1、大学英语六级（ 2013年 12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷 139及答案与解析 一、 Part I Writing 1 For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay entitled Health Comes First. You can give your point and then explain why it is unwise to put wealth above health. You can cite examples to illustrate your point. You should write a
2、t least 150 words but no more than 200 words. Section A （ A） To complain about the web service. （ B） To ask for the account information. （ C） To pay the woman his rent. （ D） To notify the woman his problem. （ A） He is looking for a new place to live. （ B） He is looking for a new job. （ C） He wants t
3、he woman to be his referee. （ D） He refuses to give the woman any assistance. （ A） What kind of course they should take. （ B） How long it takes to finish the training. （ C） How to get into the online learning system. （ D） How to make registration for a course. （ A） Many people come for the writer. （
4、 B） The man rarely comes to the mall. （ C） They are not fans of the writer. （ D） The woman doesnt have a good memory. （ A） Helping her nephew with the wedding. （ B） Attending a training course at the headquarters. （ C） Taking her annual leave to travel around. （ D） Making business plan for the comin
5、g fall. （ A） The mans idea of having a picnic is fantastic. （ B） The weather is going to change greatly. （ C） The weather report isnt always accurate. （ D） She has another plan for the weekend. （ A） The woman has just had her lunch. （ B） The mans suit got really dirty. （ C） The man enjoys hot coffee
6、 very much. （ D） The woman does all the housework at home. （ A） The man didnt study hard enough. （ B） The man didnt attend enough classes. （ C） There are some problems with the experiment. （ D） The full mark isnt 100 points. （ A） Its the city where she had her education. （ B） Its a medium-sized city
7、 in South Africa. （ C） It locates in the East of the country. （ D） Its a crowded city with a large population. （ A） Because he wants to compare the two types of education. （ B） Because thats where his knowledge of South Africa comes from. （ C） Because it proves the existence of racial difference. （
8、D） Because he disagreed with what the government did. （ A） White European people. （ B） Native black people. （ C） Non-European people. （ D） Colored immigrants. （ A） Bending and stretching of the body. （ B） Paying attention to ones breath. （ C） Trying to have a blank mind. （ D） Seeking help from relig
9、ion. （ A） His physical condition. （ B） His instructors advice. （ C） His mental illness. （ D） His doctors suggestion. （ A） Go to the origin place of yoga. （ B） Become a master in this field. （ C） Set up a fitness center. （ D） Teach the woman meditation. （ A） How to recover from stroke. （ B） The spiri
10、tual practice of yoga. （ C） The mysterious India. （ D） Physical instructors in the U. S. Section B （ A） Humans social structure is the most complicated. （ B） Humans are able to cooperate with each other. （ C） Prediction is the key to humans survival. （ D） Humans are sensitive and motivated. （ A） In
11、boiling hot water. （ B） In slightly hot water. （ C） In room temperature water. （ D） In icy cold water. （ A） When they see the steam and ice in the tank. （ B） When they see the actors filling the containers. （ C） When they see the actors putting hands into the iced water. （ D） When they see the actor
12、s hands out of the water. （ A） It has the highest water cleanliness standard in Europe. （ B） It has the best natural swimming pools in Europe. （ C） It has the best purification specialists in Europe. （ D） It has the cleanest rivers in Europe. （ A） Whether the water is clean enough. （ B） If it can be
13、 used in all types of weather. （ C） If it will lead to less visitors. （ D） Whether the river traffic will be affected. （ A） To separate the changing rooms from the pool. （ B） To provide a path to the swimming area. （ C） To make the pool shallow enough for children. （ D） To protect people from waves
14、caused by river traffic. （ A） German environment agencies. （ B） The city of London. （ C） State government. （ D） Public donation. （ A） He is now the chief creative officer at Blizzard Entertainment. （ B） He favors the idea of having e-sports added to the Olympic Games. （ C） He gives a new and broader
15、 definition to the word “sport“. （ D） He organizes the major final held in Seoul, South Korea. （ A） They make very quick decisions. （ B） They have teamwork spirits. （ C） They are physically fit. （ D） They are highly ambitious. （ A） Video games may lead to addiction. （ B） E-sports dont have a large a
16、udience. （ C） The influence of e-sports is not big enough. （ D） The number of Olympic sports is limited. Section C 26 Amsterdam, a triumph of resourcefulness, is the biggest city in the Netherlands. Space is rare and【 B1】 _in Amsterdam, where much of the land has been reclaimed from the sea. The cit
17、ys planners turned this to their advantage: Amsterdams canals soothe rather than imprison the city. They provide its【 B2】 _and its calm. That calm is regularly disturbed by the trill of bicycle bells, but【 B3】 _you remain at a safe distance from the cyclists, its the perfect city for pedestrians. No
18、 longer【 B4】 _a tourist industry, by its now locals-only coffee shops, travelers have no excuse for not discovering the best of Amsterdam. Most Amsterdammers work hard, but also【 B5】 _the slower pace that their hometown obliges. This is not a city to speed around【 B6】 _by car. To experience the best
19、 of Amsterdam, its often best to take things slowly. There are several ways to travel the canals as they were designed to be traveled. Visitors can join a cruise for a few hours or full day, guided around the sights, or【 B7】_their own row boat. Traffic can be heavy, and slow, on the waterways, but【
20、B8】_sea-level on a fine day is a calming way to take in the city. Visitors can also get the odd insight into how the true water-dwellers live, through the window of their narrow boats and barges. The Van Gogh Museum can【 B9】 _the museum lovers. This best of Amsterdam collection is the most complete
21、of Van Goghs works anywhere. The【 B10】 _is thorough, with paintings and sketches complemented by audio-visual reference points. 27 【 B1】 28 【 B2】 29 【 B3】 30 【 B4】 31 【 B5】 32 【 B6】 33 【 B7】 34 【 B8】 35 【 B9】 36 【 B10】 Section A 36 Global industrialization has poured carbon in the sky, and now we mu
22、st pay the price: the nasty climate change, with its sinking islands and superstorms. But what if we could【 C1】 _some of that carbon dioxide back down to earth? Direct air capture (DAC) is the capture of carbon from the sky. Unlike【 C2】 _carbon capture and storage, DAC doesnt try to simply capture c
23、arbon from chimneys and factory pipes: instead, it collects carbon directly from the【 C3】 _, no intermediate steps necessary. Better yet, the most sophisticated DAC plants dont even need much electricity to functionthey run on excess heat produced by other industrial processes. The temperatures need
24、ed to capture a ton of atmospheric carbon dioxide are “less than what is needed to【 C4】_you a cup of tea,“ says Graciela Chichilnisky, founder of direct air capture company Global Thermostat. The CO2 removed from the air by plants like Chichilniskys has a【 C5】 _of applications. “ A lot of demand for
25、 CO2 is unmet,“ says Chichilnisky. “ In fact theres a market for it that【 C6】 _one trillion dollars per year. “ Companies like Chichilniskys want to profit from this unmet demand, an aggressive example of doing well while doing good. Global Thermostats pilot plant at the Stanford Research Institute
26、in Menlo Park, California, has been【 C7】 _since construction finished, says Chichilnisky. Now she wants to build plants elsewhere, using the excess heat from power plants. “ If the【 C8】 _shows the way to be profitable is by cleaning up the atmosphere, then this will be the strongest motivation for t
27、he world to attack climate change. “ So can DAC save the world? Not quite yet. Theres a lot of concern among【 C9】 _advocates as to whether DAC can ever scale to the extent where it makes any deduction in the carbon were【 C10】 _pouring in the atmosphere. Moreover, despite the cost claims of Chichilni
28、sky and others in the underdeveloped DAC industry, the jurys still out on whether the cost of atmosphere-extracted carbon could ever get low enough to provide DAC plants with a profitable business model. A) technology I) exceeds B) currently J) atmosphere C) boil K) unlimitedly D) produce L) bring E
29、) profitable M) advanced F) fame N) variety G) environmental O) traditional H) solution 37 【 C1】 38 【 C2】 39 【 C3】 40 【 C4】 41 【 C5】 42 【 C6】 43 【 C7】 44 【 C8】 45 【 C9】 46 【 C10】 Section B 46 All Change AThe basic model of the electricity industry was to send high voltages over long distances to pas
30、sive customers. Power stations were big and costly, built next to coal mines, ports, oil refineries or for hydroelectric generation reservoirs. Many of these places were a long way from the industrial and population centers that used the power. The companies main concern was to supply the juice, and
31、 particularly to meet peaks in demand. BThat model, though simple and profitable for utilities and generators, was costly for consumers. But it is now changing to a “much more colorful picture“ , says Michael Weinhold of Siemens. Not only are renewables playing a far bigger role: thanks to new techn
32、ology, demand can also be tweaked (进行改进 ) to match supply, not the other way round. Traditional power stations and grids still play a role in this world, but not a dominant one. They have to compete with new entrants, and with existing participants doing new things. Flattening the peaks CThe most ex
33、pensive electricity in any power system is that consumed at peak time, so instead of cranking up (启动 ) a costly and probably dirty power station, the idea is to pay consumers to switch off instead. For someone running a large cooling, heating or pumping system, for example, turning the power off for
34、 a short period will not necessarily cause any disruption. But for the grid operator the spare power gained is very useful. DThis has been tried before: in France, a heat wave in 2003 hit the cooling systems of nuclear power stations and led to power shortages. In response, big energy consumers agre
35、ed to cut their power consumption at peak times, in exchange for generous rebates (部分退款 ). The Japanese have installed 200,000 home energy-management systems that do something similar on a domestic scale. But new technology takes it to another level, allowing a lot of small power savings from a larg
36、e number of consumers to be bundled together. ENest is selling its programmes all over North America, and more recently in Britain, too. Customers of its “Rush Hour Rewards“ programme can choose between being given notice a day in advance of a two- to four-hour “event“ (meaning their thermostat will
37、 be turned down or up automatically) or being told ten minutes ahead of a 30-minute one. This can cut the peak load by as much as 55% . FNRG, Americas biggest independent power company, is also moving into the market. David Crane, its chief executive, admits that some consumers find the idea of savi
38、ng power “ un-American“ , but thinks that for companies like his the “mindless pursuit of megawatts“ is a dead end. In 2013 NRG bought a demand-response provider, Energy Curtailment Specialists, which controls 2GW of “negawatts“. GThe big question for demand-response companies is the terms on which
39、they compete with traditional generators, which argue that markets such as PJM are starving the power system of badly needed investment. For example, FirstEnergy, a company in Ohio, suspended modernization plans at a coal-fired plant which failed to win any megawatts in the auction for 2017-2018. Su
40、ch plants are viable only if utilities are paying top dollars for peak electricity a cost which is eventually passed on to the consumer. Companies like FirstEnergy hope that the Supreme Court will overturn a ruling by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that negawatts be treated like megawatts
41、in capacity auctions. These worries are already spooking the market. EnerNOC, which bundles together small energy savings from many different customers to offer negawatts, has seen its share price fall by half since May. HIn any case, the days of the vertically integrated model of energy supply are
42、numbered, observes Dieter Helm. Thanks to abundant solar power, he argues, the energy market increasingly resembles the economics of the Internet, where marginal costs are zero. That “ undermines the very idea of wholesale electricity markets“. The future model will be much more fragmented. Independ
43、ent generators, plus new entrants, are already “revolutionizing the way electricity is sold and used“ : new technologies will make the 21st-century model even more different. “ No wonder many of the energy giants of the past are already in such trouble,“ he says. No longer so useful IThe combination
44、 of distributed and intermittent generation, ever cheaper storage and increasingly intelligent consumption has created a perfect storm for utilities, particularly those in Europe, says Eduard Sala de Vedruna of IHS, a consultancy. They are stuck with the costs of mamtaining the grid and meeting peak
45、 demand, but without the means to make customers pay for it properly. Their expensively built generating capacity is oversized: spare capacity in Europe this winter is 100GW, or 19% of the constituent countries combined peak loads. Much of that is mothbatted (检修好存置备用的 ) and may have to be written of
46、f. Yet at the same time new investment is urgently needed to keep the grid reliable, and especially to make sure it can cope with new kinds of power flow from “prosumers“ back to the grid, for example. JTo general surprise, demand is declining as power is used more efficiently. Politicians and regul
47、ators are unsympathetic, making the utilities pay for electricity generated by other peoples assets, such as rooftop solar, to keep the greens happy. At the same time barriers to entry have collapsed. New energy companies do not need to own lots of infrastructure. Their competitive advantage rests o
48、n algorithms(算法 ) , sensors, processing power and good marketing not usually the strong points of traditional utilities. All the services offered by these new entrants demand response, supply, storage and energy efficiency eat into the utilities business model. KThe problem for the states electricit
49、y utilities is that they still have to provide a reliable supply when the sun is not shining. But consumers, thanks to “net metering“ , may have an electricity bill of zero. That means the utilities revenues suffer, and consumers without solar power cross-subsidize those with it. Rows about this are flaring across America. Many utilities are asking regulators to impose a fixed monthly charge on consumers, rat
