大学英语六级考试模考卷|模拟考

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Part I Writing (30 minutes)

Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on the remark “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” You can cite examples to illustrate your point. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.

Part II Listening Comprehension (30 minutes)

Section A

Directions: In this section, you will hear 8 short conversations and 2 long conversations. At the end of each conversation, one or more questions will be asked about what was said. Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once. After each question there will be a pause. During the pause, you must read the four choices marked A), B), C) and D), and decide which is the best answer. Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.

1. A) The results of her finals are ironic.

B) The result of the final is unbelievable.

C) The man should have attended the lectures.

D) The man should not have chosen urban planning.

2. A) She used to trim her hair in a luxurious saloon.

B) She offers to cut the man’s hair herself at the price of 10.

C) She suggests the man to go to a farther place to trim his hair.

D) She tells the man a cheaper but busier place to have his hair cut.

3. A) He really wants to work in the bookstore.C) He declined the bookstore job once.

B) He failed to get the job in the bookstore.D) He didn’t know where the bookstore was.

4. A) The man was the only survivor of an air crash.

B) The man has always been very lucky in accidents.

C) A few passengers came back home safe and sound.

D) People on board were frightened and tried to escape.

5. A) He was taking pictures of the campus. C) His television appearance was unintentional.

B) He went to see a film on campus.D) His photographs were on the evening news.

6. A) He didn’t know the woman was late for work.

B) He asked why the woman wasn’t there on time.

C) He doesn’t have a habit of being on time, either.

D) He wants the woman to keep a habit of being punctual.

7. A) She doesn’t like the smell inside. C) She wants to avoid meeting people.

B) She feels very hot in the room.D) She wants to smoke a cigarette there.

8. A) He’s not decided, but he knows he shouldn’t quit.

B) He likes the job, if not for those working hours.

C) He dislikes this job, so he will quit soon.

D) He won’t quit the job for the world.

Questions 9 to 12 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

9. A) The connection between British and American English.

B) The differences between British and American English.

C) The difficulty in distinguishing British and American English.

D) The importance of distinguishing British and American English.

10. A) It can not prevent people from understanding each other.

B) It is important for English learners to realize the difference.

C) It makes people feel difficult to communicate with each other.

D) It reflects the different cultures between England and America.

11. A) To show she was confused with the plot.

B) To show she had difficulty understanding the whole movie.

C) To show her dissatisfaction with the character in the movie.

D) To show differences between British and American English in pronunciation and meaning.

12. A) They are totally different.

B) They are practically the same.

C) They are slightly different but interoperable.

D) Their differences prevent efficient communication.

Questions 13 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

13. A) The climate there is too cold. C) He has visited it twice before.

B) The air-fare is quite expensive. D) He does not have the passport.

14. A) He has just reconditioned his house. C) He has just come back from abroad.

B) His old car has just been repaired. D) He doesn’t have long enough time.

15. A) He hasn’t been there before. C) He can meet his girlfriend there.

B) His friend will accommodate him. D) He can find a temporary job there.

Section B

Directions: In this section, you will hear 3 short passages. At the end of each passage, you will hear some questions. Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.

Passage One

Questions 16 to 19 are based on the passage you have just heard.

16. A) The change of women’s attitude towards housework.

B) The influence of men sharing housework in American families.

C) The change of the time spent on housework in American families.

D) The unequal distribution of housework between men and women.

17. A) Marriage gives men more freedom.

B) Marriage has effects on job choices.

C) Having children means doubled housework.

D) Men shares more housework nowadays than before.

18. A) About 12 hours. C) About 17 hours.

B) About 21 hours. D) About 13 hours.

19. A) Unmarried men. C) Younger married men.

B) Older married men. D) Married men with children.

Passage Two

Questions 20 to 22 are based on the passage you have just heard.

20. A) To compete with online bill paying.

B) To reduce the cost of printing 2- or 3-cent stamps.

C) To respond to the complaints about rising postal rates.

D) To help save the consumers’ cost on first-class mailing.

21. A) 2- or 3-cent stamps will no longer be printed in the future.

B) The design of the “forever stamps” remains to be revealed.

C) America will be the first country to issue “forever stamps”.

D) The investment in “forever stamps” will bring adequate reward.

22. A) With “forever stamps”, there will be no need to worry about rate changes.

B) Postal workers will benefit most from the sales of “forever stamps”.

C) The inflation has become a threat to the sales of first-class stamps.

D) New interest will be aroused in collecting “forever stamps”.

Passage Three

Questions 23 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.

23. A) They don’t need to go to labs.

B) They take a very light class load.

C) They have to take a lot of courses.

D) They have much free time for independent study.

24. A) To establish a good image and a high reputation.

B) To smoothly present their results and research.

C) To make themselves confident and brave.

D) To develop a creative mind.

25. A) To make friends with their peers. C) To do research into other areas.

B) To get on well with their colleagues. D) To get the latest information.

Section C

Directions: In this section, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read for the first time, you should listen carefully for its general idea. When the passage is read for the second time, you are required to fill in the blanks with the exact words you have just heard. Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, you should check what you have written.

Internet data shows that younger adults have become the primary audience obsessed (着迷) with altering their personal appearance. The recent 26 death of Stephanie Kuleba, an 18-year-old high school cheerleader who died 27 a plastic surgery, brought our attention to the pursuit of a more “ideal” body amongst teenagers. In fact, search data confirms this 28 . One of the most popular sites visited from the search term “plastic surgery” is the 29 site of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Over 25% of visitors to the site fell within the 18- to 24-year-old — that’s up from 19.6% two years ago.

Plastic surgery has become an American 30 . Checking other markets, such as the United Kingdom and Australia, the 18- to 24-year-old fascination with plastic surgery is 31 a U.S. phenomenon.

Looking at other 32 sites visited by 18- to 24-year-olds reveals just how obsessed this age group is with appearance. Unlike the older groups who visit sites related to diseases and keeping healthy, younger Internet users flock to sites that 33 personal appearance, such as those focused on bodybuilding, weight loss and skincare. And definitely plastic surgery.

While surgery-themed television may be driving the interest of a younger audience, one factor appears to be key in 34 altering their bodies: the failing US economy. If we track the trend in searches on topics such as “plastic surgery”, there has been a sharp decline in all plastic surgery topics over the last year. In fact, if we look at the search 35 around popular surgeries, over the last year the term “cost” appear most commonly.

Part III Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)

Section A

Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank

from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully

before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the

corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may

not use any of the words in the bank more than once.

Questions 36 to 45 are based on the following passage.

Teachers need to be aware of the emotional, intellectual, and physical changes that young adults experience. And they also need to give serious thought to how they can best 36 such changes. Growing bodies need movement and exercise, but not just in ways that emphasize competition. Because they are adjusting to their new bodies and a whole host of new intellectual and emotional challenges, teenagers are especially self-conscious and need the 37 that comes from achieving success and knowing that their accomplishments are 38 by others. However, the 39 teenage lifestyle is already filled with so much competition that it would be wise to plan activities in which there are more winners than losers, for example, publishing newsletters with many student-written book reviews, 40 student artwork, and sponsoring book discussion clubs. A variety of small clubs can provide 41 opportunities for leadership, as well as for practice in successful group dynamics. Making friends is extremely important to teenagers, and many shy students need the security of some kind or organization with a supportive adult 42 visible in the background.

In these activities, it is important to remember that young teens have short attention 43 . A variety of activities should be 44 so that participants can remain active as long as they want and then go on to something else without feeling guilty and without letting the other participants down. This does not mean that adults must accept irresponsibility. On the contrary, they can help students acquire a sense of commitment by planning for roles that are within their 45 and their attention spans and by having clearly stated rules.

A) admiredI) displaying

B) barelyJ) surplus

C) assistanceK) spans

D) typical L) accommodate

E) describing M) multiple

F) organizedN) rarely

G) enhanceO) confidence

H) capabilities

Section B

Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.

The Fuel of the Future

[A] Which source of renewable energy is most important to the European Union? Solar power, perhaps? (Europe has three-quarters of the world’s total installed capacity of solar photovoltaic energy.) Or wind? (Germany trebled its wind-power capacity in the past decade.) The answer is neither. By far the largest so-called renewable fuel used in Europe is wood.

[B] In its various forms, from sticks to pellets (颗粒) to sawdust, wood (or to use its fashionable name, biomass) accounts for about half of Europe’s renewable-energy consumption. In some countries, such as Poland and Finland, wood meets more than 80% of renewable-energy demand. Even in Germany, home of the Energiewende (energy transformation) which has poured huge subsidies into wind and solar power, 38% of non-fossil fuel consumption comes from the stuff. After years in which European governments have boasted about their high-tech, low-carbon energy revolution, the main beneficiary seems to be the favoured fuel of pre-industrial societies.

[C] The idea that wood is low in carbon sounds bizarre. But the original argument for including it in the EU’s list of renewable-energy supplies was respectable. If wood used in a power station comes from properly managed forests, then the carbon that billows out of the chimney can be offset (抵消) by the carbon that is captured and stored in newly planted trees. Wood can be carbon-neutral. Whether it actually turns out to be is a different matter. But once the decision had been taken to call it a renewable, its usage soared.

[D] In the electricity sector, wood has various advantages. Planting fields of windmills is expensive but power stations can be adapted to burn a mixture of 90% coal and 10% wood (called co-firing) with little new investment. Unlike new solar or wind farms, power stations are already linked to the grid. Moreover, wood energy is not intermittent (断续的) as is that produced from the sun and the wind: it does not require backup power at night, or on calm days. And because wood can be used in coal-fired power stations that might otherwise have been shut down under new environmental standards, it is extremely popular with power companies.

Money grows on trees

[E] The upshot was that an alliance quickly formed to back public subsidies for biomass. It bound together greens, who thought wood was carbon-neutral; utilities, which saw co-firing as a cheap way of saving their coal plants; and governments, which saw wood as the only way to meet their renewable-energy targets. The EU wants to get 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020; it would miss this target by a country mile if it relied on solar and wind alone.

[F] The scramble to meet that 2020 target is creating a new sort of energy business. In the past, electricity from wood was a small-scale waste-recycling operation: Scandinavian pulp (纸浆) and paper mills would have a power station nearby which burned branches and sawdust. Later came co-firing, a marginal change. But in 2011 RWE, a large German utility, converted its Tilbury B power station in eastern England to run entirely on wood pellets (a common form of wood for burning industrially). It promptly caught fire.

[G] Undeterred, Drax, also in Britain and one of Europe’s largest coal-fired power stations, said it would convert three of its six boilers to burn wood. When up and running in 2016 they will generate 12.5 terawatt hours of electricity a year. This energy will get a subsidy, called a renewable obligation certificate, worth ￡45 a megawatt hour (MWh), paid on top of the market price for electricity. At current prices, calculates Roland Vetter, the chief analyst at CF Partners, Europe’s largest carbon-trading firm, Drax could be getting ￡550m a year in subsidies for biomass after 2016 — more than its 2012 pretax profit of ￡190m. With incentives like these, European firms are scouring the Earth for wood. Europe consumed 13m tonnes of wood pellets in 2012, according to International Wood Markets Group, a Canadian company. On current trends, European demand will rise to 25m-30m a year by 2020.

[H] Europe does not produce enough timber to meet that extra demand. So a hefty (大量的) chunk of it will come from imports. Imports of wood pellets into the EU rose by 50% in 2010 alone and global trade in them (influenced by Chinese as well as EU demand) could rise five- or sixfold from 10m-12m tonnes a year to 60m tonnes by 2020, reckons the European Pellet Council. Much of that will come from a new wood-exporting business that is booming in western Canada and the American south. Gordon Murray, executive director of the Wood Pellet Association of Canada, calls it “an industry invented from nothing”.

[I] Prices are going through the roof. Wood is not a commodity and there is no single price. But an index of wood-pellet prices published by Argus Biomass Markets rose from ?16 a tonne in August 2010 to ?29 a tonne at the end of 2012. Prices for hardwood from western Canada have risen by about 60% since the end of 2011. This is putting pressure on companies that use wood as an input. About 20 large saw mills making particle board for the construction industry have closed in Europe during the past five years, says Petteri Pihlajamaki of Poyry, a Finnish consultancy (though the EU’s building bust is also to blame). Higher wood prices are hurting pulp and paper companies, which are in bad shape anyway: the production of paper and board in Europe remains almost 10% below its 2007 peak. In Britain, furniture-makers complain that competition from energy producers “will lead to the collapse of the mainstream British furniture-manufacturing base, unless the subsidies are significantly reduced or removed”.

[J] But if subsidising biomass energy were an efficient way to cut carbon emissions, perhaps this collateral damage might be written off as an unfortunate consequence of a policy that was beneficial overall. So is it efficient? No.

[K] Wood produces carbon twice over: once in the power station, once in the supply chain. The process of making pellets out of wood involves grinding it up, turning it into a dough and putting it under pressure. That, plus the shipping, requires energy and produces carbon: 200kg of CO2 for the amount of wood needed to provide 1MWh of electricity.

[L] This decreases the amount of carbon saved by switching to wood, thus increasing the price of the savings. Given the subsidy of ￡45 per MWh, says Mr Vetter, it costs ￡225 to save one tonne of CO2 by switching from gas to wood. And that assumes the rest of the process (in the power station) is carbon neutral. It probably isn’t.

A fuel and your money

[M] Over the past few years, scientists have concluded that the original idea — carbon in managed forests offsets carbon in power stations—was an oversimplification. In reality, carbon neutrality depends on the type of forest used, how fast the trees grow, whether you use woodchips or whole trees and so on. As another bit of the EU, the European Environment Agency, said in 2011, the assumption “that biomass combustion would be inherently carbon neutral…is not correct…as it ignores the fact that using land to produce plants for energy typically means that this land is not producing plants for other purposes, including carbon otherwise sequestered.”

[N] Tim Searchinger of Princeton University calculates that if whole trees are used to produce energy, as they sometimes are, they increase carbon emissions compared with coal (the dirtiest fuel) by 79% over 20 years and 49% over 40 years; there is no carbon reduction until 100 years have passed, when the replacement trees have grown up. But as Tom Brookes of the European Climate Foundation points out, “we’re trying to cut carbon now; not in 100 years’ time.”

[O] In short, the EU has created a subsidy which costs a packet, probably does not reduce carbon emissions, does not encourage new energy technologies — and is set to grow like a leylandii hedge.

46. Europe imports a large amount of wood pellets to meet their extra demand for wood.

47. In theory, wood can be carbon-neutral if carbon in managed forests offsets carbon in power stations.

48. According to the author, wood produces carbon in both the power station and the supply chain.

49. The EU’s 2020 renewable-energy target would be impossible with solar and wind alone.

50. By Tim Searchinger’s calculation, carbon emissions will increase in the next 100 years even if we use whole trees to generate electricity.

51. Now the most important source of renewable source in EU is wood.

52. According to Britain’s furniture manufacturers, subsidies to energy companies indirectly influence the country’s furniture industry.

53. Wood is extremely popular with power companies, for it helps save their coal plants.

54. The European Environment Agency suggested that it was not correct to assume that burning wood was carbon neutral.

55. In the past, generating electricity by burning wood was operated on a small scale.

Section C

Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.

Passage One

Questions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.

It has already been established that those who siesta (午休) are less likely to die of heart disease. Now, Matthew Walker and his colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that they probably have better memory, too. An afternoon nap, Dr. Walker has discovered, sets the brain up for learning.

The role of sleep in consolidating memories that have already been created has been understood for some time. Dr. Walker has been trying to extend this understanding by looking at sleep’s role in preparing the brain for the formation of memories in the first place.

His team was interested in a specific type of memory — episodic memory, which relates to specific events, places and times. This contrasts with procedural memory, the skills required to perform some sort of mechanical task, such as driving. The theory the researchers wanted to test was that the ability to form new episodic memories deteriorates with accrued (自然增加) wakefulness, and that sleep thus restores the brain’s capacity for efficient learning.

They asked a group of 39 people to take part in two learning sessions, one at noon and one at 6 p.m. On each occasion the participants tried to memorize and recall 100 combinations of pictures and names. After the first session they were assigned randomly to either a control-group, which remained awake, or a nap group, which had a 100-minute of monitored sleep.

Those who remained awake throughout the day became worse at learning. Those who napped, by contrast, actually improved their capacity to learn, doing better in the evening than they had at noon. These findings support the theory that sleep is clearing the brain’s short-term memory and making way for new information.

It is already well-known that fact-based memories are stored temporarily in an area called the hippocampus (海马体), a structure in the centre of the brain. But they do not stay there long. Instead, they are sent to the prefrontal cortex (前额皮质) for longer-term storage. Electroencephalograms, which measure electrical activity in the brain, have shown that this memory-refreshing capacity is related to a specific type of sleep called Stage 2 non-REM sleep.

The ideal nap, then, follows a cycle of between 90-100 minutes. The first 30 minutes is a light sleep that helps improve motor performance. Then comes 30 minutes of stage 2 sleep, which refreshes the hippocampus. After this, between 60-90 minutes into the nap, comes rapid-eye-movement, or REM sleep, during which dreaming happens. This, research suggests, is the time when the brain makes connections between the new memories that have just been “downloaded” from the hippocampus and those that already exist — thus making new experiences relevant in a wider context.

The benefits to memory of a nap, says Dr. Walker, are so great that they can equal an entire night’s sleep. He warns, however, that napping must not be done too late in the day or it will interfere with night-time sleep. Moreover, not everyone awakens refreshed from a siesta.

56. What is Matthew Walker’s finding about siesta?

A) It enables people to forget their episodic memories.

B) It is especially good for short-term memory formation.

C) It plays an important role in preparing the brain for learning.

D) It makes people have a smaller chance to die of heart disease.

57. Under what circumstance does the brain’s ability to form new episodic memories decline according to the passage?

A) People keep awake for most of the day.

B) People can not read and learn efficiently.

C) People can not feel refreshed during the day.

D) People devote much time to existing memories.

58. A piece of information in the hippocampus becomes an enduring memory in the brain after _______.

A) it is repeated many times in sleep C) it is consolidated by outside means

B) it is sent to the prefrontal cortex D) it is strengthened in a short sleep

59. What is said about siesta in the end of the passage?

A) It can be taken at any time during the day. C) It makes sleeping in the night unnecessary.

B) It should not last for more than one hour. D) Its benefits can not cover all the people.

60. What does the passage mainly talk about?

A) The classification of memories.

B) A nap’s benefits to the memory.

C) The process of forming a long-term memory.

D) Ways to develop the habit of an afternoon nap.

Passage Two

Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage.

People are living longer than ever, but for some reason, women are living longer than men. A baby boy born in the United States in 2003 can expect to live to be about 73, a baby girl, about 79. This is indeed a wide gap, and no one really knows why it exists. The greater longevity (长寿) of women, however, has been known for centuries. It was, for example, described in the seventeenth century. However, the difference was smaller then — the gap is growing.

A number of reasons have been proposed to account for the differences. The gap is greatest in industrialized societies, so it has been suggested that women are less susceptible to work strains that may raise the risk of heart disease and alcoholism. Sociologists also tell us that women are encouraged to be less adventurous than men (and this may be why they are more careful drivers, involved in fewer accidents).

Even smoking has been implicated in the age discrepancy. It was once suggested that working women are more likely to smoke and as more women entered the work force, the age gap would begin to close, because smoking is related to earlier deaths. Now, however, we see more women smoking and they still tend to live longer although their lung cancer rate is climbing sharply.

One puzzling aspect of the problem is that women do not appear to be as healthy as men. That is, they report far more illnesses. But when a man reports an illness, it is more likely to be serious.

Some researchers have suggested that men may die earlier because their health is more strongly related to their emotions. For example, men tend to die sooner after losing a spouse than women do. Men even seem to be more weakened by loss of a job. (Both of these are linked with a marked decrease in the effectiveness of the immune system.) Among men, death follows retirement with an alarming promptness.

Perhaps we are searching for the answers too close to the surface of the problem. Perhaps the answers lie deeper in our biological heritage. After all, the phenomenon is not isolated to humans. Females have the edge among virtually all mammalian (哺乳动物) species, in that they generally live longer. Furthermore, in many of these species the differences begin at the moment of conception; there are more male miscarriages (流产). In humans, after birth, more baby boys than baby girls die.

61. What can we learn from the first two paragraphs?

A) The age gap was noticed only recently.

B) Men’s lifespan remains almost unchanged.

C) Researchers have found the causes of the age gap.

D) The more advanced a society, the greater the age gap.

62. As is suggested in Paragraph 2, the two factors relevant to women’s longer lifespan are ______.

A) diseases and road accidents

B) industrialization and work strains

C) their immunity to heart disease and refusal of alcohol

D) their endurance of work strains and reluctance for adventure

63. According to Paragraph 3, which of the following statements is true?

A) Smoking does not seem to affect women’s longevity.

B) Female workers are more likely to smoke than male workers.

C) The great number of male smokers contributes to the age gap.

D) The growing number of smoking women will narrow the age gap.

64. Which of the following phenomena makes researchers puzzled?

A) Quite a number of men die soon after their retirement.

B) Men’s health is more closely related to their emotions.

C) Though more liable to illnesses, women still live longer.

D) Men show worse symptoms than women when they fall ill.

65. What is the main idea of the passage?

A) People are living longer as a result of industrialization.

B) The greater longevity of women remains a mystery.

C) Women are less emotionally affected by difficulties in life.

D) That women are healthier than men well explains their longevity.

Part IV Translation (30 minutes)

Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to translate a passage from Chinese into English. You should write your answer on Answer Sheet 2.

四合院（Siheyuan）是中国传统民居中最重要的形式。它数量多、分布广，在汉族、满族、白族以及其他一些少数民族中十分流行。大多数房屋采用木质框架。主屋建在南北走向的轴线上，两个厢房则位于主屋的两侧。家庭中的长者住在主屋中，而两翼则是年轻一代的卧室。妇女住在内院。客人和男仆住在外院。这种分布符合封建礼制。四合院遍布全国的城乡，但由于各地自然条件和生活方式各有不同，因此发展出各自的特征。北京的四合院是最具代表性的。