1、大学英语六级-163 及答案解析(总分：100.00，做题时间：90 分钟)三、Passage 1(总题数：2，分数：40.00)A staggering 8 million tonnes of plastic waste are entering the world“s oceans every year, or the equivalent to five grocery bags filled with plastic for every foot of coastline in the world, according to the first scientific assessmen
2、t of the problem. The joint US-Australian study, 1 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting, analysed waste production data from 192 countries to 2 that between 4.8 million and 12.7 million tonnes of “mismanaged plastic“ entered the oceans in 2010; 8 million tonnes i
3、s the central estimate. Plastic in the oceans is becoming a serious ecological problem for 3 life, as well as an ugly 4 washed up on beaches and floating on the open seas. Large pieces such as intact plastic bags are a 5 for animals from turtles to dolphins, which can become entangled (缠住) or swallo
4、w them with fatal results. More insidious is the weathering of plastic debris into tiny particles that can be 6 even by microscopic invertebrates (无脊椎动物). The amount of plastic going into the oceans is increasing fast, keeping pace with global plastic production, said the study leader Jenna Jambeck.
5、 “In 2025 the annual input would be about twice the 2010 input or 10 bags full per foot of coastline. The 7 input in 2025 would be nearly 20 times our 2010 estimate: 100 bags of plastic per foot of coastline in the world.“ 8 nations have the infrastructure to dispose 9 of the vast majority of their
6、plastic or recycle it. Poorer countries do not. Altogether about 3 percent of the world“s total plastic waste ends up in the oceans through littering or dumping. A huge investment will be needed to save the oceans and their 10 from choking on human plastic debris. A. brief B. conclude C. cumulative
7、D. descendants E. Developed F. Exotic G. hazard H. ingested I. inhabitants J. lingering K. marine L. neglectfully M. pollutant N. properly O. released（分数：20.00）A Dutch review of prior research reveals that the more physically active school-aged children are, the better they fare in the classroom. Mo
8、st of the studies in the review had been 11 in the United States, while one came out of Canada and the other out of South Africa. The findings are published in the January issue of the Archives of Pediatrics they 14 in size from about 50 participants to as many as 12000 and 15 children between the a
9、ges of 6 and 18. The investigators noted that increases in blood and oxygen flow to the brain that accompanies exercise may play a role in improving classroom performance. The suggestion is that the dynamic prompts an increase in levels of hormones (荷尔蒙) 16 for reducing stress and boosting mood, whi
10、le at the same time prompting the 17 of new nerve cells and synapse (神经元) flexibility. The Dutch team cautioned, however, that more rigorous work is needed to confirm the connection. “ 18 few studies of high methodological quality have explored the relationship between physical activity and academic
11、 performance,“ they 19 . “More high-quality studies are needed on the dose-response relationship between physical activity and academic performance and on the explanatory mechanisms, using 20 and valid measurement instruments to assess this relationship accurately.“ A. acknowledged B. conducted C. c
12、onsideration D. convert E. establishment F. involved G. ranged H. Relatively I. reliable J. responsible K. significant L. suggest M. Tactfully N. temperament O. vulnerably（分数：20.00）四、Passage 2(总题数：2，分数：60.00)Who Pressed the Pause Button?A. Between 1998 and 2013, the Earth“s surface temperature rose
13、at a rate of 0.04 a decade, far slower than the 0.18 increase in the 1990s. Meanwhile, emissions of carbon dioxide (which would be expected to push temperatures up) rose uninterruptedly. This pause in warming has raised doubts in the public mind about climate change. A few sceptics say flatly that g
14、lobal warming has stopped. Others argue that scientists“ understanding of the climate is so flawed that their judgments about it cannot be accepted with any confidence. A convincing explanation of the pause therefore matters both to a proper understanding of the climate and to the credibility of cli
15、mate scienceand papers published over the past few weeks do their best to provide one. Indeed, they do almost too good a job. If all were correct, the pause would now be explained twice over. B. This is the opposite of what happened at first. As evidence piled up that temperatures were not rising mu
16、ch, some scientists dismissed it as a blip (暂时的问题). The temperature, they pointed out, had fallen for much longer periods twice in the past century or so, in 1880-1910 and again in 1945-1975, even though the general trend was up. Variability is part of the climate system and a 15-year hiatus (间断), t
17、hey suggested, was not worth getting excited about. C. An alternative way of looking at the pause“s significance was to say that there had been a slowdown but not a big one. Most records, including one of the best known (kept by Britain“s Meteorological Office), do not include measurements from the
18、Arctic, which has been warming faster than anywhere else in the world. Using satellite data to fill in the missing Arctic numbers, Kevin Cowtan of the University of York, in Britain, and Robert Way of the University of Ottawa, in Canada, put the overall rate of global warming at 0.12 a decade betwee
19、n 1998 and 2012not far from the 1990s“ rate. A study by NASA puts the “Arctic effect“ over the same period somewhat lower, at 0.07 a decade, but that is still not negligible. D. It is also worth remembering that average warming is not the only measure of climate change. According to a study just pub
20、lished by Sonia Seneviratne of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, in Zurich, the number of hot days, the number of extremely hot days and the length of warm periods all increased during the pause (1998-2012). A more stable average temperature hides wider extremes. E. Still, attempts
21、to explain away that stable average have not been convincing, partly because of the conflict between flat temperatures and rising CO 2 emissions, and partly because observed temperatures are now falling outside the range climate models predict. The models embody the state of climate knowledge. If th
22、ey are wrong, the knowledge is probably faulty, too. Hence attempts to explain the pause. Chilling news. F. In September 2013 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change did so in terms of fluctuating solar output, atmospheric pollution and volcanoes. All three, it thought, were unusually influent
23、ial. G. The sun“s power output fluctuates slightly over a cycle that lasts about 11 years. The current cycle seems to have gone on longer than normal and may have started from a lower base, so for the past decade less heat has been reaching Earth than usual. Pollution throws aerosols (气溶胶) into the
24、air, where they reflect sunlight back into space. The more there are, the greater their cooling effectand pollution from coal-fired power plants, in particular, has been rising. Volcanoes do the same thing, so increased volcanic activity tends to reduce temperatures. H. Gavin Schmidt and two colleag
25、ues at NASA“s Goddard Institute quantify the effects of these trends in Nature Geoscience . They argue that climate models underplay the delayed and subdued solar cycle. They think the models do not fully account for the effects of pollution. And they claim that the impact of volcanic activity since
26、 2000 has been greater than previously thought. Adjusting for all this, they find that the difference between actual temperature readings and computer-generated ones largely disappears. The implication is that the solar cycle and aerosols explain much of the pause. Blowing hot and cold. I. There is,
27、 however, another type of explanation. Much of the incoming heat is absorbed by oceans, especially the largest, the Pacific. Several new studies link the pause with changes in the Pacific and in the trade winds that influence the circulation of water within it. Trade winds blow east-west at tropical
28、 latitudes. In so doing they push warm surface water towards Asia and draw cooler, deep water to the surface in the central and eastern Pacific, which chills the atmosphere. Water movement at the surface also speeds up a giant churn (剧烈翻腾) in the ocean. This pulls some warm water downwards, sequeste
29、ring (使隔绝) heat at greater depth. In a study published in Nature in 2013, Yu Kosaka and Shang-Ping Xie of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in San Diego, argued that much of the difference between climate models and actual temperatures could be accounted for by cooling in the eastern Pacific.
30、 J. Every few years, as Dr Kosaka and Dr Xie observe, the trade winds slacken and the warm water in the western Pacific sloshes (晃荡) back to replace the cool surface layer of the central and eastern parts of the ocean. This weather pattern is called El Ni ? o and it warms the whole atmosphere. There
31、 was an exceptionally strong Ni ? o in 1997-1998, an unusually hot year. The opposite pattern, with cooler temperatures and stronger trade winds, is called La Ni ? o. The 1997-98 Ni ? o was followed by a series of Ni ? as, explaining part of the pause. K. Switches between El Ni ? o and La Ni ? o are
32、 frequent. But there is also a long-term cycle called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (波动) (PDO), which switches from a warm (or positive) phase to a cool (negative) one every 20 or 30 years. The positive phase encourages more frequent, powerful Ni ? os. According to Kevin Trenberth and John Fasullo
33、 of America“s National Centre for Atmospheric Research, the PDO was positive in 1976-1998a period of rising temperaturesand negative in 1943-1976 and since 2000, producing a series of cooling Ni ? as. L. But that is not the end of it. Laid on top of these cyclical patterns is what looks like a one-o
34、ff increase in the strength of trade winds during the past 20 years. According to a study in Nature Climate Change , by Matthew England of the University of New South Wales and others, record trade winds have produced a sort of super-Ni ? a. On average, sea levels have risen by about 3ram a year in
35、the past 30 years. But those in the eastern Pacific have barely budged (挪动), whereas those near the Philippines have risen by 20cm since the late 1990s. A wall of warm water, in other words, is being held in place by powerful winds, with cool water rising behind it. According to Dr England, the effe
36、ct of the trade winds explains most of the temperature pause. M. If so, the pause has gone from being not explained to explained twice overonce by aerosols and the solar cycle, and again by ocean winds and currents. These two accounts are not contradictory. The processes at work are understood, but
37、their relative contributions are not. N. Nor is the answer to what is, from the human point of view, the biggest question of all, namely what these explanations imply about how long the pause might continue. On the face of it, if some heat is being sucked into the deep ocean, the process could simpl
38、y carry on: The ocean has a huge capacity to absorb heat as long as the pump sending it to the bottom remains in working order. But that is not all there is to it. Gravity wants the western-Pacific water wall to slosh back; it is held in place only by exceptionally strong trade winds. If those winds
39、 slacken, temperatures will start to rise again. O. The solar cycle is already turning. And aerosol cooling is likely to be reined in by China“s antipollution laws. Most of the circumstances that have put the planet“s temperature rise on “pause“ look temporary. Like the Terminator, global warming wi
40、ll be back.（分数：30.00）(1).The Arctic is warming faster than other places in the world.（分数：3.00）(2).In the past decade and a half, CO 2 emissions, a cause of the Earth“s rising temperature, went up continuously.（分数：3.00）(3).It is noteworthy that there are many other indicators of climate change beside
41、s average warming.（分数：3.00）(4).La Ni ? a, the counter-phenomenon of El Ni ? o, makes temperatures cooler and trade winds stronger.（分数：3.00）(5).Some scientists argue that climate models do not give due attention to the role of the solar cycle and the effects of pollution.（分数：3.00）(6).Despite plentifu
42、l evidence, some scientists believe that there is no pause but merely a temporary slowdown in global warming.（分数：3.00）(7).The pause in global warming generated doubts and scepticism about the credibility of climate science.（分数：3.00）(8).According to Dr England, the temperature pause is largely due to
43、 the effect of the trade winds.（分数：3.00）(9).Volcanic eruptions can lower temperatures by reducing the heat reaching Earth.（分数：3.00）(10).What concerns people most is the duration of the pause in global warming.（分数：3.00）Nothing More Than FeelingsA. First, you realise it“s a gorilla. The opening strain
44、s of Phil Collins“s “In the Air Tonight“ are playing; the beast is enraptured (陶醉的). As the camera pulls back, you see that he“s seated at a drum kit. He raises his drumsticks (鼓槌), then brings them resoundingly down. Only in the final frames do you discover that the gorilla is pitching (竭力推销) Cadbu
45、ry“s Dairy Milk chocolate. B. This advertisement, released in 2007, should not have worked. Conventional wisdom doubted that a jerk of joy from a drumming gorilla, however rhythmically gifted, would spur sales of chocolate bars. A member of the team that developed the ad says that when it was passed
46、 to Millward Brown, the world“s biggest tester of adverts, the firm found that it scored poorly among women on its measures of “awareness“ and “brand appeal“ and about average among men (Millward Brown says it did better on other measures). Yet Cadbury went ahead, and was rewarded with millions of o
47、nline views, better perceptions of its brand and higher sales. Return on investment was three times the average for packaged-goods marketing campaigns. C. Behind Cadbury“s gorilla success was an unlikely inspiration: Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist who won a Nobel Prize in 2002 for showing that peop
48、le are not the rational agents that economists had thought they were. He argues, most famously in Thinking, Fast and Slow , a 2011 book popularising his work, that the mind (human, that is, not gorilla) incorporates two systems: an intuitive “system one“, which makes many decisions automatically, an
49、d a calculating but lazy “system two“, which rationalises system one“s ideas and sometimes overrules them. For Mr Kahneman“s disciples advertising is above all a way to groom system one, to spur consumers towards a buy. D. Kahnemanite advertising prizes emotion over information and pays more attention to a brand“s “purpose“ than to its products. It exploits system one“s tendency to react to subtle cues. In a print advert for a Betty Crocker pie, a version with the fork placed on the right triggered a 20% higher “purchase intent“ than one with the fork on the left (because most people
