卷三 2016年12月大学英语六级真题及答案.docx

2016年12月大学英语六级真题及答案Part Writing (30 minutes)Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay on invention. Your essay should include the importance of invention and measures to be taken to encourage invention. You are required to write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.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.The tree people in the Lord of the Rings the Ents can get around by walking. But for real trees, it's harder to uproot. Because they're literally rooted into the ground, they are unable to leave and go 26 .When a tree first starts growing in a certain area, it's likely that the 27 envelope the temperature, humidity, rainfall patterns and so on suits it. Otherwise, it would be unable to grow from a seedling. But as it 28, these conditions may change and the area around it may no longer be suitable for its 29 .When that happens, many trees like walnuts, oaks and pines, rely 30 on so-called "scatter hoarders," such as birds, to move their seeds to new localities. Many birds like to store food for the winter, which they 31 retrieve.When the birds forget to retrieve their food and they do sometimes a seedling has a chance to grow. The bird Clark's nutcracker, for example, hides up to 100,000 seeds per year, up to 30 kilometers away from the seed source, and has a very close symbiotic (共生的) relationship with several pine species, most 32 the white bark pine.As trees outgrow their ideal 33 in the face of climate change, these flying ecosystem engineers could be a big help in 34 trees. It's a solution for us getting birds to do the work is cheap and effective and it could give 35 oaks and pines the option to truly "make like a tree and leave.A) AgesB) BreathingC) ClimaticD) ElsewhereE) ExclusivelyF) ForeverG) FruitfulH) habitatsI) LegacyJ) NotablyK) OffspringL) replantingM) SubsequentlyN) VulnerableO) WithdrawsSection 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.The American Workplace Is Broken. Here's How We Can Start Fixing It.A Americans are working longer and harder hours than ever before. 83% of workers say they're stressed about their jobs, nearly 50% say work-related stress is interfering with their sleep, and 60% use their smartphones to check in with work outside of normal working hours； No wonder only 13% of employees worldwide feel engaged in their occupation.B Glimmers (少许)of hope, however, are beginning to emerge in this bruising environment: Americans are becoming aware of the toll their jobs take on them, and employers are exploring ways to alleviate the harmful effects of stress and overwork. Yet much more work remains to be done. To call stress an epidemic isn't exaggeration. The 83% of American employees who are stressed about their jobs up from 73% just a year before say that poor compensation and an unreasonable workload are their number-one sources of stress. And if you suspected that the workplace had gotten more stressful than it was just a few decades ago, you're right. Stress levels increased 18% for women and 24% for men from 1983 to 2009. Stress is also starting earlier in life, with some data suggesting that today's teens are even more stressed than adults.C Stress is taking a significant toll on our health, and the collective public health cost may be enormous. Occupational stress increases the risk of heart attack and diabetes, accelerates the aging process, decreases longevity, and contributes to depression and anxiety, among numerous other negative health outcomes. Overall, stress-related health problems account for up to 90 % of hospital visits, many of them preventable. Your job is u literally killing you," as The Washington Post put it. It's also hurting our relationships. Working parents say they feel stressed, tired, rushed and short on quality time with their children, friends and partners.D Seven in 10 workers say they struggle to maintain work-life balance. As technology (and with it, work emails) seeps (渗入)into every aspect of our lives, work-life balance has become an almost meaningless term. Add a rapidly changing economy and an uncertain future to this 24/7 connectivity, and you've got a recipe for overwork, according to Phyllis Moen. "There's rising work demand coupled with the insecurity of mergers, takeovers, downsizing and other factors,n Moen said. "Part of the work-life issue has to talk about uncertainty about the future."EThese factors have converged to create an increasingly impossible situation with many employees overworking to the point of burnout. It's not only unsustainable for workers, but also for the companies that employ them. Science has shown a clear correlation between high stress levels in workers and absenteeism （旷 工），reduced productivity, disengagement and high turnover. Too many workplace policies effectively prohibit employees from developing a healthy work-life balance by barring them from taking time off, even when they need it most.FThe U. S. trails far behind every wealthy nation and many developing ones that have familyfriendly work policies including paid parental leave, paid sick days and breast-feeding support, according to a 2007 study. The U. S. is also the only advanced economy that does not guarantee workers paid vacation time, and it's one o£ only two countries in the world that does not offer guaranteed paid maternity leave. But even when employees are given paid time off, workplace norms and expectations that pressure them to overwork often prevent them from taking it. Full time employees who do have paid vacation days only use half of them on average.G Our modern workplaces also operate based on outdated time constraints. The practice of clocking in for an eight-hour workday is a leftover from the days of the Industrial Revolution, as reflected in the then-popular saying, u Eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest."H We've held on to this workday structure but thanks to our digital devices, many employees never really clock out. Today, the average American spends 8.8 hours at work daily, and the majority o£ working professionals spend additional hours checking in with work during evenings, weekends and even vacations. The problem isn't the technology itself, but that the technology is being used to create more flexibility for the employer rather than the employee. In a competitive work environment, employers are able to use technology to demand more from their employees rather than motivating workers with flexibility that benefits them.I In a study published last year, psychologists coined the term 11 workplace telepressure" to describe an employee's urge to immediately respond to emails and engage in obsessive thoughts about returning an email to one's boss, colleagues or clients. The researchers found that telepressure is a major cause of stress at work, which over time contributes to physical and mental burnout. Of the 300 employees participating in the study, those who experienced high levels of telepressure were more likely to agree with statements assessing burnout, like "I've no energy for going to work in the morning,M and to report feeling fatigued and unfocused. Telepressure was also correlated with sleeping poorly and missing work.J Harvard Business School professor Leslie Perlow explains that when people feel the pressure to be always "on," they find ways to accommodate that pressure, including altering their schedules, work habits and interactions with family and friends. Perlow calls this vicious cycle the u cycle of responsiveness,: Once bosses and colleagues experience an employee's increased responsiveness, they increase their demands on the employee's time. And because a failure to accept these increased demands indicates a lack of commitment to one's work, the employee complies.K To address skyrocketing employee stress levels, many companies have implemented workplace wellness programs, partnering with health care providers that have created programs to promote employee health and well-being. Some research does suggest that these programs hold promise. A study of employees at health insurance provider Aetna revealed that roughly one quarter of those taking in-office yoga and mindfulness classes reported a 28% reduction in their stress levels and a 20% improvement in sleep quality. These less-stressed workers gained an average of 62 minutes per week of productivity. While yoga and meditation (静思)are scientifically proven to reduce stress levels, these programs do little to target the root causes of burnout and disengagement. The conditions creating the stress are long hours, unrealistic demands and deadlines, and work-life conflict.L Moen and her colleagues may have found the solution. In a 2011 study, she investigated the effects of implementing a Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) on the productivity and well-being of employees at Best Buy's corporate headquarters.M For the study, 325 employees spent six months taking part in ROWE, while a control group of 334 employees continued with their normal workflow. The ROWE participants were allowed to freely determine when, where and how they worked the only thing that mattered was that they got the job done. The results were striking. After six months, the employees who participated in ROWE reported reduced work-family conflict and a better sense of control of their time, and they were getting a full hour of extra sleep each night. The employees were less likely to leave their jobs, resulting in reduced turnover. It's important to note that the increased flexibility didn't encourage them to work around the clock. "They didn't work anywhere and all the time they were better able to manage their work," Moen said. "Flexibility and control is key," she continued.36. Workplace norms pressure employees to overwork, deterring them from taking paid time off.37. The overwhelming majority of employees attribute their stress mainly to low pay and an excessive workload.38. According to Moen, flexibility gives employees better control over their work and time.39. Flexibility resulting from the use of digital devices benefits employers instead of employees.40. Research finds that if employees suffer from high stress, they will be less motivated, less productive and more likely to quit.41. In-of£ice wellness programs may help reduce stress levels, but they are hardly an ultimate solution to the problem.42. Health problems caused by stress in the workplace result in huge public health expenses.43. If employees respond quickly to their job assignments, the employer is likely to demand more from them.44. With technology everywhere in our life, it has become virtually impossible for most workers to keep a balance between work and life.45. In America today, even teenagers suffer from stress, and their problem is even more serious than grown-ups'.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 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.Dr. Donald Sadoway at MIT started his own battery company with the hope of changing the world's energy future. It's a dramatic endorsement for a technology most people think about only when their smartphone goes dark. But Sadoway isn't alone in trumpeting energy storage as a missing link to a cleaner, more efficient, and more equitable energy future.Scientists and engineers have long believed in the promise of batteries to change the world. Advanced batteries are moving out of specialized markets and creeping into the mainstream, signaling a tipping point for forward-looking technolpgies such as electric cars and rooftop solar panels.The ubiquitous (无所不在的)battery has already come a long way, of course. For better or worse, batteries make possible our mobile-first lifestyles, our screen culture, our increasingly globalized world. Still, as impressive as all this is, it may be trivial compared with what comes next. Having already enabled a communications revolution, the battery is now poised to transform just about everything else.The wireless age is expanding to include not just our phones, tablets, and laptops, but also our cars, homes, and even whole communities. In emerging economies, rural communities are bypassing the wires and wooden poles that spread power. Instead, some in Africa and Asia are seeing their first lightbulbs illuminated by the power of sunlight stored in batteries.Today, energy storage is a $ 33 billion global industry that generates nearly 100 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year. By the end of the decade, it's expected to be worth over $ 50 billion and generate 160 gigawatt-hours, enough to attract the attention of major companies that might not otherwise be interested in a decidedly pedestrian technology. Even utility companies, which have long viewed batteries and alternative forms of energy as a threat, are learning to embrace the technologies as enabling rather than disrupting.Today's battery breakthroughs come as the world looks to expand modern energy access to the billion or so people without it, while also cutting back on fuels that warm the planet. Those simultaneous challenges appear less overwhelming with increasingly better answers to a centuries-old question： how to make power portable.To be sure, the battery still has a long way to go before the nightly recharge completely replaces the weekly trip to the gas station. A battery-powered world comes with its own risks, too. What happens to the centralized electric grid, which took decades and billions of dollars to build, as more and more people become "prosumers," who produce and consume their own energy onsite?No one knows which if any batte