1、大学英语六级（ 2013年 12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷 170及答案与解析 一、 Part I Writing 1 For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay based on the following drawing. In your essay, you should first describe the drawing and interpret its meanings, and then give your comment on it. You should write at least 150 word
2、s but no more than 200 words. Write your essay on Answer Sheet 1. Section A （ A） Calculating the budget of the department. （ B） Completing an open-ended question survey. （ C） Talking about the womans campus life. （ D） Discussing a complex experiment. （ A） Taker up her first job at school. （ B） Spend
3、 her summer holiday. （ C） Study for her Masters degree. （ D） Study as an exchange student. （ A） The university regards chemistry as unimportant. （ B） The Chemistry department is under-funded. （ C） There is not enough space in the Chemistry department. （ D） The Chemistry department has overspent thei
4、r budget this year. （ A） They are not devoted to their work. （ B） They dont take their students seriously. （ C） They are unsatisfied with the equipment. （ D） They signed contracts on behalf of the school. （ A） It is as good as the previous ones. （ B） It is more incredible than the previous ones. （ C
5、） It is funnier than the previous ones. （ D） It is worse than the previous ones. （ A） Fantastic settings. （ B） Special effects. （ C） Mysterious costumes. （ D） The theme song. （ A） It was a little bit weak. （ B） It was as strong as the previous one. （ C） It was funny and meaningful. （ D） It was a lit
6、tle bit boring. （ A） The man is still expecting the next episode. （ B） The man will reschedule his time to watch the movie. （ C） The next episode will be released next year. （ D） The next episode will be much better than this one. Section B （ A） They are very frightening and powerful. （ B） They are
7、interested in tornadoes. （ C） They all work very hard. （ D） They dont know why tornadoes occur. （ A） Where dry and humid air masses meet. （ B） Where the air becomes warm and humid. （ C） When thunderstorms or tornadoes occur. （ D） When the air rises very rapidly. （ A） It will remain the same. （ B） It
8、s air will be sucked up. （ C） It will explode outward. （ D） It will move a little. （ A） 33. （ B） 44. （ C） 433. （ D） 443. （ A） A place with a heavy rain. （ B） A town with a sunny day. （ C） A beautiful summer resort. （ D） An interesting advertisement. （ A） She didnt like the job any more. （ B） She mad
9、e a mistake in the report. （ C） She was criticized for her clothes. （ D） Her boss often found faults with her. （ A） Every time they watch TV. （ B） When they make mistakes. （ C） When theyre going on holiday. （ D） When they meet forecasters. Section C （ A） Human beings are the only animals who can lau
10、gh. （ B） One starts laughing when he is about six months old. （ C） Laughter has many functions other than expressing joy. （ D） Almost all the animals can laugh in some way. （ A） The sparkling of eyes. （ B） The opening of mouth. （ C） The movement of muscles. （ D） The blinking of eyes. （ A） Comedy ori
11、ginated in ancient Rome. （ B） Theaters originally appeared in Italy. （ C） Stand-up comedians were popular in France. （ D） Comedy was once banned in Europe. （ A） It improves hearing. （ B） It causes infections. （ C） It keeps our ears dry. （ D） It protects our ears. （ A） A soft cloth. （ B） Mineral oil.
12、 （ C） The little finger. （ D） A cotton swab. （ A） Water is poured into the ear. （ B） It is the safest method of all. （ C） Cold water should be used. （ D） It can be repeated several times. （ A） It is the first same sex school. （ B） It is located in New York city. （ C） It began to admit students in 20
13、08. （ D） It charges students a high tuition fee. （ A） Boys are more attentive than girls. （ B） Girls are more active than boys. （ C） Boys get more attention than girls. （ D） Boys and girls are treated equally. （ A） Students perform better in same sex classrooms. （ B） Students perform better in mixed
14、 sex classrooms. （ C） Differences outweigh similarities between boys and girls. （ D） Similarities outweigh differences between boys and girls. （ A） Attending a pre-school program. （ B） Attending a same sex school. （ C） Going to school earlier. （ D） Having good personalities. Section A 26 The U.S. do
15、llar was supposed to be at the end of its rope. Kicking the bucket. Well, maybe not. The dollar continues to【 C1】 _gloom-and-doom predictions. After a swoon(低迷 )last year, the dollar is again enjoying a major rally. The U.S. dollar index, which【 C2】 _the dollars value against other major currencies,
16、 is just off an eight-month high. The main reason behind the dollars【 C3】 _is actually no real surprise at all. There is no alternative able to replace the dollar as the worlds No. 1 currency. Sure, the U.S. budget deficit is expanding, the governments debt is increasing, and Wall Street is still【 C
17、4】 _itself. But the dollar remains the prettiest of a flock of ugly ducklings. Is any other major industrialized economy【 C5】 _better off than the U.S.? Not really. Just about the【 C6】 _developed world is suffering with the same problems. Thats why when investors get nervous, they still rush to the
18、good old dollar. The dollar wins because no one else is really in the game. The euro has been exposed as a【 C7】 _. Only a few months ago, economists truly believed the euro could【 C8】 _the dollar as the top reserve currency. Now experts are questioning if the euro has a future at all. The Greek debt
19、 crisis has【 C9】_that the euro is only as strong as its weakest link. And after the euro, where do global investors turn? The yen? Japans economy, with higher government debt and crushing deflation(通货紧缩 ), has even deeper structural problems than Americas. Maybe over the next 20 or 30 years, the dol
20、lar will slowly lose the dominant status it Holds today. That process,【 C10】 _, could well be driven by the appearance of new rivals. A)absolute E)concise I)recovery M)measures B)fraud F)revealed J)rival N)partially C)relieving G)defy K)slump O)repairing D)however H)entire L)particularly 27 【 C1】 28
21、 【 C2】 29 【 C3】 30 【 C4】 31 【 C5】 32 【 C6】 33 【 C7】 34 【 C8】 35 【 C9】 36 【 C10】 Section B 36 Why We Need Good Teachers AThe relative decline of American education at the elementary- and high-school levels has long been a national embarrassment as well as a threat to the nations future. Once upon a t
22、ime, American students tested better than any other students in the world. Now, ranked against European schoolchildren, America does about as well as Lithuania, behind at least 10 other nations. Within the United States, the achievement gap between white students and poor and minority students stubb
23、ornly persists and as the population of disadvantaged students grows, overall scores continue to fall. BFor much of this time roughly the last half century professional educators believed that if they could only find the right teaching method, all would be well. They tried New Math, open classrooms,
24、 Whole Language but nothing seemed to achieve significant or lasting improvements. CYet in recent years researchers have discovered something that may seem obvious, but for many reasons was overlooked or denied. What really makes a difference, what matters more than the class size or the textbook, t
25、he teaching method or the technology, or even the curriculum, is the quality of the teacher. Much of the ability to teach is innate(天生的 ) an ability to inspire young minds as well as control unruly classrooms that some people instinctively possess. Teaching can be taught, to some degree, but not the
26、 way many graduate schools of education do it, with a lot of boring or marginally relevant theorizing and teaching method. In any case the research shows that within about five years, you can generally tell who is a good teacher and who is not. DIt is also true and unfortunate that often the weakest
27、 teachers are degraded to teaching the neediest students, poor minority kids in inner-city schools. For these children, teachers can be make or break. “The research shows that kids who have two, three, four strong teachers in a row will eventually excel, no matter what their background, while kids w
28、ho have even two weak teachers in a row will never recover,“ says Kati Haycock of the Education Trust and coauthor of the 2006 study “Teaching Inequality: How Poor and Minority Students Are Shortchanged on Teacher Quality.“ ENothing, then, is more important than hiring good teachers and firing bad o
29、nes. But here is the rub. Although many teachers are caring and selfless, teaching in public schools has not always attracted the best and the brightest. There once was a time when teaching was one of the few jobs not denied to women and minorities. But with social progress, many talented women and
30、minorities chose other and more highly compensated fields. One recent review of the evidence by McKinsey & Co., the management consulting firm, showed that most schoolteachers are recruited from the bottom third of college-bound high-school students. FAt the same time, the teachers unions have becom
31、e more and more powerful. In most states, after two or three years, teachers are given lifetime tenure(长期聘用 ). It is almost impossible to fire them. In New York City in 2008, three out of 30,000 tenured teachers were dismissed for cause. The statistics are just as eye-popping in other cities. The pe
32、rcentage of teachers dismissed for poor performance in Chicago between 2005 and 2008 was 0.1 percent. In Akron, Ohio, zero percent. In Toledo, 0.01 percent. In Denver, zero percent. In no other socially significant profession are the workers so insulated from responsibility. The responsibility does
33、not just fall on the unions. Many principals dont even try to weed out the poor performers. Year after year, about 99 percent of all teachers in the United States are rated “satisfactory“ by their school systems: firing a teacher invites a costly court battle with the local union. GOver time, inner-
34、city schools, in particular, surrendered to a defeatist mindset. The problem is not the teachers, went the thinking its the parents(or absence of parents): its society with all its distractions and pathologies(病态 ): its the kids themselves. Not much can be done, really, except to keep the assembly l
35、ine moving through “social promotion,“ regardless of academic performance, and hope the students graduate. Or so went the conventional wisdom in school superintendents offices from Newark to L.A. By 1992, “there was such a dramatic achievement gap in the United States, far larger than in other count
36、ries, between socioeconomic classes and races,“ says Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality. “It was a scandal of monumental proportions, that there were two distinct school systems in the U.S., one for the middle class and one for the poor.“ HIn the past two decades, some
37、schools have sprung up that defy and refute what former president George W. Bush memorably called “the soft bigotry(偏执成见 )of low expectations.“ Generally operating outside of school bureaucracies as charter schools, programs like KIPP(Knowledge Is Power Program)have produced inner-city schools with
38、high graduation rates(85 percent). KIPP schools dont cherry-pick they take anyone who will sign a contract to play by the rules, which require some parental involvement. And they are not one-shot wonders. There are now 82 KIPP schools in 19 states and the District of Columbia, and, routinely, they f
39、ar outperform the local public schools. KIPP schools are mercifully free of red tape and bureaucratic rules. KIPP schools require longer school days and a longer school year, but their greatest advantage is better teaching. IIt takes a certain kind of teacher to succeed at a KIPP school or at other
40、successful charter programs, like YES Prep. KIPP teachers carry cell phones so students can call them at any time. The dedication required makes for high burnout rates. It may be that teaching in an inner-city school is a little like going into the Special Forces in the military, a calling for only
41、the chosen few. JYet those few are multiplying. About 20 years ago, a Princeton senior named Wendy Kopp wrote her senior thesis proposing an organization to draw graduates from elite schools into teaching poor kids. Her idea was to hire them for just a couple of years, and then let them move on to W
42、all Street or wherever. Today, Teach for America(TFA)sends about 4,100 graduates, many from Ivy League colleges, into inner-city schools every year. Some(about 8 percent)cant cope with it, but most(about 61 percent)stay in teaching after their demanding two-year tours. Two thirds of TFAs 17,000 grad
43、uates are still involved in education and have become the core of a reform movement that is having real impact. The founders of KIPP, Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, are TFA products. So is the most aggressive reformer in education today, Michelle Rhee, the education chancellor of the District of Colu
44、mbia, who is trying to loosen the hold of the teachers union on a school system that for years had the highest costs and worst results in the nation. KIt is difficult to remove the educational establishment. In New Orleans, a hurricane was required: since Katrina, New Orleans has made more education
45、al progress than any other city, largely because the public-school system was wiped out. Using nonunion charter schools, New Orleans has been able to measure teacher performance in ways that the teachers unions have long and bitterly resisted. Under a new Louisiana law, New Orleans can track which s
46、chools produce the best teachers, forcing long-needed changes in school curricula. 37 In terms of test scores, American students used to be at the top of the world. 38 There was a large achievement gap in America between different classes and races. 39 One recent review found that most schoolteacher
47、s didnt perform well in their school life. 40 Unfortunately, the neediest students often receive the poorest teaching. 41 The new teaching methods, like open classrooms the professional educators tried, were all in vain. 42 According to a research in recent years, teacher quality is regarded as the
48、dominant factor for students performance. 43 The percentage of dismissed teacher was so low in many states due to the power of teachers unions. 44 Only a few people are qualified for the position of the charter school teachers teaching in inner-city. 45 An education chancellor is trying to lessen th
49、e influence of the teachers union on a school system. 46 The public-school system of an American city was wiped out after a hurricane so that the city made outstanding educational progress. Section C 46 Both the Senate and House health care bills propose incentives to boost corporate wellness programs that aim to help employees stay healthier and to control a companys insurance costs. But those programs were slowed down with the recent enactment(颁布 )of a law that genera
