大学英语六级分类模拟题313及答案解析.doc

1、大学英语六级分类模拟题 313及答案解析(总分：100.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、Reading Comprehensio(总题数：0，分数：0.00)Climate Change May Be Real, but It“s Still Not Easy Being GreenHow do we convince our inner caveman to be greener? We ask some outstanding social scientists. AThe road to climate hell is paved with our good intentions. Po

2、liticians may tackle polluters while scientists do battle with carbon emissions. But the most pervasive problem is less obvious: our own behaviour. We get distracted before we can turn down the heating. We break our promise not to fly after hearing about a neighbor“s rip to India. Ultimately, we can

3、t be bothered to change our attitude. Fortunately for the planet, social science and behavioral economics may be able to do that for us. B. Despite mournful polar bears and carts showing carbon emissions soaring, most people find it hard to believe that global warming will affect them personally. R

4、ecent polls by the Pew Research Centre in Washington, DC, found that 75-80 per cent of participants regarded climate change as an important issue. But respondents ranked it last on a list of priorities. C. This inconsistency largely steins from a feeling of powerlessness. “When we can“t actually rem

5、ove the source of our fear, we tend to adapt psychologically by adopting a range of defense mechanisms,“ says Tom Crompton, change strategist for the environmental organization World Wide Fund for Nature. D. Part of the fault lies with our inner caveman. Evolution has programmed humans to pay most a

6、ttention to issues that will have an immediate impact. “We worry most about now because if we don“t survive for the next minute, we“re not going to be around in ten years“ time,“ says Professor Elke Weber of the Centre for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University in New York. If th

7、e Thames were lapping around Big Ben, Londoners would face up to the problem of emissions pretty quickly. But in practice, our brain discounts the risksand benefitsassociated with issues that lie some way ahead. E. Matthew Rush worth, of the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of

8、 Oxford, sees this in his lab every day. “One of the ways in which all agents seem to make decisions is that they assign a lower weighting to outcomes that are going to be further away in the future,“ he says. “This is a very sensible way for an animal to make decisions in the wild and would have be

9、en very helpful for humans for thousands of years.“ F. Not any longer. By the time we wake up to the threat posed by climate change, it could well be too late. And if we“re not going to make national decisions about the future, others may have to help us to do so. G. Few political libraries are with

10、out a copy of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. They argue that governments should persuade us into making better decisionssuch as saving more in our pension plansby changing the default options. Professor Weber believes that environm

11、ental policy can make use of similar tactics. If, for example, building codes included green construction guidelines, most developers would be too lazy to challenge them. H. Defaults are certainly part of the solution. But social scientists are most concerned about crafting messages that exploit our

12、 group mentality(心态). “We need to understand what motivates people, what it is that allows them to make change,“ says Professor Neil Adger, of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Norwich. “It is actually about what their peers think of them, what their social norms are, what is seen as

13、 desirable in society.“ In other words, our inner cave-man is continually looking over his shoulder to see what the rest of the tribe are up to. I. The passive attitude we have to climate change as individuals can be altered by counting us inand measuring us againstour peer group. “Social norms are

14、primitive and elemental,“ says Dr. Robert Cialdini, author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. “Birds flock together, fish school together, cattle herd together.just perceiving norms is enough to cause people to adjust their behavior in the direction of the crowd.“ J. These norms can take us

15、 beyond good intentions. Cialdini conducted a study in San Diego in which coat hangers bearing messages about saving energy were hung on people“s doors. Some of the messages mentioned the environment, some financial savings, others social responsibility. But it was the one that mentioned the actions

16、 of neighbours that drove down power use. K. Other studies show that simply providing the facility for people to compare their energy use with the local average is enough to cause them to modify their behaviour. The Conservatives plan to adopt this strategy by making utility companies print the aver

17、age local electricity and gas usage on people“s bills. L. Social science can also teach politicians how to avoid our collective capacity for self-destructive behaviour. Environmental campaigns that tell us how many people drive SUVs unwittingly (不经意地) imply that this behaviour is widespread and thus

18、 permissible. Cialdini recommends some careful framing of the message. “Instead of normalising the undesirable behaviour, the message needs to marginalise it, for example, by stating that if even one person buys yet another SUV, it reduces our ability to be energy-independent.“ M. Tapping into how w

19、e already see ourselves is crucial. The most successful environmental strategy will marry the green message to our own sense of identity. Take your average trade union member, chances are they will be politically motivated and be used to collective actionmuch like Erica Gregory. A retired member of

20、the Public and Commercial Services Union, she is setting up one of 1,100 action groups with the support of Climate Solidarity, a two-year environmental campaign aimed at trade unionists. N. Erica is proof that a great-grandmother can help to lead the revolution if you get the psychology rightin this

21、 case, by matching her enthusiasm for the environment with a fondness for organising groups. “I think there must be something in it.“ She is expecting up to 20 people at the first meeting she has called, at her local pub in the Cornish village of Polperro. O. Nick Perks, project director for Climate

22、 Solidarity, believes this sort of activity is where the future of environmental action lies. “Using existing civil society structures or networks is a more effective way of creating change.and obviously trade unions are one of the biggest civil society net-works in the UK,“ he says. The “Love Food,

23、 Haste Waste“ campaign entered into a collaboration last year with another such networkthe Women“s Institute. Londoner Rachel Talor joined the campaign with the aim of making new friends. A year on, the meetings have made lasting changes to what she throws away in her kitchen. “It“s always more of a

24、n incentive if you“re doing it with other people,“ she says. “It motivates you more if you know that you“ve got to provide feedback to a group.“ P. The power of such simple psychology in fighting climate change is attracting attention across the political establishment. In the US, the House of Repre

25、sentatives Science Committee has approved a bill allocating $10 million a year to studying energy-related behaviour. In the UK, new studies are in development and social scientists are regularly spotted in British government offices. With the help of psychologists, there is fresh hope that we might

26、go green after all.（分数：25.00）(1).When people find they are powerless to change a situation，they tend to live with it.（分数：2.50）(2).To be effective, environmental messages should be carefully framed.（分数：2.50）(3).It is the government“s responsibility to persuade people into making environment-friendly

27、decisions.（分数：2.50）(4).Politicians are beginning to realize the importance of enlisting psychologists“ help in fighting climate change.（分数：2.50）(5).To find effective solutions to climate change, it is necessary to understand what motivates people to make change.（分数：2.50）(6).In their evolution. human

28、s have learned to pay attention to the most urgent issues instead of long-term concerns.（分数：2.50）(7).One study shows that our neighbors, actions are influential unchanging our behavior.（分数：2.50）(8).Despite clear signs of global warming, it is not easy for most people to believe climate change will a

29、ffect their own lives.（分数：2.50）(9).We would take our future into consideration in making decisions concerning climate change before it is too late.（分数：2.50）(10).Existing social networks can be more effective in creating change in people“s behaviour.（分数：2.50）The Impossibility of Rapid Energy Transtio

30、nsAPoliticians are fond of promising rapid energy transitions. Whether it is a transition from imported to domestic oil or from coal-powered electricity production to natural-gas power plants, politicians love to talk bigUnfortunately for them(and often the taxpayers), our energy systems are a bit l

31、ike an aircraft carrier: they are unbelievably expensive, they are built to last for a very long time, they have a huge amount of inertia(meaning it takes a lot of energy to set them moving), and they have a lot of momentum once they are set in motion. No matter how hard you try, you can“t turn some

32、thing that large on a dime(10美分硬币), or even a few thousand dimes. BIn physics, moving objects have two characteristics relevant to understanding the dynamics of energy systems: inertia and momentum. Inertia is the resistance of objects you back. Once you have started the boulder rolling, it develops

33、 momentum, which is defined by its mass and velocity. Momentum is said to be “conserved,“ that is, once you build it up, it has to go somewhere. So a heavy object, like a football player moving at a high speed, has a lot of momentumthat is, once he is moving, it is hard to change his state of motion

34、 If you want to change his course, you have only a few choices: you can stop him, transferring (possibly painfully) some of his kinetic energy (动能)to your own body, or you can approach alongside and slowly apply pressure to gradually alter his course. CBut there are other kinds of momentum as well.

35、 After all, we don“t speak only of objects or people as having momentum; we speak of entire systems having momentum. Whether it“s a sports team or a presidential campaign, everybody relishes having the big momentum, because it makes them harder to stop or change direction. DOne kind of momentum is t

36、echnological momentum. When a technology is deployed, its impacts reach far beyond itself. Consider the incandescent (白炽灯) bulb, an object currently hated by many environmentalists and energy-efficiency advocates. The incandescent light bulb, invented by Thomas Edison, which came to be the symbol of

37、 inspiration, has been developed into hundreds, if not thousands, of forms. Today, a visit to a lighting store reveals a stunning array of choices. There are standard-shaped bulbs, flame-shaped bulbs, colored globe-shaped bulbs, and more. It is quite easy, with all that choice, to change a light bul

38、b. EBut the momentum of incandescent lighting does not stop there. All of those specialized bulbs led to the building of specialized light fixtures, from the desk lamp you study by, to the ugly but beloved hand-painted Chinese lamp you inherited from your grandmother, to the ceiling fixture in your

39、closet, to the light in your oven or refrigerator, and to the light that the dentist points at you. It is easy to change a light bulb, sure, but it is harder to change the bulb and its fixture. F. And there is more to the story, because not only are the devices that house incandescent bulbs shaped t

40、o their underlying characteristics, but rooms and entire buildings have been designed in accordance with how incandescent lighting reflects off walls and windows. G. As lighting expert Howard Brandston points out, “Generally, there are no bad sources, only bad applications. “ There are some very com

41、mendable characteristics of the CFL (compact fluorescent (荧光的)light bulb), yet the selection of any light source remains inseparable from the luminaire (照明装置) that houses it, along with the space in which both are installed, and lighting requirements that need to be satisfied. The lamp, the fixture,

42、 and the room: all three must work in concert for the true benefits of end-users. If the CFL should be used for lighting a particular space, or an object within that space, the fixture must be designed to work with that simply installed in an incandescent fixture and then expected to produce a visua

43、l appearance that is more than washed out, foggy, and dim. The whole fixture must be replacedlight source and luminaireand this is never an inexpensive proposition. H. And Brandston knows a thing or two about lighting, being the man who illuminated the Statue of Liberty. I. Another type of momentum

44、we have to think about when planning for changes in our energy systems is labor-pool momentum. It is one thing to say that we are going to shift 30 percent of our electricity supply from, say, coal to nuclear power in 20 years. But it is another thing to have a sup-ply of trained talent that could l

45、et you carry out this promise. That is because the engineers, designers, regulators, operators, and all of the other skilled people needed for the new energy industry are specialists who have to be trained first (or retrained, if they are the ones being laid off in some related industry), and educat

46、ion, like any other complicated endeavor, takes time. And not only do our prospective new energy workers have to be trained, they have to be trained in the right sequence. One needs the designers, and perhaps the regulators, before the builders and operators, and each group of workers in training ha

47、s to know there is work waiting beyond graduation. In some cases, colleges and universities might have to change their training programs, adding another layer of difficulty. J. By far the biggest type of momentum that comes into play when it comes to changing our energy system is economic momentum.

48、The major components of our energy systems, such as fuel production, refining, electrical generation and distribution, are costly installations that have lengthy lifespan. They have to operate for long periods of time before the costs of development have been recovered. When investors put up theirmo

49、ney to build, say, a nuclear power plant, they expect to earn that money back over the planned life of the plant, which is typically between 40 and 60 years. Some coal power plants in the United States have operated for more than 70 years ! The oldest continuously operated commercial hydro-electric plant in the United States is on New York“s Hudson River, and it went into commercial service in 1898. K. As Vaclav Smil points out, “All the forecast, plans, and anticipations cited above have failed so miserably because their authors and promoters thought the transitions they ho