1、大学英语六级（快速阅读）模拟试卷 1及答案与解析 一、 Part II Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes) Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions attached to the passage. For questions 1-4, mark： Y (for YES) if the statement agrees with the inf
2、ormation given in the passage; N (for NO) if the statement contradicts the information given in the passage; NG (for NOT GIVEN) if the information is not given in the passage. 0 The Emerging Online Giants They may not have the name recognition of a Google or a Yahoo!. but they can claim to belong in
3、 the same league. The websites of Digital Sky Technologies (DST) account for more than 70% of page-views on the Russian-language Internet. Naspers is Africas biggest media group, both offline and online. And Tencent is Chinas largest Internet company by market capitalization and the third-largest in
4、 the world. Now these firms are increasingly making their presence felt beyond their home markets. Between them they have invested in dozens of Internet firms around the globe. The most adventurous of the three, DST, has already moved west and paid top dollar for stakes in fast-growing American comp
5、anies, notably Facebook, the worlds biggest social network. At first glance the three firms could not look more different. DST was created in 2005 when two Russian Internet investors, Yuri Milner and Gregory Finger, pooled their interests in mail. ru, a Russian web portal (门户网站 ) .Today the firm con
6、trols many of the countrys leading websites and boasts an interesting mix of owners, including Goldman Sachs and Alisher Usmanov, a Russian billionaire, who holds 27% . Based in Cape Town, Naspers is nearly 100 years old and is the publisher of the Daily Sun, South Africas biggest newspaper. But it
7、is one of the most ambitious old-media companies anywhere in its move online. It still makes most of its sales 28 billion rand ( $ 3. 6 billion) in the year to March from print and pay-television, but it uses the cash to buy online firms. Tencent hails from Shenzhen, near Hong Kong. Founded in 1998,
8、 it had revenues of $ 1. 8 billion in 2009. Although best known for QQ, a popular instant-messaging service with 567 million users, much of its profits come from online games and a virtual currency, called Q coins. Users purchase this with real money and use it to buy digital wares, such as virtual
9、weapons to increase the powers of their avatars. Despite their differences, the three firms can be seen as a block. For one thing, they are financially intertwined. Naspers owns part of mail, ru and was an early investor in Tencent, of which it now holds 35%. In April Tencent invested $ 300m in DST,
10、 giving it a stake of more than 10% and DST a valuation of about $3 billion. Tencent also has an interest in the Indian arm of MIH, Nasperss Internet division. What is more, the firms are on the same mission: finding promising Internet companies in countries where Western investors rarely dare to go
11、. DSTs territories are Russia and its neighbours, most of which are home to one of its collection of companies; these include social networks such as VKontakte. ru and Nasza-Klasa. pl. Naspers has the largest part of Internet firms in developing countries, for instance in Brazil (BuscaPe, a comparis
12、on-shopping site), India (ibibo, a social network) and at home in South Africa (24. com, a portal). Tencent has so far been the most cautious of the three. Besides its recent investment in DST it has some minority stakes in games companies, such as VinaGame in Vietnam. This international presence al
13、lows the firms to apply lessons they have learned in one country to another. “We spend an enormous amount of time on sharing knowledge,“ says Antoine Roux, the boss of MIH. For its part, DST knows which web businesses work and how much room for growth they still have, given a countrys GDP and Intern
14、et penetration. Alexander Tamas, a partner at DST, calls this “geographical arbitrage“. In Russia DST has seen how quickly social networks can grow: latecomers to the Internet, many Russians skipped e-mail and went right to social networks to communicate online. With advertising roubles (卢布 ) in sho
15、rt supply, DSTs companies also experimented early with other ways of making money from social networks and online games, such as charging for services and selling virtual goods. In December it merged mail, ru with Astrum Online, a gaming firm in effect forming a Russian Tencent. Free communication t
16、ools such as instant messaging create the audience that then pays for other services and virtual goods, Mr. Tamas explains. It was only a question of time before one of the three firms tried to apply these emerging-market lessons in the West. DST has been the pioneer, for several reasons. Its partne
17、rs learned their trade in America. It intends to go public one day. And it saw an opportunity: after the financial crisis, conventional investors were cautious and did not fully realise how fast social networks, for instance, would grow. One further factor was essential in helping DST to burst into
18、the party of the handful of private-equity funds, such as Elevation Partners, TCV and Silver Lake Partners, which typically provide successful American Internet firms with additional cash. DSTs corporate structure allows it to act quickly, and to make offers that are hard to refuse. In the case of F
19、acebook, it agreed to what at the time seemed a high valuation, waived any right to special treatment should things go wrong and was willing to buy stock from employees. That is especially popular with young Internet firms. It allows founders and key employees to make money without having to sell th
20、e company or go public prematurely. “This is an IPO substitute,“ explains Mr. Milner, adding that DSTs investments give firms more time to focus on their product rather than thinking about a flotation. Will DSTs strategy work? Buying into Facebook certainly looks like a smart move. DST has spent an
21、estimated $ 800m for a stake of about 10%. When Elevation Partners recently invested $ 120m in Facebook, that deal put the companys value at $ 23 billion, implying that DSTs investment has almost trebled. In contrast, analysts say, DST may have overpaid for Zynga, the worlds largest online-gaming se
22、rvice, and for Groupon, a website that aggregates buyers and gets them special deals. Yet sceptics may again underestimate how quickly both can grow and what Zynga, for instance, is worth in combination with Facebook: taken together they look much like Tencent. In May, after lengthy negotiations, bo
23、th firms agreed that Facebook Credits, the social networks currency, would be accepted in Zyngas games. A bigger problem for DST may be that some see it as Russian and thus “gloomy“. To counter this, the firm has gone to great lengths to be open, inviting executives from firms in which it wanted to
24、invest to Moscow to look at its books. The success of this strategy is demonstrated by the quality of its recent deals and its co-investors, which include such noted venture-capital firms as Accel Partners and Andreessen Horowitz. Even so, DSTs national origin could still matter as the firm makes fu
25、rther investments. Authorities in Washington, dc, are reportedly worried about DSTs latest acquisition: ICQ, an instant-messaging service previously owned by AOL. However DST fares, it seems to attract copycats. Before Elevation Partners invested in Facebook, it had already cut what is now called a
26、“DST deal“ with Yelp, a fast-growing user-review site for local businesses. And although Naspers does not intend to make any investments in Western countries, Tencent may follow DST in doing so. Martin Lau, Tencents president, recently said it would step up its attacks abroad which has led to talk t
27、hat it may be interested in buying Yahoo! Conversely, the apparent success of the three emerging-market Internet pioneers may prompt Western venture firms to take more interest in developing countries. Tiger Global Management, a New York hedge fund that is also a shareholder in DST, has already spec
28、ialised in investing in start-ups beyond the Wests well-known technology clusters. Clearly, Internet investing is going global and the West is losing its monopoly, not just in thinking up clever ideas for web businesses but in financing them. 1 Which of the following is true about DST? （ A） It is as
29、 famous as Google and Yahoo！ . （ B） It is the worlds biggest social network. （ C） It is also a share holder of Facebook. （ D） It has departed from its home markets. 2 According to the passage, Naspers_. （ A） controls many of the countrys leading websites （ B） makes most of its profits from online ga
30、mes （ C） is the oldest media company in Cape Town （ D） still depends largely on print and pay-television 3 It can be inferred from the passage that Tencent_. （ A） holds 35% of DST （ B） is an investor in MIH （ C） owns part of mail, ru （ D） is worth about $ 3 billion 4 Which of the following is an inv
31、estor in ibibo? （ A） DST. （ B） Tencent. （ C） Naspers. （ D） VinaGame. 5 With the lessons learned from Tencent, DST_. （ A） abandoned its social networks （ B） merged mail, ru with Astrum Online （ C） tried to create audience with virtual goods （ D） created a new firm called Russian Tencent 6 DSTs succes
32、s in the case of Facebook is mainly benefited from_. （ A） its high valuation （ B） the financial crisis （ C） its corporate structure （ D） the private-equity funds 7 Whats the authors view on DSTs investment in Zynga? （ A） It looks like a smart move. （ B） It will not work on Zynga. （ C） Its an obstacl
33、e to Facebook. （ D） Its a serious threat to Tencent. 8 We can see the success of DSTs opening strategy is shown by the quality of its_. 9 According to the passage, Tencent may follow DST to make some investments in_. 10 Inspired by DSTs success, Western venture firms may take more interest in_. 10 C
34、harter School Lottery Gambles with Kids Futures It seems like every time I turn over a charter school rock, some unpleasant fact crawls out. Thats how I felt after watching “The Lottery“, a new documentary about the Harlem Success Academy and its leader, Eva Moskowitz. Like Davis Guggenheims “Waitin
35、g for Superman“, this film addresses the failures of the traditional public school system, in this case zeroing in on a New York City public charter school and the challenges it faces. (Guggenheim offers a broader picture of charter schools in the nations capital and around the country.) Some of the
36、 facts spotlighted in “The Lottery“ just bugged me, especially this one: Unlike schools that select their students according to merit, or public schools that must accept everyone, charter schools that have more applicants than spots available select students by public lottery (intended to prevent fa
37、milies from buying their way in) .The film profiles four really likable kids who are convinced that theyll beat the odds and win one of the 475 spots that 3,000 kids seek, enabling them to attend the sparkling charter school with its fancy computers and Ivy League-educated teachers. Although all fou
38、r could be chosen (a lottery is, after all, random), we have a sinking feeling that they all wont be. Moreover, it becomes painfully clear early on that lottery winners gain a ticket to success, while the losers are doomed to an inferior public school education. Or so the film would have us believe.
39、 If we had to choose one word to describe the state of public education in the United States, that word would be “failed. “ The statistics paint a horrific picture: 68 percent of eighth-graders cant read at their grade level; more than 6,000 students quit every school days; and almost half of all dr
40、opouts under age 24 dont have a job. That failure costs us billions in lost wages, productivity and tax revenue. Anything we could do to reverse that would be welcome. And such a turnaround is what the two-decade-old taxpayer-funded charter school movement, with 1. 5 million students, is all about.
41、President Obama has great faith in charter schools. Congress allocated $ 4.35 billion to his education initiatives, including the Race to the Top (RTTT) competition that financially rewards states if, among other things, they promote charter schools and evaluate teachers according to student achieve
42、ment (Tennessee just received $ 500 million from this program) . The president has threatened to veto a recently approved spending bill over cuts to these initiatives that Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) inserted. Not everyone shares Obamas enthusiasm. Leigh Dingerson, education team leader at the Center f
43、or Community Change, agrees that charter school innovations offer a tremendous benefit. But, as she plainly told me, “it is a benefit only to those who benefit from it.“ Students who arent chosen through the lottery are “sent to a school of last resort where the kids know they have landed in the dum
44、ping grounds.“ Others view charter schools as attempts to break the powerful teachers unions. Its in this fierce environment that “The Lottery“ throws its firebombs. The film is about much more than how a charter school chooses its students. Its also about how to remove ineffective or incompetent te
45、achers from the public school system. Director Madeleine Sackler reveals the emotions swirling around her subject. She filmed protesters from the now-disbanded liberal activist group ACORN demonstrating outside the non-union Harlem Success Academy; she shows a highly emotional parent screaming at Mo
46、skowitz while a young child cowers nearby; and she shows teachers union head Randi Weingarten struggling to tell interviewer Charlie Rose why only a handful of New York Citys tens of thousands of tenured public school teachers have been fired. After abortion and health care, theres probably no subje
47、ct that generates as much division today as education reform and teachers unions. Why else would PDs editor-in-chief Melinda Henneberger ask, as she recently did on Woman Ups weekly talk show: “When did we put the American Federation of Teachers equal with al-Qaeda (基地组织 )?“ Thats a good question. C
48、harter school advocates insist they are not antiunion , and that they are just trying to bring innovation and competition into the public school system. As Deborah Veney Robinson, vice president of communications at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, told me, “Were not pro-union or an
49、ti-union. Were pro-kid. “ Indeed, charter schools are helping to make the public school system better than it has ever been. But, based on the facts as presented in “The Lottery,“ I have several concerns: Unions The Harlem Success Academy says it does not hire union teachers so it can focus on improving student performance. But there is no correlation between said performance and attendance at unionized or non-unionized schools. The HSA can rightly be proud that
