1、大学英语六级（ 2013年 12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷 260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 social skills. Your essay should include the importance of social skills and measures to be taken to cultivate social skills. You are required to write at least 150 words bu
2、t no more than 200 words. Section A （ A） The woman is a professor. （ B） The woman is the Deans assistant. （ C） The man is a senior student. （ D） The man is in big trouble. （ A） His qualification for graduation. （ B） The old curriculum requirements. （ C） His credits of optional courses. （ D） The reas
3、on for changing the curriculum. （ A） It has nothing to do with the mans major. （ B） It is worthwhile to take the course. （ C） It is too difficult for the man to pass. （ D） It is a new course added to the curriculum. （ A） Ask for professional advice from his seminar. （ B） Take one or two seminars bef
4、ore graduation. （ C） Turn to his teacher for filling instruction. （ D） Talk to someone from the Deans office. （ A） The weather condition of an airport. （ B） The flow control of an airport. （ C） The efficiency of an airport tower. （ D） The number of planes at an airport. （ A） He might not use the fre
5、e-trip voucher during the next flight. （ B） He might not get the cash the airline promised to pay. （ C） He might not get on board even with confirmed reservation. （ D） He might not be guaranteed a seat on the next flight in advance. （ A） Because airlines computer systems sell tickets randomly. （ B）
6、Because airline clerks promote less popular flights. （ C） Because people are encouraged by their fellows. （ D） Because people are attracted by the lower price. （ A） Choose big airports. （ B） Do not take luggage. （ C） Carry no more than two bags. （ D） Take only carry-on luggage. Section B （ A） Becaus
7、e it is the main language of business. （ B） Because it is widely used in the world. （ C） Because it is the mother tongue of Shakespeare. （ D） Because it is accepted as the Internet language. （ A） To motivate people to learn other languages. （ B） To celebrate multilingualism and different cultures. （
8、 C） To accelerate the progression of globalization. （ D） To promote different cultures around the world. （ A） The official world languages. （ B） TOEFL program. （ C） Shakespeares birthday. （ D） English Language Day. （ A） They are shrinking fast. （ B） They are growing fast. （ C） They depend on tourism
9、. （ D） They depend on gold exports. （ A） It has been shrinking. （ B） It depends on import. （ C） It has been local. （ D） It relies on the government. （ A） Reform land markets and regulations. （ B） Reform trade patterns. （ C） Attract foreign investments. （ D） Find more tradable goods. （ A） To build a
10、sustainable urban space. （ B） To accelerate economic growth. （ C） To make a beautiful urban space. （ D） To make the most of natural resources. Section C （ A） To make sure that they have a clear goal. （ B） To assist them in choosing a suitable college. （ C） To identify whether they should go to colle
11、ge to study further. （ D） To help them decide whether to go to college and what to study. （ A） Take some form of standardized test. （ B） Get a certificate of their language level. （ C） Apply for a visa in advance. （ D） Send in their resume and a cover letter. （ A） The adaptation process. （ B） The di
12、fficult courses. （ C） The tuition fee. （ D） The study-life balance. （ A） It sells fresh vegetables and fruits to city dwellers. （ B） It endeavors to reduce Nigerias dependence on food imports. （ C） It focuses on growing healthy and green vegetables. （ D） It aims at health conscious people all over t
13、he country. （ A） Measuring water consumption. （ B） Measuring energy use. （ C） Collecting household waste. （ D） Reading bar codes. （ A） It is experiencing a recession. （ B） It is now rather stable. （ C） It depends on technology. （ D） It supports state-owned business. （ A） They can be as successful as
14、 him. （ B） They are rather energetic. （ C） They are rather promising. （ D） They need support from the world. （ A） Workers must obey the growing order of plants. （ B） Workers can control the plants growing speed. （ C） Plants are grown in sands. （ D） Plants are grown indoors. （ A） It grows crops at th
15、e same rate throughout the year. （ B） It is a newly established indoor-farming company. （ C） It is now growing 250 kinds of greens and herbs. （ D） It needs more water to grow crops. （ A） The number of calories. （ B） The nutrition levels. （ C） The different flavours. （ D） The cooking methods. Section
16、 A 26 As the recent courgette(密生西葫芦 )crisis and shortages of lettuce, eggplants and broccoli(绿花椰菜 )have shown, Spains fame as the vegetable garden of Europe is well deserved. The countrys huge agricultural sector courgettes, lettuces, tomatoes and strawberries 【 C1】 _a huge demand. There has been a
17、major【 C2】 _towards mechanisation since the 1950s, but just as in the UK, many crops still need to be harvested by hand, and many farmers rely on migrant labour. Even where mechanisation can be used, picking machines tend to be too expensive and【 C3】 _for small-scale farmers. The tension between loc
18、als and migrant workers,【 C4】 _from North and Sub-Saharan Africa and eastern Europe is not a big problem, as many of the foreign workers have proper【 C5】 _and return to the same farms year after year. Theyre known and thats important. Alfrut a company in the south-western province of Huelva that exp
19、orts strawberries, raspberries, and other fruits around the EU still harvests by hand. “ There is a machine that gathers strawberries, but you have to【 C6】 _the crop to the machine,“ says Agustin Muriel, a technical and quality control expert at Alfrut. “ If we were to use machines, we would have to
20、【 C7】 _our entire infrastructure and it would require a lot of investment in machinery, which is designed mainly for large areas and really big companies. “ He adds that the【 C8】 _, manual approach is likely to continue for the【 C9】_future, as fruit prices arent high enough to allow farmers to make
21、big【 C10】_in machinery or spend money reconfiguring(重新配置 )their operations. A)adapt I)investments B)attach J)modify C)contracts K)predominantly D)feeds L)preference E)foreseeable M)shift F)heralds N)traditional G)impractical O)unexpectedly H)inaccessible 27 【 C1】 28 【 C2】 29 【 C3】 30 【 C4】 31 【 C5】
22、32 【 C6】 33 【 C7】 34 【 C8】 35 【 C9】 36 【 C10】 Section B 36 Is Nutritious Food Really Pricier, and, If so, Is That Really the Problem? A Nobody disagrees: We Americans eat badly. We eat too many calories, too much highly processed food and not nearly enough vegetables. Why is that? Ask the question,
23、and you get a lot of answers, which is appropriate for a matter as complex as a countrys diet. But one of the answers that bubbles to the top almost every time is that nutritious food just costs more. Does it? There are two relevant questions here. The first is empirical: Is healthful food more expe
24、nsive? The second is behavioral: Is cost what stands between people and a better diet? B By one very straightforward measure, healthful eating does indeed cost more. If you look at cost per calorie, nutrient-dense vegetables and fruits cost far more, on average, than the ubiquitous(普遍存在的 ), nutritio
25、n-sparse sources of calories: refined grains(细粮 ), sugar and vegetable oil. C The fact that vegetables are, on average, more expensive than, say, Doritos doesnt mean you have to abandon the idea of healthful eating and head for the snack food aisle. Sugar-snap peas and asparagus may bring up the ave
26、rage price of produce, but there are inexpensive calories in the category, too. Think sweet potatoes. D An ordinary supermarket offers a variety of affordably priced calories to meet the daunting challenge of making your daily menu come in at under $ 4 per person, the average benefit under the Suppl
27、emental Nutrition Assistance Program, informally referred to as food stamps. Sure enough, there are the usual suspects: the processed foods that are a microwave away from being a meal. Similarly, there was a frozen burrito(玉米煎饼 )for 14 cents, canned beef ravioli for 17 cents and hot dogs for 10 cent
28、s. But the rock-bottom-cheapest meal option was instant ramen, at 6 cents, a price point so irresistible that I almost bought some. As inexpensive as it is, ramen isnt the cheapest source of calories at the grocery store. That honor belongs to all-purpose flour and vegetable oil, both of which cost
29、all of 2 cents per 100 calories. E No matter how cheap the processed foods are, the raw materials that go into them are even cheaper. And, if those raw materials are so very cheap for us, imagine how cheap they are for Kraft. So cheap that the company can manufacture a food out of them, box it, ship
30、 it and market it, and still sell it for pennies. Even so, you almost always do better, cost-wise, when you buy the ingredients and cook them yourself, which is one of the reasons that upgrading to a decent diet may cost less than you think. A 2013 review of studies quantifying the price of a health
31、ful vs. unhealthful diet found that the healthful version cost $ 1.48 more per person, per day. F Although $ 1.48 doesnt sound like enough to make much difference in the quality of your diet, it can buy a variety of cheap, nutritious staples: peanut butter, whole-grain pasta, whole-wheat flour, eggs
32、 , rolled oats, pearled barley, corn flour, brown rice, dried black beans and unpopped popcorn. G In that list, we find the crux of the issue. The healthful meals you can make at a price point that competes with ramen are anchored by rice, beans and whole grains. And, if you have time and skill, you
33、 can combine those with foods that cost a bit more, such as chicken thighs(13 cents), sweet potatoes(38 cents), carrots(30 cents), frozen corn(25 cents), walnuts(30 cents), yogurt(36 cents)or frozen broccoli(63 cents), and eat pretty well for under $4 per day. H Before we go on, lets spend a moment
34、on subsidies. Although farm subsidies have certainly had an impact on the price of staples, that impact is dwarfed by the inherent costs of growing crops as different as corn and broccoli. In that particular case, broccoli costs 50 times what corn does to grow. Its also important to note that the sa
35、me commodity programs that affect corn and soy subsidize rolled oats， pearled barley, lentils, peanut butter and whole-wheat bread. Although Im in favor of revamping(修改 )those programs, they cant shoulder all the blame for ramen. I Back to our dinner of chicken, carrots and black beans, and to the s
36、ingle parent, on a very limited budget, who has the challenge of trying to carve out the time to make it, only to have her kids complain that what they really want is instant ramen. J Adam Drewnowski, director of the University of Washingtons Center, tells me in an email, “Obesity is almost entirely
37、 an economic issue, and the higher cost of healthier foods is the main problem,“ but he acknowledges that factors other than money come into play. He mentions two in particular: skill and time, which can feed you well if money is in short supply. K So, sure, its possible to make a healthful dinner o
38、n a SNAP budget, but the other resources required time and skill may be in short supply as well. Tonja Nansel, a senior investigator at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, points out that, if cost were the major barrier, wed expect higher-income group
39、s to eat much better than lower-income groups. “The difference in diet quality isnt that big,“ says Nansel, although its hard to determine exactly what the difference is because of the limitations of data based on peoples ability to remember what they ate yesterday. A 2013 study that attempted to qu
40、antify that difference found that the lowest-income group did indeed eat less-nutritious diets than the wealthiest group, but if you compare the lowest with the next group up, the diets are extremely similar. Its not until you get to five times the poverty level that diets improve, and even then its
41、 not a big jump. If cost were the primary driver of poor diets, wed expect a significant income boost to correspond to a significant improvement in diet, particularly since a meaningful improvement can be had for $ 1.48 per day. L Nobody Ive talked to disputes that cost is an issue. Likewise, nobody
42、 disputes that convenience and preference are also issues. But its hard to say whats most important. “ Most people prefer the taste of ramen to brown rice. They prefer chips to kale,“ says Nansel. “The fact that we would rather not have to look at some of those other reasons is part of reason cost g
43、ets so much traction. “ Food isnt just nutrition. Food is pleasure, something very-low-income people have very few sources of, says Nansel. That doesnt mean we shouldnt tackle cost at a policy level, she adds. “ If we can make healthful food more affordable and accessible, we ought to. “ M Looking a
44、t cost as a barrier to eating well is much more comfortable than looking at preference, which smacks of blaming the victim. The idea that our lousy diet was perpetrated on us, with the poor as the most vulnerable, gets around that problem. But until we acknowledge that we rich and poor are complicit
45、 in our food supply, that we help shape it every time we buy food we want to eat, were unlikely to improve it. 37 A study indicates that no significant price differences were seen between nutritious diet and unwholesome one. 38 According to one expert, the differences in diet quality between the ric
46、h and the poor are not as obvious as expected. 39 Compared with the farm subsidies, the built-in costs of growing crops have a bigger impact on the price of staples. 40 For the poor, food can bring satisfaction and a sense of pleasure in addition to nutrition. 41 Its easier to blame on costs and oth
47、er external factors than on our own preference on food for our unhealthy diet. 42 Its generally thought that the main reason for the Americans unhealthy eating habits is the cost of nutritious food. 43 No food is cheaper than all-purpose flour and vegetable oil as sources of calories in a common sup
48、ermarket. 44 One expert claimed that higher cost of healthier foods was the leading reason of obesity, but it can be compensated by skill and time. 45 When taking time to cook despite a busy schedule, a single mom probably will find her kids would rather eat instant ramen. 46 Having time and cooking
49、 skill, one could enjoy a wholesome meal on a very limited budget. Section C 46 Amazon said it will cut prices on a range of popular goods as it completes its acquisition of Whole Foods, sending shares of rival grocers tumbling(跌倒，暴跌 )on fears that brutal market share battles will intensify. Amazons $ 13. 7 billion purchase of Whole Foods, which will be completed on Monday, has been hanging over a brick-and-mortar(有实体的 )retail sector unsure of how to respond to
