1、大学英语六级模拟试卷 851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 Should Online Virtual Assets Be Protected by Law? You should write at least 150 words following the outline given below. 1 是否应该将网络虚拟财产列入受法律保护的范围引起热议 2人们对此有不同的看法 3我认为 Should
2、 Online Virtual Assets Be Protected by Law? 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) if the statement
3、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 Advantages of Being Helpless At every stage of early development, human babies lag behind infants f
4、rom other species. A kitten can walk slowly across a room within moments of birth and catch its first mouse within weeks, while its human counterpart takes months to make her first step, and years to learn even simple tasks, such as how to tie a shoelace or skip a rope. Yet, in the cognitive race, h
5、uman babies turn out to be much like the tortoise(乌龟 )in Aesops fable: emerging triumphant after a slow and steady climb to the finish. Yet, this victory seems puzzling. In the fable, the tortoise wins the race because the hare takes a nap. But, if anything, human infants nap even more than kittens!
6、 And unlike the noble tortoise, babies are helpless, and more to the point, hopeless. They could not learn the basic skills necessary to their independent survival. How do human babies manage to turn things around in the end? In a recent article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, Sharon
7、 Thompson-Schill, Michael Ramscar and Evangelia Chrysikou make the case that this very helplessness is what allows human babies to advance far beyond other animals. They propose that our delayed cortical development(皮质发育 )is precisely what enables us to acquire the cultural building blocks, such as
8、language, that make up the foundations of human achievement. In the same way, they suggest, our ability to learn language comes at the price of an extended period of cognitive immaturity. This claim hinges on a peculiar and unique feature of our cognitive architecture: the stunningly slow developmen
9、t of the prefrontal cortex(前额皮质 ), or PFC. The PFC is often referred to as the “control“ center of the brain. One of its main functions is of selectively filtering information from the senses, allowing us to attend to specific actions, goals, or tasks. For this reason, “cognitive control“ tasks are
10、thought to be one of the best assessors of PFC function and maturity. The Stroop task(斯特鲁法 )serves as a simple assessor of PFC function in adults. The task involves naming the ink color of a contrasting color word: for example, you might see the word “red“ written in green ink, in which case you hav
11、e to say “ green. “ Tricky or not, healthy adults can successfully complete the task with only minor hesitation. Children, with their immature PFCs, are a different story. Typically, the younger children are, the worse they are at solving Stroop-like tasks, and under the age of four, they outright f
12、ail them. While young children are sensitive, apt learners, and often appear to fully understand what is being asked of them, they are unable to mediate the conflicting demands present in these sorts of tasks, and thus fail them, time and time again. Three-year olds simply cannot direct how they att
13、end to or respond to the world. Thompson-Schill and her colleagues suggest that this inability to direct attention has important consequences when it comes to learning about uncertain events. For example, imagine you are playing a guessing game: You have to choose one of two options, either A or B,
14、one of which leads to a prize, and the other does not. After a few rounds, you notice that about 3/4 of the time the prize is at A, and the rest of the time it is at B, so you decide to guess “A“ 75 percent of the time and “B“ 25 percent of the time. This is called probability matching, and it is th
15、e response pattern most adults tend to adopt in these circumstances. However, if the goal is to win the most prizes, it is not the best strategy. In fact, to maximize the number of correct predictions, you should always pick the more frequent outcome(or, in this case, always pick “ A“). Interestingl
16、y, if you were playing this kind of guessing game with a kid, you would see that he would employ the maximization strategy almost immediately because they lack the cognitive flexibility that would allow them to alternate between A and B. Fortunately for them, in this guessing game scenario, maximiza
17、tion is the right choice. While it may not be immediately obvious what this has to do with language learning, it just might have everything to do with it, because language relies on conventions. In order for language to work, speakers and listeners have to have the same idea about what things mean,
18、and they have to use words in similar ways. This is where children come in. Young children, as it turns out, act like finely tuned antennas(天线 ), picking up the dominant frequency in their surroundings and ignoring the static. Because of this because children tend to pick up on what is common and co
19、nsistent, while ignoring what is variable and unreliable they end up homing in on and reproducing only the most frequent patterns in what they hear. In doing so they fail to learn many of the subtleties and characteristics present in adult speech(they will come to learn or invent those later). Howev
20、er, this one-track learning style means that what they do learn is highly conventionalized. The superiority of childrens convention learning has been revealed in a series of ingenious studies by psychologists Carta Hudson-Kam and Elissa Newport, who tested how children and adults react to variable a
21、nd inconsistent input when learning an artificial language. Strikingly, Hudson-Kam and Newport found that while children tended to ignore “noise“ in the input, systematizing any variations they were exposed to, adults did just the opposite, and reproduced the variability they encountered. Childrens
22、inability to filter their learning allows them to impose order on variable, inconsistent input, and this appears to play a crucial part in the establishment of stable linguistic norms. Studies of deaf children have shown that even when parental attempts at sign are error-prone and inconsistent, chil
23、dren still extract the conventions of a standard sign language from them. Indeed, the variable patterns produced by parents who learn sign language offers insight into what might happen if children did not maximize in learning: language, as a system, would become less conventional. What words meant
24、and the patterns in which they were used would become more unstable, and all languages would begin to resemble pidgins(混杂语言 ). While no language is completely stable, there is a balance to be struck between an individuals expressivity and the conventions that underpin it, and children clearly play a
25、n important role in maintaining this balance. Children may learn the established characteristics of their community, but they do so only because these forms are stable in their input. They are unlikely to adopt highly unusual or characteristic forms or sequences that theyve heard only rarely, and wh
26、en they themselves make errors, they are similarly unlikely to incorporate these errors into their language use over the long run. Individual societies are built upon these kinds of cultural and linguistic conventions, and a vast array of them. As social animals, human babies must somehow master not
27、 just “ culture and language,“ but the specifics of their culture, and their language. Explaining how babies manage to learn all of this information is a formidable task. The research reviewed here reveals one advantage that nature may have conferred on human infants: when it comes to convention lea
28、rning, childrens inability to think unconventionally or flexibly may be of huge benefit. Indeed, a number of neurological studies suggest that children who often exhibit marked language delays and characteristic language development experience a massive overgrowth of the prefrontal cortex over the f
29、irst two years of life. 2 Human babies are compared to the tortoise in Aesops fable because_. （ A） they share a similar process in their respective races （ B） they both are hindered in cognitive ability development （ C） they both failed after a slow and steady climb to the finish （ D） they both succ
30、eeded in the cognitive race 3 A recent article by Sharon Thompson - Schill, Michael Ramscar and Evangelia Chrysikou shows that_. （ A） helplessness enables human babies to develop better than other animals （ B） our cortical development is delayed for us to acquire the cultural building blocks （ C） la
31、nguage makes up the foundations of human achievement （ D） we experience an extended period of immaturity for language learning 4 Which of the following is true of the prefrontal cortex(PTC)? （ A） Specific actions, goals or tasks have nothing to do with it. （ B） It serves as one of the best assessor
32、of the brain. （ C） It sometimes helps to select information from the senses. （ D） Its function and maturity can be assessed by “cognitive control“ tasks. 5 When it comes to Stroop task, _. （ A） children and adults have similar performance （ B） children perform better than healthy adults （ C） it is t
33、oo tricky for healthy adults to complete it （ D） age makes great difference 6 In the guessing game which requires to choose either A or B, _. （ A） you should always choose A in order to win the most prizes （ B） you should choose A 75% of the time and B 25% of the time （ C） adults employ the maximiza
34、tion strategy for lacking cognitive flexibility （ D） this inability to direct attention turns out to be a disadvantage 7 In terms of language learning, _. （ A） children tend to pick up the uncommon and inconsistent （ B） children are more likely to learn the most frequently used phrases （ C） the more
35、 static it is, the more likely to be picked up by children （ D） the more variable and unreliable are often more attractive to children 8 According to Carla Hudson-Kam and Elissa Newport, when learning an artificial language, _. （ A） children are exposed to more “noise“ input （ B） children are immune
36、 to variable and inconsistent input （ C） children and adults react differently to variable and inconsistent input （ D） adults tend to ignore the variability they encounter 9 Studies of deaf children have shown children can still learn the conventions of a sign language even if the signs used by thei
37、r parents are_. 10 Children play an important role in maintaining the balance between an individuals_and the conventions that underlies it. 11 While learning conventions, it is greatly beneficial to children to be unable to think_ Section A Directions: In this section, you will hear 8 short conversa
38、tions 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 pause, you must read the four choices marked A, B, C and D
39、, and decide which is the best answer. （ A） In a zoo. （ B） In a park. （ C） In a pet store. （ D） In a museum. （ A） Lending something to a student. （ B） Asking for some financial aid. （ C） Reading a students application. （ D） Borrowing money for a business. （ A） She spends too much money. （ B） She lik
40、es money too much. （ C） She enjoys going out for shopping. （ D） She likes to argue about anything. （ A） He doesnt have time to read. （ B） He has no reading preference. （ C） He prefers non-fiction novels. （ D） He likes to read a mystery novel. （ A） Her husband was teaching there. （ B） She was born th
41、ere. （ C） Her child was born there. （ D） She has lived there for two years. （ A） She will do her best to continue the present job. （ B） She prefers a life of continued exploration. （ C） She will stick to the job if the pay is good. （ D） She doesnt think much of job-hopping. （ A） Fill in the applicat
42、ion form. （ B） Apply for a different position. （ C） File the paper in the cabinet. （ D） Show her the ad in the newspaper. （ A） The woman has lost Davids phone number. （ B） The man wants to install a phone. （ C） David will keep his promise. （ D） David hasnt sent the man his phone number. （ A） Ways to
43、 learn foreign languages well. （ B） Information about language learning courses. （ C） Comparison of full-time and part-time courses. （ D） Plans for future learning of French. （ A） Level Two course beginning on Saturday in October. （ B） Full-time courses taken in evenings. （ C） An 8-month course two
44、nights a week. （ D） Intensive course on every Saturday and Sunday. （ A） She is a complete beginner. （ B） She is at the lower intermediate level. （ C） She is an upper-intermediate learner. （ D） She doesnt really know which level she is at. （ A） She wanted to be a psychology researcher. （ B） She wante
45、d to be a clinical psychologist. （ C） She liked to be a problem solver. （ D） She was interested in peoples behavior. （ A） The scope covered by the course. （ B） The practice orientation of the course. （ C） Teachers teaching method and friendliness. （ D） Teachers flexibility in teaching. （ A） Designed
46、 various questionnaires. （ B） Made surveys in factories. （ C） Made analysis on statistics. （ D） Wrote reports about products. （ A） She was unsatisfied with the salary. （ B） She didnt like the changeable job. （ C） She wanted something more challenging. （ D） She failed to get a promotion. Section B Di
47、rections: 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 marked A, B, C and D. （ A） The windows. （
48、 B） The front door. （ C） The living room. （ D） The back door. （ A） Having doors with glass in them. （ B） Having a good quality lock. （ C） Hiring a strong gatekeeper. （ D） Having a good neighbor. （ A） Leave all the things to your neighbor to look after. （ B） Tell the post office to keep the mail unti
49、l you come back. （ C） Cancel the delivery during the time you are not at home. （ D） Make sure there will be always someone in the house. （ A） They are highly intelligent animals. （ B） They are too huge to measure. （ C） They are blue and difficult to see. （ D） They can move in three dimensions freely. （ A） They look true blue underwater. （ B） They look blue on the surface. （ C） They have blue underbellies. （ D） They have blue microorganisms. （ A） They can emit a series of pulses, groans, and
