1、大学英语六级（ 2013年 12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷 157及答案与解析 一、 Part I Writing 1 For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on the remark “Work with, not against, nature.“ You can give examples to illustrate your point and then explain how you can work with nature. You should write at least 15
2、0 words but no more than 200 words. Section A （ A） She feels as painful as the man does. （ B） She totally understands the mans feeling. （ C） The car accident could have been avoided. （ D） Old people will die anyway. （ A） Wine is too strong for the guests. （ B） All guests prefer beer. （ C） Beer is re
3、latively cheap. （ D） The store hasnt enough wine. （ A） Go to the supermarket with the woman. （ B） Find a porter for the woman. （ C） Work in the womans company. （ D） Cook dinner for the woman. （ A） The man is wise to have bargained. （ B） Other places offer a lower price. （ C） The shop didnt charge th
4、e man much. （ D） The man might have been overcharged. （ A） The artists works are beyond understanding. （ B） The artists unexpected tragedy is a great pity. （ C） The artists paintings are actually worthless. （ D） People shouldve recognized the artists value earlier. （ A） The woman is strict with her
5、employees. （ B） The man always has excuses for being late. （ C） The woman is a kind-hearted boss. （ D） The mans alarm clock didnt work that morning. （ A） He would like to have fish. （ B） He would like to have steak. （ C） He doesnt like iced food. （ D） He doesnt like dried food. （ A） Quit singing. （
6、B） Improve manual work. （ C） Practice harder. （ D） Change a song. （ A） Play basketball with his colleagues. （ B） Go to hospital and have a physical check. （ C） Lose weight and strengthen the muscles. （ D） Compete in a cycling race with colleagues. （ A） He should start with a light workout. （ B） He s
7、hould go to have a check-up. （ C） He should eat less fatty foods. （ D） He should visit a fitness trainer. （ A） It helps improve the physical health. （ B） It is good for a sound sleep. （ C） It helps develop mental toughness. （ D） It helps lose weight. （ A） A literature professor. （ B） An academic adv
8、isor. （ C） Dean of the English Department. （ D） A Doctor of Applied Linguistics. （ A） To inquire about switching majors. （ B） To find a helping supervisor. （ C） To make up the remaining credits. （ D） To apply for a masters degree. （ A） He cant catch up with his classmates. （ B） He finds the English
9、course load too heavy. （ C） He is not interested in his present major. （ D） He is good at Applied Linguistics. （ A） Twenty-four credits. （ B） Twelve credits. （ C） Three Credits. （ D） Thirty-six credits. Section B （ A） 30. （ B） 42. （ C） 62 （ D） 80 （ A） Potential of human endurance. （ B） Superpower of
10、 magicians. （ C） Communication with supernatural forces. （ D） Street magic. （ A） He took advantage of his large circle of friends. （ B） He attempted all sorts of adventures worldwide. （ C） He combined fantastic magic with successful publicity. （ D） He never made any mistake in his performances. （ A）
11、 All were concerned about boxes. （ B） All were demonstrated with celebrity. （ C） All were demonstrated longer than a week. （ D） All were live telecast. （ A） A real book. （ B） A computer file. （ C） A handheld device. （ D） A piece of paper. （ A） Government may stop it as abnormal competition. （ B） Wri
12、ters wont always be happy to gain exposure. （ C） The websites do not make profits in this way. （ D） Some people may misuse the websites. （ A） Theyre still searching for effective ways blindly. （ B） Theyre at a loss how to make e-books small enough. （ C） Theyve lowered the price of e-books greatly. （
13、 D） Theyve progressed much in making e-books like real ones. （ A） It is being swallowed by the Atlantic Ocean. （ B） It is gradually sinking into the rising sea. （ C） Its islands are being invaded by another country. （ D） Its citizens are in desperate need of food supply. （ A） The long history shatte
14、rs its ground. （ B） The canals under it begin to collapse. （ C） It is getting increasingly warmer. （ D） It is flooded far more often than before. （ A） They produce greenhouse gases by burning fuels. （ B） They pollute the environment by cutting plants. （ C） They add more and more wastewater to the se
15、a. （ D） They take up larger and larger living space. Section C 26 Oxford University once famously claimed to have been founded by Alfred the Great in the 9th Century. But in fact, the University as we know it today began to【 B1】_ in the 12th Century when English Scholars were【 B2】 _ from Paris Unive
16、rsity. Today, 39 independent, self-governing colleges【 B3】 _ the University in a type of federal system. Each is governed by a Head of House and a number of Fellows, who are academics specializing in【 B4】 _ disciplines, most of whom also hold University posts. Across both the Arts and the Sciences,
17、Oxford research【 B5】 _ ranks top both nationally and internationally. As well as being in the forefront(最前线 )of scientific, medical and technological【 B6】 _, the University has strong links with research institutions and industrial concerns both in the United Kingdom and overseas. The Universitys gr
18、eat age also allows its teaching staff and research students to draw on a【 B7】 _ of magnificent library and museum collections. Students working for higher degrees are drawn by the excellent facilities for research, which the University can offer, therefore the【 B8】 _ of graduate students is increas
19、ing. In all these fields, Oxford attracts scholars from many parts of the world to join its teaching and research staff, and also values important role of【 B9】 _ graduate students in providing intellectual stimulation and creating and maintaining academic links with colleges abroad. To gain entry in
20、to the University, students must first win a place by competitive examinations at one of the colleges, which have their own admissions policies. The procedure for applications varies according to the subject you【 B10】 _ to study. 27 【 B1】 28 【 B2】 29 【 B3】 30 【 B4】 31 【 B5】 32 【 B6】 33 【 B7】 34 【 B8
21、】 35 【 B9】 36 【 B10】 Section A 36 Research on animal intelligence always makes us wonder just how smart humans are. Consider the fruit-fly experiments described by Carl Zimmer in the Science Times. Fruit flies who were taught to be smarter than the average fruit fly【 C1】 _to live shorter lives. This
22、 suggests that dimmer bulbs burn longer, that there is a(n) 【 C2】_in not being too bright. Intelligence, it turns out, is a high-priced【 C3】 _. It takes more upkeep, burns more fuel and is slow off the starting line because it depends on learning a(n) 【 C4】_process instead of instinct. Plenty of oth
23、er species are able to learn, and one of the things theyve apparently learned is when to stop. Is there an adaptive value to limited intelligence? Thats the question behind this new research. Instead of casting a wistful glance【 C5】 _at all the species weve left in the dust I.Q.-wise, it implicitly
24、asks what the real costs of our own intelligence might be. This is on the【 C6】 _of every animal weve ever met. Research on animal intelligence also makes us wonder what experiments animals would【 C7】 _on humans if they had the chance. Every cat with an owner, for instance, is running a small-scale s
25、tudy in operant conditioning. We believe that if animals ran the labs, they would test us to【 C8】 _the limits of our patience, our faithfulness, our memory for locations. They would try to decide what intelligence in humans is really for, not【 C9】 _how much of it there is. Above all, they would hope
26、 to study a【 C10】 _question: Are humans actually aware of the world they live in? So far the results are inconclusive. A)mind B)fundamental C)gradual D)determine E)advantage F)happened G)spontaneous H)backward I)aptly J)overcome K)option L)merely M)tended N)inclination O)perform 37 【 C1】 38 【 C2】 39
27、 【 C3】 40 【 C4】 41 【 C5】 42 【 C6】 43 【 C7】 44 【 C8】 45 【 C9】 46 【 C10】 Section B 46 Trust Me, Im a Robot AWith robots now emerging from their industrial cages and moving into homes and workplaces, roboticists are concerned about the safety implications beyond the factory floor. To address these conc
28、erns, leading robot experts have come together to try to find ways to prevent robots from harming people. Inspired by the Pugwash Conferences an international group of scientists, academics and activists founded in 1957 to campaign for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons the new group of robo-e
29、thicists met earlier this year in Genoa, Italy, and announced their initial findings in March at the European Robotics Symposium in Palermo, Sicily. B“Security and safety are the big concerns,“ says Henrik Christensen, chairman of the European Robotics Network at the Swedish Royal Institute of Techn
30、ology in Stockholm. Should robots that are strong e-nough or heavy enough to crush people be allowed into homes? Is “system malfunction“ a justifiable defence for a robotic fighter plane that contravenes(违反 )the Geneva Convention and mistakenly fires on innocent civilians? C“These questions may seem
31、 hard to understand but in the next few years they will become increasingly relevant,“ says Dr. Christensen. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europes World Robotics Survey, in 2002 the number of domestic and service robots more than tripled, nearly surpassing their industrial
32、counterparts. By the end of 2003 there were more than 600,000 robot vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers a figure predicted to rise to more than 4m by the end of next year. Japanese industrial firms are racing to build humanoid robots to act as domestic helpers for the elderly, and South Korea has set a
33、goal that 100% of households should have domestic robots by 2020. In light of all this, it is crucial that we start to think about safety guidelines now, says Dr. Christensen. Stop right there DSo what exactly is being done to protect us from these mechanical menaces? “Not enough,“ says Blay Whitby.
34、 This is hardly surprising given that the field of “safety-critical computing“ is barely a decade old, he says. But things are changing, and researchers are increasingly taking an interest in trying to make robots safer. One approach, which sounds simple enough, is try to program them to avoid conta
35、ct with people altogether. But this is much harder than it sounds. Getting a robot to navigate across a cluttered room is difficult enough without having to take into account what its various limbs or appendages might bump into along the way. E“Regulating the behaviour of robots is going to become m
36、ore difficult in the future, since they will increasingly have self-learning mechanisms built into them,“ says Gianmarco Veruggio. “As a result, their behaviour will become impossible to predict fully,“ he says, “since they will not be behaving in predefined ways but will learn new behaviour as they
37、 go.“ FThen there is the question of unpredictable failures. What happens if a robots motors stop working, or it suffers a system failure just as it is performing heart surgery or handing you a cup of hot coffee? You can, of course, build in redundancy by adding backup systems, says Hirochika Inoue.
38、 But this guarantees nothing, he says. “One hundred per cent safety is impossible through technology,“ says Dr. Inoue. This is because ultimately no matter how thorough you are, you cannot anticipate the unpredictable nature of human behaviour, he says. Or to put it another way, no matter how sophis
39、ticated your robot is at avoiding people, people might not always manage to avoid it, and could end up tripping over it and falling down the stairs. Legal problems GIn any case, says Dr. Inoue, the laws really just summarize commonsense principles that are already applied to the design of most moder
40、n appliances, both domestic and industrial. Every toaster, lawn mower and mobile phone is designed to minimize the risk of causing injury yet people still manage to electrocute(电死 )themselves, lose fingers or fall out of windows in an effort to get a better signal. At the very least, robots must mee
41、t the rigorous safety standards that cover existing products. The question is whether new, robot-specific rules are needed and, if so, what they should say. H“Making sure robots are safe will be critical,“ says Colin Angle of iRobot, which has sold over 2m “Roomba“ household-vacuuming robots. But he
42、 argues that his firms robots are, in fact, much safer than some popular toys. “A radio-controlled car controlled by a six-year old is far more dangerous than a Roomba,“ he says. If you tread on a Roomba, it will not cause you to slip over; instead, a rubber pad on its base grips the floor and preve
43、nts it from moving. “Existing regulations will address much of the challenge,“ says Mr. Angle. “Im not yet convinced that robots are sufficiently different that they deserve special treatment.“ IRobot safety is likely to surface in the civil courts as a matter of product liability. “When the first r
44、obot carpet-sweeper sucks up a baby, who will be to blame?“ asks John Hallam, a professor at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. If a robot is autonomous and capable of learning, can its designer be held responsible for all its actions? Today the answer to these questions is generally “yes
45、“. But as robots grow in complexity it will become a lot less clear cut, he says. J“Right now, no insurance company is prepared to insure robots,“ says Dr. Inoue. But that will have to change, he says. Last month, Japans Ministry of Trade and Industry announced a set of safety guidelines for home an
46、d office robots. They will be required to have sensors to help them avoid collisions with humans; to be made from soft and light materials to minimize harm if a collision does occur, and to have an emergency shut-off button. This was largely prompted by a big robot exhibition held last summer, which
47、 made the authorities realize that there are safety implications when thousands of people are not just looking at robots, but mingling with them, says Dr. Inoue. KHowever, the idea that general-purpose robots, capable of learning, will become widespread is wrong, suggests Mr. Angle. It is more likel
48、y, he believes, that robots will be relatively dumb machines designed for particular tasks. Rather than a humanoid robot maid, “its going to be a heterogeneous(不同种类的 )swarm of robots that will take care of the house,“ he says. 47 It is pointed out there is no absolute safety through technology due t
49、o the unpredictable nature of human behavior. 48 It sounds easier said than done to program robots to avoid contact with people. 49 According to a survey, the number of domestic and service robots was three times over that of industrial robots in 2002. 50 To deal with the rising safety concern about domestic robots, robo-ethicists held meetings in Genoa. 51 To a great extent, a robot exhibition contributed to the issue
