1、大学英语六级（ 2013年 12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷 222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） He always likes something more challenging. （ B） He wants to live nearer to his family. （ C） He wants to put his administration knowledge into practice. （ D） He did reporting before and was interested in journalism. （ A
3、） Administrative news. （ B） General social concerns. （ C） Financial news. （ D） Local news. （ A） Shocked. （ B） Acceptable. （ C） Incredible. （ D） Indifferent. （ A） She only wants to hire local people. （ B） She lived in the city for a long time. （ C） She will send the employees everywhere. （ D） She wan
4、ts to know more about applicants. （ A） Choosing courses. （ B） Preordering textbooks. （ C） Dealing with used books. （ D） Looking for part-time jobs. （ A） Names of the recommended books. （ B） The name and number of her professor. （ C） A letter of recommendation from the supervisor. （ D） The course nam
5、es and the schedule numbers. （ A） When she gets the books. （ B） When the classes begin. （ C） When she hands in the form. （ D） When she is able to pay. （ A） If she changes classes. （ B） If the books are used. （ C） If she wants to sell them. （ D） If the books are needed by others. Section B （ A） The i
6、mpact of Halloween on children is underestimated. （ B） People used to celebrate new year at the end of October. （ C） Spirits come out when winter begins. （ D） Most parents and children are terrified by Halloween. （ A） To keep the ghosts happy. （ B） To avoid being recognized by ghosts. （ C） To let th
7、e spirits roam among the living. （ D） To form their own customs. （ A） They should be carefully avoided. （ B） They are just like the store-bought skeleton figures. （ C） They should be kept on reminding all the time. （ D） They can be introduced to kids during Halloween. （ A） It strikes every telephone
8、 indoors. （ B） It is a very dangerous force. （ C） It kills millions of Americans each year. （ D） It strikes the plumbers. （ A） Staying in bed. （ B） Staying off the telephone. （ C） Switching off the lights. （ D） Taking a shower. （ A） The materials for indoor plumbing have been improved. （ B） The hous
9、es recently built are much more solid. （ C） People wont go anywhere when lightning. （ D） People will stay away from plumbing. （ A） Call somebody for help. （ B） Stay away from your house. （ C） Recharge your cell phone. （ D） Turn off the appliances and electronics. Section C （ A） Because schools and b
10、usinesses are changing rapidly. （ B） Because international students are now much more mobile. （ C） Because many new tests have been developed worldwide. （ D） Because English is used increasingly as a common language. （ A） The tests have been standardized. （ B） The tests are taken via computers. （ C）
11、 The tests are about language speaking. （ D） The tests are now more difficult. （ A） Try to make sure that all the test-takers are happy in the tests. （ B） Design the items in a way that they test real-world proficiency. （ C） Hire people with intercultural communication backgrounds. （ D） Review items
12、 about intercultural communication in the tests. （ A） Artificial texts. （ B） Specific texts. （ C） Authentic texts. （ D） Designed texts. （ A） Because they wanted to be closer to the government. （ B） Because Tokyo was the historical commercial capital. （ C） Because the population was growing rapidly i
13、n Tokyo. （ D） Because Japans economy was growing at that time. （ A） The cost of the two hundred items. （ B） The economic growth last year. （ C） The population of the cities. （ D） The fluctuations of the currencies. （ A） All European cities would drop in the rankings. （ B） US cities would experience
14、dramatic change in rankings. （ C） It would become more costly to live in all US cities. （ D） The power of the US cities would be strengthened. （ A） They were loaded onto the computer with a disk. （ B） They were small in size but still very expensive. （ C） They could not be used without the Internet.
15、 （ D） They functioned as a business tool and a studio. （ A） All of them are big but cheap. （ B） They are available on the Internet. （ C） We can buy them from a store. （ D） It takes hours to download them. （ A） The new generation of phones and gaming systems. （ B） The emergence of new platforms and m
16、arketplaces. （ C） The small and collectible size of the applications. （ D） The application of browsers and social networks. Section A 26 The Internet and cell phones are bringing people together, not【 C1】 _ us apart at least, according to a new survey recently by the Pew Internet and American Life p
17、roject. The research followed up a shocking 2006 study, which found that American social networks were rapidly【 C2】 _ and that 25% of Americans reported that they had not one close friend or family member to rely on. In【 C3】 _ , Pew researchers found that just 6% of those surveyed reported having no
18、 intimate relationships. Unfortunately, the new study did confirm the other findings, showing that Americans today do have far fewer close relationships than they did as recently as 1985. According to both studies, the average social network shrunk by one-third since 1985 and more people today are r
19、elying only on spouses or family members for emotional support. Intriguingly,【 C4】 _ , Internet and cell phone use didnt replace close【 C5】_ with more superficial contacts. Instead, people who most relied on these communication tools had a larger and more【 C6】 _ group of close friends and family mem
20、bers. They were more likely to be close to someone of another race, for example. And,【 C7】 _ to net opposers worries, Internet use didnt replace involvement in local activities. In fact, bloggers and cell users are more likely to【 C8】 _ to local organizations like youth groups and charities, not les
21、s so. Such【 C9】 _ effects of the Internet are good news for public health. Studies have shown repeatedly that the number and quality of peoples relationships affects many aspects of well-being. The more connected people are, the healthier they tend to be. Consequently, the shrinkage in network size
22、remains a serious cause for concern but these results suggest that mobile and Internet communication are not【 C10】 _ problematic and can even be part of the solution. A) surely E) however I) necessarily M) positive B) compare F) ties J) contrast N) tearing C) single G) negative K) contrary O) divers
23、e D) cutting H) belong L) contracting 27 【 C1】 28 【 C2】 29 【 C3】 30 【 C4】 31 【 C5】 32 【 C6】 33 【 C7】 34 【 C8】 35 【 C9】 36 【 C10】 Section B 36 Life Begins at 100 A This year, the number of pensioners in the UK exceeded the number of minors for the first time in history. Thats remarkable in its own ri
24、ght, but the real “population explosion“ has been among the oldest of the old-the centenarians (百岁老人 ). In fact, this is the fastest-growing group in much of the developed world. In the UK, their numbers have increased by a factor of 60 since the early 20th century. And their ranks are set to swell
25、even further, thanks to the ageing baby-boomer generation: by 2030 there will be about a million worldwide. B These trends raise social, ethical and economic dilemmas. Are medical advances artificially prolonging life with little regard for the quality of that life? Old age brings an increased risk
26、of chronic disease and disability, and if growing numbers of elderly people become dependent on state or familial; support, society faces soaring costs and commitments. This is the dark cloud outside the silver lining of increasing longevity (长寿 ). Yet researchers who study the oldest old have made
27、a surprising discovery that presents a less bleak vision of the future than many anticipate. C It is becoming clear that people who break through the 90-plus barrier represent a physical elite, markedly different from the elderly who typically die younger than them. Far from gaining a longer burden
28、of disability, their extra years are often healthy ones. They have a remarkable ability to live through, delay or entirely escape a host of diseases that kill off most of their peers. Supercentenarians people aged 110 or over are even better examples of ageing gracefully. “According to the statistic
29、al study, they basically didnt exist in the 1970s or 80s,“ says Craig Willcox of the Okinawa Centenarian Study in Japan. “They have some sort of genetic booster rocket and they seem to be functioning better for longer periods of time than centenarians.“ The average supercentenarian had freely gone a
30、bout their daily life until the age of 105 or so, some five to 10 years longer even than centenarians, who are themselves the physical equivalent of people eight to 10 years their junior. This isnt just good news for the oldest old and for society in general; it also provides clues about how more of
31、 us might achieve a long and healthy old age. D One of the most comprehensive studies comes from Denmark. In 1998, Kaare Christensen at the University of Southern Denmark, in Odense, exploited the countrys exemplary registries to contact every single one of the 3,600 people born in 1905 who was stil
32、l alive. Assessing their health over the subsequent decade, he found that the proportion of people who managed to remain independent throughout was constantly around one-third of the total: each individual risked becoming more infirm, but the unhealthiest ones passed away at earlier ages, leaving th
33、e strongest behind. In 2005, only 166 of the people in Christensens sample were alive, but one-third of those were still entirely self-sufficient. This is good news from both personal and societal perspectives, for it means that exceptional longevity does not necessarily lead to exceptional levels o
34、f disability. E Christensens optimistic findings are echoed in studies all over the world. In the US, almost all of the 700-plus people recruited to the New England Centenarian Study since it began in 1994 had lived independently until the age of 90, and 40 per cent of supercentenarians in the study
35、 could still look after themselves. In the UK, Carol Brayne at the University of Cambridge studied 958 people aged over 90 and found that only one-quarter of them were living in institutions or nursing homes. Likewise, research in China reveals that before their deaths, centenarians and nonagenarian
36、s (九旬 老人 ) spend fewer days ill than younger elderly groups, though the end comes quickly when it finally comes. F Not all of the oldest old survive by delaying illness or disability, though many soldier through it. Jessica Evert of Ohio State University in Columbus examined the medical histories of
37、 over 400 centenarians. She found that those who achieve extreme longevity tend to fall into three categories. About 40 per cent were “delayers“, who avoided chronic diseases until after the age of 80. This “compression of illness“, where chronic illness and disability are squeezed into ever-shorter
38、 periods at the end of life, is a recent trend among ageing populations. Another 40 per cent were “survivors“, who suffered from chronic diseases before the age of 80 but lived longer to tell the tale. The final 20 per cent were “escapers“, who hit their century with no sign of the most common chron
39、ic diseases, including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, hypertension and stroke. Intriguingly, one-third of male centenarians were in this category, compared with only 15 per cent of women. G The “centenarian genome (基因组 )“ is a key resource in identifying longevity genes. Such genes have been found
40、 in abundance in other organisms. Unfortunately, its a different story in humans. While many candidate genes have been suggested to affect lifespan, very few have been consistently verified in multiple populations. H Until recently, the only exception was ApoE, and in particular a variant of this ge
41、ne known as e4, which gives carriers a much higher than average risk of developing Alzheimers and heart disease. Across the world, this unfortunate version of ApoE is about half as common in centenarians as in younger adults. Last year, a second promising candidate emerged a variant of a gene called
42、 FOX03A. At the University of Hawaii, a team led by Bradley Willcox, Craigs identical twin, found that people who carried two copies of a particular form of the gene were almost three times as likely to make it to 100 than those without the variation, and also tended to start their journey into old
43、age with better health and lower levels of stroke, heart disease and cancer. “There are so many false positives in this field that FOX03A is very exciting,“ says Bradley Willcox. I FOX03A is involved in several signalling pathways that are conserved across animal species. It controls the insulin/IGF
44、-1 pathway, which influences how our bodies process food. It also controls genes that protect cells from highly reactive oxygen radicalsmolecules often thought to drive human ageing through the cumulative damage they work on DNA. FOX03A could even protect against cancer by encouraging apoptosis (细胞凋
45、亡 ), whereby compromised cells commit suicide. The variant of FOX03A associated with longevity is much more prevalent in 100-year-olds even than in 95-year-olds, which clearly demonstrates the value of studying the centenarian genome. J So far the search for longevity genes in humans has been extrem
46、ely difficult, but prospects brighten as genomic technologies become faster and there are more centenarians to study. Only a lucky few win the genetic lottery of longevity, but if we understand what sets them apart, we may be able to make the rest of us more like them by using lifestyle or therapeut
47、ic interventions to manipulate physiological pathways. Such medical advances will not only extend our lives, but also help us remain healthy and independent for as long as possible. 37 Centenarians dying days are fewer than younger elderly groups. 38 The centenarian genome is very helpful in finding
48、 longevity genes. 39 The centenarian is regarded as the fastest-growing group in Britain. 40 According to an analysis, one fifth of centenarians didnt develop any chronic illness even when they reached the age of 100. 41 Exceptional longevity does not necessarily mean exceptional levels of disabilit
49、y. 42 The growing numbers of elderly people become economic burdens to the society. 43 FOX03A influences how our bodies process food by controlling insulin pathway. 44 People with two copies of FOX03A are more likely to be healthy in their old age. 45 According to the statistical study, the supercentenarians often lead a healthy life without chronic diseases. 46 With faster genomic technologies and more centenarians, the prospects of searching for longevity genes become brighter. Section
