1、大学英语六级综合-阅读(二十六)及答案解析(总分:99.00,做题时间:90 分钟)一、BPart Reading (总题数:7,分数:99.00)Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with 10 statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived.
2、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.Welcome, Freshmen. Have an iPod.A) Taking a step that many professors may view as a bit counterproductive, some colleges and universities are
3、doling out Apple iPhones 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
4、 cafeteria menu.B) While 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
5、help a college or university 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 dev
6、ices can take class distractions 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,
7、I might pull it out,“ 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 i
8、f they were to compete 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
9、higher education.E) “We think this is the 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
10、 students take their laptops to class, they dont 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
11、said.F) It is not clear 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 institutions plans. “We cant announce other peoples news,“ said Greg Joswiak, vice president of i
12、Pod and iPhone marketing 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 a
13、ll of their students 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 its necessary, noting that more than 70
14、0 iPhones were registered on the universitys network last year.H) At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, iPhones might already have been everywhere, if AT the future of travel, Im reliably told, lies in “black-hole resorts“, which charge high prices precisely because you cant get online in th
15、eir rooms.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 Republic of 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 t
16、o disable the very 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 e-mail,
17、 but simply had 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 gir
18、l managed to handle 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 fu
19、ll all at once.F) The urgency of slowing downto find the time and space to thinkis nothing new, of course, and wiser sods 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 con
20、soles us for 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 mans problems come from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.G) When telegraphs and trains brought in the ide
21、a that convenience 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,
22、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 people
23、I know seem to be turning to yoga, or meditation (沉思), or tai chi (太极); these arent New Age fads (时尚事物) so much as ways to connect with what could be called the wisdom of old age. Two friends of mine observe an “Internet sabbath (安息日)“ every week, turning off their online connections from Friday nig
24、ht to Monday morning. Other friends take walks and “forget“ their cellphones at home.I) A series of tests in recent years has shown, Mr. Carr points out, that after spending time in quiet rural settings, subjects “exhibit greater attentiveness, stronger memory and generally improved cognition. Their
25、 brains become both calmer and sharper.“ More than that, empathy (同感,共鸣), as well as deep thought, depends (as neuroscientists like Antonio Damasio have found) on neural processes that are “inherently slow.“J) I turn to eccentric measures to try to keep my mind sober and ensure that I have time to d
26、o nothing at all (which is the only time when I can see what I should be doing the rest of the time). I have yet to use a cellphone and I have never Twittered or entered Facebook. I try not to go online till my days writing is finished, and I moved from Manhattan to rural Japan in part so I could mo
27、re easily survive for long stretches entirely on foot. None of this is a matter of asceticism (苦行主义); it is just pure selfishness. Nothing makes me feel better than being in one place, absorbed in a book, a conversation, or music. It is actually something deeper than mere happiness: it is joy, which
28、 the monk (僧侣) David Steindl-Rast describes as “that kind of happiness that doesnt depend on what happens.“K) It is vital, of course, to stay in touch with the world. But it is only by having some distance from the world that you can see it whole, and understand what you should be doing with it. For
29、 more than 20 years, therefore, I have been going several times a yearoften for no longer than three daysto a Benedictine hermitage (修道院), 40 minutes down the road, as it happens, from the Post Ranch Inn. I dont attend services when I am there, and I have never meditated, there or anywhere; I just t
30、ake walks and read and lose myself in the stillness, recalling that it is only by stepping briefly away from my wife and bosses and friends that I will have anything useful to bring to them. The last time I was in the hermitage, three months ago, I happened to meet with a youngish-looking man with a
31、 3-year-old boy around his shoulders.L) “Youre Pico, arent you?“ the man said, and introduced himself as Larry; we had met, I gathered, 19 years before, when he had been living in the hermitage as an assistant to one of the monks. “What are you doing now?“ I asked. We smiled. No words were necessary
32、. “I try to bring my kids here as often as I can,“ he went on. The child of tomorrow, I realized, may actually be ahead of us, in terms of sensing not what is new, but what is essential.(分数:20.00)(1).The French philosopher Blaise Pascal says distraction is our greatest misery in life.(分数:2.00)填空项 1:
33、_(2).The author says what the children of tomorrow will need most is the time away from all electronic gadgets(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_(3).The Post Ranch Inn is special in that it has no access to television in its rooms.(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_(4).The neuroscientist Antonio Damasios finding is that when people thin
34、k deeply, their neural processes are slow.(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_(5).According to Marshall McLuhan, we will not know what to do with our own lives if things come at us very fast.(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_(6).Yoga, meditation and tai chi can help people understand ancient wisdom.(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_(7).The author walks a
35、nd reads and loses himself in the stillness of the hermitage so that he can bring people around him anything valuable.(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_(8).In order to see the whole world, the author thinks it necessary to have some distance from the world.(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_(9).The author moved from Manhattan to rural
36、Japan partly because he could live without modern transportation.(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_(10).In the authors opinion. the youngish-looking man takes his little boy to the hermitage frequently so that the boy will know what is essential when he grows up.(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_Rates Are Low, but Consumers Wont Borro
37、wWith heavy debt loads and high joblessness, Americans are cautious.A) The US Federal Reserve (Fed)s announcement last week that it intended to keep credit cheap for at least two more years was a clear invitation to Americans: Go out and borrow.B) But many economists say it will take more than low i
38、nterest rates to persuade consumers to take on more debt. There are already signs that the recent stock market fluctuations, turbulence in Europe and the US deficit have scared consumers. On Friday, preliminary data showed that the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index had
39、fallen this month to lower than it was in November 2008, when the United States was deep in recession. Under normal circumstances, the Feds announcement might have attracted new home and car buyers and prompted credit card holders to rack up fresh charges. But with unemployment high and those with j
40、obs worried about keeping them, consumers are more concerned about paying off the loans they already have than adding more debt. And by showing its hand for the next two years, the Fed may have thoughtlessly invited prospective borrowers to put off large purchases.C) Lenders, meanwhile, are still de
41、aling with the effects of the boom-gone-bust and are forcing prospective borrowers to go to extraordinary lengths to prove their creditworthiness.D) “I dont think lenders are going to be interested in extending a lot of debt in this environment,“ said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moodys Analytics,
42、 a macroeconomic consulting firm. “Nor do I think households are going to be interested in taking on a lot of debt.“ In housing, consumers have already shown a slow response to low rates. Applications for new mortgages have decreased this year to a 10-year low, according to the Mortgage Bankers Asso
43、ciation. Sales of furniture and furnishings remain 22% below their pre-recession peak, according to SpendingPulse, a research report by Master Card Advisors. Credit card rates have actually gone up slightly in the past year. The one bright spot in lending is the number of auto loans, which is up fro
44、m last year. But some economists say that confidence among car buyers is hitting new lows.E) For Xavier Walter, a former mortgage banker who with his wife, Danielle, accumulated $20,000 in credit card debt, low rates will not change his spending habits. As the housing market topped out five years ag
45、o, he lost his six-figure income. He and his wife were able to modify the mortgage on their four-bedroom house in Medford, New Jersey, as well as negotiate lower credit card payments. Two years ago, Mr. Walter, a 34-year-old father of three, started an energy business. He has sworn off credit. “Im n
46、ot going to go back in debt ever again,“ he said. “If I cant pay for it in cash, I dont want it.“F) Until now, one of the biggest restraints on consumer spending has been a debt aftereffect. Since August 2008, when household debt peaked at $12.41 trillion, it has declined by about $1.2 trillion, acc
47、ording to an analysis by Moodys Analytics of data from the Federal Reserve and Equifax, the credit agency. A large portion of that, though, was simply written off by lenders as borrowers defaulted on loans. By other measures, households have improved their position. The proportion of after-tax incom
48、e that households spend to remain current on loan payments has fallen.G) Still, household debt remains high. That presents a paradox: many economists argue that the economy cannot achieve true health until debt levels decline. But credit, made attractive by low rates, is a time-tested way to increas
49、e consumer spending. With new risks of another downturn, economists worry that it will take years for debt to return to manageable levels. If the economy contracts again, said George Magnus, senior adviser at UBS, then “you could find a lot of households in a debt trap which they probably can never get out of“H) Mortgage lenders, meanwhile, burned by the housing crash, are extra carefu