰。

最后一段总结全文，重申观点，与开头呼应。

【参考范文】The Way to Happiness(1)In the long journey of life,we are always(2)in the pursuit of happiness for which different people have different opinions.Most people would regard the path without obstacles as the best one,while I agree with the saying that“Happiness is not the absence of problems,but the ability to deal with them”.For the reason that there is no such a kind of life that can get rid of problems,our ability to solve problems should be enhanced.(3)Firstly,in my opinion,the attitude of optimism(4)has a great effect on our feeling of happiness.According to many surveys,confident and optimistic people’s feeling of happiness is stronger than those with a negative outlook.Secondly, courage plays a great role in the fight with problems in some degree.There are numerous examples for us to follow:disabled people become confident;patients struggle with diseases;ordinary people become the(5)big stly,persistence is the best way to success which will(6)be accompanied with satisfaction.People yearn for success because a life without satisfaction would be too dull to put up with.(7)In conclusion,it is essential to develop the ability of dealing with problems, which is the only path to achieve happiness.If we have developed the quality of optimism,courage and persistence,a happy life would be(8)around the corner.【行文点评】(1)第一段开宗明义，幸福不在于没有困难，而在于解决困难的能力，因而培养解决问题的能力至关重要。

2013年6月大学英语六级考试真题(二)答案与详解Part ⅠWriting1、审题:这是一篇评论性话题作文。

首先，抓住题目中的主题词happiness, problems和ability, 避免跑题。

接着，借助谚语内容（幸福不在于不出现问题，而在于拥有解决问题的能力），谚语与题目相结合，可提炼出主题：怎样提高解决问题的能力并因此而感到幸福。

然后，弄清题目与谚语的关系：主题与例证关系。

最后，确定行文思路：引出话题+解释谚语+提出观点+举例论证+总结意义；总结时，注意观点要明确，贴合所给主题，切勿模棱两可。

2、写作思路：第一段：以“总—分—总”形式引出话题，解释谚语，提出观点。

第二段：指出怎样通过提高解决问题的能力而获得幸福，并举例论证。

第三段：总结全文，点明意义，呼应主题。

On HappinessAs the saying goes, happiness is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them. Happiness to our society does not mean that we ignore problems, such as environmental problems, unfair income among citizens, and corruption of the government officials, and so forth. Happiness to the individual is the ability to deal with problems. We will feel happy if we try our best to deal with various problems in our daily life.I can develop my ability to deal with problems and be happy with the following ways. Firstly, I will learn logic reasoning to master the skills of dealing with problems. Secondly, when I come across problems, I will face them bravely and analyse them thoroughly. Thirdly, when they are too difficult to solve, I will discuss with my family or friends around me, and ask them for help.The ability to deal with problems and be happy is significant to all of us. It helps us to create a good environment to the family, and a friendly community as well. Wha t’s more, it helps us build a harmonious society. PartⅡListening Comprehension1.听力原文：W: What a wonderful performance! Your rock band has never sounded better.M: Many thanks. I guess all those hours of practice in the past month are finally paying off.Q: What does the man mean?【预测】选项中的the rock band, practice, hard work 以及 a big success表明，本题可能与摇滚乐队付出的努力和获得的成功有关。

2013 年 6 月大学英语六级考试真题(三)答案与详解Part ⅠWritingThe Impact of the Information ExplosionAs is known to us all, we are now living in the age of “information explosion”. That is, we are surrounded by much information.It is true that information explosion brings convenience to our life, but it also leads to the distraction of our attention.Just as the famous saying goes,“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” .For example, there are so many advertisements on the Internet that we are easily distracted by the irrelevant information of the target website.In addition,the information itselfis ofvarious kinds,either healthy or violent.The bad information may even arouse violent crimes.Therefore, it is high time we adopted proper methods to avoid being distracted by irrelevant information.For one thing, we can make a list ofkey words about what we will search on the Internet. For another, we can set a time limit for the search ofthe target information. Thus, the search is more effective and time is saved greatly at the same time.Reading ComprehensionSection A答案详解：36、H)。

英语六级听力真题带答案（第二套）英语六级听力真题带答案(第二套)大家都知道英语四六级听力发生了重大改革，全国大学英语四六级考试委员会发布消息，2016年6月起大学英语四六级听力部分有重大调整。

以下是店铺为大家搜索整理的2017年英语六级听力真题带答案(第二套)，希望大家能有所收获!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 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 I with a single line through the centre.1. A.She is impatient to learn computer programming.B.She is unaware her operation system is outdated.C.She is unable to use the new computer program.D. She is amazed at the fast change of technology.2.A.He has long been fed up with traveling.B.He prefers to stay home for the holiday.C.He is going out of town for a couple of days.D. He is annoyed by the heavy traffic downtown.3.A.The challenges facing East Asia.B.The location for their new office.C.Their expansion into the overseas marketD. The living expenses in Tokyo and Singapore.4. A.A number of cell phones were found after the last show.B.The woman forgot where she had left her cell phone.C.The woman was very pleased to find her cell phone.D. Reserved tickets could be picked up at the ticket counter.5.A.The building materials will be delivered soon.B.The project is being held up by bad weather.C.The construction schedule may not be met.D. Qualified carpenters are not easy to find.6.A.She is getting very forgetful these days.B.She does not hold on to bitter feelings.C.She resents the way she is treated.D. She never intends to hurt anyone.7.A.The man wants to rent a small apartment.B.The woman has trouble getting a mortgage.C.The woman is moving to a foreign country.D.The man is trying to sell the woman a house.8. A.They are writing a story for the Morning News.B.They are facing great challenges to get re-elected.C.They are launching a campaign to attract women voters.D.They are conducting a survey among the women in town.Questions 9 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard.9.A.Touch his heart.B.Make him cry.C.Remind him of his life.D.Make him feel young.10. A.He is good at singing operas.B.He enjoys complicated music:C.He can sing any song if he likes it.D.He loves country music in particular.11.A.Go to a bar and drink for hours.B.Go to an isolated place to sing blues.C.Go to see a performance in a concert hall.D.Go to work and wrap himself up in music.Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.12.A.How he became an announcer.B.How he writes news stories.C.How he makes his living.D.How he does his job.13.A.They write the first version of news stories.B.They gather news stories on the spot.C.They polish incoming news stories.D.They write comments on major news stories.14. A.Reading through the news stories in a given period of time.B.Having little time to read the news before going on the air.C.Having to change the tone of his voice from time to time.D.Getting all the words and phrases pronounced correctly.15.A.It shows where advertisements come in.B.It gives a signal for him to slow down.C.It alerts him to something important.D.It serves as a reminder of sad news.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 choices marked A),B),C).and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet I with a single line through the centre.Passage OneQuestions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have justheard.16. A.It gives pleasure to both adults and children.B.It is often carried around by small children.C.It can be found in many parts of the world.D.It was invented by an American Indian.17. A.They were made for earning a living.B.They were delicate geometric figures.C.They were small circus figures made of wire.D.They were collected by a number of museums.18.A.In art.B.In geometry.C.In engineering.D.In circus performance.Passage TwoQuestions 19 to 21 are based on the passage you have just heard.19. A.They offer students a wide variety of courses.B.They attract students from all over the world.C.They admit more students than they can handle.D.They have trouble dealing with overseas students.20. A.Everyone will benefit from education sooner or later.B.A good education contributes to the prosperity of a nation.C.A good education is necessary for one to climb the social ladder.D.Everyone has a right to an education appropriate to his potential.21. A.He likes students with high motivation.B.He enjoys teaching intelligent students.C.He tailors his teaching to students needs.D.He treats all his students in a fair manner.Passage ThreeQuestions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.22. A.It is mostly imported from the Middle East.B.It is a sure indicator of its economic activity.C.It has a direct impact on the international oil market.D.It equals more than 30 million barrels of oil each day.23. A.It eventually turns into heat.B.It is used in a variety of forms.C.Its use is chiefly responsible for air pollution.D.Part of it is lost in the process of transmission.24.A.When it is used in rural areas.B.When it is environment-friendly.C.When it operates at near capacity.D.When it operates at regular times.25.A.Traffic jams in cities.B.Inefficient use of energy.C.Fuel shortage.D.Global warming.Section CDirections: In this section,you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read for the first time,you should listen carefully for its general idea. When the passage is read for the second time,you are required to fill in the blanks with the exact words you have just heard. Finally,when the passage is read for the third time,you should check what you have written.Graphics are used in textbooks as part of the language of the discipline,as in math or economics,or as study aids. Authors use graphic aids to(26)and expand on concepts taken up in the text because graphics are yet another way of portraying relationshipsand(27)connections.Graphics are used extensively in natural sciences and social sciences. Social scientists work with statistics(28)data,and the best way to present these statistics is often in graphic form. Graphics are included- not merely as a means of making the information easier for the student to grasp,but as an integral part of the way social scientists think. Many textbooks,(29)those in economics,containappendixes that provide specific information on reading and working with graphic material.Make it a practice to(30)attentively the titles,captions,headings,and other material connected with graphics. These elements(31)and usually explain what you are looking at. When you are examining graphics,the(32)questions to ask are (a.)What is this item about? and (b.)What key idea is the author(33)?One warning: Unless you integrate your reading of graphics with the text,you may make a wrong assumption.(34),from a chart indicating that 33 percent of firstborn children in a research sample did not feel close to their fathers,you might assume that some dreadful influence was at work on the firstborn children. However,a careful reading of the text(35)that most of the firstborn children in the sample were from single-parent homes in which the father was absent.参考答案：1.C.四个选项均是以She开头的句子，前三个选项中出现了含有im.，un.这类表示否定前缀的词语，以及computer，outdated，program，technology等与电脑程序相关的词汇.故推测该对话内容以某女士与计算机程序之间发生的不好的事件为主。

2014年12⽉⼤学英语六级考试真题及答案（第⼆套）2014年12⽉⼤学英语六级考试真题⼆Writing (30 minutes)Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay based on the picture below. You should start your essay with a brief description of the picture and then discuss whether there is a shortcut to learning. You should give sound arguments to support your views and write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words."'How To Do Well In School WithoutStudying’ is over there in the fiction section."Listening Comprehension (30 minutes)Section A1. A) The man should get a pair of new shoes. B) The man’s tennis racket is good enough.C) The man spent too much on his tennis shoes. D) The man is out of shape.2. A) The woman doesn’t want to assist the man.B) The woman will ask Kathy to assist the man.C) Kathy is very pleased to attend the lecture by Dr. Smith.D) The woman will skip Dr. Smith’s lecture to help the man.3. A) The speakers and Steve used to be classmates.B) Steve invited his classmates to visit his big cottage.C) Steve became rich soon after graduation from college.D) The woman asked the man to accompany her to the party.4. A) In a bus. B) In a boat.C) In a clinic. D) In a plane.5. A) 9:10. B) 9:40.C) 9:50. D) 10:10.6. A) John has got many admirers. B) She does not like John at all.C) John has just got a bachelor’s degree. D) She does not think John is handsome.7. A) He has been bumping along for hours. B) He is trapped in a terrible traffic jam.C) He is involved in a serious accident. D) He has got a sharp pain in the neck.8. A) She cannot go without a washing machine. B) She should improve her physical fitness.C) She is a professional mechanic. D) She is good at repairing things.9. A) The accused was found guilty of murder. B) The accused was found innocent.C) The accused was found guilty of stealing. D) The accused was sentenced to death.10. A) He was unemployed. B) He was out of his mind.C) His children were sick. D) His wife deserted him.11. A) He had committed the same sort of crime. B) He was unlikely to get employed.C) He was unworthy of sympathy. D) He had been in jail before.12. A) Irresponsible. B) Aggressive.C) Conservative. D) Unsatisfactory.13. A) Public relations. B) Product design.C) Internal communication. D) Distribution of brochures.14. A) Placing advertisements in the trade press.B) Drawing sketches for advertisements.C) Making television commercials.D) Advertising in the national press.15. A) She has the motivation to do the job.B) She knows the tricks of advertising.C) She is not suitable for the position.D) She is not so easy to get along with.Section BPassage One16. A) The cozy communal life. B) The beautiful environment.C) The variety of culture. D) The richness of resources.17. A) It ensures their physical and mental health. B) It helps them soak up the surrounding culture.C) It is as important as their learning experience. D) It is very beneficial to their academic progress.18. A) It has the world’s best-known military academies.B) It offers the most challenging academic programs.C) It draws faculty from all around the world.D) It provides numerous options for students.19. A) They are responsible merely to their Ministry of Education.B) They try to give students opportunities for experimentation.C) They strive to develop every student’s academic potential.D) They ensure that all students get roughly equal attention.Passage Two20. A) It is leaving Folkestone in about five minutes.B) It is now about half way to the French coast.C) It crosses the English Channel twice a day.D) It will arrive at Boulogne at half past two.21. A) Next to the duty-free shop. B) Opposite the ship’s office.C) In the front of A deck. D) At the rear of B deck.22. A) It is much more spacious than the lounge on C deck.B) It is for the sole use of passengers travelling with cars.C) It is for the use of passengers travelling with children.D) It is for senior passengers and people with VIP cards.Passage Three23. A) It was named after one of its painters. B) It was named after a cave art expert.C) It was named after its discoverer. D) It was named after its location.24. A) Deer were worshiped by the ancient Cro-Magnon people.B) Animal painting was part of the spiritual life of the time.C) Cro-Magnon people painted animals they hunted and ate.D) They were believed to keep evils away from cave dwellers.25. A) They have misinterpreted the meaning of the cave paintings.B) They are unable to draw such interesting and fine paintings.C) They have difficulty telling when the paintings were done.D) They know little about why the paintings were created.Section CIf you are attending a local college, especially one without residence halls, you’ll probably live at home and commute to classes. This arrangement has a lot of (26)__________ . It’s cheaper. It provides a comfortable and familiar setting, and it means you'll get the kind of home cooking you're used to instead of the monotony（单调）that (27)________ even the best institutional food.However, commuting students need to (28)_____________ to become involved in the life of their college and to take special steps to meet their fellow students. Often, this means a certain amount of initiative on your part in (29)________ and talking to people in your classes whom you think you might like.One problem that commuting students sometimes face is their parents' unwillingness to recognize that they're adults. The (30)____________ from high school to college is a big one, and if you live at home you need to develop the same kind of independence you’d have if you were living away. Home rules that might have been (31)________ when you were in high school don’t apply. If your parents are (32)________________ to renegotiate, you can speed the process along by letting your behavior show that you have the responsibility that goes with maturity. Parents are more willing to (33)__________ their children as adults when they behave like adults. If, however, there’s so much friction at home that it (34)_________ your academic work, you might want to consider sharing an apartment with one or more friends. Sometimes this is a happy solution when family (35)____________ make everyone miserable.Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)Section AChildren are natural-born scientists. They have 36 minds, and they aren’t afraid to admit they don’t know something. Most of them, 37, lose this as they get older. They become self-conscious and don’t want to appear stupid. Instead of finding things out for themselves they make 38 that often turn out to be wrong.So it’s not a case of getting kids interested in science. You just have to avoid killing the 39 for learning that they were born with. It’s no coincidence that kids start deserting science once it becomes formalised. Children naturally have a blurredapproach to 40 knowledge. They see learning about science or biology or cooking as all part of the same act—it’s all learning. It’s only because of the practicalities of education that you have to start breaking down the curriculum into specialist subjects. You need to have specialist teachers who 41 what they know. Thus once they enter school, children begin to define subjects and erect boundaries that needn’t otherwise exist.Dividing subjects into science, maths, English, etc. is something we do for 42. In the end it’s all learning, but many children today 43 themselves from a scientific education. They think science is for scientists, not for them.Of course we need to specialise 44. Each of us has only so much time on Earth, so we can’t study everything. At 5 years old, our field of knowledge and 45 is broad, covering anything from learning to walk to learning to count. Gradually it narrows down so that by the time we are 45, it might be one tiny little comer within science.A) accidentallyB) acquiringC) assumptionsD) convenienceE) eventuallyF) excludeG) exertionH) explorationI) formulasJ) igniteK) impartL) inquiringM) passionN) provokingO) unfortunately参考答案：LOCMJ KDFEHSection BMeaning Is Healthier Than Happiness[A] For at least the last decade, the happiness craze has been building. In the last three months alone, over 1,000 books on happiness were released on Amazon, including Happy Money, Happy-People-Pills For All, and, for those just starting out, Happiness for Beginners.[B] One of the consistent claims of books like these is that happiness is associated with all sorts of good life outcomes, including—most promisingly—good health. Many studies have noted the connection between a happy mind and a healthy body—the happier we are, the better health outcomes we seem to have. In an overview of 150 studies on this topic, researchers put it like this: “Inductions of well-being lead to healthy functioning, and inductions of ill-being lead to compromised health.”[C] But a new study, just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) challenges the rosy picture. Happiness may not be as good for the body as researchers thought. It might even be bad.[D] Of course, it’s important to first define happiness. A few months ago, I wrote a piece called “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy” about a psychology study that dug into what happiness really means to people. It specifically explored the difference between a meaningful life and a happy life.[E] It seems strange that there would be a difference at all. But the researchers, who looked at a large sample of people over a month-long period, found that happiness is associated with selfish “taking” behavior and that having a sense of meaning in life is associated with selfless “giving” behavior.[F] “Happiness without meaning characterizes a relatively shallow, self-absorbed or even selfish life, in which things go well, needs and desires are easily satisfied, and complicatedrelationships are avoided,” the authors of the study wrote. “If anything, pure happiness is linked to not helping others in need.”While being happy is about feeling good, meaning is derived from contributing to others or to society in a bigger way. As Roy Baumeister, one of the researchers, told me, “Partly what we do as human beings is to take care of others and contribute to others. This makes life meaningful but it does not necessarily make us happy.”[G] The new PNAS study also sheds light on the difference between meaning and happiness, but on the biological level. Barbara Fredrickson, a psychological researcher at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Steve Cole, a genetics and psychiatry（精神病学）researcher at UCLA, examined the self-reported levels of happiness and meaning in 80 research subjects.[H] Happiness was defined, as in the earlier study, by feeling good. The researchers measured happiness by asking subjects questions like “How often did you feel happy?’’, “How often did you feel interested in life?” and “How often did you feel satisfied?” The more strongly people endorsed these measures of “hedonic（享乐主义的）well-being,” or pleasure, the higher they scored on happiness.[I]Meaning was defined as an orientation to something bigger than the self. They measured meaning by asking questions like “How often did you feel that your life has a sense of direction or meaning to it?” and “How often did you feel that you had something to contribute to society?”The more people endorsed these measures of “eudaimonic（幸福论的）well-being”—or, simply put, virtue—the more meaning they felt in life.[J] After noting the sense of meaning and happiness that each subject had, Fredrickson and Cole, with their research colleagues, looked at the ways certain genes expressed themselves in each of the participants. Like neuroscientists who use JMRI（功能磁共振成像）scanning to determine how regions in the brain respond to different stimuli, Cole and Fredrickson are interested in how the body, at the genetic level, responds to feelings of happiness and meaning.[K] Cole’s past work has linked various kinds of chronic adversity to a particular gene expression pattern. When people feel lonely, are grieving the loss of a loved one, or are struggling to make ends meet, their bodies go into threat mode. This triggers the activation of astress-related gene pattern that has two features: an increase in the activity of pro-inflammatory （促炎症的）genes and a decrease in the activity of genes involved in anti-viral responses.[L] Cole and Fredrickson found that people who are happy but have little or no sense of meaning in their lives have the same gene expression patterns as people who are responding to and enduring chronic adversity. That is, the bodies of these happy people are preparing them for bacterial threats by activating the pro- inflammatory response. Chronic inflammation is, of course, associated with major illnesses like heart disease and various cancers.[M] “Empty positive emotions”—like the kind people experience during manic（狂喜的）episodes or artificially induced euphoria（欣快）from alcohol and drugs—“are about as good for you as adversity,” says Fredrickson.[N] It’s important to understand that for many people, a sense of meaning and happiness in life overlap; many people score jointly high (or jointly low) on the happiness and meaning measures in the study. But for many others, there is a dissonance（不⼀致）they feel that they are low on happiness and high on meaning or that their lives are very high in happiness, but low in meaning. This last group, which has the gene expression pattern associated with adversity, formed 75 percent of study participants. Only one quarter of the study participants had what the researchers call “eudaimonic predominance”—that is, their sense of meaning outpaced their feelings of happiness.[O] This is too bad given the more beneficial gene expression pattern associated with meaningfulness. People whose levels of happiness and meaning line up, and people who have a strong sense of meaning but are not necessarily happy, showed a de-activation of the adversity stress response. Their bodies were not preparing them for the bacterial infections that we get when we are alone or in trouble, but for the viral infections we get when surrounded by a lot of other people.[P] Fredrickson’s past research, described in her two books, Positivity and Love 2.0, has mapped the benefits of positive emotions in individuals. She has found that positive emotions broaden a person’s perspective and help protect people against adversity. So it was surprising to her that hedonic well-being, which is associated with positive emotions and pleasure, did so badly in this study compared with eudaimonic well-being.[Q] “It’s not the amount of hedonic happiness that’s a problem,” Fredrickson tells me, “It’s that it’s not matched by eudaimonic well-being. It’s great when both are in step. But if you have more hedonic well-being than would be expected, that’s when this [gene] pattern that’s similar to adversity emerged.”[R] The terms hedonism and eudaimonism bring to mind the great philosophical debate, which has shaped Westerncivilization for over 2,000 years, about the nature of the good life. Does happiness lie in feeling good, as hedonists think, or in doing and being good, as Aristotle and his intellectual descendants, the virtue ethicists（伦理学家）, think? From the evidence of this study, it seems that feeling good is not enough. People need meaning to thrive. In the words of Carl Jung,“The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.” Jung’s wisdom certainly seems to apply to our bodies, if not also to our hearts and our minds.46. The author’s recent article examined how a meaningful life is different from a happy life.47. It should be noted that many people feel their life is both happy and meaningful.48. According to one survey, there is a close relationship between hedonic well-being measures and high scores on happiness.49. According to one of the authors of a new study, what makes life meaningful may not make people happy.50. Experiments were carried out to determine our body’s genetic expression of feelings of happiness and meaning.51. A new study claims happiness may not contribute to health.52. According to the researchers, taking makes for happiness while giving adds meaning to life.53. Evidence from research shows that it takes meaning for people to thrive.54. With regard to gene expression patterns, happy people with little or no sense of meaning in life are found to be similar to those suffering from chronic adversity.55. Most books on happiness today assert that happiness is beneficial to health.参考答案：DNHKJ CERLBSection CPassage OneNothing succeeds in business books like the study of success. The current business-book boom was launched in 1982 by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman with In Search of Excellence. The trendhas continued with a succession of experts and would-be experts who promise to distil the essence of excellence into three (or five or seven) simple rules.The Three Rules is a self-conscious contribution to this type of writing; it even includes a bibliography of “success studies”. Michael Raynor and Mumtaz Ahmed work for a consultancy, Deloitte, that is determined to turn itself into more of a thought-leader and less a corporate repairman. They employ all the tricks of the success books. They insist that their conclusions are “measurable and actionable”—guides to behaviour rather than analysis for its own sake. Success authors usually serve up vivid stories about how exceptional businesspeople stamped their personalities on a company or rescued it from a life-threatening crisis. Messrs Raynor and Ahmed are happier chewing the numbers: they provide detailed appendices on “calculating the elements of advantage” and “detailed analysis”.The authors spent five years studying the behaviour of their 344 “exceptional companies,”only to come up at first with nothing. Every hunch（直觉）led to a blind alley and every hypothesis to a dead end. It was only when they shifted their attention from how companies behave to how they think that they began to make sense of their voluminous material.Management is all about making difficult tradeoffs in conditions that are always uncertain and often fast- changing. But exceptional companies approach these tradeoffs with two simple rules in mind, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. First: better before cheaper. Companies are more likely to succeed in the long run if they compete on quality or performance than on price. Second: revenue before cost. Companies have more to gain in the long run from driving up revenue than by driving down costs.Most success studies suffer from two faults. There is “the halo（光环）effect”, whereby good performance leads commentators to attribute all manner of virtues to anything and everything the company does. These virtues then suddenly become vices when the company fails. Messrs Raynor and Ahmed work hard to avoid these mistakes by studying large bodies of data over several decades. But they end up embracing a different error: stating the obvious. Most businesspeople will not be surprised to learn that it is better to find a profitable niche（隙缝市场）and focus on boosting your revenues than to compete on price and cut your way to success. The difficult question is how to find that profitable niche and protect it. There, The Three Rules is less useful.56. What kind of business books are most likely to sell well?A) Books on excellence. B) Guides to management.C) Books on business rules. D) Analyses of market trends.57. What does the author imply about books on success so far?A) They help businessmen one way or another. B) They are written by well-recognised experts.C) They more or less fall into the same stereotype. D) They are based on analyses of corporate leaders.58. How does The Three Rules differ from other success books according to the passage?A) It focuses on the behaviour of exceptional businessmen.B) It bases its detailed analysis on large amounts of data.C) It offers practicable advice to businessmen.D) It draws conclusions from vivid examples.59. What does the passage say contributes to the success of exceptional companies?A) Focus on quality and revenue. B) Management and sales promotion.C) Lower production costs and competitive prices. D) Emphasis on after-sale service and maintenance.60. What is the author’s comment on The Three Rules?A) It can help to locate profitable niches. B) It has little to offer to businesspeople.C) It is noted for its detailed data analysis. D) It fails to identify the keys to success.Passage TwoUntil recently, the University of Kent prided itself on its friendly image. Not any more. Over the past few months it has been working hard, with the help of media consultants, to play down its cosy reputation in favour of something more academic and serious.Kent is not alone in considering an image revamp（翻新）. Changes to next year’s funding regime are forcing universities to justify charging students up to ￡9,000 in fees.Nowadays universities are putting much more of a focus on their brands and what their value propositions are. While in the past universities have often focused on student social life and attractions of the university town in recruitment campaigns, they are now concentrating on more tangible（实在的）attractions, such as employment prospects, engagement with industry, and lecturer contact hours, making clear exactly what students are going to get for their money.The problem for universities is that if those benefits fail to materialise, students notice. That worries Rob Behrens, who deals with student complaints. “Universities need to be extremely careful in describing what’s going to happen to students，” he says. “As competition is going to get greater for attracting gifted students, there is a danger that universities will go the extra mile.”One university told prospective engineering students they would be able to design a car and race it at Brands Hatch, which never happened, he says. Others have promised use of sophisticated equipment that turned out to be broken or unavailable.“If universities spent as much money on handling complaints and appeals appropriately as they spend on marketing, they would do better at keeping students, and in the National Student Survey returns,” he says.Ongoing research tracking prospective 2012 students suggests that they are not only becoming more sophisticated in thinking about what they want from a university, but are also spending more time researching evidence to back up institutional claims.Hence the growing importance of the student survey. From next September, all institutions will also be expected to publish on their websites key information sets, allowing easier comparison between institutions, between promises and reality, and the types of jobs and salaries graduates go on to.As a result, it is hardly surprising that universities are beginning to change the way they market themselves. While the best form of marketing for institutions is to be good at what they do, they also need to be clear about how they are different from others.And it is vital that once an institution claims to be particularly good at something, it must live up to it. The moment you positionyourself, you become exposed, and if you fail in that you are in trouble.61. What was the University of Kent famous for?A) Its comfortable campus life. B) Its up-to-date course offerings.C) Its distinguished teaching staff. D) Its diverse academic programmes.62. What are universities trying to do to attract students?A) Improve their learning environment. B) Offer more scholarships to the gifted.C) Upgrade their campus facilities. D) Present a better academic image.63. What does Rob Behrens suggest universities do in marketing themselves?A) Publicise the achievements of their graduates.B) Go to extra lengths to cater to students’ needs.C) Refrain from making promises they cannot honour.D) Survey the expectations of their prospective students.64. What is students’ chief consideration in choosing a university?A) Whether it promises the best job prospects.B) Whether it is able to deliver what they want.C) Whether it ranks high among similar institutions.D) Whether it offers opportunities for practical training.65. What must universities show to win recruitment campaigns?A) They are positioned to meet the future needs of society.B) They are responsible to students for their growth.C) They are ever ready to improve themselves.D) They are unique one way or another.参考答案：ACBAB AACBDTranslation (30 minutes)⾃从1978年启动改⾰以来，中国已从计划经济转为以市场为基础的经济，经历了经济和社会的快速发展。

2013年6月全国大学生六级考试真题（卷二）PartⅠ WritingDirections: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on the remark “Good habits result from resisting temptation.” You can cite examples to illustrate your point You should write at least 150 wordsbut no more than 200 words.Part II Listening ComprehensionSection 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 was said. Both the conversation and the questions will bespoken only once. After each question there will be a pause. During the pause, you must read the four choicesmarked A), B), C) and D), and decide which is the best answer. Then mark the corresponding letter on AnswerSheet 1 with a single line through the centre.1. A) Why his phone had been disconnected. C) Why he didn’t leave her a message.B) Why she could not get through to him. D) Why he refused to answer her call.2. A) The houses within his price range are sold out.B)Most people in this city want to own a home.C)He has difficulty finding affordable housing.D)The woman should rent a nicer apartment.3. A) The woman would like the man to take care of her mail.B)The woman has put the number into everyone^ mailbox.C)The new copy machine can meet everyone’s needs.D) A code number is necessary to run the copy machine.4. A) He will stop work to take care of the baby. C) His wife is going to give birth to a baby.B) He will find a job near his home next year. D) His wife will leave her work soon.5. A) The shopping centre is flooded with people. C) Parking in this city is a horrible nightmare.B) They will come to the mall some other day. D) She will wait for the man at the south gate.6. A) He will be back in a minute to repair the computers.B)It will take longer to reconnect the computers to the Net.C)He has tackled more complicated problems than this.D) A lot of cool stuff will be available online tomorrow.7. A) She forgot to call her mother. C) She did see Prof Smith on TV.B)Prof Smith gives lectures regularly on TV. D) Her mother is a friend of Prof Smith’s.8. A) The man has to wait to get his medicine.B)The store doesn’t have the prescribed medicine.C)The man has to go to see his doctor again.D)The prescription is not written clearly enough.Questions 9 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard.9. A) It is advertising electronic products. C) It is sponsoring a TV programme.B)It is planning to tour East Asia. D) It is giving performances in town.10. A) A lot of good publicity. C) Long-term investments.B)Talented artists to work for it. D) A decrease in production costs.11. A) Promise long-term cooperation with the Company.B)Explain frankly their own current financial situation.C)Pay for the printing of the performance programme.D)Bear the cost of publicising the Company’s performance.Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.12. A) He has been seeing doctors and counselors. C) He was caught abusing drugs.B)He has found a new way to train his voice. D) He might give up concert tours.13. A) Singers may become addicted to it. C) Singers use it to stay away from colds.B)It helps singers warm themselves up. D) It can do harm to singers’ vocal chords.14. A) They are eager to become famous. C) Few will become successful.B)Many lack professional training. D) They live a glamorous life.15. A) Harm to singers done by smoky atmospheres.B)Side effects of some common drugs.C)Voice problems among pop singers.D)Hardships experienced by many young singers.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 choices marked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.Passage OneQuestions 16 to 19 are based on the passage you have just heard.16. A) It has not been very successful. C) It has met with strong resistance.B) It has long become a new trend. D) It has attracted a lot of users.17.A) It saves time. C) It ensures drivers’ safety.B) It increases parking capacity. D) It reduces car damage.18.A) Collect money and help new users. C) Stay alert to any emergency.B) Maintain the automated system. D) Walk around and guard against car theft.19. A) They will vary with the size of vehicles.B)They will be discountable to regular customers.C)They will be lower than conventional parking.D)They will be reduced if paid in cash.Passage TwoQuestions 20 to 22 are based on the passage you have just heard.20. A) Half of the methane in the atmosphere is from animals.B)Methane has become the chief source of greenhouse gas.C)Consumer behaviour may be influenced by the environment.D)Meat consumption has an adverse effect on the environment.21. A) It takes time for the human body to get used to it.B)It lacks the vitamins and minerals essential for health.C)It enhances immunity to certain diseases.D)It helps people to live a much longer life.22. A) Produce green food. C) Quit eating meats.B) Waste no food. D) Grow vegetables.Passage ThreeQuestions 23 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.23. A) They do not know any solution. C) They do not behave in public places.B) They do not give up drunk driving. D) They do not admit being alcohol addicts.24. A) To stop them from fighting back. C) To teach them the European lifestyle.B) To thank them for their hospitality. D) To relieve their pains and sufferings.25. A) Without intervention they will be a headache to the nation.B)With support they can be brought back to a normal life.C)They readily respond to medical treatment.D)They pose a serious threat to social stability.Section CDirections: In this section, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read for the first time, you should listen carefully for its general idea. When the passage is read for the second time, you are required to fill in theblanks with the exact words you have just heard. Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, youshould check what you have written.Self-image is the picture you have of yourself, the sort of person you believe you are 26 in our self-image are the categories in which you place yourself, the roles you play, and other 27 descriptors you use to identify yourself. If you tell an 28 you are a grandfather who recently lost his wife and who does 29 work on weekends, several elements of your self-image are brought to light —the roles of grandparent, widower, and 30 citizen.But self-image is more than how you picture yourself; it also involves how others see you. Three types of feedback from others 31 how they see us: confirmation, rejection, and disconfirmation. Confirmation occurs when others treat you in a manner consistent with who you believe you are. You believe you have leadership abilities and your boss put you in charge of a new work team. On the other hand, rejection occurs when others treat you in a manner that 32 your self-definition. Pierre Salinger was appointed senator from California but 33 lost his first election. He thought he was a good public official, but the voters obviously thought otherwise —their vote was inconsistent with his 34 . The third type of feedback is disconfirmation, which occurs when others fail to respond to your notion of self by responding neutrally. A student writes what he thinks is an excellent composition, but the teacher writes no encouraging remarks. Rather than 35 how others classify you, consider how you identify yourself. The way in which you identify yourself is the best reflection of your self-image.Part III Reading ComprehensionSection ADirections：In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word- far each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully beforemaking your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letterfor each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words inthe bank more than once.Questions 36 to 45 are based on the following passage.Proper street behaviour in the United States requires a nice balance of attention and inattention. You are supposed to look at a passerby just enough to show that you are aware of his 36 If you look too little, you appear haughty(目中无人的), too much and you are inquisitive（过分好奇地）.Usually what happens is that people eye each other until they are about eight feet apart, at which point both cast down their eyes. Sociologist Erving Goffman describes this as “a kind of 37 of lights”.Much of eye behaviour is so 38 that we react to it only on the intuitive level. The next time you have a conversation with someone who makes you feel liked, notice what he does with his eyes. Chances are he looks at you more often than is usual with 39 a little longer than the normal. You 40 this as a sign — a polite one — that he is interested in you as a person rather than just in the topic of conversation. Probably you also feel that he is both self-confident and sincere.All this has been demonstrated in 41 experiments. Subjects sit and talk in the psychologist’s laboratory, 42 of the fact that their eye behaviour is being observed from a one way vision screen. In one fairly typical experiment, subjects were 43 to cheat while performing a task, then were interviewed and observed. It was found that those who had cheated met the interviewer’s eyes less often than was 44 , an indication that “shifty eyes” —to use the mystery writers’ stock phrase —can 45 be a tip-off(表明）to an attempt to deceive or to feelings of guilt.A) innocent I) actuallyB) interpret J) subtleC) sights K) inducedD) dimming L) hidingE) normal M) presenceF) deceived N) doubtfullyG) glances O) elaborateH) obscureSection 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 questionsby marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.A Nation That’s Losing Its Toolbox[A]The scene inside the Home Depot on Weyman Avenue here would give the old-time American craftsman pause. InAisle 34 is precut plastic flooring, the glue already in place. In Aisle 26 are prefabricated windows. Stacked near the checkout counters, and as colourful as a Fisher-Price toy, is a not-so-serious-looking power tool: a battery-operated saw-and-drill combination. And if you don’t want to do it yourself, head to Aisle 23 or Aisle 35, where a help desk will arrange for an installer.[B]I t’s all very handy stuff, I guess, a convenient way to be a do-it-yourselfer without being all that good with tools. But ata time when the American factory seems to be a shrinking presence, and when good manufacturing jobs have vanished,perhaps never to return, there is something deeply troubling about this dilution of American craftsmanship.[C]This isn’t a lament(伤感)— or not merely a lament —for bygone times. It’s a social and cultural issue, as well as aneconomic one. The Home Depot approach to craftsmanship — simplify it, dumb it down, hire a contractor— is one signal that mastering tools and working with one’s hands is receding in America as a hobby, as a valu ed skill, as a cultural influence that shaped thinking and behaviour in vast sections of the country.[D]That should be a matter of concern in a presidential election year. Yet neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romneypromotes himself as tool-savvy(使用工具很在行的）presidential timber, in the mold of a Jimmy Carter, a skilled carpenter and cabinet maker. The Obama administration does worry publicly about manufacturing, a first cousin of craftsmanship. When the Ford Motor Company, for example, recently announced that it was bringing some production home, the White House cheered. “When you see things like Ford moving new production from Mexico to Detroit, instead of the other way around, you know things are changing,”says Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council.[E]Ask the administration or the Republicans or most academics why America needs more manufacturing, and theyrespond that manufacturing gives birth to innovation, brings down the trade deficit, strengthens the dollar, generates jobs, arms the military and brings about a recovery from recession. But rarely, if ever, do they publicly take the argument a step further, asserting that a growing manufacturing sector encourages craftsmanship and that craftsmanship is, if not a birthright, then a vital ingredient of the American self-image as a can-do, inventive, we-can-make-anything people.[F]Traditional vocational training in public high schools is gradually declining, stranding thousandsof young people who seek training for a craft without going to college. Colleges, for their part, have since 1985 graduated fewer chemical, mechanical, industrial and metallurgical(冶金的）engineers, partly in response to the reduced role of manufacturing, a big employer of them. The decline started in the 1950s, when manufacturing generated a sturdy 28% of the national income, or gross domestic product, and employed one-third of the workforce.Today, factory output generates just 12% of GDP and employs barely 9% of the nation’s workers.[G]Mass layoffs and plant closings have drawn plenty of headlines and public debate over the years, and they stilloccasionally do. But the damage to skill and craftsmanship —what’s needed to build a complex airliner or a tractor, or for a worker to move up from assembler to machinist to supervisor — went largely unnoticed.[H]“In an earlier generation, we lost our connection to the land, and now we are losing our connection to the machinery wedepend on,” says Michael Hout, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley. “People who work with their hands,” he went on, “are doing things today that we call service jobs, in restaurants and laundries, or in medical technology and the like.”[I]Tha t’s one explanation for the decline in traditional craftsmanship. Lack of interest is another. The big money is infields like finance. Starting in the 1980s, skill in finance grew in importance, and, as depicted in the news media and the movies, became a more appealing source of income. By last year, Wall Street traders, bankers and those who deal in real estate generated 21% of the national income, double their share in the 1950s. And Warren Buffett, the good-natured financier, became a homespun folk hero, without the tools and overalls(工作服).[J]“Young people grow up without developing the skills to fix things around the house,” says Richard Curtin, director of the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers. “They know about computers, of course, but they don’t know how to build them.”[K]Manufacturing’s shrinking presence undoubtedly helps explain the decline in craftsmanship, if only because many of the nation’s assembly line workers were skilled in craft work, if not on the job then in their spare time. In a late 1990sstudy of blue-collar employees at a General Motors plant (now closed) in Linden, NJ, the sociologist Ruth Milkman of City University of New York found that many line workers, in their off-hours, did home renovation and other skilled work. “I have often thought,” Ms Milkman says, “that these extracurricular jobs were an effort on the part of the w orkers to regain their dignity after suffering the degradation of repetitive assembly line work in the factory.”[L]Craft work has higher status in nations like Germany, which invests in apprenticeship（学徒）programmes for high school students. “Corporations in Germany realised that there was an interest to be served economically and patriotically in building up a skilled labour force at home; we never had that ethos（风气）,”says Richard Sennett, a New York University sociologist whohas written about the connection of craft and culture.[M]The damage to American craftsmanship seems to parallel the steep slide in manufacturing employment. Though the decline started in the 1970s, it became much steeper beginning in 2000. Since then, some 5.3 million jobs, or one-third of the workforce in manufacturing, have been lost. A stated goal of the Obama administration is to restore a big chunk of this employment, along with the multitude of skills that many of the jobs required.[N]As for craftsmanship itself, the issue is how to preserve it as a valued skill in the general population. Ms Milkman, the sociologist, argues that American craftsmanship isn’t disappearing as quickly as some would argue —that it has instead shifted to immigrants. “Pride in craft, it is alive in the immigrant world,” she says.[O]Sol Axelrod, 37, the manager of the Home Depot here, fittingly learned to fix his own car as a teenager, even changing the brakes. Now he finds immigrant craftsmen. gathered in abundance outside his store in the early morning, waiting for it to open so they can buy supplies for the day’s work as contractors. Skilled day laborers, also mostly immigrants, wait quietly in hopes of being hired by the contractors. Mr Axelrod also says the recession and persistently high unemployment have forced many people to try to save money by doing more themselves, and Home Depot in response offers classes in fixing water taps and other simple repairs. The teachers are store employees, many of them older and semi-retired from a skilled trade, or laid off. “Our customers may not be building cabinets or outdoor decks; we try to do that for them,’’ Mr Axelrod says, “but some are trying to build up skill so they can do more for themselves in these hard times.”46.Mastering tools and working with one’s hands shapes people’s thinking and behaviour.47.The factor that people can earn more money in fields other than manufacturing contributes to the decline in traditionalcraftsmanship.48.According to the author, manufacturing encourages craftsmanship.49.According to Ruth Milkman, American craftsmanship, instead of disappearing, is being taken up by immigrants.50.The White House welcomed Ford’s announcement to bring some production back to America.51.According to Mr Axelrod of Home Depot, people are trying to ride out the recession by doing more themselves.52.America’s manufacturing in the 1950s constituted 28% of the gross domestic product.53.In Ruth Milkman’s opinion, many assembly line workers did home renovation and other skilled work in their off-hoursin order to regain their dignity.54.The author felt troubled about the weakening of American craftsmanship.pared with that in America, the status of craft work in Germany is higher.Section CDirections: 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 andmark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.Passage OneQuestions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.The report from the Bureau of Labour Statistics was just as gloomy as anticipated. Unemployment in January jumped to a 16-year high of 7.6 percent, as 598,000 jobs were slashed from U.S. payrolls in the worst single-month decline since December, 1974. With 1.8 million jobs lost in the last three months, there is urgent desire to boost the economy as quickly as possible. But Washington would do well to take a deep breath before reacting to the grim numbers.Collectively, we rely on the unemployment figures and other statistics to frame our sense of reality. They are a vital part of an array of data that we use to assess if we’re doing well or doing badly, and that in turn shapes government policies and corporate budgets and personal spending decisions. The problem is that the statistics aren’t an objective measure of reality; they are simply a best approximation. Directionally, they capture the trends, but the idea that we know precisely how many are unemployed is a myth. That makes finding a solution all the more difficult.First, there is the way the data is assembled. The official unemployment rate is the product of a telephone survey of about 60,000 homes. There is another survey, sometimes referred to as the “payroll survey”, that assesses 400,000 businesses based on their reported payrolls. Both surveys have problems. The payroll survey can easily double-count someone: if you are one person with two jobs, you show up as two workers. The payroll survey also doesn’t capture the number of self- employed, and so says little about how many people are generating an independent income.The household survey has a larger problem. When asked straightforwardly, people tend to lie or shade the truth when the subject is sex, money or employment. If you get a call and are asked if you’re employed, and you say yes, you’re employed. If you say no, however, it may surprise you to learn that you are only unemployed if you’ve been actively looking for work in the past four weeks; otherwise, you are “m arginally attached to the labour force” and not actually unemployed.The urge to quantify is embedded in our society. But the idea that statisticians can then capture an objective reality isn’t just impossible. It also leads to serious misjudgments. Democrats and Republicans can and will take sides on a number of issues, but a more crucial concern is that both are basing major policy decisions on guesstimates rather than looking at the vast wealth of raw data with a critical eye and an open mind.56.What do we learn from the first paragraph?A)The US economic situation is going from bad to worse.B)Washington is taking drastic measures to provide more jobs.C)The US government is slashing more jobs from its payrolls.D)The recent economic crisis has taken the US by surprise.57.What does the author think of the unemployment figures and other statistics?A) They form a solid basis for policy making. C) They signal future economic trends.B) They represent the current situation. D) They do not fully reflect the reality.58. One problem with the payroll survey is that .A) it does not include all the businesses C) it magnifies the number of the joblessB) it fails to count in the self-employed D) it does not treat all companies equally59. The household survey can be faulty in that _________________ .A)people tend to lie when talking on the phoneB)not everybody is willing or ready to respondC)some people won’t provide truth ful informationD)the definition of unemployment is too broad60. At the end of the passage, the author suggests that __________________ .A)statisticians improve their data assembling methodsB)decision makers view the statistics with a critical eyeC)politicians listen more before making policy decisionsD)Democrats and Republicans cooperate on crucial issuesPassage TwoQuestions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage.At some point in 2008, someone, probably in either Asia or Africa, made the decision to move from the countryside to the city. This nameless person pushed the human race over a historic threshold, for it was in that year that mankind became, for the first time in its history, a predominantly urban species.It is a trend that shows no sign of slowing. Demographers(人口统计学家）reckon that three-quarters of humanity could be city-dwelling by 2050, with most of the increase coming in the fast-growing towns of Asia and Africa. Migrants to cities are attracted by plentiful jobs, access to hospitals and education, and the ability to escape the boredom of a farmer’s agricultural life. Those factors are more than enough to make up for the squalor（肮脏）disease and spectacular poverty that those same migrants must often at first endure when they become urban dwellers.It is the city that inspires the latest book from Peter Smith. His main thesis is that the buzz of urban life, and the opportunities it offers for cooperation and collaboration, is what attracts people to the city, which in turn makes cities into the engines of art, commerce, science and progress. This is hardly revolutionary, but it is presented in a charming format. Mr Smith has written a breezy guidebook, with a series of short chapters dedicated to specific aspects of urbanity — parks, say, or the various schemes that have been put forward over the years for building the perfect city. The result is a sort of high-quality, unusually rigorous coffee-table book, designed to be dipped into rather than read from beginning to end.In the chapter on skyscrapers, for example, Mr Smith touches on construction methods, the revolutionary invention of the automatic lift, the practicalities of living in the sky and the likelihood that, as cities become more crowded, apartment living will become the norm. But there is also time for brief diversions onto bizarre ground, such as a discussion of the skyscraper index (which holds that a boom in skyscraper construction is a foolproof sign of an imminent recession).One obvious criticism is that the price of breadth is depth: many of Mr Smith’s essays raise as many questions as they answer. Although that can indeed be frustrating, this is probably the only way to treat so grand a topic. The city is the building block of civilisation and of almost everything people do; a guidebook to the city is really, therefore, a guidebook to how a large and ever-growing chunk of humanity chooses to live. Mr Smiths book serves as an excellent introduction to a vast subject, and will suggest plenty of further lines of inquiry.61. In what way is the year 2008 historic?A)For the first time in history, urban people outnumbered rural people.B)An influential figure decided to move from the countryside to the city.C)It is in this year that urbanisation made a start in Asia and Africa.D)The population increase in cities reached a new peak in Asia and Africa.62. What does the author say about urbanisation?A)Its impact is not easy to predict. C) It is a milestone in human progress.B)Its process will not slow down. D) It aggravates the squalor of cities.63. How does the author comment on Peter Smith’s new book?A)It is but an ordinary coffee-table book. C) It serves as a guide to art and commerce.B)It is flavoured with humorous stories. D) It is written in a lively and interesting style.64. What does the author say in the chapter on skyscrapers?A)The automatic lift is indispensable in skyscrapers.B)People enjoy living in skyscrapers with a view.C)Skyscrapers are a sure sign of a city’s prosperity.D)Recession closely follows a skyscraper boom.65. What may be one criticism of Mr Smith’s book?A)It does not really touch on anything serious.B)It is too long for people to read from cover to cover.C)It does not deal with any aspect of city life in depth.D)It fails to provide sound advice to city dwellers.Part IV TranslationDirections : 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.明朝第三位皇帝朱棣在夺取（usurp)帝位后，从南京迁都北京，于1406年开始建造紫禁城这座宫殿，至明永乐十八年（ 1420年）落成。