英语六级试题_模拟题及答案.pdf
2010年 12月英语六级考试预测试题及答案四Part I Writing（30 minutes）Directions:For this part,you are allowed 30 minutes to write a composition on the topic:Salary or Interest.You should write at least 150 words following the outline given below:1.如今的大学毕业生面临的职业选择：兴趣重要还是工资重要2.你 的观点3.结论Salary or InterestPart II Reading Comprehension（Skimming and Scanning）（15 minutes）Directions:In this part,you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answerthe questions on Answer sheet 1.For questions 1-4,markY（for YES）if the statement agrees with the information given in the passage;N（for NO）if the statement contradicts the information given in the passage;NG（for NOT GIVEN）if the information is not given in the passage.For questions 5-10,complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.April Fools Special:Historys HoaxesHappy April Fools Day.To mark the occasion,National Geographic News has compiled alist of some of the more memorable hoaxes in recent history.They are the lies,darned（可恨的）lies,and whoppers（弥 天 大 谎）that have been perpetrated on the gullible（易 受 骗 的）andunsuspecting to fulfill that age-old desire held by some to put the joke on others.Internet HoaxesThe Internet has given birth to a proliferation（增殖）of hoaxes.E-mail inboxes are bombardedon an almost daily basis with messages warning of terrible computer viruses that cause users todelete benign（良性）chunks of data from their hard drives,or of credit card scams that entice thenaive to give all their personal information,including passwords and bank account details,toidentity thieves.Other e-mails give rise to wry（歪 曲的）chuckles,which is where this list begins.Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide（一氧化二氢）City officials in Aliso Viejo,California,were so concerned about the dangers of dihydrogenmonoxide that they scheduled a vote last month on whether to ban fbam（泡沫）cups fromcity-sponsored events after they learned the chemical was used in fbam-cup production.Officials called off the vote after learning that dihydrogen monoxide is the scientific term forwater.Its embarrassing,1 city manager David J.Norman told the Associated Press.We had aparalegal彳 聿 见 j助手）who did bad research.Indeed,the paralegal had fallen victim to an official-looking Web site touting the dangers ofdihydrogen monoxide.An e-mail originally authored in 1990 by Eric Lechner,then a graduatestudent at the University of California,Santa Cruz,claimed that dihydrogen monoxide is used asan industrial solvent and coolant,and is used in the production of Styrofoam（聚苯乙烯泡沫塑料”,Other dangers pranksters（爱开玩笑的人）associated with the chemical included acceleratedcorrosion and rusting,severe bums,and death from inhalation.Versions of the e-mail continue to circulate today,and several Web sites,including that of theCoalition to Ban DHMO,warn,tongue-in-cheek,of waters dangers.Alabama Changes Value of PiThe April 1998 newsletter put out by New Mexicans fbr science and Reason contains anarticle titled Alabama Legislature Lays Siege to Pi.It was penned by April Holiday of theAssocimated Press（sic）and told the story of how the Alabama state legislature voted to changethe value of the mathematical constant Pi from 3.14159 to the round number of 3.The ersatz（假的）news story was written by Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist MarkBoslough to parody（滑稽地模仿legislative and school board attacks on the teaching of evolutionin New Mexico.At Bosloughs suggestion,Dave Thomas,the president of New Mexicans for science andReason,posted the article in its entirety to the Internet newsgroup Talk.Origins on April 1.（Thenewsgroup hosts a lively debate on creation vs.evolution.）Later that evening Thomas posted afull confession to the hoax.He thought he had put all rumors to bed.But to Thomas*s surprise,however,several newsgroup readers forwarded the article to friendsand posted it on other newsgroups.When Thomas checked in on the story a few weeks later,he was surprised to learn that it hadspread like wildfire.The telltale signs of the articles satirical intent,such as the April 1 date andmisspelled Associmated Press1 dateline,had been replaced or deleted.Alabama legislators were bombarded with calls protesting the law.The legislators explainedthat the news was a hoax.There was not and never had been such a law.TV and Newspaper HoaxesBefore the advent of the Internet,and even today,traditional media outlets such asnewspapers,radio,and television,have sometimes hoaxed their audiences.The deceptions run thegamut from purported natural disasters to wishful news.Swiss Spaghetti（意大利式细面条）HarvestAlex Boese,curator of the Museum of Hoaxes,a regularly updated Web site that alsoappeared in book form in November 2002,said one of his favorite hoaxes remains one perpetratedby the British Broadcasting Company.On April 1,1957,the BBC aired a report on the television news show Panorama about thebumper spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland.Viewers watched Swiss farmers pull pasta off spaghetti trees as the shows anchor,RichardDimbleby,attributed the bountiful harvest to the mild winter and the disappearance of thespaghetti weevil.The broadcaster detailed the ins and outs of the life of the spaghetti farmer and anticipatedquestions about how spaghetti grows on trees.Thousands of people believed the report and calledthe BBC to inquire about growing their own spaghetti trees,to which the BBC replied,Place asprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.It was a great satirical effect about British society,Boese said.British society really waslike that at that time.The British have a tendency to be a bit insulated（绝缘的）and do not knowthat much about the rest of Europe.Taco Liberty BellOn April 1,1996,readers in five major U.S.cities opened their newspapers to learn from afull page announcement that the Taco Bell Corporation had purchased the Liberty Bell from theU.S.government.The announcement reported that the company was relocating the historic bellfrom Philadelphia,Pennsylvania,to Irvine,California.The move,the corporation said in theadvertisement,was part of an effort to help the national debt.Hundreds of other newspapers and television shows ran stories related to the press release onthe matter put out by Taco Bells public relations firm,PainePR.Outraged citizens called theLiberty Bell National Historic Park in Philadelphia to express their disgust.A few hours later thepublic relations firm released another press announcement stating that the stunt was a hoax.White House press secretary Mike McCurry got into the act when he remarked that thegovernment would also be“selling the Lincoln Memorial to Ford Motor Company and renaming itthe Lincoln-Mercury Memorial.Crop CirclesStrange,circular formations began to appear in the fields of southern England in themid-1970s,bringing busloads of curious onlookers,media representatives,and believers in theparanormal out to the countryside for a look.A sometimes vitriolic（讽刺的）debate on their origins has since ensued（品艮着发生），and thecurious formations have spread around the world,becoming more and more elaborate as the yearsgo by.Some people consider the crop formations to be the greatest works of modern art to emergefrom the 20th century,while others are convinced they are signs of extraterrestrialcommunications or landing sites of UFOs.The debate rages even today,although in 1991 Doug Bower and Dave Chorley,two elderlymen from Wiltshire County,came forward and claimed responsibility for the crop circles thatappeared there over the preceding 20 years.The pair made the circles by pushing down nearly ripecrops with a wooden plank suspended from a rope.Moon Landing-a Hoax?Ever since NASA sent astronauts to the moon between 1969 and 1972,skeptics havequestioned whether the Apollo missions were real or simply a ploy to one-up（领先）the SovietUnion during the Cold War.The debate resurfaced and reached crescendo levels in February 2001,when For television aired a program called Conspiracy Theory:Did We Land on the Moon?Guests on the show argued that NASA did not have the technology to land on the moon.Anxious to win the space race,NASA acted out the Apollo program in movie studios,they said.The conspiracy theorists pointed out that the pictures transmitted from the moon do not includestars and that the flag the Americans planted on the moon is waving,even though there is thoughto be no breeze on the moon.NASA quickly refuted these claims in a series of press releases,stating that any photographerwould know it is difficult to capture something very bright and very dim on the same piece of film.Since the photographers wanted to capture the astronauts striding across the lunar surface in theirsunlit space suits,the background stars were too faint to see.As for the flag,NASA said that the astronauts were turning it back and forth to get in firmlyplanted in the lunar soil,which made it wave.1.Some people have the age-old desire to put the joke on others.2.According to the passage,the only form of Internet hoaxes is e-mail hoax.3.Dihydrogen monoxide is a very dangerous chemical,which is often used as an industrialsolvent.4.Dihydrogen monoxide can accelerate corrosion and rusting,and cause sever bums andeven death from inhalation.5.The reason why the ersatz news that Alabama changed the value of Pi spread wildly wasthat forwarded the article to friends and posted it on other newsgroups.6.Traditional media outlets such as may still hoax their audiences nowadays.7.According to Boese,many people believed the report of Swiss spaghetti harvest becausethe British did not know.8.According to a hoax announcement,the Taco Bell Corporation bough the Liberty Bell andmoved it to Irvine to hel p.9.The crop circles were thought to be the greatest works of modern art,the signs ofor landing sites of UFOs.10.Some people thought that NASA acted out the Apollo program in movie studios partiallybecause the pictures transmitted from the moon do not i nc l ude.Part IV Reading Comprehension(Reading in Depth)(25 minutes)Section AQuestions 47 to 51 are based on the following passage.Wild ducks and other migratory(迁移的)birds could be important carriers of deadly bird flu,researchers say.Even so,the infectious-disease experts say there is no solid basis for killing wildbirds to protect poultry and minimize the risk of human infection.The European team investigating the global spread of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza(禽流感)says certain duck species may be infecting wild bird populations.Geese and wading birdsare also possible vectors(带菌者)of the virus,the team says.The teams study was led by Bjorn Olsen of Umea University in Sweden.Olsen runs Europeslargest wild-bird flu monitoring program.Studies have shown that influenza viruses in lake water,generally passed via bird ffeces(粪),can stay infectious for up to 30 days.The migration or feeding behavior of dabbling ducks could atleast partially explain the spread of the H5N1 strain of bird flu,the researchers add.This group of duck species includes mallards,teal,pintails,and others that feed at or near thesurface,where viruses in water are most likely to be picked up.Perhaps as a result,dabblers havethe highest known rates of avian influenza infection,the study says.For instance,nearly 13percent of mallards tested positive for bird flu.Other species tested include the American blackduck(18.1 percent),blue-winged teal(11.5 percent),and northern pintail(11.2 percent).However,bird flu viruses appear to exist in ducks in a low-pathogenic form,meaninginfection doesnt usually lead to severe illness and death.Dabbling ducks are for sure the prime hosts for low pathogenic viruses,said studyco-author Ron Fouchier,a virologist at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam,Netherlands.Bui the big question is,how much of our knowledge about these viruses can we translate tohigh-pathogenic viruses such as the H5N1 strain of bird flu?In poultry avian viruses can mutate(变异)into more virulent influenza strains,includingH5N1.If this mutated virus then finds its way back into wild populations,the birds could thenspread the disease through migration.Some scientists have argued that wild birds infected with HN51 would be too ill to migrate.Swans,for instance,appear to be particularly vulnerable to the strain.Swans apparently dropdead quite easily,but they are unlikely to be the vector because they are not going to fly very far ifthey are dead,Fouchier said.But the study team says that some birds that have been purposely infected for the sake ofresearch show that wild birds can survive H5N1.For some reason H5N1 has adapted so it nolonger kills dabbling ducks,1 Fouchier said.This means the ducks may be able to spread the virusover a wide area.The study team says migratory geese may also be vectors,because they often graze in hugeflocks,a practice that could encourage transmission.Migrating ducks,the researchers add,could provide an intercontinental bridge for bird fluto North America,which has not yet had any known cases of H5N1.47.According to the author,what may be the possible carriers of bird flu?48.The main sources of influenza viruses in lake water are,which may stayinfectious for up to 30 days.49.By saying bird flu viruses appear to exist in ducks in a low-pathogenic form1 1(Para.6),the author suggests that i n f e c t i o n.50.On what condition can the birds spread the influenza through migration?51.According to the study t e a m,i s a practice that can encourage transmission ofthe bird flu.Section BPassage OneQuestions 52 to 56 are based on the following passage.For about three centuries we have been doing science,trying science out,using science forthe construction of what we call modern civilization.Every dispensable item of contemporarytechnology,from canal locks to dial telephones to penicillin,was pieced together from the analysisof data provided by one or another series of scientific experiments.Three hundred years seems along time for testing a new approach to human inter-living,long enough to set back for criticalappraisal of the scientific method,maybe even long enough to vote on whether to go on with it ornot.There is an argument.Voices have been raised in protest since the beginning,rising in pitch and violence in thenineteenth century during the early stages of the industrial revolution,summoning urgent crowdsinto the streets on the issue of nuclear energy.Give it back,1 say some of the voices,nIt doesntreally work,weve tried it and it doesnt work.Go back three hundred years and start again onsomething else less chancy for the race of man.*The principle discoveries in this century,taking all in all,are the glimpses of the depth of ourignorance of nature.Things that used to seem clear and rational,and matters of absolutecertainty-Newtonian mechanics,for example-have slipped through our fingers;and we are leftwith a new set of gigantic puzzles,cosmic uncertainties,and ambiguities.Some of the laws ofphysics are amended every few years;some are canceled outright;some undergo revised versionsof legislative intent as i
