1、大学英语六级模拟试卷 814及答案与解析 一、 Part I Writing (30 minutes) 1 For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled Living in the College Town. You should write at least 150 words following the outline given below: 1大学城越建越多，越建越大 2有人喜欢大学城 的生活，有人不喜欢 3我的看法 Living in the College Town 二、 Part
2、 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) if the statement agrees with the information given in the passage; N
3、 (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 Crowdsourcing a Better World The crowdsourcing concept collecting contributions from many individuals to achieve a goal was being used long before Wikiped
4、ia. The National Audubon Society has been organizing people to do an annual count of all the birds in the Western hemisphere since Christmas Day, 1900. The Pilsbury Bake-Off crowdsourcing for a commercial cause is now 62 years old. But online crowdsourcing is a relatively recent phenomenon, and the
5、efficiencies it brings to communicating within a large group make it useful in many new ways. At catwalkgenius. com it is bringing together fashion designers and financial backers. At usertesting. com it provides feedback on why people leave your Web site. It connects musicians and their fans to hel
6、p organize private concerts at owngig. com. Innocentive. com uses it to solve scientific and technological problems: companies stuck on a problem put it up on the site and offer a cash prize for a solution. But today, Ill look at how crowdsourcing can help with something else: aggregating and organi
7、zing knowledge. Typical Crowdsource Sites Immediately after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors began to fail in Japan, people turned to official sources for information. What they heard were often bland (平淡乏味的 )and vague assurances of safety. But people wanted specifics. They wanted to know the
8、radiation levels in their areas, and did not trust the government sources. In response, several crowdsource sites sprang up to collect and map radiation levels in Japan and even on the west coast of the United States: rdtn. org, geigercrowd. net and japanstatus. com are three of them. These sites as
9、k people with Geiger counters and if you happen to not own one, they tell you where to buy one to measure radiation levels and send the information to their site. They aggregate and map the responses. One prototype for this kind of crowdsourcing is U. Ushahidi, which means “testimony“ in Swahili, wa
10、s developed in Kenya in 2008 to map numerous reports of post-election violence. Ory Okolloh, a blogger, simply asked her readers-. “Guys looking to do something: Any techies out there willing to do a mash up of where the violence and destruction is occurring using Google Maps?“ A few days later, Ken
11、yans had a Web site that allowed people to text or e-mail reports and see them plotted on a Google map of the country. It became useful not only for rapid intervention, but as the name suggests to document the deaths, injuries and destruction when virtually all other media were blacked out. Since th
12、en, Ushahidi, led until recently by Okolloh, has become as ubiquitous (普遍存在的 )in a disaster as the Red Cross. Just two hours after the earthquake in Haiti, Ushahidi set up a Haiti site and an Ushahidi techie who was studying at Tufts University in Massachusetts worked with a student group to organiz
13、e 300 volunteers. Haitian radio stations told their listeners to text 4636 with their reports, which thousands of Creole-speaking volunteers in the US instantly translated. Any report that required action about or from a trapped person, for example was mapped by the volunteers and sent to rescuers.
14、Ushahidi has tracked reports of election fraud in Mexico, damage caused by the Gulf oil spill and critical shortages of important medicines at public health clinics in Uganda. During Washingtons Snowmageddon last winter, Ushahidi was used to map obstacles like stuck cars and toppled trees. The idea
15、was not to just give information to official work crews, but to allow ordinary citizens to organize themselves. Anyone with a shovel (铁锹 )and a strong back could check the map for a site nearby and go. It has since been used in snow emergencies in other cities, including New York. The Operations of
16、Crowdsourcing Online and in Journalism How can you be sure the information on a crowdsource site is trustworthy? Well, you cant. But Ushahidi is taking a stab at vetting (审查 )its data through, of course, crowdsourcing. Its Swift River project aggregates and plots on maps not only data sent or texted
17、 to Ushahidi, but combines it with data from Twitter, YouTube and other sources. When data comes in, anyone can rate it for trustworthiness. The higher the rating it gets, the more prominently it is displayed. Crowdsourcing can aggregate ideas as well as data. The California-based design firm Ideo h
18、as a site called openideo. com, which posts various challenges: How can we get people to register to be bone-marrow donors? How can we use cell phones to improve maternal health in poor countries? How can we get kids more interested in eating fresh food? Each challenge has a financial sponsor: a gro
19、up interested in solving the problemthe kids and food challenge, for example, was sponsored by British chef and healthy food crusader (改革者 )Jamie Oliver. The process collects random ideas from the public, winnows (筛选 )them down by theme and then asks readers to refine the ideas. The public then vote
20、s. Jamie Olivers organization has launched a project with OpenlDEO, an initiative to help working people cook more. But this was not one of the winning ideas. “People want to be thought of as something other than a source of money. They want to be thought of as creative, thinking people,“ said Ethan
21、 Zuckerman, a senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. “Its not hard to contribute ideas, but the question is how helpful it is.“ Crowdsourcing is also, of course, frequently used in journalism. Many media organizations now turn to readers for their experiences an
22、d for reporting help, but few do so as consistently and productively as ProPublica, a nonprofit group that produces investigative journalism that is published in media around the country, including in The Times. ProPublicas Distributed Reporting Project has asked for information and tips from people
23、 affected by a variety of issues, including the Gulf oil spill and the mortgage and loan crisis. A request for information from people who had tried to modify their home loans brought some 3 000 responses, said Amanda Michel, ProPublicas director of online engagement. Those contacted were asked to d
24、ocument their claims. ProPublica was aware its sample was far from random, but that wasnt the aim. “We can take a much more subtle and granular (粒状的 )look at complex processes by learning about the experiences of several thousand people,“ said Michel. “Were not relying on a government official to te
25、ll us what is the average bad experience. “ Readers can not only provide information to reporters about their own experiences, they can be reporters. For example, for its Stimulus Spot Check, ProPublica recruited readers to “rummage (翻找 )around on the states Department of Transportation Web site and
26、 make several follow-up calls over the next week“ to see how some 500 road and bridge projects were doing. They were given instructions on how to find out whether projects had been started, which companies had the contracts and how many jobs were produced. Although the Obama adminstration touted the
27、 summer of 2009 as “the summer of stimulus“, the resulting story, published on August 18, 2009, reported that two thirds of the projects would be starting in the fall instead, and that states with very high unemployment tended to be moving more slowly than others. For all their novelty, crowdsourcin
28、g projects like these will only have a connection to a small numbers of readers lives. Many peoples impulse to better the world around them is usually satisfied by giving money. Crowdsourcing offers ways to do that, as well but in ways that may offer donors more impact and a stronger connection to t
29、he social change happening on the ground. 2 What does Innocentive. com use online crowdsourcing for? （ A） Calculating the number of birds every year. （ B） Associating fashion designers with financial sponsors. （ C） Inquiring about feedback on after service. （ D） Helping companies solve certain probl
30、ems. 3 Why did crowdsource sites show up dramatically after the failure of nuclear reactors in Japan? （ A） People wanted to know the details of the radiation levels. （ B） The government performed poorly in detecting the radiation levels. （ C） Geiger counters were not easy to come by at that time. （
31、D） The local authority counted on these sites to release the results. 4 Ushahidi. com was initially launched in Kenya to_. （ A） call on people to revolt against the government （ B） document the violence and destruction after the election （ C） rally techies to black out the former official Web site （
32、 D） cut down on the death toll, injuries and riots 5 What role did Ushahidi. com play in Washingtons snow storm? （ A） It organized many volunteers to help those drivers in trouble. （ B） It located the person who was trapped in the snow. （ C） It gave information about road obstacles to authorities an
33、d citizens. （ D） It suggested an alternative route for vehicle users. 6 The Swift River project combines the data Ushahidi received with data from other sources in order to （ A） display its data in various media （ B） check the trustworthiness of the data （ C） work together with other Web sites （ D）
34、make its data accessible to netizens 7 The author cites openideo. com to illustrate that_. （ A） online crowdsourcing is faced with many challenges （ B） crowdsourcing can also gather ideas from different people （ C） people are more concerned about their own health （ D） some groups are keen on solving
35、 certain problems 8 According to Ethan Zuckerman, its easy to contribute ideas, but its hard to_. （ A） urge people to refine ideas （ B） ask readers to rate ideas （ C） winnow ideas down by theme （ D） determine the usefulness of ideas 9 There are few media organizations that are as _ as ProPublica in
36、asking for information and tips from people. 10 ProPublica once recruited readers to watch over road and bridge projects by searching thoroughly the official Web site and_. 11 Compared with donating money to make the social change, crowdsourcing may provide donors with more impact and_. Section A Di
37、rections: 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 p
38、ause, you must read the four choices marked A, B, C and D, and decide which is the best answer. （ A） Sell second-hand computers. （ B） Exhibit state-of-the-art computers. （ C） Cut down the price of the computers. （ D） Find more cooperative partners. （ A） She arrived at the theater late. （ B） She left
39、 his watch in the theater. （ C） She liked looking at his watch. （ D） She did not enjoy the drama. （ A） In a laboratory. （ B） At a party. （ C） In a supermarket. （ D） In a garden. （ A） A library. （ B） A theater. （ C） A coffee shop. （ D） A music hall. （ A） He is worried that his son might fail. （ B） He
40、 will suffer from a lot of pressure. （ C） He wants his son to have a happy childhood. （ D） He wants his son to be successful. （ A） Negotiate with his boss. （ B） Calm down and wait for the right time. （ C） Quit his job and get a better one. （ D） Try harder to be promoted. （ A） She thought the lecture
41、 was interesting. （ B） She was too tired to learn much from the lecture. （ C） She missed the lecture this morning. （ D） She did not finish the reading before the lecture. （ A） The man enjoyed the concert. （ B） They were disappointed with the concert. （ C） They listened to some elevator music. （ D） T
42、he woman didnt like rock music. （ A） The kitchen is at the end of the room. （ B） The kitchen has some mini-furniture. （ C） Basic appliances in the kitchen can be used. （ D） The kitchen would be charged additionally. （ A） From the auction. （ B） From the woman. （ C） From the Internet. （ D） From the su
43、permarket. （ A） She is not the landlady. （ B） She has to pay a loan. （ C） The prices are rising. （ D） The taxes for the building are high. （ A） It is a period of time for people to bridge their cultural gap. （ B） It is typically taken by students between high school and college. （ C） It is for stude
44、nts to fill in what they havent learned in school. （ D） It lasts a full year but can be taken at any age. （ A） Defer their admittance. （ B） Apply after their gap year. （ C） Write to the college supervisor. （ D） Outline what they are interested in. （ A） His first application will not be re-evaluated.
45、 （ B） He will have to re-apply the following year. （ C） His familys financial condition will not be considered. （ D） His qualification will be kept until he comes back. （ A） International programs that save parents money. （ B） Domestic programs that charge little or no fees. （ C） Programs offering f
46、ree housing and food in return for volunteer work. （ D） AmeriCorps with health care benefits, living expenses and $ 5 350. 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 spoke
47、n only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D. （ A） He made a novel CV to attract the employers. （ B） He posted a large number of CVs on the net. （ C） He recommended himself door to door. （ D） He put an advertisement on newspapers.
48、 （ A） He had poor performance in interview. （ B） He had no working experience at all. （ C） He was lack of communicative skills. （ D） He was a man who complained frequently. （ A） The speaker gave up the last opportunity. （ B） The speaker finally managed to get the job. （ C） The speaker had to keep on
49、 looking for jobs. （ D） The speaker beat the program director. （ A） To stimulate smokers to give up smoking. （ B） To ease the companies financial burden. （ C） To help their employees save their salary. （ D） To help their employees avoid cancer. （ A） Workplaces will issue strict rules to ban smoking. （ B） Workplaces will interfere in some legal behaviors of their staff. （ C） Workplaces will never take a risk in hiring inexperienced staff. （ D） Workplaces will dismiss some employees who
