1、大学英语六级（ 2013年 12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷 144及答案与解析 一、 Part I Writing 1 For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay entitled On Self-improvement by commenting on the saying, “ There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man: true nobility is being superior to your former self “ You sh
2、ould write at 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
3、） He wants the 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 t
4、he writer. （ 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 f
5、or the coming 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 enjoy
6、s hot coffee 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） Because he was praised by the professor. （ B） Because he h
7、as found a good job. （ C） Because he has got a chance for an interview. （ D） Because he has made a good investment. （ A） Know as much about the company as possible. （ B） Try to work as an intern in the company. （ C） Find out the background of the top executives. （ D） Review the questions being asked
8、 before. （ A） Ultimate achievement in the company. （ B） Opportunities of further training. （ C） Requirements of salary and benefits. （ D） Insight of the present business trend. （ A） When he got on the ferry. （ B） When he found a chair. （ C） When he reached the riverbank. （ D） When he was making a ph
9、one call. （ A） The police officer. （ B） His uncle. （ C） A friend of his family. （ D） An acquaintance of the woman. （ A） Because he needs to book a flight. （ B） Because he intends to travel in the country. （ C） Because he hopes to return to the U. S. A. （ D） Because he wants to get his backpack back.
10、 （ A） Find information on the U. S. Department of State website. （ B） Prepare some extra money for the emergency passport. （ C） Contact her later for the necessary documents. （ D） Come to the consulate immediately for protection. Section B （ A） She did some acting work for TV shows. （ B） She sang fo
11、r a local music group. （ C） She produced her first music album. （ D） She joined an all-America music tour. （ A） Best-selling Female Artist. （ B） Queen of Pop. （ C） MTV Video Music Awards. （ D） The Star of Hollywood. （ A） She broke up with her famous boyfriend. （ B） She began dating with her backup d
12、ancer. （ C） She was engaged and married. （ D） She released her comeback album. （ A） To shorten the distance between the rural community and the Silicon Valley. （ B） To provide some proper training to help students in rural community. （ C） To recruit competent employees from communities around the Si
13、licon Valley. （ D） To offer internship positions for outstanding students from rural communities. （ A） 10 hours. （ B） 1 week. （ C） 1 month. （ D） 10 months. （ A） Twelve-grade students. （ B） Students whose fathers are farmers. （ C） Students of agriculture majors. （ D） Students who are good at math or
14、science. （ A） From his father. （ B） From AT&T. （ C） From his university. （ D） From CNN report. （ A） Niche phone cards. （ B） International phone cards. （ C） Domestic phone cards. （ D） Prepaid phone cards. （ A） Commercial product taxes. （ B） Connection fees. （ C） Pay phone charges. （ D） Initial fees.
15、（ A） Cards with the least additional fees. （ B） Cards with a low rate and other fees. （ C） Cards with no maintenance fees. （ D） Cards with a high rate and low service fees. Section C 26 More parents are now choosing to homeschool instead of sending their children to public or private schools. But wh
16、at is homeschooling? Whats【 B1】 _when parents educate their kids at home? Homeschooling is a【 B2】 _movement around the country and the world, in which parents choose to educate their children at home instead of sending them to a traditional public or private school. Families choose to homeschool for
17、【 B3】 _reasons, including dissatisfaction with the educational options available, different religious beliefs or educational philosophies, and the belief that children are not progressing within the traditional school structure. The homeschooling movement began growing in the 1970s, when some popula
18、r authors and researchers, such as John Holt and Dorothy and Raymond Moore, started【 B4】 _the educational reform. They suggested homeschooling as an【 B5】_educational option. According to the National Home Education Research Institute, there are now more than two million children being homeschooled i
19、n the U. S. , with the percentage rapidly increasing by 7 percent to 15 percent each year. Homeschooling is legal in all 50 states and in many foreign countries. Legal requirements for homeschooling in the U. S.【 B6】 _from place to place. Some states have few or no requirements: others ask for portf
20、olio【 B7】 _or standardized testing at certain intervals. According to Holt, author of the best-selling book Teach Your Own, the most important thing parents need to homeschool their children is “ to like them, enjoy their company, their physical【 B8】 _, their energy, foolishness, and passion. They h
21、ave to【 B9】 _all their talk and questions, and enjoy equally trying to answer those questions. “ For the majority of parents who homeschool, the only prerequisite is the desire to do so, along with a【 B10】 _to the educational process. 27 【 B1】 28 【 B2】 29 【 B3】 30 【 B4】 31 【 B5】 32 【 B6】 33 【 B7】 34
22、 【 B8】 35 【 B9】 36 【 B10】 Section A 36 Fears, in general, keep us from reaching our full potential. Fear of success is probably one of the hardest fears to identify, a fear that lies in unconsciousness and one that has the power to really keep us stuck. Dealing with fear of success requires us to lo
23、ok at ourselves and take responsibility for areas within us, but most times we attribute to other people or【 C1】 _events. After all, you may be thinking, who would sabotage(蓄意破坏 )their own efforts to succeed and more【 C2】 _why would anyone do that? Its important to understand that fear of successlik
24、e many other fearsis unconscious. Success implies visibility: being seen by others involves a level of vulnerability and【 C3】 _that we ought to engage in, in order to let the ones around believe in our abilities and trust that what we do is valuable and worthy. Before others are able to do any of th
25、ese things, we must be the first to believe and trust in our own abilities. For the most part, we can control how we【 C4】 _ourselves in front of the world, the message we are trying to【 C5】 _and so on. Yet earning someones trust and furthering our accomplishments requires cohesiveness between the im
26、ages we are trying to convey and what others perceive. You may be very apt at maintaining a certain image and yet the people around【 C6】_much more than what you want to【 C7】 _. Human beings are able to pick up on subtle cues in our non-verbal communication, including how we feel toward ourselves. Wh
27、at that means is that if at the core we have【 C8】 _about ourselves, insecurities about our abilities and low levels of【 C9】 _in what we do, then unconsciously, we will attempt to guard these areas from the eyes of others. This is where fear of success comes into play: aware of some of these shortcom
28、ings and in an attempt to hide our “weakness“ we end up acting in an【 C10】 _manner and in the process, create a less than cohesive and consistent image. In short, we end up blocking ourselves. A)commonsense B)confidence C)convey D)describe E)doubts F)explore G)expose H)exposure I)external J)importan
29、tly K)inauthentic L)negatively M)perceive N)present O)suspicion 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 passive customers. Power st
30、ations were big and costly, built next to coal mines, ports, oil refineries or for hydroelectric generationreservoirs. 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 particularly to meet pea
31、ks 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 technology, demand can also be
32、 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 expensive electricity in any
33、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 a short period will not nece
34、ssarily 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 agreed to cut their power consump
35、tion 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 large number of consumers to be bu
36、ndled 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 be turned down or up automatic
37、ally)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 saving power “un-American“ , but thi
38、nks 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 they compete with traditional gen
39、erators, 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. Such plants are viable only if util
40、ities are paying top dollars for peak electricitya 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 in capacity auctions. These worrie
41、s 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 numbered, observes Dieter Helm. Th
42、anks 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. Independent generators, plus new entrants,
43、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 of distributed and intermittent gen
44、eration, 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 maintaining the grid and meeting peak demand, but without the means to m
45、ake 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 mothballed(检修好存置备用的 )and may have to be written off. Yet at the same time new investmen
46、t is urgently needed to keep the grid reliable, and especially to make sure it can cope with new kinds of power flowfrom “prosumers“ back to the grid, for example. JTo general surprise, demand is declining as power is used more efficiently. Politicians and regulators are unsympathetic, making the ut
47、ilities 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 on algorithms(算法 ), sensors, processing
48、 power and good marketingnot usually the strong points of traditional utilities. All the services offered by these new entrantsdemand response, supply, storage and energy efficiencyeat into the utilities business model. KThe problem for the states electricity utilities is that they still have to pro
49、vide 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, rather than just let them pay variable tariffs. Since going comp
