1、大学英语六级（ 2013年 12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷 82及答案与解析 一、 Part I Writing 1 For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on the remark “Silence is gold.“ You can cite examples to illustrate your point. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words. Section A （ A） Having a de
2、ep sea tour. （ B） Watching a teaching video. （ C） Talking with a marine biologist. （ D） Learning something about ocean geography. （ A） It is more expensive to take a train to Ohio. （ B） Flying to Ohio cant save the woman much time. （ C） The woman has decided to fly to Ohio. （ D） The woman cant make
3、the decision how to go to Ohio. （ A） An English teacher always likes reading. （ B） Prof. Strong needs a CD. （ C） Prof. Strong doesnt like poetry anymore. （ D） A CD will be a better present. （ A） He is working in the Sun Valley Health Center. （ B） He is at work at the present moment. （ C） He doesnt w
4、ant to answer the mans phone. （ D） He is the womans boss. （ A） The man feels exhausted after flying. （ B） The man is excited about their hotel. （ C） The woman hurt her arm on the trip. （ D） The woman is satisfied with the room. （ A） The man will fail the exam. （ B） The man is unable to hand in his p
5、apers. （ C） The woman is very strict. （ D） The woman will give students final scores. （ A） Paying the doctor for his wifes operation fee. （ B） Having a talk with the doctor about his wifes operation. （ C） Asking the doctor to do the operation for his wife. （ D） Trying to know his wifes illness in de
6、tail. （ A） They are too late to catch the train. （ B） The train will leave in 25 minutes. （ C） They should set out right now. （ D） It will take them 30 minutes to get to the railway station. （ A） Hosting a TV program. （ B） Introducing a famous doctor. （ C） Commenting on allergies. （ D） Making a perf
7、ormance. （ A） By getting allergy shots extracted from honey. （ B） By supplementing honey-made food. （ C） By having local honey daily. （ D） By taking honey-made pills. （ A） Add peaches and apples to your diet. （ B） Cook with onions and garlic. （ C） Reduce the amount of vinegar. （ D） Have more fruits
8、enriched with Vitamin C. （ A） Mix it with cold water. （ B） Drain it through both nostrils. （ C） Do it over a sink. （ D） Have three-year-old kids do it. （ A） It aims at evaluating the ability of a candidate to handle stress. （ B） It demotivates candidates by creating a master-servant situation. （ C）
9、It is deliberately planned and usually warns interviewees beforehand. （ D） It is regarded as an unnecessary tool for assessment. （ A） Be cheerful even when you are provoked. （ B） Never seem to be nervous. （ C） Try to win debating points. （ D） Never say “I dont know. “ （ A） Make sure if the company i
10、s the one you want to work for. （ B） Respond with a smile and show your sense of humor. （ C） Confess your ignorance or frustration straightaway. （ D） Maintain eye contact with the interviewer and answer briefly. Section B （ A） It was a small town famous for its palm trees. （ B） It was crowded with s
11、heep and cattle. （ C） It had a small population at that time. （ D） It was a major harbour of the Gulf of Mexico. （ A） They were transported from Asia. （ B） They were made from natural rubber. （ C） They were pretty costly. （ D） They were rather durable. （ A） Most of his inventions were invented in Fo
12、rt Myers. （ B） He successfully developed artificial rubber. （ C） He made Fort Myers into a famous city. （ D） He was keen on natural plants. （ A） The law trying to protect pregnant women in the workplace has passed more 40 years. （ B） The law can keep pregnant women from being discriminated in the wo
13、rkplace. （ C） The law has had clearer guidelines to protect pregnant women in the workplace. （ D） The law needs to be combated with publicity to let more people know. （ A） Problems like firing, forced leave without pay had been solved. （ B） Discrimination still existed. （ C） There were not employers
14、 who still didnt understand the basics. （ D） A Houston mothers appeal had been supported by a federal judge. （ A） The EEOC helped the pregnant against employers. （ B） The pregnant cannot understand employers. （ C） The overlapping of laws and rules causes it. （ D） The employers discrimination causes
15、it. （ A） A person s gender and health. （ B） A persons age and income. （ C） A person s hobby and height. （ D） A persons political believe and emotions. （ A） They were asked to examine some commonly worn shoes. （ B） They were requested to fill out a personality questionnaire. （ C） They were asked to b
16、e interviewed by a fashion designer. （ D） They were told to wear their favorite shoes. （ A） Out-going people like ankle boots. （ B） Amiable people enjoy uncomfortable shoes. （ C） Aggressive people love wired-looking shoes. （ D） High-income people choose expensive shoes. （ A） They care too much about
17、 their appearance. （ B） They are addict to buying new shoes. （ C） They are sticklers for perfection. （ D） They pursue high-quality life. Section C 26 A British study has found that B vitamins can reduce brain shrinkage in older people with mild memory loss. It【 B1】 _that B vitamins caused an average
18、 1/3 reduction in brain shrinkage among adults who had trouble remembering. David Smith was a leader of the study. He【 B2】 _the use of the vitamins as simple and safe. He also said researchers do not yet know if B vitamins could【 B3】 _or slow Alzheimers disease(老年痴呆症 ). Vitamins are important for go
19、od health. These complex organic substances help to【 B4】 _chemical changes within cells. If we do not get enough of the vitamins we need in our food, we are at risk of developing【 B5】 _diseases. Some shrinkage of the brain is thought to happen【 B6】 _as people grow older. Yet studies have shown a cor
20、relation between a larger shrinkage and Alzheimers disease. The researchers say about one in six people over the age of 70 have problems with mental operations. They say half of these people【 B7】 _serious loss of mental ability, as in Alzheimers disease. Over time, the disease robs people of their m
21、emories. Finally, it【 B8】 _their ability to care for themselves. Prof. Smith had a warning for older adults worried about memory loss. He said they should talk to their doctors before starting to take the vitamins. He added that the vitamins could speed the【 B9】 _of some cancers. The results did not
22、 show a difference in loss of abilities such as【 B10】 _, language and memory. That was true whether or not the people took the vitamins. 27 【 B1】 28 【 B2】 29 【 B3】 30 【 B4】 31 【 B5】 32 【 B6】 33 【 B7】 34 【 B8】 35 【 B9】 36 【 B10】 Section A 36 Its the bedtime ritual every parent dreads being asked to r
23、ead the same book for the umpteenth(无数次的 )time. But while the constant repetition might be mind-numbing for mum or dad, it is the best way for toddlers to learn new words, according to research. The findings suggest parents are wasting money by spending a【 C1】 _on huge book collections in the hope t
24、hey will【 C2】 _their little ones. Instead, a small selection of favorites such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar or The Gruffalo will achieve far more. Dr. Jessica Horst, of the University of Sussexs Word Lab【 C3】 _an experiment to check how【 C4】 _three-year-olds could recognize and recall six new word
25、s. The children were visited three times in a week at their homes. One group heard the same story three times in a row each time and another was read three different stories. All had the same amount of new words which appeared the same number of times. When researchers returned a week later, they fo
26、und the children who heard the same story over and over had【 C5】 _learned 3.6 of the new words. Those that were exposed to a【 C6】 _of stories remembered only 2.6. They also noted the “repetition“ group learned at a【 C7】 _rate than those in the “diversity“ group. Dr. Horst said:“We are showing that l
27、ess is more, to a point. Obviously, the more times you read to a child and the more books you have will help them. But you dont need to go【 C8】 _and buy every single Thomas the Tank Engine book. Reading the same books over and over again helps. “ Previous studies have found parents spend just 49 min
28、utes doing things with their children each day. One in three dont read to their children before【 C9】 _them to bed at night. Yet 30 minutes of one-on-one【 C10】 _sessions can improve reading age by nearly two years in less than five months. A)competence F)faster K)obliged B)crazy G)fortune L)putting C
29、)declining H)inspire M)quickly D)definitely I)literacy N)typically E)devised J)lower O)variety 37 【 C1】 38 【 C2】 39 【 C3】 40 【 C4】 41 【 C5】 42 【 C6】 43 【 C7】 44 【 C8】 45 【 C9】 46 【 C10】 Section B 46 Paying for Nature A)How much are the birds of heaven worth? How about the lilies of the field? Or cle
30、an air and water, verdant forests and untouched grassland, healthy coral reefs and lush mangroves? By the environmentalists accounting, theyre invaluable because nature has a worth all its own. But to business, untouched nature typically hasnt had a value at least not one that could be put in a ledg
31、er. B)Until now. Many greens and a growing chorus of corporate suits are arguing that nature in its own right provides economically valuable services that underpin(巩固 )business. A virgin forest is pleasant to look at, of course, but it also prevents soil erosion and improves water quality at no cost
32、 valuable if you happen to own a beverage plant downstream that depends on clean water. That same forest might provide a habitat for bees, which can pollinate(授粉 )plants in surrounding cropland a vital function if you run a coffee plantation nearby. By this reckoning, nature provides “ecosystem serv
33、ices“ whose benefits for business are increasingly measurable in hard, cold dollar figures. “All the things that nature does for us fuel our prosperity,“ says Peter Kareiva, chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy(TNC), a Washington-based environmental group. C)Until recently, the concept of ecos
34、ystem services was mentioned only in obscure scientific journals, the province of a few ecologists trying to figure out the dollar value of the atmosphere. But the threat of government action on carbon emissions, insistent shareholder pressure on green issues and growing concern over limited natural
35、 resources have prompted an increasing number of companies to examine their ecological numbers just as closely as they would any other part of their balance sheets. Last month, Dow Chemical took the trend to a new level, announcing a five-year, $ 10 million collaboration with TNC to eventually tally
36、 up the ecosystem costs and benefits of every business decision. The Michigan-headquartered company will look to make environmental factors part of its profit-and-loss statements a move that could signal to other companies that nature can no longer be ignored. “Our planets natural resources are more
37、 and more under threat,“ says Dow CEO Andrew Liveris. “But protecting nature can be a profitable corporate priority and a smart global business strategy. “ D)Historically, conservationists and corporations were usually on opposite sides of the environmental debate, and few greens wanted to see the n
38、ature they loved tainted by consideration of dollar figures. Yet as climate change emerged as a concern in the 1990s and, with it, the accounting of carbon dioxide emissions even the deepest green began to understand that natures value would really be understood only once it was quantified. A 1997 s
39、tudy in the journal Nature attempted to estimate the value of the planets ecosystem services: forests and oceans, air and climate regulation, even cultural and recreational benefits. The researchers came up with a very rough figure of $33 trillion nearly twice the global gross national product at th
40、e time. The Flowers of the Forest E)More recently, scientists working for the UNs Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and a just published study, “The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity,“ have drilled down to find hard numbers on specific natural services. Scientists from the World Wildlife Fund(W
41、WF)looked at a coffee plantation in Costa Rica and found that flowers near forests received twice as many bee visits and twice as much pollen as flowers far from trees meaning that extra bee pollination was worth an additional $62 000 a year, or 7% of the farms income. Razing those trees to allow ca
42、ttle grazing would earn only $ 24 000 a year. “Theres a library of similar case studies that show the economic impact of nature conservation,“ says Taylor Ricketts, WWFs director of conservation science. “We only value something when we measure it. “ F)Dow and TNC have already been involved in a sma
43、ller ecosystem-services project in Sao Paulo, which helped lay the groundwork for their new partnership. Some 9 million people in the city get their drinking water from the nearby Cantareira system in Brazils Atlantic Forest. The forest has been under pressure from logging, agriculture and ranching
44、for decades, and the resulting deforestation harms both water quality and the wildlife that depends on the forest. So Dow donated $1.5 million through its charitable foundation to support a joint effort with TNC and Sao Paulo water utilities to restore 865 acres of forest surrounding the Cachoeira r
45、eservoir. Not only will that money protect biodiversity, generate carbon credits and create green jobs for locals living near Cachoeira, but it should also cut the amount of sediment(沉淀物 )flowing into the water system by over 60 %. That will benefit people and businesses in Sao Paulo including Dow.
46、G)The details of the larger collaboration between TNC and Dow are still being worked out, but Dow will donate $ 10 million to TNC over the next five years. In exchange, TNC scientists will apply scientific models, biodiversity analysis and ecosystem services estimates to assess Dows business decisio
47、ns. If Dow decides to build or expand a plant, TNC will be able to advise the company about the economic value of the ecosystem impacts of those plans, positive and negative. The partnership will begin with pilot programs at three Dow manufacturing plants at least one of which will be in the USbut t
48、he ultimate aim is to make ecosystem services an essential part of Dows entire business model. Numbers are hard to come by, in part because the collaboration is meant to generate fresh data on ecosystem services, but Liveris sees that $ 10 million as an investment in Dows future one he expects will
49、pay off by preparing the company for the prospect of tighter environmental regulations and scarcer natural resources. “I think that in 10 years well look back and wonder why we didnt do this earlier,“ he says. H)The Dow-TNC collaboration is just the latest piece of business news to suggest that environmental responsibility and corporate success arent always opposed. In 2007, Goldman Sachs released a landmark report showin
