1、大学英语六级（ 2013年 12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷 243及答案与解析 一、 Part I Writing 1 Directions： For this part， you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay entitled Learning from Mistakes You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words Write your essay on Answer Sheet 1 1人的一生中难免犯错 2有的人能够在错误中学习，不断进步；有的人却不以为然，重
2、蹈覆辙 3对此，我认为 Section A （ A） Salsa dancing. （ B） Classical music. （ C） Rock and roll. （ D） Latin music. （ A） It drops sharply. （ B） It falls slowly. （ C） It stays the same. （ D） It increases slowly. （ A） Latin music. （ B） Classical music. （ C） Rock and roll music. （ D） Salsa dancing. （ A） It has no in
3、fluence on character. （ B） It might make listeners cleverer. （ C） It makes one livelier and happier. （ D） Its not good for ones heart. （ A） An insurance package for foreign companies. （ B） Insurance plans designed for foreign employees. （ C） A position in his company that she may apply for. （ D） Pro
4、ducts manufactured by one of his friends. （ A） To show her the plans and explain in detail. （ B） To demonstrate how to use the products. （ C） To know her better before hiring her. （ D） To provide better after-sale service. （ A） The products will be on-trial. （ B） The service will be permanent. （ C）
5、The meeting wont last long. （ D） The position will be secured. （ A） Doubtful. （ B） Negative. （ C） Positive. （ D） Favorable. Section B （ A） The shape of the cubes used. （ B） The size of the objects shown. （ C） The number of times of repeating the process. （ D） The weight of the boxes moving across th
6、e stage. （ A） Boys enjoy playing with cubes more than girls. （ B） Girls tend to get excited more easily than boys. （ C） Girls seem to start reasoning earlier than boys. （ D） Boys pay more attention to moving objects than girls. （ A） It is a breakthrough in the study of the nerve system. （ B） It may
7、stimulate scientists to make further studies. （ C） Its result helps understand babies language ability. （ D） Its findings are quite contrary to previous research. （ A） The two sides of their brain develop simultaneously. （ B） They are better able to adapt to the surroundings. （ C） Their bones mature
8、 earlier. （ D） They talk at an earlier age. （ A） The new security plan for the municipal building. （ B） The blueprint for the development of the city. （ C） The controversy over the new office regulations. （ D） The citys general budget for the coming year. （ A） Whether the security checks were really
9、 necessary. （ B） How to cope with the huge crowds of visitors to the municipal building. （ C） Whether the security checks would create lone queues at peak hours. （ D） How to train the newly recruited security guards. （ A） Irrelevant. （ B） Straightforward. （ C） Ridiculous. （ D） Confrontational. Secti
10、on C （ A） It was set up in that year. （ B） It joined with another company. （ C） It sent 10,000 people abroad. （ D） It recruited a lot of new staff. （ A） They are working in 150 countries worldwide. （ B） Most of them are former volunteers. （ C） 75% of them are from the UK. （ D） They joined the compan
11、y in the early 90s. （ A） Most of the volunteers join in July. （ B） Its best to join the programs in winter. （ C） There are fixed start dates for each program. （ D） Volunteers may start when its best for them. （ A） Its solely funded by its volunteers. （ B） It receives money from the government. （ C）
12、It asks for money from partner organizations. （ D） It gets funding from religious bodies. （ A） Americans eat more hamburgers than before. （ B） Americans eat more fast food than they did. （ C） Most Americans are fond of eating sausages. （ D） Americans spent six million dollars on fast food in 1970. （
13、 A） Above 50%. （ B） About 25%. （ C） Around 68%. （ D） Approximately 94%. （ A） It means getting too fat. （ B） Its a kind of heart disease. （ C） Its the biggest killer in America. （ D） Its a result of too much stress. （ A） It was a railroad in the US. （ B） It was developed after the Civil War. （ C） It
14、got its name in about 1931. （ D） It helped slaves run away. （ A） George Washington. （ B） A black slave. （ C） A slave owner. （ D） A Quaker. （ A） Stationmasters. （ B） Conductors. （ C） Passengers. （ D） Stations. Section A 26 Aristotle defined a friend as “a single soul dwelling in two bodies“. How many
15、 friends we have, and how easily we make, maintain and lose them, has a significant impact on our emotional well-being. Its no surprise, 【 C1】 _, that friends can improve just about every aspect of our life. Friends can protect us from the【 C2】 _of bereavement (丧失亲人 ) or divorce. They dont even have
16、 to be great friends-some of the positive effect is【 C3】_down to the company: have a pint with a mate and youre by definition not socially【 C4】 _. “There are friends youre just more【 C5】 _with. Others may be more interesting, but they may be more offended. Really good friends dont take offence. Frie
17、ndships can end because they stop being equal. You may take different【 C6】 _, have different experiences, which make it harder to maintain a friendship.“ says educational psychologist Karen Majors. We first recognise the importance of friends in childhood. While some of us may retain a few childhood
18、 friends, the biggest opportunity for friendship comes in higher education. A study of long-term friendships found that friendships formed during college years stayed close 20 years later, if they scored highly in closeness as well as【 C7】 _to begin with. “At college you can 【 C8】 _close friendships
19、 because youre in such close【 C9】 _for sustained periods,“ says Glenn Sparks, Purdues professor of communication. “These relationships are rare and hard to【 C10】 _; theyre very unusual outside family relationships. A) proximity I) compromising B) rather J) comfortable C) routes K) replicate D) then
20、L) simply E) cultivate M) isolated F) aftershocks N) communication G) preferable O) possibility H) connected 27 【 C1】 28 【 C2】 29 【 C3】 30 【 C4】 31 【 C5】 32 【 C6】 33 【 C7】 34 【 C8】 35 【 C9】 36 【 C10】 Section B 36 Signs: the Most Useful Thing We Pay No Attention to A Signage the kind we see on city s
21、treets, in airports, on highways, in hospital corridors is the most useful thing we pay no attention to. When it works well, it tells us where we are (as when an Interstate marker assures us were on the right highway) and it helps us to get where we want to go (as when an airport banner directs us t
22、o our gate). When it fails, we miss trains, were late to appointments, we spend hours pacing the indistinguishable floors of underground parking garages, muttering to ourselves in mounting frustration and fury. And in some cases, especially where automobiles are involved, the consequences of bad sig
23、nage can be fatal. B Bad signs can send perfectly ordinary citizens into spirals of confusion. Take Richard Ankrom, a Los Angeles artist who thought the junction of the 110 freeway and the 5 freeway was badly marked. In 2001, he put on an outfit that looked like the ones Caltrans highway workers wor
24、e, climbed up onto a freeway gantry (信号架 ), and mounted an aluminum sign hed manufactured himself according to state specifications. The sign stayed up for nine months without anyone noticing what hed done; when the story leaked to the press and Caltrans finally realized, the agency left the sign up
25、 for eight more years. C Or consider Leslie Gallery Dilworth, a Philadelphia architect who took a road trip with her husband through Spain in the 1980s. Throughout the journey, theyd been amazed at the simplicity of the European road signs, which were easy to use even though neither of them spoke Sp
26、anish. Upon their return to Philly, they got lost on the way from the airport to their house, when a bad set of signs directed them to a local dump. Dilworth was so struck by her own citys inhospitality that she spent much of the next decade working with the city and local stakeholders improving Phi
27、ladelphias sign systems. Today, shes the CEO of the Society for Environmental Graphic Design, the premier American professional group for sign designers. D Most people, when they think about it, can point to signs that have failed them: the hospital complex that felt like a labyrinth (迷宫 ) or the ex
28、it they always almost miss. But the truth is that signage today is far better than its been at any other point in history. A century ago, sign design wasnt a profession to speak of; the signs that guided riders and pedestrians (there werent many drivers yet) tended to be informal. As the automobile
29、took off, the world found it needed traffic engineers, and it was these men and women who were the first to think seriously about sign systems. America put national standards for road signs in place in 1935. E But the developers of office buildings, shopping malls, and other pedestrian spaces were s
30、low to follow suit. Developers tended to assume that architects would take care of sign design, and many architects would leave it up to tenants. As a result, security guards and secretaries were often the ones to help orient the lost. F The 1970s saw the first stirrings of revolution in the sign wo
31、rld. Thats when the SEGD was founded, and its when designers first began to seriously study how best to orient people and guide them through space. Their work was prompted in part by Americas great urban thinkers: people like Kevin Lynch and Jane Jacobs, who argued that spaces should be designed not
32、 to fulfill the grand visions of architects but with humble human uses in mind. The field earned a name “wayfinding,“ a Lynch coinageand today, people in the business call themselves wayfinding designers and talk about places that have “good wayfinding“ or “terrible wayfinding.“ By the 1980s and 90s
33、, wayfinding advocates were involved in more development projects, but dispatches from the era have a slightly indignant air; designers of environmental graphics still often found themselves fighting for a place at the table. During the last 10 years, however, wayfinding has come into its own. More
34、requests for proposals for major building initiatives now require bidders to explain how theyll handle wayfinding design. Many cities have installed wayfinding systems like the one Dilworth helped build in Philadelphia. New airports and train stations are routinely built with good navigation in mind
35、. G Why has there been such growth in the field? One cause is the remarkable pace of economic development over the past half century. Developed countries have been building increasingly complicated spaces shopping malls, convention centers, multi-terminal airports that require good navigation system
36、s in order for people to use them. In addition, businesses and municipalities alike have realized that well-oriented people are calmer, happier, and more likely to spend money (and plan return visits) than people who are lost Investing in a good wayfinding system has real financial rewards. H Anothe
37、r cause is our increasingly globalized planet. Much of the innovation in the sign world has been spurred by airports, places where people of all nationalities and tongues must move quickly, efficiently, and safely through huge spaces. For years, designers have been developing graphical symbols to he
38、lp non-natives find the bathrooms, the baggage claims, and the currency exchange machines, and, in the process, theyve been inventing a global language, a kind of pictorial Esperanto (世界语 ). I A third cause is our societys increasing inclusiveness. The 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act was the fi
39、rst piece of national legislation to authorize the accessibility of privately managed public spaces like hotels and universities. And because the law deals with visual as well as physical impairment, its accessibility guidelines require that standards of legibility be maintained in directional signs
40、; they evolved to specify everything from the size of fonts to the contrast between lettering and its background. This development turned out to be as useful for the rest of us as it was for the legally blind. J Finally, theres the fact that we have all increasingly become experts of good design. Fi
41、fty years ago, design belonged to designers. But the advent of the personal computer introduced us all to fonts, line spacing, and page layout, and machines from the photocopier to the iPhone have left us familiar with icons both clear and confusing. Navigating the Web has made us smarter about orie
42、nting ourselves in virtual space. As a result, when we see badly designed signs, we demand better. Joe Calderone, a spokesman for the Long Island Railroad, notes that the agency is not wanting for feedback: “Our customers are not shy about telling us if things dont work.“ K Ironically, just as our s
43、igns have improved, weve seen the advent of something that makes us less dependent on them than ever before: satellite navigation. Our iPhones and the GPS systems in our cars orient us in relation not to fixed squares of metal on our roads but to orbiting wheels of technology in the sky. Designers a
44、re confident that well always need signs after all, you still need to know which street is Rogers when your car tells you to take it but folks in the satellite business arent so sure. By examining how signs have evolved and how they help us now, we can determine whether signages golden age is ending
45、 or just beginning. 37 The road signs in Spain worked well in showing directions. 38 A sign mounted onto a freeway gantry stayed up for quite a few years. 39 Traffic engineers were considered to be the first to think about sign systems. 40 Americas great urban thinkers believed that spaces should be
46、 designed to be user-friendly. 41 The directional signs standards of legibility for the legally blind turned out to be useful for ordinary people. 42 Security guards and secretaries often had to give directions for the lost because no useful signs were set up. 43 Thanks to the advent of satellite na
47、vigation, we become less dependent on the road signs than ever before. 44 Designers manage to help people of all nationalities to find directions by developing easy-recognized symbols. 45 Businesses and municipalities have realized that good wayfinding systems increase the possibility of return visi
48、ts. 46 All the developments from personal computers to machines like photocopiers and iPhones make us experts of good design. Section C 46 The extent and limits of ape (猿 ) intelligence is a hot area in science, but most of the research has focused on cognition. Now a team of scientists has turned t
49、he spotlight on emotions, and how well apes can read the human kind as displayed in our facial expressions. A paper in the September issue of the journal Developmental Science describes studies from the Wolfgang Kohler Primate Research Center in Leipzig, Germany. In the first test, a researcher sat at a table on one side of a panel while an ape sat on the other side. Two opaque boxes rested on the table. The scientist opened one box (making sure
