1、大学英语六级模拟试卷 373及答案与解析 一、 Part I Writing (30 minutes) 1 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a composition on the topic: Travel-mate Wanted. You should write at least 150 word following the outline given below: 假设你是李明，假期即将到来，你打 算做一次为期三周的旅行，希望找个外国朋友作为游伴 (Travel-mate)，拟 个寻游伴的启事
2、，交代清楚日程安排、费用分担情况、对对方的要求等，并说明对方和你一起出游的好处。 Travel-mate Wanted 二、 Part 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 attached to the passage. For questions 1-4, mark： Y (for YES) i
3、f 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. 1 The Science of Interruptions In 2000, Gloria Mark was hired as a professor at the Unive
4、rsity of California. She would arrive at her desk in the morning, full of energy and ready to tackle her to-do list. No sooner had she started one task than a colleague would e-mail her with an urgent request; when she went to work on that, the phone would ring. At the end of the day, Mark had accom
5、plished a fraction of what she set out to do. Lots of people complain that office multitasking drives them nuts. But Mark studies how high-tech devices affect our behavior, so she was able to do more than complain: She set out to measure how nuts weve all become. She watched cubicle (办公室隔间 ) dweller
6、s as they surfed the chaos of modern office life and found each employee spent only ten-and-a-half minutes on any given project before being interrupted. Each short project was itself fragmented into three-minute tasks, like answering e-mail messages or working on a sheet. Marks study also revealed
7、that interruptions are often crucial to office work. The high-tech workers admitted that many of their daily distractions were essential to their jobs. When someone forwards you an urgent e-mail message, its often something you really do need to see; if a mobile phone call breaks through, it might b
8、e the call that saves your hide. For some computer engineers and academics, this realization has begun to raise an attractive possibility: Perhaps we can find an ideal middle ground. If high-tech work distractions are inevitable, maybe we can re-engineer them so we receive all of their benefits but
9、few of their downsides. The Birth of Multitasking The science of interruptions began more than 100 years ago with the emergence of telegraph operators the first high-stress, time-sensitive information-technology jobs. Psychologists discovered that if someone spoke to a telegraph operator while he wa
10、s keying a message, the operator was more likely to make errors. Later, psychologists determined that whenever workers needed to focus on a job that required the monitoring of data, presentation was all important. Using this knowledge, cockpits (驶舱 ) for fighter pilots were carefully designed so tha
11、t each dial and meter could be read with just a glance. Still, such issues seemed remote from the lives of everyday workers. Then, in the 1990s, computers began to experience a rapid increase in speed and power. “Multitasking“ was born; instead of simply working on one program for hours at a time, a
12、 computer user works on several simultaneously. Office workers now stare at computer screens of overwhelming complexity, as they juggle (操纵 ) messages, text documents, PowerPoint presentations and web browsers. In the modern office we are all fighter pilots. Effect of Multitasking: Computer-affected
13、 Behavior Information is no longer a scarce resource attention is. 20 years ago, an office worker had two types of communication technology: a phone, which required an instant answer, and postal mail, which took days. Now people have dozens of possibilities between these two poles. The result is som
14、ething like “continuous partial attention“, which makes us so busy keeping an eye on everything that we never fully focus on anything. This can actually be a positive feeling, inasmuch as the constant email dinging makes us feel needed and desired. But what happens when you take that to the extreme?
15、 You get overwhelmed. Sanity lies in danger. In 1997, Microsoft recruited Mary Czerwinski, who once worked in NASAs Human-computer Interaction Lab, to conduct basic research to find out how computers affect human behavior. She took 39 office workers and installed software on their computers that wou
16、ld record every mouse click. She discovered that computer users were as restless as hummingbirds. On average, they juggled eight windows at the same time. More astonishing, they would spend barely 20 seconds looking at one window before flipping to another. Why constant shifting? In part it was beca
17、use of the way computers are laid out. A computer offers very little visual real estate. A Microsoft Word document can cover almost an entire screen. Once you begin multitasking, a computer desktop quickly becomes buried in windows. When someone is interrupted, it takes just over 23 minutes to cycle
18、 back to the original task. Once their work becomes buried beneath a screenful of interruptions, office workers appear to forget what tasks they were originally pursuing. The central danger of interruptions is not the interruption at all, but the confusion they bring to our short-term memory. Ways t
19、o Cope with Interruptions When Mark and Czerwinski, working separately, looked at the desks of the people they were studying, they each noticed the same thing: Post-it notes. Workers would write brief reminders of the task they were supposed to be working on (“Test DAs PC, Waiting for AL. “). Then t
20、hey would place them directly in their fields of vision, often in a circle around the edge of their computer screens. These piecemeal efforts at coping pointed to ways that our high-tech tools could be engineered to be less distracting. Czerwinski also noticed many Microsoft people attached three mo
21、nitors to their computers. They placed their applications on different screens the email on the right side, a web browser on the right and their main work project in the middle so that each application was read at a glance. When the ding on their email program went off, they just peek to the left to
22、 see the message. The workers said this arrangement made them feel calmer. But did more screen area actually help with cognition? To find out, Czerwinski had 15 volunteers sit in front of a regular size 38 cm monitor and complete a variety of tasks designed to challenge their concentration a web sea
23、rch, some cutting and pasting, and memorizing phone numbers. Then the volunteers repeated the tasks using a computer with a massive 105 cm screen. On the bigger screen, some people completed the tasks as much as 44% more quickly. In two decades of research, Czerwinski had never seen a single change
24、to a computer system so significantly improve a users productivity. The clearer your screen, the calmer your mind. Looking for Better Interruptions Mark compared the way people work when sitting in cubicles with how they work when theyre at different locations and interact online. She discovered peo
25、ple working in cubicles suffer more interruptions, but they have better interruptions because their co-workers have a social sense of what theyre doing. When you work next to others, they sense whether youre deeply immersed or relatively free to talk and interrupt you accordingly. Why dont computers
26、 work this way? Instead of alerting us to email messages the instant they arrive, our machines could deliver them at optimum moments, when our brains are relaxed. Eric Horvitz at Microsoft is trying to do precisely that. He has been building automated reasoning systems equipped with artificial intel
27、ligence that observes a computer users behavior and tries to predict the moment the user will be mentally free and ready to be interrupted. 2 As Marks study indicated, interruption is a highly undesirable feature in high-tech office work, and therefore we must find a way to avoid them. （ A） Y （ B） N
28、 （ C） NG 3 Telegraph operation is a less stressful, less attention-demanding information-technology job in comparison with computer operation. （ A） Y （ B） N （ C） NG 4 Modern office workers are just like fighter pilots in that both need to monitor data of great complexity. （ A） Y （ B） N （ C） NG 5 Mul
29、titasking, even if taken to the extreme, can give office workers a positive feeling, since frequent interruptions make them feel much needed and desired. （ A） Y （ B） N （ C） NG 6 According to Mary Czerwinskis research, computer users are constantly shifting from window to window, pausing _ at each on
30、e. 7 Both Mark and Czerwinski noticed that some computer users relied on _ as reminders to help them cope with distractions. 8 By _ , many Microsoft workers managed to get quicker, easier access to data and make their high-tech tools less distracting. 9 Czerwinski found that no other change to a com
31、puter system could more significantly improve a users productivity than _ . 10 People who work next to each other in the same office have more but better interruptions than those who _ . 11 Eric Horvitz has been working on AI system that monitors a computer users behavior and predicts _ . Section A
32、Directions: 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
33、 pause, you must read the four choices marked A, B, C and D, and decide which is the best answer. （ A） A lawyer and her client. （ B） A professor and a student. （ C） A boss and her employee. （ D） An editor and an author. （ A） Four contestants failed to win prizes. （ B） The man missed the show. （ C） T
34、he woman ate during the show. （ D） Five contestants won cars. （ A） He was talking in a newspaper advertisement. （ B） He was talking to a newspaper salesman. （ C） He was talking at a newspaper office. （ D） He was talking at a car dealers. （ A） She doesnt know how to use the camera. （ B） She doesnt to
35、ol a picture of the mountains. （ C） She doesnt want to waste her film. （ D） She doesnt have any more film. （ A） Gas station. （ B） Police station. （ C） Lost and found department. （ D） Bar. （ A） The class thought the demonstration was too complex. （ B） Too many students showed up. （ C） The professor d
36、idnt show up. （ D） The professor cancelled it. （ A） At a drugstore. （ B） At a hospital. （ C） At a doctors office. （ D） At a dentists office. （ A） She can send the man additional information. （ B） The man received the wrong bill. （ C） She will credit the mans account. （ D） She agrees that the charges
37、 are too high. （ A） A business transact. （ B） A get-together. （ C） The mans life. （ D） The newly born baby. （ A） The business doesnt go very smoothly. （ B） The man has some trouble on his way here. （ C） The boss is not happy with the speech. （ D） The mans wife had a hard time giving birth. （ A） The
38、man is not going to have a second baby. （ B） The man might stay at home more and more. （ C） The baby girl takes after the man in the appearance. （ D） The mans colleagues have bought something as gifts. （ A） Judging peoples behavior. （ B） Common causes of anger. （ C） Changing peoples attitudes. （ D）
39、The effects of negative behavior. （ A） When theyre unable to control the persons behavior. （ B） When the causes of the behavior are obvious. （ C） When the consequences of the behavior are unpleasant. （ D） When the behavior is expected. （ A） Their behavior should be attributed to factors beyond their
40、 control. （ B） Their behavior should be attributed to internal factors. （ C） Their behavior should be attributed to external factors. （ D） Their behavior should be attributed to others. （ A） We should blame external factors. （ B） We should blame internal factors. （ C） We should blame others. （ D） We
41、 neednt blame ourselves. Section B Directions: 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 mark
42、ed A, B, C and D. （ A） A delicate art. （ B） A way of life. （ C） An exact science. （ D） A religion. （ A） His general health will benefit greatly. （ B） He will begin to breathe more regularly. （ C） He will lose weight readily. （ D） His flexibility will decrease. （ A） Begin breathing through the nostri
43、ls. （ B） Slow down a little bit, but continue straining. （ C） Stop the particular exercise immediately. （ D） Close his mouth at once. （ A） The women have more freedom and can share in decisions. （ B） The women do not have to be the heads of the family. （ C） The womens relatives do not help them with
44、 the housework and children. （ D） The women have the leading place in the family. （ A） Husbands have to share power with their wives and help with the housework. （ B） Older women are not important and live alone after their husbands deaths. （ C） Family structure is more complicated in the nuclear fa
45、mily. （ D） Women have to help sisters, grandparents with housework and children. （ A） They want to stay home and do the housework. （ B） They dont have enough money. （ C） They have too much work and not much free time. （ D） They have more freedom than in the past. （ A） It is normal to forget things.
46、（ B） How to keep things in your long-term memories. （ C） How to study well. （ D） How to get as much information as you can. （ A） A picture. （ B） Conclusions. （ C） The lesson as a whole. （ D） Vocabulary lists. （ A） To finish all the assignments. （ B） To keep you interested. （ C） To learn as much as p
47、ossible. （ D） Two-hour session is too much for only one task. （ A） A half hour. （ B） 15 minutes. （ C） 20 minutes. （ D） An hour and a half. Section C Directions: 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 gene
48、ral 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
49、you have just heard or write down the 35 With the recent rapid advances in information technologies, educational researchers at every level and in every【 B1】 _ have developed new methods, tools, and【 B2】 _ for instruction. Their general purpose is to make the educational process teaching and learning sound much more scientific and modem. As the Internet, email and【 B3】 _ have already become parts of most college students lives and studies nowadays;【 B4】 _
