2013年12月大学英语六级考试真题及答案（第一套）

2013年12月大学英语六级考试真题及答案（第一套）

　　Part I Writing (30 minutes)

　　Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay on happiness by referring to the saying “Happiness is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them.” You can cite examples to illustrate your point and then explain how you can develop your ability to deal with problems and be happy. 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 rock band needs more hours of practice.

　　B) The rock band is going to play here for a month.

　　C) Their hard work has resulted in a big success.

　　D) He appreciates the woman’s help with the band.

　　2. A) Go on a diving tour in Europe. C) Travel overseas on his own.

　　B) Add 300 dollars to his budget. D) Join a package tour to Mexico.

　　3. A) In case some problem should occur. C) To avoid more work later on.

　　B) Something unexpected has happened. D) To make better preparations.

　　4. A) The woman asked for a free pass to try out the facilities.

　　B) The man is going to renew his membership in a fitness center.

　　C) The woman can give the man a discount if he joins the club now.

　　D) The man can try out the facilities before he becomes a member.

　　5. A) He is not afraid of challenge. C) He is worried about the test.

　　B) He is not fit to study science. D) He is going to drop the physics course.

　　6. A) Pay for part of the picnic food. C) Buy something special for Gary.

　　B) Invite Gary’s family to dinner. D) Take some food to the picnic.

　　7. A) Bus drivers’ working conditions. C) Public transportation.

　　B) A labor dispute at a bus company. D) A corporate takeover.

　　8. A) The bank statement. C) The payment for an order.

　　B) Their sales overseas. D) The check just deposited.

　　Questions 9 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

　　9. A) A hotel receptionist. C) A shop assistant.

　　B) A private secretary. D) A sales manager.

　　10. A) Voice. C) Appearance.

　　B) Intelligence. D) Manners.

　　11. A) Arrange one more interview. C) Report the matter to their boss.

　　B) Offer the job to David Wallace. D) Hire Barbara Jones on a trial basis.

　　Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

　　12. A) He invented the refrigerator. C) He got a degree in Mathematics.

　　B) He patented his first invention. D) He was admitted to university.

　　13. A) He distinguished himself in low temperature physics.

　　B) He fell in love with Natasha Willoughby.

　　C) He became a professor of Mathematics.

　　D) He started to work on refrigeration.

　　14. A) Finding the true nature of subatomic particles.

　　B) Their work on very high frequency radio waves.

　　C) Laying the foundations of modern mathematics.

　　D) Their discovery of the laws of cause and effect.

　　15. A) To teach at a university. C) To spend his remaining years.

　　B) To patent his inventions. D) To have a three-week holiday.

　　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 18 are based on the passage you have just heard.

　　16. A) They have fallen prey to wolves.

　　B) They have become a tourist attraction.

　　C) They have caused lots of damage to crops.

　　D) They have become a headache to the community.

　　17. A) To celebrate their victory. C) To scare the wolves.

　　B) To cheer up the hunters. D) To alert the deer.

　　18. A) They would help to spread a fatal disease.

　　B) They would pose a threat to the children.

　　C) They would endanger domestic animals.

　　D) They would eventually kill off the deer.

　　Passage Two

　　Questions 19 to 22 are based on the passage you have just heard.

　　19. A) She is an interpreter. C) She is a domestic servant.

　　B) She is a tourist guide. D) She is from the royal family.

　　20. A) It was used by the family to hold dinner parties.

　　B) It is situated at the foot of a beautiful mountain.

　　C) It was frequently visited by heads of state.

　　D) It is furnished like one in a royal palace.

　　21. A) It is elaborately decorated. C) It is very big, with only six slim legs.

　　B) It has survived some 2,000 years. D) It is shaped like an ancient Spanish boat.

　　22. A) They are uncomfortable to sit in for long. C) They have lost some of their legs.

　　B) They do not match the oval table at all. D) They are interesting to look at.

　　Passage Three

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

　　23. A) It is an uncommon infectious disease.

　　B) It destroys the patient’s ability to think.

　　C) It is a disease very difficult to diagnose.

　　D) It is the biggest crippler of young adults.

　　24. A) Search for the best cure. C) Write a book about her life.

　　B) Hurry up and live life. D) Exercise more and work harder.

　　25. A) Aggressive. C) Sophisticated.

　　B) Adventurous. D) Self-centered.

　　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.

　　It’s difficult to estimate the number of youngsters involved in home schooling, where children are not sent to school and receive their formal education from one or both parents. (26) _________ and court decisions have made it legally possible in most states for parents to educate their children at home, and each year more people take advantage of that opportunity. Some states require parents or a home tutor to meet teacher certification standards, and many require parents to complete legal forms to verify that their children are receiving (27)_________ in state-approved curricula.

　　Supporters of home education claim that it’s less expensive and far more (28)_________ than mass public education. Moreover, they cite several advantages: alleviation of school overcrowding, strengthened family relationships, lower (29)_________ rates, the fact that students are allowed to learn at their own rate, increased (30)_________, higher standardized test scores, and reduced (31)_________ problems.

　　Critics of the home schooling movement (32)_________ that it creates as many problems as it solves. They acknowledge that, in a few cases, home schooling offers educational opportunities superior to those found in most public schools, but few parents can provide such educational advantages. Some parents who withdraw their children from the schools (33)_________ home schooling have an inadequate educational background and insufficient formal training to provide a satisfactory education for their children. Typically, parents have fewer technological resources (34)_________ than do schools. However, the relatively inexpensive computer technology that is readily available today is causing some to challenge the notion that home schooling is in any way (35)_________ more highly structured classroom education.

　　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.

　　Quite often, educators tell families of children who are learning English as a second language to speak only English, and not their native language, at home. Although these educators may have good ___36___, their advice to families is misguided, and it ___37___ from misunderstandings about the process of language acquisition. Educators may fear that children hearing two languages will become ___38___ confused and thus their language development will be ___39___; this concern is not documented in the literature. Children are capable of learning more than one language, whether ___40___ or sequentially (依次地). In fact, most children outside of the United States are expected to become bilingual or even, in many cases, multilingual. Globally, knowing more than one language is viewed as an ___41___ and even a necessity in many areas.

　　It is also of concern that the misguided advice that students should speak only English is given primarily to poor families with limited educational opportunities, not to wealthier families who have many educational advantages. Since children from poor families often are___42___ as at-risk for academic failure, teachers believe that advising families to speak English only is appropriate. Teachers consider learning two languages to be too ___43___ for children from poor families, believing that the children are already burdened by their home situations.

　　If families do not know English or have limited English skills themselves, how can they communicate in English? Advising non-English-speaking families to speak only English is ___44___ to telling them not to communicate with or interact with their children. Moreover, the ___45___ message is that the family’s native language is not important or valued.

　　A) asset I) permanently

　　B) delayed J) prevalent

　　C) deviates K) simultaneously

　　D) equivalent L) stems

　　E) identified M) successively

　　F) intentions N) underlying

　　G) object O) visualizing

　　H) overwhelming

　　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 Uses of Difficulty

　　The brain likes a challenge—and putting a few obstacles in its way may well boost its creativity.

　　A) Jack White, the former frontman of the White Stripes and an influential figure among fellow musicians, likes to make things difficult for himself. He uses cheap guitars that won’t stay in shape or in tune. When performing, he positions his instruments in a way that is deliberately inconvenient, so that switching from guitar to organ mid-song involves a mad dash across the stage. Why? Because he’s on the run from what he describes as a disease that preys on every artist:“ease of use”. When making music gets too easy, says White, it becomes harder to make it sing.

　　B) It’s an odd thought. Why would anyone made their work more difficult than it already is? Yet we know that difficulty can pay unexpected dividends. In 1966, soon after the Beatles had finished work on “Rubber Soul”, Paul McCartney looked into the possibility of going to America to record their next album. The equipment in American studios was more advanced than anything in Britain, which had led the Beatles’ great rivals, the Rolling Stones, to make their latest album, “Aftermath”, in Los Angeles. McCartney found that EMI’s(百代唱片) contractual clauses made it prohibitively expensive to follow suit, and the Beatles had to make do with the primitive technology of Abbey Road.

　　C) Lucky for us. Over the next two years they made their most groundbreaking work, turning the recording studio into a magical instrument of its own. Precisely because they were working with old-fashioned machines, George Martin and his team of engineers were forced to apply every ounce of their creativity to solve the problems posed to them by Lennon and McCartney. Songs like “Tomorrow Never Knows”, “Strawberry Fields Forever”, and “A Day in the Life”featured revolutionary sound effects that dazzled and mystified Martin’s American counterparts.

　　D) Sometimes it’s only when a difficulty is removed that we realise what it was doing for us. For more than two decades, starting in the 1960s, the poet Ted Hughes sat on the judging panel of an annual poetry competition for British schoolchildren. During the 1980s he noticed an increasing number of long poems among the submissions, with some running to 70 or 80 pages. These poems were verbally inventive and fluent, but also“strangely boring”. After making inquiries Hughes discovered that they were being composed on computers, then just finding their way into British homes.

　　E) You might have thought any tool which enables a writer to get words on to the page would be an advantage. But there may be a cost to such facility. In an interview with the Paris Review Hughes speculated that when a person puts pen to paper, “you meet the terrible resistance of what happened your first year at it, when you couldn’t write at all”. As the brain attempts to force the unsteady hand to do its bidding, the tension between the two results in a more compressed, psychologically denser expression. Remove that resistance and you are more likely to produce a 70-page ramble (不着边际的长篇大论).

　　F) Our brains respond better to difficulty than we imagine. In schools, teachers and pupils alike often assume that if a concept has been easy to learn, then the lesson has been successful. But numerous studies have now found that when classroom material is made harder to absorb, pupils retain more of it over the long term, and understand it on a deeper level.

　　G) As a poet, Ted Hughes had an acute sensitivity to the way in which constraints on self-expression, like the disciplines of metre and rhyme (韵律), spur creative thought. What applies to poets and musicians also applies to our daily lives. We tend to equate (等同) happiness with freedom, but, as the psychotherapist and writer Adam Phillips has observed, without obstacles to our desires it’s harder to know what we want, or where we’re heading. He tells the story of a patient, a first-time mother who complained that her young son was always clinging to her, wrapping himself around her legs wherever she went. She never had a moment to herself, she said, because her son was “always in the way”. When Phillips asked her where she would go if he wasn’t in the way, she replied cheerfully, “Oh, I wouldn’t know where I was!”

　　H) Take another common obstacle: lack of money. People often assume that more money will make them happier. But economists who study the relationship between money and happiness have consistently found that, above a certain income, the two do not reliably correlate. Despite the ease with which the rich can acquire almost anything they desire, they are just as likely to be unhappy as the middle classes. In this regard at least, F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong.

　　I) Indeed, ease of acquisition is the problem. The novelist Edward St Aubyn has a narrator remark of the very rich that, “not having to consider affordability, their desires rambled on like unstoppable bores, relentless (持续不断的) and whimsical (反覆无常的) at the same time.” When Boston College, a private research university, wanted a better feel for its potential donors, it asked the psychologist Robert Kenny to investigate the mindset of the super-rich. He surveyed 165 households, most of which had a net worth of $25m or more. He found that many of his subjects were confused by the infinite options their money presented them with. They found it hard to know what to want, creating a kind of existential bafflement. One of them put it like this: “You know, Bob, you can just buy so much stuff, and when you get to the point where you can just buy so much stuff, now what are you going to do?”

　　J) The internet makes information billionaires out of all of us, and the architects of our online experiences are catching on to the need to make things creatively difficult. Twitter’s huge success is rooted in the simple but profound insight that in a medium with infinite space for self-expression, the most interesting thing we can do is restrict ourselves to 140 characters. The music service This Is My Jam helps people navigate the tens of millions of tracks now available instantly via Spotify and iTunes. Users pick their favourite song of the week to share with others. They only get to choose one. The service was only launched this year, but by the end of September 650,000 jams had been chosen. Its co-founder Matt Ogle explains its raison d’être (存在的理由) like this: “In an age of endless choice, we were missing a way to say: ‘This. This is the one you should listen to’.”

　　K) Today’s world offers more opportunity than ever to follow the advice of the Walker Brothers and make it easy on ourselves. Compared with a hundred years ago, our lives are less tightly bound by social norms and physical constraints. Technology has cut out much of life’s donkeywork, and we have more freedoms than ever: we can wear what we like and communicate with hundreds of friends at once at the click of a mouse. Obstacles are everywhere disappearing. Few of us wish to turn the clock back, but perhaps we need to remind ourselves how useful the right obstacles can be. Sometimes, the best route to fulfillment is the path of more resistance.

　　46. The rigorous requirements placed on the writing of poetry stimulate the poet’s creativity.

　　47. With creativity, even old-fashioned instruments may produce spectacular sound effects.

　　48. More money does not necessarily bring greater happiness.

　　49. It is a false assumption that lessons should be made easier to learn.

　　50. Obstacles deliberately placed in the creation of music contribute to its success.

　　51. Those who enjoy total freedom may not find themselves happy.

　　52. Ted Hughes discovered many long poems submitted for poetry competition were composed on computers.

　　53. Maybe we need to bear in mind that the right obstacles help lead us to greater achievements.

　　54. An investigation found that many of the super-rich were baffled by the infinite choices their money made available.

　　55. One free social networking website turned out to be successful because it limited each posting to one hundred and forty characters.

　　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.

　　There was a time not long ago when new science Ph.D.s in the United States were expected to pursue a career path in academia (学术界). But today, most graduates end up working outside academia, not only in industry but also in careers such as science policy, communications, and patent law. Partly this is a result of how bleak the academic job market is, but there’s also a rising awareness of career options that Ph.D. scientists haven’t trained for directly—but for which they have useful knowledge, skills, and experience. Still, there’s a huge disconnect between the way we currently train scientists and the actual employment opportunities available for them, and an urgent need for dramatic improvements in training programs to help close the gap. One critical step that could help to drive change would be to require Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scientists to follow an individual development plan (IDP).

　　In 2002, the U.S. Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology recommended that every postdoctoral researcher put together an IDP in consultation with an adviser. Since then, several academic institutions have begun to require IDPs for postdocs. And in June, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Biomedical Research Workforce Working Group recommended that the NIH require IDPs for the approximately 32,000 postdoctoral researchers they support. Other funding agencies, public and private, are moving in a similar direction.

　　IDPs have long been used by government agencies and the private sector to achieve specific goals for the employee and the organization. The aim is to ensure that employees have an explicit tool to help them understand their own abilities and aspirations, determine career possibilities, and set (usually short-term) goals. In science, graduate students and new Ph.D. scientists can use an IDP to identify and navigate an effective career path.

　　A free Web application for this purpose, called myIDP, has become available this week. It’s designed to guide early-career scientists through a confidential, rigorous process of introspection (内省) to create a customized career plan. Guided by expert knowledge from a panel of science-focused career advisers, each trainee’s self-assessment is used to rank a set of career trajectories(轨迹). After the user has identified a long-term career goal, myIDP walks her or him through the process of setting short-term goals directed toward accumulating new skills and experiences important for that career choice.

　　Although surveys reveal the IDP process to be useful, trainees report a need for additional resources to help them identify a long-term career path and complete an IDP. Thus, myIDP will be most effective when it’s embedded in larger career-development efforts. For example, universities could incorporate IDPs into their graduate curricula to help students discuss, plan, prepare for, and achieve their long-term career goals.

　　56. What do we learn about new science Ph.D.s in the United States today?

　　A) They lack the skills and expertise needed for their jobs.

　　B) They can choose from a wider range of well-paying jobs.

　　C) They often have to seek jobs outside the academic circle.

　　D) They are regarded as the nation’s driving force of change.

　　57. What does the author say about America’s Ph.D. training?

　　A) It should be improved to better suit the job market.

　　B) It is closely linked to future career requirements.

　　C) It should be re-oriented to careers outside academia.

　　D) It includes a great variety of practical courses.

　　58. What was recommended for Ph.D.s and postdoctoral researchers?

　　A) They meet the urgent needs of the corporate world.

　　B) A long-term career goal be set as early as possible.

　　C) An IDP be made in consultation with an adviser.

　　D) They acquire an explicit tool to help obtain jobs.

　　59. Government agencies and the private sector often use IDPs to ______.

　　A) bring into full play the skills and expertise of their postdoctoral researchers

　　B) help employees make the best use of their abilities to achieve their career goals

　　C) place employees in the most appropriate positions

　　D) hire the most suitable candidates to work for them

　　60. What do we know about myIDP?

　　A) It is an effective tool of self-assessment and introspection for better career plans.

　　B) It enables people to look into various possibilities and choose the career they love.

　　C) It promises a long-term career path.

　　D) It is part of the graduate curricula.

　　Passage Two

　　Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage.

　　Just over a decade into the 21st century, women’s progress can be celebrated across a range of fields. They hold the highest political offices from Thailand to Brazil, Costa Rica to Australia. A woman holds the top spot at the International Monetary Fund; another won the Nobel Prize in economics. Self-made billionaires in Beijing, tech innovators in Silicon Valley, pioneering justices in Ghana—in these and countless other areas, women are leaving their mark.

　　But hold the applause. In Saudi Arabia, women aren’t allowed to drive. In Pakistan, 1,000 women die in honor killings every year. In the developed world, women lag behind men in pay and political power. The poverty rate among women in the U.S. rose to 14.5% last year.

　　To measure the state of women’s progress, Newsweek ranked 165 countries, looking at five areas that affect women’s lives: treatment under the law, workforce participation, political power, and access to education and health care. Analyzing data from the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, among others, and consulting with experts and academics, we measured 28 factors to come up with our rankings.

　　Countries with the highest scores tend to be clustered in the West, where gender discrimination is against the law, and equal rights are constitutionally enshrined (神圣化). But there were some surprises. Some otherwise high-ranking countries had relatively low scores for political representation. Canada ranked third overall but 26th in power, behind countries such as Cuba and Burundi. Does this suggest that a woman in a nation’s top office translates to better lives for women in general? Not exactly.“Trying to quantify or measure the impact of women in politics is hard because in very few countries have there been enough women in politics to make a difference,” says Anne-Marie Goetz, peace and security adviser for U.N. Women.

　　Of course, no index can account for everything. Declaring that one country is better than another in the way that it treats more than half its citizens means relying on broad strokes and generalities. Some things simply can’t be measured. And cross-cultural comparisons can’t account for differences of opinion.

　　Certain conclusions are nonetheless clear. For one thing, our index backs up a simple but profound statement made by Hillary Clinton at the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. “When we liberate the economic potential of women, we elevate the economic performance of communities, nations and the world,” she said. “There’s a stimulative effect that kicks in when women have greater access to jobs and the economic lives of our countries: Greater political stability. Fewer military conflicts. More food. More educational opportunity for children. By harnessing the economic potential of all women, we boost opportunity for all people.”

　　61. What does the author think about women’s progress so far?

　　A) It still leaves much to be desired. C) It has greatly changed women’s fate.

　　B) It is too remarkable to be measured. D) It is achieved through hard struggle.

　　62. In what countries have women made the greatest progress?

　　A) Where women hold key posts in government.

　　B) Where women’s rights are protected by law.

　　C) Where women’s participation in management is high.

　　D) Where women enjoy better education and health care.

　　63. What do Newsweek rankings reveal about women in Canada?

　　A) They care little about political participation.

　　B) They are generally treated as equals by men.

　　C) They have a surprisingly low social status.

　　D) They are underrepresented in politics.

　　64. What does Anne-Marie Goetz think of a woman being in a nation’s top office?

　　A) It does not necessarily raise women’s political awareness.

　　B) It does not guarantee a better life for the nation’s women.

　　C) It enhances women’s status.

　　D) It boosts women’s confidence.

　　65. What does Hillary Clinton suggest we do to make the world a better place?

　　A) Give women more political power. C) Allow women access to education.

　　B) Stimulate women’s creativity. D) Tap women’s economic potential.

　　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.

　　中国人自古以来就在中秋时节庆祝丰收。这与北美地区庆祝感恩节的习俗十分相似。过中秋节的习俗于唐代早期在中国各地开始流行。中秋节在农历八月十五，是人们拜月的节日。这天夜晚皓月当空，人们合家团聚，共赏明月。2006年，中秋节被列为中国的文化遗产， 2008年又被定为公共假日。月饼被视为中秋节不可或缺的美食。人们将月饼作为礼物馈赠亲友或在家庭聚会上享用。传统的月饼上带有“寿(longevity)”、“福”或“和”等字样。