2013年6月大学英语六级考试真题及答案

　　Passage One

　　Questions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.

　　The report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was just as gloomy as anticipated. Unemployment in January jumped to a 16-year high of 7.6 percent, as 598,000 jobs were slashed from U.S. payrolls in the worst single-month decline since December, 1974. With 1.8 million jobs lost in the last three months, there is urgent desire to boost the economy as quickly as possible. But Washington would do well to take a deep breath before reacting to the grim numbers.

　　Collectively, we rely on the unemployment figures and other statistics to frame our sense of reality. They are a vital part of an array of data that we use to assess if we’re doing well or doing badly, and that in turn shapes government policies and corporate budgets and personal spending decisions. The problem is that the statistics aren’t an objective measure of reality; they are simply a best approximation. Directionally, they capture the trends, but the idea that we know precisely how many are unemployed is a myth. That makes finding a solution all the more difficult.

　　First, there is the way the data is assembled. The official unemployment rate is the product of a telephone survey of about 60,000 homes. There is another survey, sometimes referred to as the “payroll survey,” that assesses 400,000 businesses based on their reported payrolls. Both surveys have problems. The payroll survey can easily double-count someone: if you are one person with two jobs, you show up as two workers. The payroll survey also doesn’t capture the number of self-employed, and so says little about how many people are generating an independent income.

　　The household survey has a larger problem. When asked straightforwardly, people tend to lie or shade the truth when the subject is sex, money or employment. If you get a call and are asked if you’re employed, and you say yes, you’re employed. If you say no, however, it may surprise you to learn that you are only unemployed if you’ve been actively looking for work in the past four weeks; otherwise, you are “marginally attached to the labor force” and not actually unemployed.

　　The urge to quantify is embedded in our society. But the idea that statisticians can then capture an objective reality isn’t just impossible. It also leads to serious misjudgments. Democrats and Republicans can and will take sides on a number of issues, but a more crucial concern is that both are basing major policy decisions on guesstimates rather than looking at the vast wealth of raw data with a critical eye and an open mind.

　　56. What do we learn from the first paragraph?

　　A) The U.S. economic situation is going from bad to worse.

　　B) Washington is taking drastic measures to provide more jobs.

　　C) The U.S. government is slashing more jobs from its payrolls.

　　D) The recent economic crisis has taken the U.S. by surprise.

　　57. What does the author think of the unemployment figures and other statistics?

　　A) They form a solid basis for policy making.

　　B) They represent the current situation.

　　C) They signal future economic trends.

　　D) They do not fully reflect the reality.

　　58. One problem with the payroll survey is that ______.

　　A) it does not include all the businesses C) it magnifies the number of the jobless

　　B) it fails to count in the self-employed D) it does not treat all companies equally

　　59. The household survey can be faulty in that ______.

　　A) people tend to lie when talking on the phone

　　B) not everybody is willing or ready to respond

　　C) some people won’t provide truthful information

　　D) the definition of unemployment is too broad

　　60. At the end of the passage, the author suggests that ______.

　　A) statisticians improve their data assembling methods

　　B) decision makers view the statistics with a critical eye

　　C) politicians listen more before making policy decisions

　　D) Democrats and Republicans cooperate on crucial issues

　　Passage Two

　　Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage.

　　At some point in 2008, someone, probably in either Asia or Africa, made the decision to move from the countryside to the city. This nameless person pushed the human race over a historic threshold, for it was in that year that mankind became, for the first time in its history, a predominantly urban species.

　　It is a trend that shows no sign of slowing. Demographers (人口统计学家) reckon that three-quarters of humanity could be city-dwelling by 2050, with most of the increase coming in the fast-growing towns of Asia and Africa. Migrants to cities are attracted by plentiful jobs, access to hospitals and education, and the ability to escape the boredom of a farmer’s agricultural life. Those factors are more than enough to make up for the squalor (肮脏), disease and spectacular poverty that those same migrants must often at first endure when they become urban dwellers.

　　It is the city that inspires the latest book from Peter Smith. His main thesis is that the buzz of urban life, and the opportunities it offers for co-operation and collaboration, is what attracts people to the city, which in turn makes cities into the engines of art, commerce, science and progress. This is hardly revolutionary, but it is presented in a charming format. Mr Smith has written a breezy guidebook, with a series of short chapters dedicated to specific aspects of urbanity—parks, say, or the various schemes that have been put forward over the years for building the perfect city. The result is a sort of high-quality, unusually rigorous coffee-table book, designed to be dipped into rather than read from beginning to end.

　　In the chapter on skyscrapers, for example, Mr Smith touches on construction methods, the revolutionary invention of the automatic lift, the practicalities of living in the sky and the likelihood that, as cities become more crowded, apartment living will become the norm. But there is also time for brief diversions onto bizarre ground, such as a discussion of the skyscraper index (which holds that a boom in skyscraper construction is a foolproof sign of an imminent recession).

　　One obvious criticism is that the price of breadth is depth; many of Mr Smith’s essays raise as many questions as they answer. Although that can indeed be frustrating, this is probably the only way to treat so grand a topic. The city is the building block of civilisation and of almost everything people do; a guidebook to the city is really, therefore, a guidebook to how a large and ever-growing chunk of humanity chooses to live. Mr Smith’s book serves as an excellent introduction to a vast subject, and will suggest plenty of further lines of inquiry.

　　61. In what way is the year 2008 historic?

　　A) For the first time in history, urban people outnumbered rural people.

　　B) An influential figure decided to move from the countryside to the city.

　　C) It is in this year that urbanisation made a start in Asia and Africa.

　　D) The population increase in cities reached a new peak in Asia and Africa.

　　62. What does the author say about urbanisation?

　　A) Its impact is not easy to predict. C) It is a milestone in human progress.

　　B) Its process will not slow down. D) It aggravates the squalor of cities.

　　63. How does the author comment on Peter Smith’s new book?

　　A) It is but an ordinary coffee-table book.

　　B) It is flavoured with humourous stories.

　　C) It serves as a guide to arts and commerce.

　　D) It is written in a lively and interesting style.

　　64. What does the author say in the chapter on skyscrapers?

　　A) The automatic lift is indispensable in skyscrapers.

　　B) People enjoy living in skyscrapers with a view.

　　C) Skyscrapers are a sure sign of a city’s prosperity.

　　D) Recession closely follows a skyscraper boom.

　　65. What may be one criticism of Mr Smith’s book?

　　A) It does not really touch on anything serious.

　　B) It is too long for people to read from cover to cover.

　　C) It does not deal with any aspect of city life in depth.

　　D) It fails to provide sound advice to city dwellers.