1、大学英语六级（ 2013年 12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷 259及答案与解析 一、 Part I Writing 1 For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay on cohesion. Your essay should include the importance of cohesion and measures to be taken to enhance cohesion. You are required to write at least 150 words but no more than 20
2、0 words. Section A （ A） A car accident. （ B） An earthquake. （ C） A train accident. （ D） A plane accident. （ A） He gave the man some water to drink. （ B） He called the ambulance immediately. （ C） He called the police first. （ D） He gave the man first aid. （ A） Those who are suffering from choking. （
3、B） Those who are suffering from minor scratches. （ C） Those who are suffering from cancer. （ D） Those who are suffering from diabetes. （ A） It may cure the disease. （ B） It may free one from punishment. （ C） It may save ones life. （ D） It may help one escape unhurt. （ A） It has got its name from a s
4、tyle of architecture. （ B） It has got its name from a kind of music. （ C） It has got its name from a tribe named Goths. （ D） It has got its name from a special art. （ A） Priests and worshipers. （ B） Some non-human entities. （ C） Kings and knights. （ D） Successful businessmen. （ A） Because mankind is
5、 always in search of fame. （ B） Because mankind is greedy for gold and youth. （ C） Because mankind is always after forbidden knowledge. （ D） Because mankind believes that they can achieve everything. （ A） The narrative spirals towards the hidden truth. （ B） The narrative directly reveals the truth.
6、（ C） The narrator is often a third-person narrator. （ D） The narrator often hides his own secrets. Section B （ A） It advocates tilling the fields before planting. （ B） It is a long-held farming practice. （ C） It is economical. （ D） It requires less manpower. （ A） They perfectly go with the law of na
7、ture. （ B） They promote planting the same crop every year. （ C） They can make the soil become damaged. （ D） They can keep the soil full of nutrition. （ A） It is not meant to be harvested. （ B） It needs little fertilizer. （ C） It can keep the main crop warm. （ D） It can be harvested in off-season. （
8、A） A second or two at most. （ B） Two seconds or three at most. （ C） Four seconds at most. （ D） Eight seconds at most. （ A） Englishmen began to feel unsettled when a silence in talk stretched to 8.2 seconds. （ B） Englishmen began to feel unsettled when a silence in talk stretched to 4 seconds. （ C） J
9、apanese people can bear the longest silence in talk in the world. （ D） Japanese people cannot bear long silences in business conferences. （ A） Colonial America was a place of different peoples in history. （ B） Americans are eager to build mutual understanding quickly. （ C） Colonial Americans needed
10、to clear the differences among them. （ D） Americans lack the patience to wait for others to ponder. （ A） With people you have not met before. （ B） With people having the same culture background. （ C） With people having the same interest. （ D） With people you are familiar with. Section C （ A） It caus
11、es type 1 diabetes. （ B） It causes type 2 diabetes. （ C） It is a compound. （ D） It controls blood sugar levels. （ A） It can cause people to become obese. （ B） It can damage the kidneys and upset the stomach. （ C） It can damage the eyes and cause strokes. （ D） It can cause sudden heart attacks. （ A）
12、Broccoli is not the alternative of metformin. （ B） Just eating broccoli is not enough to prevent or treat diabetes. （ C） Pills are still the only choice of treating diabetes. （ D） Eating two kilograms of broccoli every day can treat diabetes. （ A） They emphasize technology. （ B） They emphasize perso
13、nal connections. （ C） They emphasize practical skills. （ D） They emphasize teamwork. （ A） Low-wage workers in the United States. （ B） For-profit groups in the US and Europe. （ C） Non-profit groups in the US and Europe. （ D） Low-income workers in the service industry. （ A） From the government. （ B） F
14、rom charity organizations. （ C） From domestic workers. （ D） From sponsors. （ A） About 500. （ B） About 1,000. （ C） Over 500. （ D） Less than 1,000. （ A） 299-to-l. （ B） 271-to-l. （ C） 59-to-l. （ D） 20-to-l. （ A） The concerns of low- and middle-income workers. （ B） The concerns of high-income workers. （
15、 C） The situation of domestic economy. （ D） The situation of job market. （ A） By reducing the number of low-paying jobs. （ B） By increasing peoples sense of happiness. （ C） By increasing the buying power of people. （ D） By balancing income levels. Section A 26 House dust amounts of just three microg
16、rams were shown to affect the cells far lower than the mass of dust children are exposed to daily. Small amounts of house dust containing compounds of environmental【 C1】 _could be playing a role in the growth of fat cells. Researchers from the American Chemical Society have found that compounds call
17、ed endocrine-disrupting chemicals(EDCs)found in house dust can【 C2】 _fat cells to accumulate more fat. In the study, fat cells accumulated an【 C3】 _type of fat called triglycerides as a result of house dust being added to the lab petri dishes. EDCs are synthetic or【 C4】 _occurring compounds that can
18、 replicate the bodys hormones. Evidence from animal studies has also suggested that early life【 C5】_to some EDCs can cause weight gain in later life. EDCs are commonly found in consumer goods and eventually end up in indoor dust. House dust is then【 C6】 _, ingested and absorbed through the skin. An【
19、 C7】 _50 milligrams accumulated house dust is consumed every day by children, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. The researchers collected samples of indoor dust from 11 homes in North Carolina. Extracts from seven of the 11 dust samples triggered the fat cells to【 C8】 _into mature
20、 fat cells and accumulate triglycerides. Only one of the dust samples had no effect. In nine of the samples, the house dust spurred the cells to【 C9】 _and by doing so, create a larger pool of precursor fat cells. The fat cells used in the study were mouse cell models which are frequently used to tes
21、t compounds for【 C10】 _effects on the accumulation of the triglyceride fats. In one of the 44 house dust contaminants tested, a substance commonly found in plastics was found to have the strongest fat-producing effects. A)additional I)inhaled B)artificially J)naturally C)connection K)pollutants D)de
22、velop L)positive E)divide M)potential F)estimated N)spur G)exhaled O)stir H)exposure 27 【 C1】 28 【 C2】 29 【 C3】 30 【 C4】 31 【 C5】 32 【 C6】 33 【 C7】 34 【 C8】 35 【 C9】 36 【 C10】 Section B 36 Now Were Talking: How Voice Technology Is Transforming Computing A Like casting a magic spell, it lets people c
23、ontrol the world through words alone. Any sufficiently advanced technology, noted Arthur C. Clarke, a British science-fiction writer, is indistinguishable from magic. The fast-emerging technology of voice computing proves his point. Using it is just like casting a spell: say a few words into the air
24、, and a nearby device can grant your wish. B The Amazon Echo, a voice-driven cylindrical(圆柱体的 )computer that sits on a table top and answers to the name Alexa, can call up music tracks and radio stations, tell jokes, answer trivia questions and control smart appliances: even before Christmas it was
25、already resident in about 4% of American households. Voice assistants are proliferating in smartphones, too: Apples Siri handles over 2bn commands a week, and 20% of Google searches on Android-powered handsets in America are input by voice. Dictating emails and text messages now works reliably enoug
26、h to be useful. Why type when you can talk? C This is a huge shift. Simple though it may seem, voice has the power to transform computing, by providing a natural means of interaction. Windows, icons and menus, and then touchscreens, were welcomed as more intuitive ways to deal with computers than en
27、tering complex keyboard commands. But being able to talk to computers abolishes the need for the abstraction of a “user interface“ at all. Just as mobile phones were more than existing phones without wires, and cars were more than carriages without horses, so computers without screens and keyboards
28、have the potential to be more useful, powerful and ubiquitous than people can imagine today. D Voice will not wholly replace other forms of input and output. Sometimes it will remain more convenient to converse with a machine by typing rather than talking(Amazon is said to be working on an Echo devi
29、ce with a built-in screen). But voice is destined to account for a growing share of peoples interactions with the technology around them, from washing machines that tell you how much of the cycle they have left to virtual assistants in corporate call-centers. However, to reach its full potential, th
30、e technology requires further breakthroughs and a resolution of the tricky questions it raises around the trade-off between convenience and privacy. E Alexa, what is deep learning? Computer-dictation systems have been around for years. But they were unreliable and required lengthy training to learn
31、a specific users voice. Computers new ability to recognize almost anyones speech dependably without training is the latest manifestation of the power of “ deep learning“ , an artificial-intelligence technique in which a software system is trained using millions of examples, usually culled(挑选 )from t
32、he internet. Thanks to deep learning, machines now nearly equal humans in transcription accuracy, computerized translation systems are improving rapidly and text-to-speech systems are becoming less robotic and more natural-sounding. Computers are, in short, getting much better at handling natural la
33、nguage in all its forms. F Although deep learning means that machines can recognize speech more reliably and talk in a less stilted(不自然的 )manner, they still dont understand the meaning of language. That is the most difficult aspect of the problem and, if voice-driven computing is truly to flourish,
34、one that must be overcome. Computers must be able to understand context in order to maintain a coherent conversation about something, rather than just responding to simple, one-off voice commands, as they mostly do today(“Hey, Siri, set a timer for ten minutes“). Researchers in universities and at c
35、ompanies large and small are working on this very problem, building “bots“ that can hold more elaborate conversations about more complex tasks, from retrieving information to advising on mortgages to making travel arrangements.(Amazon is offering a $ 1m prize for a bot that can converse “coherently
36、and engagingly“ for 20 minutes.) G When spells replace spelling. Consumers and regulators also have a role to play in deterrnining how voice computing develops. Even in its current, relatively primitive form, the technology poses a dilemma: voice-driven systems are most useful when they are personal
37、ized, and are granted wide access to sources of data such as calendars, emails and other sensitive information. That raises privacy and security concerns. H To further complicate matters, many voice-driven devices are always listening, waiting to be activated. Some people are already concerned about
38、 the implications of internet-connected microphones listening in every room and from every smartphone. Not all audio is sent to the cloud devices wait for a trigger phrase(“Alexa“ , “OK, Google“ , “Hey, Cortana“ , or “Hey, Siri“)before they start relaying the users voice to the servers that actually
39、 handle the requests but when it comes to storing audio, it is unclear who keeps what and when. I Police investigating a murder in Arkansas, which may have been overheard by an Amazon Echo, have asked the company for access to any audio that might have been captured. Amazon has refused to cooperate
40、, arguing(with the backing of privacy advocates)that the legal status of such requests is unclear. The situation is analogous(相似 )to Apples refusal in 2016 to help FBI investigators unlock a terrorists iPhone: both cases highlight the need for rules that specify when and what intrusions into persona
41、l privacy are justified in the interests of security. J Consumers will adopt voice computing even if such issues remain unresolved. In many situations voice is far more convenient and natural than any other means of communication. Uniquely, it can also be used while doing something else(driving, wor
42、king out or walking down the street). It can extend the power of computing to people unable, for one reason or another, to use screens and keyboards. And it could have a dramatic impact not just on computing, but on the use of language itself. Computerized simultaneous translation could render the n
43、eed to speak a foreign language irrelevant for many people: and in a world where machines can talk, minor languages may be more likely to survive. The arrival of the touchscreen was the last big shift in the way humans interact with computers. The leap to speech matters more. 37 Despite the issue of
44、 invasion of privacy, voice-computings irresistible convenience is already receiving wide adoption. 38 Conventional forms of input and output will not be entirely replaced by voice command. 39 Deep learning revolutionizes speech technologies, enabling computers to process any natural language. 40 Sc
45、reens and keyboards of computers are not necessarily indispensable because of the invention of voice computing. 41 Deep learning has real successes, but is not enough to understand the meaning of language. 42 The convenience brought by voice computing can come at a risk of privacy or security. 43 La
46、ws that apply to privacy and security issues for voice technology are needed in light of the two cases in America. 44 Despite its simple appearance, voice is capable of changing computing, by bypassing the physical realm. 45 Thanks to voice computing, several devices such as smartphones have already
47、 done some tasks by voice orders. 46 To fully explore the potential of voice technology, more things need to be done to tackle the gaps between convenience and privacy. Section C 46 Business cards have been around a long time in one form or another. The Chinese invented calling cards in the 15th cen
48、tury to give people notice that they intended to visit. European merchants invented trade cards in the 17th century to act as miniature advertisements. Lots of companies try to turn their cards into miniature plugs for their products. Employees at Lego give out miniature plastic figures with their c
49、ontact details stamped on them. McDonalds business cards are shaped like a portion of fries. A Canadian divorce lawyer once gave out cards that can be torn in two one half for each of the feuding spouses. Such tricks can quickly pall. For techno-utopians, they just go to show that the physical business card is in its death throes(垂死挣扎 ). After all, why bother exchanging bits of thick paper at all when you can simply swap electronic versions by smartphone? However, one can just as well argue the
