大学英语六级分类模拟题322及答案解析.doc

1、大学英语六级分类模拟题 322 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)A Nation that“s Losing Its ToolboxA. The scene inside the Home Depot on Weyman Avenue here would give the old-time Ameri-can craftsman pause. In Aisle 34 is precut plastic flooring, the glue already in place. In Aisle 26

2、 are prefabricated windows. Stacked near the checkout counters, and as colorful 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 in

3、 staller. B. It“s all very handy stuff, I guess, a convenient way to be a do-it-yourselfer without being all that good with tools. But at a 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 de

4、eply troubling about this dilution of American craftsmanship. C. This isn“t a lament (伤感)or not merely a lamentfor bygone times. It“s a social and cultural issue, as well as an economic one. The Home Depot approach to craftsmanshipsimplify it, dumb it down, hire a contractoris one signal that master

5、ing tools and working with one“s hands is receding in America as a hobby, as a valued skill, as a cultural influence that shaped thinking and behavior 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 Romney prom

6、otes 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. E. The Obama administration does worry publicly about manufacturing, a first cousin of craftsmanship. When the Ford Motor Company, for example, recently announced that it

7、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. F. Ask the administration or the Rep

8、ublicans or most academics why America needs more manufacturing, and they respond 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 re-cession. But rarely, if ever, do they publicly

9、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 serf-image as a can-do, inventive, we-can-make-anything people. G. Traditional vocational training in publi

10、c high schools is gradually declining, stranding thou-sands of 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 m

11、anufacturing, a big employer of them. H. 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 G. D. P. and employs barely 9% of the nation“s

12、workers. I. Mass layoffs and plant closings have drawn plenty of headlines and public debate over the years, and they still occasionally do. But the damage to skill and craftsmanshipwhat“s needed to build a complex airliner or a tractor, or for a worker to move up from assembler to machinist to supe

13、rvisorwent largely unnoticed. J. “In an earlier generation, we lost our connection to the land, and now we are losing our connection to the machinery we depend on,“ says Michael Hout, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley. “People who work with their hands,“ he went on, “are doing

14、things today that we call service jobs, in restaurants and laundries, or in medical technology and the like.“ K. That“s one explanation for the decline in traditional craftsmanship. Lack of interest is another. The big money is in fields like finance. Starting in the 1980s, skill in finance grew in

15、importance, and, as depicted in the news media and the movies, became a more appealing source of in-come. 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

16、 became a homespun folk hero, without the tools and overalls (工作服). L. “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 th

17、ey don“t know how to build them.“ M. 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 1990s study of blue-collar empl

18、oyees at a General Motors plant (now closed) in Linden, N. J. , 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

19、 effort on the part of the workers to regain their dignity after suffering the degradation of repetitive assembly line work in the factory.“ N. Craft work has higher status in nations like Germany, which invests in apprenticeship (学徒) programs for high school students. “Corporations in Germany reali

20、zed that there was an interest to be served economically and patriotically in building up a skilled labor force at home; we never had that ethos (风气),“ says Richard Sennett, a New York University sociologist who has written about the connection of craft and culture. O. The damage to American craftsm

21、anship 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

22、restore a big chunk of this employment, along with the multitude of skills that many of the jobs required. P. 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

23、as quickly as some would arguethat it has instead shifted to immigrants. “Pride in craft, it is alive in the immigrant world,“ she says. 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 crafts-me

24、n 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. Q. Mr. Axelrod also says the recession and persist

25、ently 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 custom

26、ers may not be building cabinets or out-door decks; we try to do that for them,“ Mr. Axelrod says, “but some are trying to build up skills so they can do more for themselves in these hard times.“（分数：25.00）(1).Mastering tools and working with one“s hands used to be a valued skill in America.（分数：2.50）

27、2).The fact that people can make more money in fields other than manufacturing contributes to the decline of craftsmanship.（分数：2.50）(3).High school students are losing opportunities of learning a traditional craft at school.（分数：2.50）(4).Compared with German counterparts, American companies did not

28、work towards encouraging craftsmanship.（分数：2.50）(5).Barack Obama did not present himself as skilled in craft work during his election campaign.（分数：2.50）(6).Some people are trying to ride out the economic depression by doing more themselves.（分数：2.50）(7).There is insufficient attention to the negative

29、 effects on craftsmanship produced by the de-cline of manufacturing.（分数：2.50）(8).Most politicians or scholars fail to point out that manufacturing promotes craftsmanship.（分数：2.50）(9).A sociologist argues that American craftsmanship, instead of disappearing, is being taken up by immigrants.（分数：2.50）(

30、10).A study found that many assembly line workers did skilled work in their off-hours to restore their dignity as craftsmen.（分数：2.50）Welcome, Freshmen. Have an iPod. A. Taking a step that many professors may view as a bit counterproductive, some colleges and universities are doling out Apple iPhones

31、 and Internet-capable iPods to their students. The always-on Internet devices raise some novel possibilities, like tracking where students gather together. With far less controversy, colleges could send messages about canceled classes, delayed buses, campus crises or just the cafeteria menu. B. Whil

32、e schools emphasize its usefulnessonline research in class and instant polling of students, for examplea big part of the attraction is, undoubtedly, that the iPhone is cool and a hit with students. Being equipped with one of the most recent cutting-edge IT products could just help a college or unive

33、rsity foster a cutting-edge reputation. Apple stands to win as well, hooking more young consumers with decades of technology purchases ahead of them. The lone losers, some fear, could be professors. C. Students already have laptops and cell phones, of course, but the newest devices can take class di

34、stractions to a new level. They practically beg a user to ignore the long-suffering professor struggling to pass on accumulated wisdom from the front of the rooma prospect that teachers find most irritating and students view as, well, inevitable. “When it gets a little boring, I might pull it out,“

35、acknowledged Naomi Pugh, a first-year student at Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn., referring to her new iPod Touch, which can connect to the Internet over a campus wireless network. She speculated that professors might try even harder to make classes interesting if they were to compete

36、with the devices. D. Experts see a movement toward the use of mobile technology in education, though they say it is in its infancy as professors try to come up with useful applications. Providing powerful hand-held devices is sure to fuel debates over the role of technology in higher education. E. “

37、We think the is this way the future is going to work,“ said Kyle Dickson, co-director of research and the mobile learning initiative at Abilene Christian University in Texas, which has bought more than 600 iPhones and 300 iPods for students entering this fall. Although plenty of students take their

38、laptops to class, they don“t take them everywhere and would prefer something lighter. Abilene Christian settled on the devices after surveying students and finding that they did not like hauling around their laptops, but that most of them always carried a cell phone, Dr. Dickson said. F. It is not c

39、lear how many colleges and universities plan to give out iPhones and iPods this fall; officials at Apple were unwilling to talk about the subject and said that they would not leak any institution“s plans. “We can“t announce other people“s news,“ said Greg Joswiak, vice president of iPod and iPhone m

40、arketing at Apple. He also said that he could not discuss discounts to universities for bulk purchases. At least four institutionsthe University of Maryland, Oklahoma Christian University, Abilene Christian and Freed-Hardemanhave announced that they will give the devices to some or all of their stud

41、ents this fall. G. Other universities are exploring their options. Stanford University has hired a student-run company to design applications like a campus map and directory for the iPhone. It is considering whether to issue iPhones but not sure it“s necessary, noting that more than 700 iPhones were

42、 registered on the university“s network last year. H. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, iPhones might already have been everywhere, if AT the future of travel, I“m reliably told, lies in “black-hole resorts,“ which charge high prices precisely because you can“t get online in their rooms.

43、 D. Has it really come to this? The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug. Internet rescue camps in South Korea and China try to save kids addicted to the screen. Writer friends of mine pay good money to get the Freedom software that enables them to disable the v

44、ery Internet connections that seemed so emancipating not long ago. Even Intel experimented in 2007 with conferring four uninterrupted hours of quiet time ( no phone or e-mail) every Tuesday morning on 300 engineers and managers. Workers were not allowed to use the phone or send email, but simply had

45、 the chance to clear their heads and to hear themselves think. E. The average American spends at least eight and a half hours a day in front of a screen. Nicholas Carr notes in his book The Shallows. The average American teenager sends or receives 75 text messages a day, though one girl managed to h

46、andle an average of 10,000 every 24 hours for a month. Since luxury is a function of scarcity, the children of tomorrow will long for nothing more than intervals of freedom from all the blinking machines, streaming videos and scrolling headlines that leave them feeling empty and too full all at once

47、 F. The urgency of slowing downto find the time and space to thinkis nothing new, of course, and wiser souls have always reminded us that the more attention we pay to the moment, the less time and energy we have to place it in some larger context. Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for

48、our miseries,“ the French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote in the 17th century, “and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.“ He also famously remarked that all of man“s problems come from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone. G. When telegraphs and trains brought in the idea that conv

49、enience was more important than content, Henry David Thoreau reminded us that “the man whose horse trots (奔跑) a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages.“ Marshall McLuhan, who came closer than most to seeing what was coming, warned, “When things come at you very fast, naturally you lose touch with yourself.“ We have more and more ways to communicate, but less and less to say. Partly because we are so busy communicating. And we are rushing to meet so many deadlines that we hardly register that what we need most are lifelines. H. So what to do? More and more peo