2015年12月六级真题第3套.docx

2015年12月六级考试真题（第三套）Part I Writing (30 minutes)Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay based on the picture below.You should focus on the harm caused by misleading information online.You are required to write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.Part II Listening Comprehension (30 minutes)说明：2015年12月六级真题全国共考了两套听力。本套（即第三套）的听力内容与第二套的完全一样，只是选项的顺序不一样而已，故在本套中不再重复给出。Part III Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)Section ADirections: 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.As it is, sleep is so undervalued that getting by on fewer hours has become a badge of honor. Plus, we live in a culture that 36 to the late-nighter, from 24-hour grocery stores to online shopping sites that never close. Its no surprise, then, that more than half of American adults dont get the 7 to 9 hours of shut-eye every night as 37 by sleep experts.Whether or not we can catch up on sleepon the weekend, sayis a hotly 38 topic among sleep researchers. The latest evidence suggests that while it isnt 39 , it might help. When Liu, the UCLA sleep researcher and professor of medicine, brought 40 sleep-restricted people into the lab for a weekend of sleep during which they logged about 10 hours per night, they showed 41 in the ability of insulin (胰岛素) to process blood sugar. That suggests that catch-up sleep may undo some but not all of the damage that sleep 42 causes, which is encouraging, given how many adults dont get the hours they need each night. Still, Liu isnt 43 to endorse the habit of sleeping less and making up for it later.Sleeping pills, while helpful for some, are not 44 an effective remedy either. “A sleeping pill will 45 one area of the brain, but theres never going to be a perfect sleeping pill, because you couldnt really replicate (复制) the different chemicals moving in and out of different parts of the brain to go through the different stages of sleep,” says Dr. Nancy Collop, director of the Emory University Sleep Center.A) alternativelyI) negotiatedB) catersJ) pierceC) chronicallyK) presumptionD) debatedL) readyE) deprivationM) recommendedF) idealN) surpassesG) improvementsO) targetH) necessarilySection BDirections: 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.Climate Change May Be Real, But Its Still Not Easy Being GreenHow do we convince our inner caveman to be greener? We ask some outstanding social scientists.A The road to climate hell is paved with our good intentions. Politicians may tackle polluters while scientists do battle with carbon emissions. But the most pervasive problem is less obvious: our own behaviour. We get distracted before we can turn down the heating. We break our promise not to fly after hearing about a neighbours trip to India. Ultimately, we cant be bothered to change our attitude. Fortunately for the planet, social science and behavioural economics may be able to do that for us.B Despite mournful polar beats and charts showing carbon emissions soaring, most people find it hard to believe that global warming will affect them personally. Recent polls by the Pew Research Centre in Washington, DC, found that 75-80 per cent of participants regarded climate change as an important issue. But respondents ranked it last on a list of priorities.C This inconsistency largely stems from a feeling of powerlessness. “When we cant actually remove the source of our fear, we tend to adapt psychologically by adopting a range of defence mechanisms,” says Tom Crompton, change strategist for the environmental organisation World Wide Fund for Nature.D Part of the fault lies with our inner caveman. Evolution has programmed humans to pay most attention to issues that will have an immediate impact. “We worry most about now because if we dont survive for the next minute, were not going to be around in ten years time,” says Professor Elke Weber of the Centre for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University in New York. If the Thames were lapping around Big Ben, Londoners would face up to the problem of emissions pretty quickly. But in practice, our brain discounts the risksand benefitsassociated with issues that lie some way ahead.E Matthew Rushworth, of the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, sees this in his lab every day. “One of the ways in which all agents seem to make decisions is that they assign a lower weighting to outcomes that are going to be further away in the future,” he says. “This is a very sensible way for an animal to make decisions in the wild and would have been very helpful for humans for thousands of years.”F Not any longer. By the time we wake up to the threat posed by climate change, it could well be too late. And if were not going to make rational decisions about the future, others may have to help us to do so.G Few political libraries are without a copy of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. They argue that governments should persuade us into making better decisionssuch as saving more in our pension plansby changing the default options. Professor Weber believes that environmental policy can make use of similar tactics. If, for example, building codes included green construction guidelines, most developers would be too lazy to challenge them.H Defaults are certainly part of the solution. But social scientists are most concerned about crafting messages that exploit our group mentality (心态). “We need to understand what motivates people, what it is that allows them to make change,” says Professor Neil Adger, of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Norwich. “It is actually about what their peers think of them, what their social norms are, what is seen as desirable in society.” In other words, our inner caveman is continually looking over his shoulder to see what the rest of the tribe are up to.I The passive attitude we have to climate change as individuals can be altered by counting us inand measuring us againstour peer group. “Social norms are primitive and elemental,” says Dr. Robert Cialdini, author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. “Birds flock together, fish school together, cattle herd together.just perceiving norms is enough to cause people to adjust their behaviour in the direction of the crowd.”J These norms can take us beyond good intentions. Cialdini conducted a study in San Diego in which coat hangers bearing messages about saving energy were hung on peoples doors. Some of the messages mentioned the environment, some financial savings, others social responsibility. But it was the ones that mentioned the actions of neighbours that drove down power use.K Other studies show that simply providing the facility for people to compare their energy use with the local average is enough to cause them to modify their behaviour. The Conservatives plan to adopt this strategy by making utility companies print the average local electricity and gas usage on peoples bills.L Social science can also teach politicians how to avoid our collective capacity for self-destructive behaviour. Environmental campaigns that tell us how many people drive SUVs unwittingly (不经意地) imply that this behaviour is widespread and thus permissible. Cialdini recommends some careful framing of the message. “Instead of normalising the undesirable behaviour, the message needs to marginalise it, for example, by stating that if even one person buys yet another SUV, it reduces our ability to be energy-independent.”M Tapping into how we already see ourselves is crucial. The most successful environmental strategy will marry the green message to our own sense of identity. Take your average trade union member, chances are they will be politically motivated and be used to collective actionmuch like Erica Gregory. A retired member of the Public and Commercial Services Union, she is setting up one of 1,100 action groups with the support of Climate Solidarity, a two-year environmental campaign aimed at trade unionists.N Erica is proof that a great-grandmother can help to lead the revolution if you get the psychology rightin this case, by matching her enthusiasm for the environment with a fondness for organising groups. “I think its a terrific idea,” she says of the campaign. “The union backing it makes members think there must be something in it.” She is expecting up to 20 people at the first meeting she has called, at her local pub in the Cornish village of Polperro.O Nick Perks, project director for Climate Solidarity, believes this sort of activity is where the future of environmental action lies. “Using existing civil society structures or networks is a more effective way of creating change.and obviously trade unions are one of the biggest civil society networks in the UK,” he says. The “Love Food, Hate Waste” campaign entered into a collaboration last year with another such networkthe Womens Institute.Londoner Rachel Taylor joined the campaign with the aim of making new friends. A year on, the meetings have made lasting changes to what she throws away in her kitchen. “Its always more of an incentive if youre doing it with other people,” she says. “It motivates you more if you know that youve got to provide feedback to a group.”P The power of such simple psychology in fighting climate change is attracting attention across the political establishment. In the US, the House of Representatives Science Committee has approved a bill allocating $10 million a year to studying energy-related behaviour. In the UK, new studies are in development and social scientists are regularly spotted in British government offices. With the help of psychologists, there is fresh hope that we might go green after all.46. When people find they are powerless to change a situation, they tend to live with it.47. To be effective, environmental messages should be carefully framed.48. It is the governments responsibility to persuade people into making environment-friendly decisions.49. Politicians are beginning to realise the importance of enlisting psychologists help in fighting climate change.50. To find effective solutions to climate change, it is necessary to understand what motivates people to make change.51. In their evolution, humans have learned to pay attention to the most urgent issues instead of long-term concerns.52. One study shows that our neighbours actions are influential in changing our behaviour.53. Despite clear signs of global warming, it is not easy for most people to believe climate change will affect their own lives.54. We should take our future into consideration in making decisions concerning climate change before it is too late.55. Existing social networks can be more effective in creating change in peoples behaviour.Section CDirections: 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 OneQuestions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.More than a decade ago, cognitive scientists John Bransford and Daniel Schwartz, both then at Vanderbilt University, found that what distinguished young adults from children was not the ability to retain facts or apply prior knowledge to a new situation but a quality they called “preparation for future learning.” The researchers asked fifth graders and college students to create a recovery plan to protect bald eagles from extinction. Shockingly, the two groups came up with plans of similar quality (although the college students had better spelling skills). From the standpoint of a traditional educator, this outcome indicated that schooling had failed to help students think about ecosystems and extinction, major scientific ideas.The researchers decided to go deeper, however. They asked both groups to generate questions about important issues needed to create recovery plans. On this task, they found large differences. College students focused on critical issues of interdependence between eagles and their habitats (栖息地). Fifth graders tended to focus on features of individual eagles (“How big are they?” and “What do they eat?”). The college students had cultivated the ability to ask questions, the cornerstone of critical thinking. They had learned how to learn.Museums and other institutions of informal learning may be better suited to teach this skill than elementary and secondary schools. At the Exploratorium in San Francisco, we recently studied how learning to ask good questions can affect the quality of peoples scientific inquiry. We found that when we taught participants to ask “What if?” and “How can?” questions that nobody present would know the answer to and that would spark exploration, they engaged in better inquiry at the next exhibitasking more questions, performing more experiments and making better interpretations of their results. Specifically, their questions became more comprehensive at the new exhibit. Rather than merely asking about something they wanted to try, they tended to include both cause and effect in their question. Asking juicy questions appears to be a transferable skill for deepening collaborative inquiry into the science content found in exhibits.This type of learning is not confined to museums or institutional settings. Informal learning environments tolerate failure better than schools. Perhaps many teachers have too little time to allow students to form and pursue their own questions and too much ground to cover in the curriculum. But people must acquire this skill somewhere. Our society depends on them being able to make critical decisions about their own medical treatment, say, or what we