星火:2008年12月英语六级模拟试卷样题及解析

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声明:本资料由考试吧()收集整理,转载请注明出自服务:面向较高学历人群,提供计算机类,外语类,学历类,资格类,会计类,工程类,医学类等七大类考试的全套考试信息服务及考前培训.Part Ⅰ Writing (30 minutes)Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled On Paying back Student Loans. You should write at least 150 words following the outline given below.1. 现今,在高校有许多大学生通过助学贷款完成自己的学业2. 但是有些学生毕业后没有能力或拒绝按时还贷3. 我认为贷款的学生应如何对待还贷问题On Paying back Student LoansPart Ⅱ Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes)Directions:In this part you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on Answer sheet 1.For questions 1-4, markY (for YES) if the statement agrees with the information given in the passage;N (for NO) if the statement contradicts the information given in the passage;NG (for NOT GIVEN) if the information is not given in the passage.For questions 5-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.Reading Baby's MindThe helpless, seemingly awkward infant staring up at you from his little bed, has a lot more going on inside his head than you ever imagined. A wealth of new research is leading child psychologists to rethink their long-held beliefs about the emotional and intellectual abilities of even very young babies. Science is now giving us a much different picture of what goes on inside their hearts and heads. Long before they form their first words or attempt the feat of sitting up, they are already mastering complex emotions-jealousy, empathy (移情), frustration-that were once thought to be learned much later.A New Baby ResearchLittle Victoria Bateman is blue-eyed and as cute a baby as there ever was. At 6 months, she is also trusting and unsuspecting, which is a good thing, because otherwise she'd never go along with what's about to happen. It's a sunny June afternoon in Lubbock, Texas, and inside the Human Sciences lab at Texas Tech University, Victoria's mother is settling her daughter into a high chair, where she is the latest subject in an ongoing experiment aimed at understanding the way babies think. Sybil Hart, an associate professor of human development and leader of the study, trains video cameras on mother and daughter. Everything is set. Hart hands the mother, Cheryl Bateman, a children's book, Elmo Pops In, and instructs her to engross herself in its pages. "Just have a conversation with me about the book, " Hart tells her. "The most important thing is, do not look at Victoria. " As the two women chat, Victoria looks around the room, feeling a little bored.After a few minutes, Hart leaves the room and returns cradling a lifelike baby doll. Dramatically, Hart places it in Cheryl Bateman's arms, and tells her to embrace the doll while continuing to ignore Victoria. "That's OK, little baby, " Bateman coos, hugging and rocking the doll. Victoria is not bored anymore. At first, she cracks her best smile. When that doesn't work, she begins kicking. But her mom pays her no mind. That's when Victoria loses it. Soon she's crying so hard it looks like she might spit up. Hart rushes in. "OK, we're done, " she says, and takes back the doll. Cheryl Bateman goes to comfort her daughter. "I've never seen her react like that to anything, "she says. Over the last 10 months, Hart has repeated the scene hundreds of times. It's the same in nearly every case: tiny babies, overwhelmed with jealousy. Even Hart was stunned to find that infants could experience an emotion, which, until recently, was thought to be way beyond their grasp.Findings of Baby ResearchThe new research is sure to confuse new parents-see, Junior is a genius-but it's more than just an academic exercise. Armed with the new information, pediatricians (儿科医生) are starting to change the way they evaluate their youngest patients. In addition to tracking physical development, they are now focusing much more deeply on emotional advancement. The research shows how powerful emotional well-being is to a child's future health. A baby who fails to meet certain key "emotional milestones" may have trouble learning to speak, read and, later, do well in school. By reading emotional responses, doctors have begun to discover ways to tell if a baby as young as 3 months is showing early signs of possible psychological disorders, including depression, anxiety, learning disabilities and perhaps autism.One of the earliest emotions that even tiny babies display is, admirably enough, empathy. In fact, concern for others may be hard-wired into babies' brains. Place a newborn down next to another crying infant, and chances are, both babies will soon be wailing (悲叹) away. "People have always known that babies cry when they hear other babies cry, " says Martin Hoffman, a psychology professor at New York University who did the first studies on infant empathy in the 1970s. "The question was, why are they crying?" Does it mean that the baby is truly concerned for his fellow human, or just annoyed by the racket? A recent study conducted in Italy, which built on Hoffman's own work, has largely settled the question. Researchers played for infants tapes of other babies' crying. As predicted, that was enough to start the tears flowing. But when researchers played babies, recordings of their own cries, they rarely began crying themselves. The verdict:"there is some empathy in place, right from birth, " Hoffmansays. The intensity of the emotion tends to fade over time. Babies older than 6 months no longer cry but grimace (作苦相) at the discomfort of others. By 13 to 15 months, babies tend to take matters into their own hands. They'll try to comfort a crying playmate. "What I find most charming is when, even if the two mothers are present, they'll bring their own mother over to help, " Hoffman says.Part of that empathy may come from another early-baby skill, the ability to discern emotions from the facial expressions of the people around them. "Most textbooks still say that babies younger than 6 months don't recognize emotions, " says Diane Montague, assistant professor of psychology at LaSalle University in Philadelphia. To put that belief to the test, Montague came up with a twist on every infant's favorite game, and recruited dozens of 4-month-olds to play along. She began by peeking around a cloth with a big smile on her face. Predictably, the babies were delighted, and stared at her intently-the time-tested way to tell if a baby is interested. On the fourth peek, though, Montague emerged with a sad look on her face. This time, the response was much different. "They not only looked away, "she says, but wouldn't look back even when she began smiling again. Refusing to make eye contact is a classic baby sign of distress. An angry face got their attention once again, but their faces showed no pleasure. "They seemed primed to be alert, even vigilant, "Montague says. "I realize that's speculative in regard to infants. . . I think it shows that babies younger than 6 months find meaning in expressions. "They are also far more sophisticated intellectually than we once believed. Babies, as young as 4 months, have advanced powers of deduction and an ability to understand the intricate patterns. They have a surprisingly visual palette(燃料,调色板), which enables them to notice small differences, especially in faces, that adults and older children lose the ability to see. Until a baby is 3 months old, he can recognize a photograph of his mother just as quickly as a photo in which everything is in the right place.Challenges and Dangers of Baby ResearchThis might be a good place to pause for a word about the challenges and dangers of baby research. Since the subjects can't speak for themselves, figuring out what's going on inside their heads is often a matter of reading their faces and body language. If this seems speculative, it's not. Over decades of trial and error, researchers have fine-tuned their observation skills and zeroed in on numerous consistent baby responses to various stimuli: how long they stare at an object, what they reach out for and what makes them recoil in fear or disgust can often tell experienced researchers everything they need to know. More recently, scientists have added EEGs and laser eye tracking, which allow more precise readings.1. The passage is mainly about those researches that focus on the emotional and intellectual abilities of those very young babies.2. The purpose of the experiment on Victoria Bateman is to find out how important the mother's love is to her baby.3. In the experiment, Victoria Bateman cried because she thought that her mother didn't love her any more.4. Only through reading emotional responses can doctors tell whether a 3-month baby will get possible psychological disorders.5. Pediatricians are now paying less attention to physical development of their baby patients but more to _________________.6. Hoffman's study revealed that babies are born to show other crying babies _________________.7. The findings of Diane's test demonstrated the baby's ability to recognize _________________.8. It is amazing to find that the visual palette of a baby helps him to notice _________________.9. As for the challenges, those researchers have to obtain those findings about babies' mind by reading _________________.10. In order to gain more precise readings about babies' mind, scientists have adopted the skills of EEGs and _________________.Part Ⅲ Listening Comprehension (35 minutes)Section ADirections: In this section, you will hear 8 short conversations and 2 long conversations. At the end of each conversation, one or more questions will be asked about what was said. Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once. After each question there will be a pause. During the pause, you must read the four choices marked A), B), C) and D), and decide which is the best answer. Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.11. A) The man should stick to what he's doing.B) The man should take up a new hobby.C) The man should stop playing tennis.D) The man should find the cause for his failure.12. A) He is very forgiving and tolerant. B) He probably has a poor memory.C) He is well liked by his customers. D) He has been introduced to the staff.13. A) She'd like to have the windows open.B) She likes to have the air-conditioner on.C) The air is heavily polluted.D) The windows are already open.14. A) She is not interested in the course.B) She doesn't like the way the professor teaches.C) She's having a hard time following the professor's lectures.D) She's having difficulty with the heavy reading assignments.15. A) The deadline is drawing near. B) She can't meet the deadline.C) She turned in the proposals today. D) They are two days ahead of time.16. A) On the 6th of June. B) On the 8th of June.C) On the 9th of June. D) On the 19th of June.17. A) The man was sorry to miss the football game.B) The man attended the concert, but didn't like it.C) The man was sorry that he didn't attend the concert.D) The man is more interested in football than classical music.18. A) She's going away for a while.B) She did well in the test.C) She worked hard and earned a lot of money.D) She didn't have to work hard for the exam.Questions 19 to 21 are based on the conversation you have just heard.19. A) She has a temperature. B) She suffers from a headache.C) She has a sore throat. D) She often feels dizzy.20. A) She didn't have enough sleep. B) She has caught a bad cold.C) She is dying from a serious disease. D) She is too nervous to feel at home.21. A) She should take some medicine and more water.B) She should take care of her rest and drink more water.C) She should give up her term paper for her health.D) She should receive more check-up.Questions 22 to 25 are based on the conversation you have just heard.22. A) He doesn't want to take final exams.B) He hasn't prepared well for his tests.C) He has too many exams on the same day.D) He needs to get full scores on his tests.23. A) He should go to the Dean of Students Office.B) He ought to talk immediately to his professors.C) He should begin studying at once.D) He ought to decide which tests are most important.24. A) They are both excellent students.B) They both have to take history and psychology tests.C) They haven't taken final exams before.D) They live in the same dormitory.25. A) Psychology. B) History. C) Advanced Mathematics. D) Chemistry.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 2 with a single line through the centre.Passage OneQuestions 26 to 28 are based on the passage you have just heard.26. A) They worked on their own land.B) They produced whatever their families needed.C) They could get along well by relying on themselves.D) They didn't keep commercial ties with others.27. A) Banks and railroads. B) Weather and their own efforts.C) The specialized crops they sold. D) Commercial ties with others.28. A) Their lives are free and simple like that of the 19th century.B) They have more worries than those in the past.C) They suffer from the shipping rates set by the railroads.D) They miss the simple life in the 19th century.Passage TwoQuestions 29 to 31 are based on the passage you have just heard.29. A) The painting materials used by Grandma Moses.B) The major artistic influences on Grandma Moses.C) The folk art of Grandma Moses.D) The life of Grandma Moses.30. A) She started it without much success. B) She started it in her sixties.C) She started it after much study. D) She started it by producing greeting cards.31. A) Building. B) Needlework.C) Photographs. D) Country life. Passage ThreeQuestions 32 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.32. A) More than 130 people. B) At least 400 people.C) Hundreds of people. D) The deaths were still unknown.33. A) Lack of safety measures. B) Checks on weather conditions.C) Underload. D) Lightning strikes.34. A) Epidemic disease. B) Ferry disaster.C) Big fire in the forest. D) Car accidents.35. A) The government has banned all the fishing boats at daytime.B) The government has banned all night ferries and night boats.C) The government has completely banned shipping.D) The government has paid for all the shipping lost.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 numbered from 36 to 43 with the exact words you have just heard. For blanks numbered from 44 to 46, you are required to fill in the missing information. For these blanks, you can either use the exact words you have just heard or write down the main points in your own words. Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, you should check what you have written.A group date differs from a (36) date in several ways. First, there are no special relationships in the group. No particular girl and boy are together all the time. Second, the group date may (37) on a weekend, but it may not be (38) in advance. A group of young people may decide on Saturday afternoon that they want to spend Saturday evening together. They may all decide to go to a movie, or to some other events. On a group date, no one is (39) with anyone else. As a result, every person pays for his or her own (40). This means that the girls must pay for themselves. They must pay their own (41) for the movies, for a cup of coffee, or for anything else that(42) money during the date.Many young people find the group date to be a great deal of(43). The young men on a group date are under no pressure. (44) . They do not have to pay for anyone but themselves. They do not have to be especially polite of formal during the date. Everyone can relax and have a good time. Group dates may lead to serious relationships for some members of the group. (45). They may spend more time together, with the group, and with each other. But usually, (46). No one worries about a serious relationship.Part Ⅳ Reading Comprehension (Reading in Depth) (25 minutes)Section ADirections: In this section, there is a short passage with 5 questions or incomplete statements. Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions or complete the statements in the fewest possible words on Answer Sheet 2.Questions 47 to 51 are based on the following passage.They are people who struggle to make their voice heard, but the world is likely to hear more and more about them. If they all belonged to one nation, it would be a fair size, as big as Chile or Kazakhstan. Yet by definition, they belong to no country at all:they are the world's growing band of stateless people who have no citizenship rights, and are often unable to claim the things that states can provide, like travel documents and education. According to international officials whose job is to cope with human flotsam and jetsam, the problem of statelessness is growing fast, despite a modest decline in the number of refugees in the strict sense.Some people become stateless because they are forced out of one country, and no other nation will accept them, or even grant them the rights which "refugees"-people who seek shelter because of a proven risk of persecution-can claim. Some people never leave home but find they are stranded by the shift in borders. Also being ranked among the stateless are marginal groups who cannot claim civic rights because their births went unrecorded.As a classic case of statelessness, take the Biharis of Bangladesh. They mostly took the West Pakistani side in the 1971 war that led to the creation of Bangladesh, ensuring that they were unwelcome in the new state. Some were moved in organised exchanges-until Pakistan stopped taking them. Perhaps 300 000 remain stateless.In fact, legal limbo(前途未卜) is not an either-or condition; there are degrees of statelessness. Among the Palestinians who fled during the war that followed Israel's creation, some-those in Jordan-were given passports, but in other Arab states, they simply got "refugee travel documents". No Arab state wanted to naturalise the newcomers, but the level of rights has varied from place to place.António Guterres, the current high commissioner for refugees, says more and more countries agree, at least, that statelessness is a problem; and several have taken steps to alleviate it.47. If the stateless people belonged to one nation, their number would equal the population of ______________.48. Why do refugees leave their home country and seek protection somewhere else?49. The situation that people who never leave home become stateless results from______________.50. Why were the Biharis unwelcome in the newly established Bangladesh?51. Arab states' treatments of the fleeing Palestinians are different from place to place in terms of______________.Section BDirections: 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 52 to 56 are based on the following passage.Getting ready to go back to school in the good old days of, say, 1998 meant a few trips to the mall and a quick check of the bus route. This year, for many parents, there are some new things to remember: The teacher's e-mail address, the school's website and which night online homework helps chat will be offered. "The 1999-2000 school year will be the one when the majority of parents really feel the Internet's influence on their children's education at the everyday level, "says Jonathan Carson, chairman of the Family Education Co. , which offers a parenting website at www. family education. com and a framework for local schools to create and maintain their own sites.This year promises to show a quantum leap in the spread of school technology: Parents in many districts can expect to be able to check the school lunch menu, read class notes, see activity calendar and view nightly homework assignments-all online. "The schools are wired, "says Carson. "A majority of parents now have access and the educators are ready to go. "Over the summer, parents of high school German students in Ithaca, N. Y. got to be part of a class to Europe, through their home computers. The class brought a digital camera and laptop with them to Germany and documented their visit on their web page. Hazy Ash, father of 16-year-old traveler Brian, found it reassuring to see his son's smiling face from half a world away. Before their kids left, parents had checked the site for scheduling information, a list of activities and advice on cultural differences.When it's designed well, a district, school or classroom website can change the relationship between the parents and the school, says Cynthia Lapier, Ithaca's director of information and instructional technology. "The more you can involve parents in school, the better, "Lapier says. "The technology gives us another way to reach them, especially parents of secondary school students, who tend to be less involved. "Ithaca high school physics teacher, Stever Wirt, gets e-mail from parents regular1y, some from the parents he believes might otherwise not pick up the phone with a concern. Using software called Blackboard Course Info, Wirt conducts online chats with his students often reviewing for a quiz or discussing homework problems.The way things are going, by the end of this year, many parents may be fully converted-and in fact dependent upon their schools' technological capabilities. At a recently wired school in Novi, Michigan, the school webmaster was just a few hours late posting the lunch-menu calendar on the website. In thattime, more than a dozen parents called him by telephone to request the information. "A year ago, it never would have been there, "says Carson. And now parents are finding it's tough to get by without it.52. Many parents now remember the teacher's e-mail address and the school's website because __________.A) by doing so they needn't go to the store to buy stationery for their childrenB) they can reach their children's school and the teachers without traveling thereC) the e-mail and the website can help them find out what their children doD) they can observe how the Internet affect their children's education every day53. "The schools are wired. A majority of parents now have access and the educators are ready to go. "(Lines 3-4, Para. 2) means that __________.A) the schools and parents are connected by the Internet so that teachers will leave schoolB) parents can find out what happens to their children in school by visiting InternetC) parents and educators may discover that schools are strange by using computersD) the schools are online and parents now can teach their children and the teachers are to go54. The example of Ithaca high school is used to show __________.A) how important the school website is for parents to be involved in educationB) that the school online can reassure the parents about what their children doC) how the parents of the students got to be part of a class trip to EuropeD) it is more likely for parents to send teachers e-mails than to phone them55. According to the last paragraph, the attitude of parents towards the lunch-menu calendar on the website is.A) reliant B) optimistic C) baised D) opposite56. According to this passage,which of the following will be changed most?A) The relationship between teachers and schools.B) The connection between students and schools.C) The relationship between parents and schools.D) The association between websites and schools.Passage TwoQuestions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage.Traffic statistics paint a gloomy picture. To help solve their traffic woes, some rapidly growing U. S. cities have simply built more roads. But traffic experts say building more roads is a quick fix solution that will not alleviate the traffic problem in the long run. Soaring land costs, increasing concern over social and environmental disruptions caused by road-building, and the likelihood that more roads can only lead to more cars and traffic are powerful factors bearing down on a 1950s' style constructions program.The goal of smart-highway technology is to make traffic systems work at optimum efficiency by treating the road and the vehicles traveling on them as an integral transportation system. Proponents of this advanced technology say electronic detection systems, closed-circuit television radio communication, ramp metering (斜坡坡度计量), variable message signing, and other smart highway technology can now be used at a reasonable cost to improve communication between drivers and the people who monitor traffic.Pathfinder, a Santa Monica, California based smart highway project in which a 14 mile stretch of the Santa Monica Freeway, making up what is called a "smart corridor", is being instrumented with buried loops in the pavement. Closed circuit television cameras survey the flow of traffic, while communications linked to properly equipped automobiles advise motorists of the least congested routes or detours (便道).Not all traffic experts, however, look to smart-highway technology as the ultimate solution to traffic jam. Some say the high-tech approach is limited and can only offer temporary solutions to a serious problem."Electronics on the highway addresses just one aspect of the problem: how to regulate traffic more efficiently, "explains Michael Renner, senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute. "It doesn't deal with the central problems of too many cars for roads that can't be built fast enough. It sends people the wrong message. ""They start thinking, ‘Yes, there used to be a traffic congestion problem, but that's been solved now because we have an advanced high-tech system in place. '"Larson agrees and adds, "smart highway is just one of the tools that we will use to deal with our traffic problems. It's not the solution itself, just part of the package. There are different strategies. "Other traffic problem-solving options being studied and experimented which include car pooling, rapid mass-transit systems, staggered or flexible work hours, and road pricing, a system whereby motorists pay a certain amount for the time they use a highway. It seems that we need a new, major thrust to deal with the traffic problems of the next 20 years. There has to be a big change.。