1、大学英语六级（ 2013年 12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷 152及答案与解析 一、 Part I Writing 1 For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay based on the picture below. You should start your essay with a brief account of the picture, analyze its causes and then explain what you will do to solve the problem. You shou
2、ld write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words. Section A （ A） The man does not seem to have a good sense of time. （ B） The man is a poorer driver than the woman. （ C） The man had to fix the car again for the woman. （ D） The woman often misunderstood the man. （ A） Jazz. （ B） Classical music.
3、 （ C） Rock and roll. （ D） All kinds of music. （ A） He rejected their request. （ B） He accepted their request. （ C） He agreed to consider their request. （ D） He asked them to come with the others. （ A） Impatient. （ B） Serious. （ C） Enthusiastic. （ D） Nervous. （ A） Her name is on the top of the list.
4、（ B） She is expecting a job interview. （ C） She will be the last to be interviewed. （ D） She must fix a date for the job interview. （ A） The husband went to the hair salon with his wife. （ B） The wife is annoyed at her husbands complaint. （ C） The husband is not usually so observant. （ D） The wife i
5、s going to the hairdressers. （ A） He must take a connected flight at Jacksonville. （ B） He has to change the flight at Albany. （ C） He will fly for two hours. （ D） He will fly directly to his destination. （ A） Its on time. （ B） Its crowded. （ C） Its empty. （ D） Its late. （ A） She is arrogant. （ B） S
6、he is inexperienced. （ C） She is confident. （ D） She is offensive. （ A） She was replaced by another employee. （ B） She was fired by her last boss. （ C） She couldnt find room for improvement. （ D） She couldnt make any progress in her job. （ A） She met the HR manager of her last company. （ B） She got
7、a job from last weeks career fair. （ C） It was an internet career fair. （ D） It was held in the civic center downtown. （ A） Its being outdoors. （ B） She needs to deal with different people. （ C） Its sometimes dangerous to drive at night. （ D） She has to work when the weather is bad. （ A） Meeting int
8、eresting people in the city. （ B） Being able to enjoy being outdoors. （ C） Driving in unsettled weather. （ D） Taking long drives outside the city. （ A） Rather difficult to please. （ B） Rude to women drivers. （ C） Talkative and generous with tips. （ D） Different in personality. （ A） She complains a l
9、ot. （ B） She plans to quit her job. （ C） She is often criticized by her customers. （ D） She is very familiar with the city. Section B （ A） Her business skills. （ B） Her study experience abroad. （ C） Her critical thinking ability. （ D） Her cultural knowledge. （ A） It paid off. （ B） It turned out to b
10、e a nightmare. （ C） It was overcharged. （ D） It made her an expert. （ A） Finances, time and property. （ B） Tuition, spending and relationships. （ C） Money, safety and time limitations. （ D） Experience, spending constraints and security. （ A） It has lost the sense of history. （ B） It has lost attract
11、ion to tourists. （ C） It has lost the commercial chances. （ D） It has lost water sources. （ A） The rebuilt part of the wall. （ B） The wind-beaten valleys. （ C） The disappearing rock face. （ D） The overgrowing plant life. （ A） The commercial scene of the Wall. （ B） The natural state of the Wall. （ C）
12、 The rebuilt construction of the Wall. （ D） The ruin of the Wall. （ A） Doubtful. （ B） Guilty. （ C） Sad. （ D） Pessimistic. （ A） Because he benefited a lot from peoples advice. （ B） Because he always held up to his dreams. （ C） Because he was in fact a versatile genius. （ D） Because he got great help
13、from his followers. （ A） His body was too strong and his name too long. （ B） He never made any movie poster with his name. （ C） His face was too ugly and his brain too simple. （ D） He played too many Nazi roles on the screen. （ A） Fabulous fortune. （ B） Faith in himself. （ C） Larger circle of friend
14、s. （ D） A bigger goal. Section C 26 It is impossible to describe insomnia(失眠 )to people who are sound sleepers. These are the people who trust that getting in bed will be followed by falling asleep,【 B1】_ night follows day; these are the fearless people. Sleepless people are a very different【 B2】 _.
15、 They know what insomnia really is: not just the failure to fall asleep, but the fear of that failure. For an insomniac, there is no such thing as a good night. Every evening even if it【 B3】 _, mercifully comes to an end is destroyed by【 B4】 _. To reach sleep the insomniac must first【 B5】 _ terror.
16、The fearless person also【 B6】 _ understand how easy it is to become one of the sleepless people. All it takes is one bad night. That bad night begets others: once you know you might not be able to sleep, you cant.【 B7】 _ that staying awake all night is a very real possibility, something that could a
17、ctually happen, is no different than realizing that your boyfriend might no longer be interested in you, or that the friendship you thought was indestructible is, in fact, as【 B8】 _ as anything else, or that you could very well not succeed at doing the work you so badly want to do. When you imagine
18、such【 B9】 _, you seem almost to will them into existence. To see the abyss is to take the first step towards it. What made F. Scott Fitzgerald “sleep-conscious,“ as he called it, was a mosquito: the bug【 B10】 _ him all night, and after that he had trouble sleeping for years. 27 【 B1】 28 【 B2】 29 【 B
19、3】 30 【 B4】 31 【 B5】 32 【 B6】 33 【 B7】 34 【 B8】 35 【 B9】 36 【 B10】 Section A 36 The human nose is an underrated tool. Humans are often thought to be insensitive smellers compared with animals, but this is largely because, unlike animals, we stand upright This means that our noses are【 C1】 _to percei
20、ving those smells which float through the air, missing the majority of smells which stick to surfaces. In fact, though, we are【 C2】 _sensitive to smells, even if we do not generally realize it. Our noses are capable of【 C3】 _human smells even when these are diluted to far below one part in one milli
21、on. Strangely, some people find that they can smell one type of flower but not another, whereas others are sensitive to the smells of both flowers. This may be because some people do not have the genes necessary to generate【 C4】 _smell receptors in the nose. These receptors are the cells which sense
22、 smells and send【 C5】 _to the brain. However, it has been found that even people insensitive to a certain smell at first can suddenly become sensitive to it when【 C6】 _to it often enough. The explanation for insensitivity to smell seems to be that the brain finds it【 C7】_to keep all smell receptors
23、working all the time but can create new receptors if necessary. This may also explain why we are not usually sensitive to our own smellswe【 C8】 _do not need to be. We are not【 C9】 _of the usual smell of our own house, but we notice new smells when we visit someone elses. The brain finds it best to k
24、eep smell receptors available for unfamiliar and【 C10】 _signals such as the smell of smoke, which might indicate the danger of fire. A)simply B)emergency C)aware D)detecting E)permanently F)limited G)sure H)inefficient I)dedicated J)exposed K)impulses L)messages M)distinguishing N)particular O)extre
25、mely 37 【 C1】 38 【 C2】 39 【 C3】 40 【 C4】 41 【 C5】 42 【 C6】 43 【 C7】 44 【 C8】 45 【 C9】 46 【 C10】 Section B 46 Do Britains Energy Firms Serve the Public Interest? ACapitalism is the best and worst of systems. Left to itself, it will embrace the new and uncompromisingly follow the logic of prices and p
26、rofit, a revolutionary accelerator for necessary change. But it can only ever react to todays prices, which cannot capture what will happen tomorrow. So, left to itself, capitalism will neglect both the future and the cohesion of the society in which it trades. BWhat we know, especially after the fi
27、nancial crisis of 2008, is that we cant leave capitalism to itself. If we want it to work at its best, combining its doctrines with public and social objectives, there is no alternative but to design the markets in which it operates. We also need to try to add in wider obligations than the simple pu
28、rsuit of economic logic. Otherwise, there lies disaster. CIf this is now obvious in banking, it has just become so in energy. Since 2004, consumers energy bills have nearly tripled, far more than the rise in energy prices. The energy companies demand returns nearly double those in mass retailing. Th
29、is would be problematic at any time, but when wages in real terms have fallen by some 10% in five years it constitutes a crisis. John Major, pointing to the mass of citizens who now face a choice between eating or being warm as he made the case for a high profits tax on energy companies drove home t
30、he social reality. The energy market, as it currently operates, is maladaptive and illegitimate. There has to be changed. DThe design of this market is now universally recognised as wrong, universally, that is, excepting the regulator and the government. The energy companies are able to disguise the
31、ir cost structures because there is no general pool into which they are required to sell their energy instead opaquely striking complex internal deals between their generating and supply arms. Yet this is an industry where production and consumption is 24/7 and whose production logic requires such e
32、nergy pooling. The sector has informally agreed, without regulatory challenge, that it should seek a supply margin of 5% twice that of retailing. EOn top the industry also requires long-term price guarantees for investment in renewables and nuclear without any comparable return in lowering its targe
33、t cost of capital. The national grid, similarly privately owned, balances its profit maximising aims with a need to ensure security of supply. And every commitment to decarbonise British energy supply by 2030 is passed on to the consumer, rich and poor alike, whatever their capacity to pay. It will
34、also lead to negligible new investment unless backed by government guarantees and subsidies. It could scarcely be worse and with so much energy capacity closing in the next two years constitutes a first-order national crisis. FThe general direction of reform is clear. Energy companies should be requ
35、ired to sell their electricity into a pool whose price would become the base price for retail. This would remove the ability to mask the relationship between costs and prices: retail prices would fall as well as rise clearly and unambiguously as pool prices changed. GThe grid, which delivers electri
36、city and gas into our homes and is the guarantor that the lights wont go out, must be in public ownership, as is Network Rail in the rail industry. It should also be connected to a pan-European grid for additional security. Green commitments, or decisions to support developing renewables, should be
37、paid out of general taxation to take the poll tax element out of energy bills, with the rich paying more than the poor for the public good. Because returns on investment take decades in the energy industry, despite what free market fundamentalists argue, the state has to assume financial responsibil
38、ity of energy investment as it is doing with nuclear and renewables. HThe British energy industry has gone from nationalisation to privatisation and back to government control in the space of 25 years. Although the energy industry is nominally in private hands, we have exactly the same approach of g
39、overnment picking winners and dictating investment plans that was followed with disastrous consequences from the Second World War to the mid 1980s. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the consumer got unfair treatment because long-term investment plans and contracts promoted by the government required ele
40、ctricity companies to use expensive local coal. IThe energy industry is, once again, controlled by the state. The same underlying drivers dictate policy in the new world of state control. It is not rational economic thinking and public-interested civil servants that determine policy, but interest gr
41、oups. Going back 30 years, it was the coal industry both management and unions and the nuclear industry that dictated policy. Tony Benn said he had “never known such a well-organised scientific, industrial and technical lobby“. Today, it is green pressure groups, EU parliamentarians and commissioner
42、s and, often, the energy industry itself that are loading burdens on to consumers. When the state controls the energy industry, whether through the back or the front door, it is vested interests(既得利益 )that get their way and the consumer who pays. JSo how did we get to where we are today? In the late
43、 1980s and early 1990s, the industry was entirely privatised. It was recognised that there were natural monopoly elements and so prices in these areas were regulated. At the same time, the regulator was given a duty to promote competition. From 1998, all domestic energy consumers could switch suppli
44、er for the first time and then wholesale markets were liberalised, allowing energy companies to source the cheapest forms of energy. Arguably, this was the high water mark of the liberalisation of the industry. KPrivatisation was a great success. Instead of investment policy being dictated by the im
45、pulses of government and interest groups, it became dictated by long-term commercial considerations. Sadly, the era of liberalised markets, rising efficiency and lower bills did not last long. Both the recent Labour governments and the coalition have pursued similar policies of intervention after in
46、tervention to send the energy industry almost back to where it started. LOne issue that unites left and many on the paternalist right is that of energy security. We certainly need government intervention to keep the lights on and ensure that we are not over-dependent on energy from unstable countrie
47、s. But it should also be noted that there is nothing more insecure than energy arising from a policy determined by vested interests without any concern for commercial considerations. Energy security will not be achieved by requiring energy companies to invest in expensive sources of supply and by ma
48、king past investments redundant through regulation. It will also not be achieved by making the investment environment even more uncertain. Several companies all seeking the cheapest supplies from diverse sources will best serve the interests of energy security. MThe UK once had an inefficient and ex
49、pensive energy industry. After privatisation, costs fell as the industry served the consumer rather than the mining unions and pro-nuclear interests. Today, after a decade or more of increasing state control, we have an industry that serves vested interests rather than the consumer interest once again. Electricity prices before taxes are now 15% higher than the average of major developed nations. Electricity could be around 50% c
