2015年12月大学英语六级考试真题.pdf
20152015 年年 1212 月大学英语六级考试真题（第一套）月大学英语六级考试真题（第一套）Part II Listening Comprehension(30 minutes)Part II Listening Comprehension(30 minutes)Section ASection A1.A)Prepare for his exams.B)Catch up on his work.C)Attend the concert.D)Go on a vacation.2.A)Three crew members were involved in the incident.B)None of the hijackers carried any deadly weapons.C)The plane had been scheduled to fly to Japan.D)None of the passengers were injured or killed.3.A)An article about the election.B)A tedious job to be done.C)An election campaign.D)A fascinating topic.4.A)The restaurant was not up to the speakers expectations.B)The restaurant places many ads in popular magazines.C)The critic thought highly of the Chinese restaurant.D)Chinatown has got the best restaurant in the city.5.A)He is going to visit his mother in the hospital.B)He is going to take on a new job next week.C)He has many things to deal with right now.D)He behaves in a way nobody understands.6.A)A large number of students refused to vote last night.B)At least twenty students are needed to vote on an issue.C)Major campus issues had to be discussed at the meeting.D)More students have to appear to make their voice heard.7.A)The woman can hardly tell what she likes.B)The speakers like watching TV very much.C)The speakers have nothing to do but watch TV.D)The man seldom watched TV before retirement.8.A)The woman should have retired earlier.4B)He will help the woman solve the problem.C)He finds it hard to agree with what the woman says.D)The woman will be able to attend the classes she wants.Questions 9 to 12 are based on the conversation you have just heard.Questions 9 to 12 are based on the conversation you have just heard.9.A)Persuade the man to join her company.B)Employ the most up-to-date technology.C)Export bikes to foreign markets.D)Expand their domestic business.10.A)The state subsidizes small and medium enterprises.B)The government has control over bicycle imports.C)They can compete with the best domestic manufactures.D)They have a cost advantage and can charge higher prices.11.A)Extra costs might eat up their profits abroad.B)More workers will be needed to do packaging.C)They might lose to foreign bike manufacturers.D)It is very difficult to find suitable local agents.12.A)Report to the management.B)Attract foreign investments.C)Conduct a feasibility study.D)Consult financial experts.Questions 13 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.Questions 13 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.13.A)Coal burnt daily for the comfort of our homes.B)Anything that can be used to produce power.C)Fuel refined from oil extracted from underground.D)Electricity that keeps all kinds of machines running.14.A)Oil will soon be replaced by alternative energy sources.B)Oil reserves in the world will be exhausted in a decade.C)Oil consumption has given rise to many global problems.D)Oil production will begin to decline worldwide by 2015.15.A)Minimize the use of fossil fuels.B)Start developing alternative fuels.C)Find the real cause for global warming.D)Take steps to reduce the greenhouse effect.Section BSection BPassage OnePassage OneQuestions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard.Questions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard.16.A)The ability to predict fashion trends.B)A refined taste for artistic works.C)Years of practical experience.D)Strict professional training.17.A)Promoting all kinds of American hand-made specialities.B)Strengthening cooperation with foreign governments.C)Conducting trade in art works with dealers overseas.D)Purchasing handicrafts from all over the world.18.A)She has access to fashionable things.B)She is doing what she enjoys doing.C)She can enjoy life on a modest salary.D)She is free to do whatever she wants.Passage TwoPassage TwoQuestions 19 to 22 are based on the passage you have just heard.Questions 19 to 22 are based on the passage you have just heard.19.A)Join in neighborhood patrols.B)Get involved in his community.C)Voice his complaints to the city council.D)Make suggestions to the local authorities.20.A)Deterioration in the quality of life.B)Increase of police patrols at night.C)Renovation of the vacant buildings.D)Violation of community regulations.21.A)They may take a long time to solve.B)They need assistance form the city.C)They have to be dealt with one by one.D)They are too big for individual efforts.22.A)He had got some groceries at a big discount.B)He had read a funny poster near his seat.C)He had done a small deed of kindness.D)He had caught the bus just in time.Passage ThreePassage ThreeQuestions 23 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.Questions 23 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.23.A)Childhood and family growth.B)Pressure and disease.C)Family life and health.D)Stress and depression.24.A)It experienced a series of misfortunes.B)It was in the process of reorganization.C)His mother died of a sudden heart attack.D)His wife left him because of his bad temper.25.A)They would give him a triple bypass surgery.B)They could remove the block in his artery.C)They could do nothing to help him.D)They would try hard to save his life.Section CSection CWhen most people think of the word“education”,they think of a pupilas a sort of animatesausage casing.Into this empty casting,the teachers(26)stuff“education.”But genuine education,as Socrates knew more than two thousand years ago,is not(27)thestuffing of information into a person,but rather eliciting knowledge from him;it is the(28)ofwhat is in the mind.“The most important part of education,”once wrote William Ernest Hocking,the(29)Harvard philosopher,“is this instruction of a man in what he has inside of him.”And,as Edith Hamilton has reminded us,Socrates never said,“I know,learn from me。”He said,rather,“Look into your own selves and find the(30)of the truth that God has put into everyheart and that only you can kindle(点燃)to a(31).”In a dialogue,Socrates takes an ignorant slave boy,without a day of(32),and proves to theamazed observers that the boy really“knows”geometry 一 because the principles of geometry arealready in his mind,waiting to be called out.So many of the discussions and(33)about the content of education are useless andinconclusive because they(34)what should“go into”the student rather than with what should betaken out,and how this can best be done.The college student who once said to me,after a lecture,“I spend so much time studying that Idont have a chance to learn anything,”was clearly expressing his(35)with the sausage casingview of education.Part III Reading Comprehension(40 minutes)Part III Reading Comprehension(40 minutes)Reading comprehensionReading comprehensionSection ASection AInnovation,the elixir(灵丹妙药)of progress,has always cost people their jobs.In theIndustrial Revolution hand weavers were _36_ aside by the mechanical loom.Over the past30 years the digital revolution has _37_ many of the mid-skill jobs that underpinned20th-century middle-class life.Typists,ticket agents,bank tellers and many production-line jobshave been dispensed with,just as the weavers were.For those who believe that technological progress has made the world a better place,suchdisruption is a natural part of rising _38_.Although innovation kills some jobs,it creates newand better ones,as a more _39_ society becomes richer and its wealthier inhabitants demandmore goods and services.A hundred years ago one in three American workers was _40_ on afarm.Today less than 2%of them produce far more food.The millions freed from the land werenot rendered _41_,but found better-paid work as the economy grew more sophisticated.Today the pool of secretaries has_42_,but there are ever more computer programmers andweb designers.Optimism remains the right starting-point,but for workers the dislocating effects oftechnology may make themselves evident faster than its _43_.Even if new jobs andwonderful products emerge,in the short term income gaps will widen,causing huge socialdislocation and perhaps even changing politics.Technologys _44_ will feel like a tornado(旋风),hitting the rich world first,but _45_ sweeping through poorer countries too.Nogovernment is prepared for it.A）benefitsB）displacedC）employedD）eventuallyE）impactF）joblessG）primarilyH）productiveI）prosperityJ）responsiveK）rhythmL）sentimentsM）shrunkN）sweptO）withdrawnSection BSection BWhy the Mona Lisa Stands OutWhy the Mona Lisa Stands OutA Have you ever fallen for a novel and been amazed not to find it on lists of great books?Orwalked around a sculpture renowned as a classic,struggling to see what the fuss is about?If so,youve probably pondered the question Cutting asked him self that day:how does a work of artcome to be considered great?B The intuitive answer is that some works of art are just great:of intrinsically superior quality.The paintings that win prime spots in galleries,get taught in classes and reproduced in books arethe ones that have proved their artistic value overtime.If you cant see theyre superior,thatsyour problem.Its an intimidatingly neat explanation.But some social scientists have been askingawkward questions of it,raising the possibility that artistic canons are little more than fossilisedhistorical accidents.C Cutting,a professor at Cornell University,wondered if a psychological mechanism known asthe“mere-exposure effect”played a role in deciding which paintings rise to the top of the culturalleague.Cutting designed an experiment to test his hunch.Over a lecture course he regularlyshowed undergraduates works of impressionism for two seconds at a time.Some of the paintingswere canonical,included in art-history books.Others were lesser known but of comparable quality.These were exposed four times as often.Afterwards,the students preferred them to the canonicalworks,while a control group of students liked the canonical ones best.Cuttings students hadgrown to like those paintings more simply because they had seen them more.D Cutting believes his experiment offers a clue as to how canons are formed.He points out thatthe most reproduced works of impressionism today tend to have been bought by five or sixwealthy and influential collectors in the late 19th century.The preferences of these men bestowedprestige on certain works,which made the works more likely to be hung in galleries and printed inanthologies.The fame passed down the years,gaining momentum from mere exposure as it did so.The more people were exposed to,the more they liked it,and the more they liked it,the more itappeared in books,on posters and in big exhibitions.Meanwhile,academics and critics createdsophisticated justifications for its pre-eminence.After all,its not just the masses who tend to ratewhat they see more often more highly.As contemporary artists like Warhol and Damien Hirst havegrasped,critical acclaim is deeply entwined with publicity.“Scholars”,Cutting argues,“are nodifferent from the public in the effects of mere exposure.”E The process described by Cutting evokes a principle that the sociologist Duncan Watts calls“cumulative advantage”:once a thing becomes popular,it will tend to become more popular still.A few years ago,Watts,who is employed by Microsoft to study the dynamics of social networks,had a similar experience to Cutting in another Paris museum.After queuing to see the“MonaLisa”in its climate-controlled bulletproof box at the Louvre,he came away puzzled:why was itconsidered so superior to the three other Leonardos in the previous chamber,to which nobodyseemed to be paying the slightest attention?F When Watts looked into the history of“the greatest painting of all time”,he discovered that,for most of its life,the“Mona Lisa”remained in relative obscurity.In the 1850s,Leonardo daVinci was considered no match for giants of Renaissance art like Titian and Raphael,whose workswere worth almost ten times as much as the“Mona Lisa”.It was only in the 20th century thatLeonardos portrait of his patrons wife rocketed to the number-one spot.What propelled it therewasnt a scholarly re-evaluation,but a theft.G In 1911 a maintenance worker at the Louvre walked out of the museum with the“Mona Lisa”hidden under his smock.Parisians were aghast at the theft of a painting to which,until then,theyhad paid little attention.When the museum reopened,people queued to see the gap where the“Mona Lisa”had once hung in a way they had never done for the painting itself.From then on,the“Mona Lisa”came to represent Western culture itself.H Although many have tried,it does seem improbable that the paintings unique status can beattributed entirely to the quality of its brushstr okes.It has been said that the subjects eyes followthe viewer around the room.But as the paintings biographer,Donald Sassoon,dryly notes,“Inreality the effect can be obtained from any portrait.”Duncan Watts proposes that the“Mona Lisa”is merely an extreme example of a general rule.Paintings,poems and pop songs are buoyed orsunk by random events or preferences that turn into waves of influence,rippling down thegenerations.I“Saying that cultural objects have value,”Brian Eno once wrote,“is like saying that telephoneshave conversations.”Nearly all the cultural objects we consume arrive wrapped in inheritedopinion;our preferences are always,to some extent,someone elses.Visitors to the“Mona Lisa”know they are about to visit the greatest work of art ever and come away appropriatelyimpressedor let down.An audience at a performance of“Hamlet”know it is regarded as a workof genius,so that is what they mostly see.Watts even calls the pre-eminence of Shakespeare a“historical accident”.J Although the rigid high-low distinction fell apart in the 1960s,we still use culture as a badge ofidentity.Todays fashion for eclecticism“I love Bach,Abba and Jay Z”is,Shamus Khan,aColumbia University psychologist,argues,a new way for the middle class to distinguishthemselves from what they perceive to be the narrow tastes of those beneath them in the socialhierarchy.K The intrinsic quality of a work of art is starting to seem like its least important attribute.Butperhaps its more significant than our social scientists allow.First of all,a work needs a certainquality to be eligible to be swept to the top of the pile.The“Mona Lisa”may not be a worthyworld champion,but it was in the Louvre in the first place,and not by accident.Secondly,somestuff is simply better than other stuff.Read“Hamlet”after reading even the greatest ofShakespeares contemporaries,and the difference may strike you as unarguable.L A study in the British Journal of Aesthetics suggests that the exposure effect doesnt work thesame way on everything,and points to a different conclusion about how canons are formed.Thesocial scientists are right to say that we should be a little skeptical of greatness,and that weshould always look in the next room.Great art and mediocrity can get confused,even by experts.But thats why we need to see,and read,as much as we can.The more were exposed to the goodand the
