大学英语六级（2013年12月考试改革适用）模拟试卷325

For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a composition on the topic The Unemployment Crisis. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words which should cover: 1) describing the meaning of cartoon briefly; 2) stating its main idea; 3) giving your comments. Write your essay on Answer Sheet 1. [*]

W: Do you know Bob well? M: We all know each other well here. Are you thinking of staying here? W: Perhaps for a day or two. But it doesn’ t seem possible now to stay here. M: I don’t see why not if you want to. The place is empty, at least until Bob finds another tenant, I should say. I shouldn’ t think that he’d object. W: Who owns this cottage then? M: He owns all the cottages except Julius Court’s, surely he owns this one. It is quite new and you can see the sea through the big windows. Behind the cottage there is a small farm where you can get fresh milk if you don’t mind the walking five miles. I assure you it tastes better than milk in the town. W: I will take it if he doesn’t mind my puppy Noel. See what a lovely dog! My ex-husband brought it to me and it can stands wonderfully on its hinders. Do you like it? M: I like it but you’ d better make sure your dog doesn’ t bark in the evening. Questions 1 to 4 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 1. How long will the woman stay here? 2. Who owns the cottage? 3. What do we know about cottage? 4. What can we learn about Noel? More than a year. Two months. More than two weeks. One or two days.

M: Hello, madam. I got your note. I come to say goodbye. W: Have a seat there boy. M: How is your back, madam? W: I feel much better. I have the privilege of meeting your mother and dad when last week. They are really nice parents. We talked for two hours about you, especially your performances in the classes. They are a bit worry about your study, you know. M: I hope I haven’ t let them down. W: Not really, boy. How many subjects did you carry this team? M: Five, madam. W: Five, and how many are you failing in? M: One, I passed English very well because I had all the Beowulf and Shakespeare stuff when I was at the Lockwood School. I mean I didn’t have to do any real work in English at all except write compositions once in a week. W: I flunked you in history because you knew nothing. M: I know that madam,I know you couldn’t help it. I will try my best next year. I will keep my word and besides, I will work on it this coming summer holiday. Questions 5 to 8 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 5. What is the relationship between the boy and the woman? 6. What are they talking about? 7. What do we know about the boy’s parents? 8. How will the boy spend this summer holiday? Mother and son. Teacher and student. Landlady and tenant. Sister and brother.

Vietnamese authorities reported on Monday that bird flu has spread to seventh province in the country’ s south. Avian flu outbreaks have led to the killing of thousands of birds in Vietnam’ s Mekong delta in the past month. Thai livestock officials say they have just culled ducks in a northern province, the first flu outbreak in poultry in six months. In Japan, agricultural authorities began culling thousands of chickens at a south poultry farm on Sunday after tests found they were infected with bird flu. In China’s Hong Kong, a dead bird suspected of having the H5N1 strain of avian influenza was found last Saturday, the second in two weeks. Bird flu has also claimed human lives. Four people died of avian influenza in Indonesia last week. The son and husband of one the victims are being treated for symptoms of bird flu. Officially say, however, that there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission. Peter Cordingley, spokesman for the World Health Organization’ s regional office in Manila, says the recent outbreaks prove Asian needs to remain vigilant. Cordingley urges continued education about the dangers of living in close proximity to infected poultry, particularly in Indonesia, where more than 60 people have already died of avian influenza. Bird flu featured prominently at the meeting of the Association of South East Asian Nations in Manila. Leaders endorsed a bird flu-prevention “road map“ aimed at sharing best practices in the region. Questions 9 to 11 are based on the passage you have just heard. 9. Until Monday, how many provinces in Vietnam have been influenced by bird flu? 10. How many people died of bird flu in Indonesia last week? 11. What did the leaders do to fight against bird flu during the meeting of the Association of South East Asian Nations? Eight. Seven. Six. Five.

California is a land of variety and contrast. Almost every type of physical land feature, sort of arctic ice fields and tropical jungles can be found within its borders. Sharply contrasting types of land often lie very close to one another. People living in Bakersfield, for instance, can visit the Pacific Ocean and the coastal plain, the fertile San Joaquin Valley, the arid Mojave Desert, and the high Sierra Nevada, all within a radius of about 100 miles. In other areas it is possible to go snow skiing in the morning and surfing in the evening of the same day, without having to travel long distance. Contrast abounds in California. The highest point in the United States(Outside Alaska) is in California, and so is the lowest point(including Alaska). Mount Whitney, 14,494 feet above sea level, is separated from Death Valley, 282 feet below sea level, by a distance of only 100 miles. The two areas have a difference in altitude of almost three miles. California has deep, clear mountain lakes like Lake Tahoe, the deepest in the country, but it also has shallow, salty desert lakes. It has Lake Tulainyo, 12,020 feet above sea level, and the lowest lake in the country, the Salton Sea, 236 feet below sea level. Some of its lakes, like Owens, Lake in Death Valley, are not lakes at all: They are dried up lake beds. In addition to mountains, lakes, valleys, deserts, and plateaus, California has its Pacific coastline, stretching longer than the coastlines of Oregon and Washington combined. Questions 12 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard. 12. Where is the highest point in the United States(Outside Alaska)? 13. Which of the following is the lowest point in the United States? 14. How far away is Death Valley from Mount Whitney? 15. Which of the following is not mentioned in the passage as being within a radius of about 100 miles of Bakersfield? Alaska. Oklahoma. California. Hawaii.

In my opinion, Frank Lloyd Wright was the greatest American architect of the 20th century. People who know his designs well point out that his roofs often leaked, his ceilings were too low, and his houses were uncomfortable. In my presentation, however, I’ll be focusing on the virtues of his designs. For what you will see, it would be hard to dispute that he manipulated space extremely well, some of his smallest houses look gigantic, and he had great respect for the materials he used and also a tremendous skill for placing his buildings in harmony with nature. Wright’s career began when he was young. He was just a teenager when he helped build the chapel on his family’s property in Wisconsin. And from there, he got hired as a draftsman by the project architect. So it was a very long career. He died at 91, while his final major work, the Guggenheim Museum, was still being built. Today, we’ll cover what we consider to be the two great periods of his career, Wright’s works before the Tokyo Imperial Hotel completed in 1922 and everything after Falling Water, a private residence in western Pennsylvania completed in 1936. The first period started around 1896, when he made a dramatic shift from the classical tradition to the arts and crafts movement. Here, the emphasis was on order, consistency and unity of design. Things were kept simple with minimal decoration. Natural forms were very important. Let’s take a look at a slide of his own dining room done in this style. Now listen to the following recording and answer questions 16 to 19. 16. What is the purpose of the talk? 17. What is one criticism of Wright? 18. How did Wright’ s career begin? 19. Why does the speaker mention the Imperial Hotel and Falling Water? To explain why Wright became an architect. To describe the positive aspects of Wright’s architecture. To explain why Wright’s style of architecture became less popular. To describe the materials Wight used in construction.

We are going to talk today about the moon, our moon. First of all, the earth’s moon is unusual. Why? It’s larger than other moons or satellites in the solar system, in relation to its planet that is. Its diameter is more than a quarter that of the earth. And if you compare the earth and the moon in terms of substance, you find the moon isn’t much like the earth. For example, the earth has a significant iron core, but the moon contains very little heavy materials like iron. That’ s why its density is much lower than that of the earth. Now, one time it was believed that the moon and the earth were formed at the same time from the same material. But then wouldn’t the moon have as much iron as the earth? Another theory is that the moon was formed elsewhere in the solar system, and then it was captured, so to speak, by earth. But study shows that the young earth would not have had enough gravitational force to stop a body the size of a moon from traveling through the solar system and pull it into orbit. The newest theory is called the big splash theory. Here, the new young earth was hit by another big planet. Most of the colliding planet entered the earth and became part of it. But the huge impact created a vapor that shed out into space and eventually condensed as the moon. Because this material came mostly from the earth surface crust, not the iron core, the moon contains almost no iron. Well, as plausible(似是而非) as it sounds, it’ s only a theory, and we can’t be sure that this is what really happened, that this is how the moon originated. Plenty of research remained to be done. Now listen to the following recording and answer questions 20 to 22. 20. What does the Prof. mainly discuss? 21. According to the Prof, why do scientists disagree with the theory that earth captured the moon? 22. What information about the moon’ s composition helps support the big splash theory? Theories of how the universe evolved. Similarities between the planets in the solar system. Reason for the high density of earth. Theories of the origin of the Moon.

In order to diagnose and treat abnormal behavior, we have to start with clear definitions of what’s meant by abnormal and normal. Criteria must be worked out for distinguishing one from the other in actual clinical cases. The word abnormal implies a deviation from some clearly defined norm. In the case of physical illness, the boundary lines between normality and pathology are often clearly depicted by medical science, making it easier to diagnose. On the psychological level, however, we have no ideal model to use as a base of comparison, nothing to help us distinguish mental health from mental disorder. The problem of defining abnormal behavior via establishing just what is meant by normal behavior has proved extremely difficult. However, as chapter 5 outlines, several criteria have been proposed. One norm described in detail in your text is personal adjustment. An individual who was able to deal with problems effectively without serious anxiety or unhappiness or more serious symptoms is said to be well adjusted. Personal adjustment as a norm has several serious limitations though. For example, it makes no reference to the individual’ s role in the group. How’re we going to classify, for example, the untypical politician or businessperson who engages in unethical practices. Either might be a successful, happy, well-adjusted individual. Obviously, the welfare of the group, as well as that of the individual, must be considered, which brings me to the next approach. Now listen to the following recording and answer questions 23 to 25. 23. What problem concerning abnormal behavior does the instructor discuss? 24. Why does the instructor mention physical illness? 25. What will the instructor probably discuss next? It is difficult to define. Its causes are often unknown. Psychologists disagree about how to treat it. Its symptoms often go unnoticed.

Erupting in September 2008, the global financial crisis has 26 for a decade. After the crisis, the worldwide trend of surplus production capacity and 27 demand could not be reversed and the world economy has remained 28 , leading to 29 changes in the world and creating serious social problems. We need to analyze the root causes and lessons of the crisis so as to better 30 any likely new crisis. After the crisis, many reasons were 31 , such as greedy financial institutions and financial product investors who cared only for high investment returns but were 32 the high risks; loopholes in the accounting system and problematic practices and principles of the industry; irresponsible rating firms whose credit scores were not in line with facts; and excessive financial innovation but 33 financial regulation, which caused systemic risks. All these need to be 34 , but they are not the root causes of the once-in-a-century crisis. Against the background of globalization and the history of the 20th century, we can 35 the real root cause: the massive surplus caused by information asymmetry and inadequacy during the process of international capital and production capacity transfer. It led to both the Great Depression in the 1930s and the recent Great Recession. A) rectified B) overall C) listed D) react E) incompatible F) deficient G) figure out H) lasted I) significant J) regardless of K) fluctuated L) address M) little N) sluggish O) incompatible

A) Reduce, reuse, and recycle. Recycling has become a part of American life. It also is an important part of the waste-processing industry. In fact, many cities and towns in the United States now have recycling programs. To learn how such a program works, we will go to a recycling centre in the eastern state of Maryland. B) The recycle bin in the home or office is often the last stop for empty containers. But for papers, plastics, cardboards and cans, it is the beginning of a trip thousands of kilometres long. Yehenew Gedshew directs a recycling centre near Washington, DC. “As long as people throw their trash, we have a job.“ His recycling centre processes about 35 tons of material an hour. How does it process that much every hour? Yehenew Gedshew says the business is highly-organized. “First what happens is, dump trucks bring materials to our site. They dump it on the tipping floor. It goes to the first screen where the cardboard and the rest of the material is sorted out.“ The rest of the material goes on a belt that carries the glass and plastic to the last screening area(筛分区). The glass gets crushed and the plastic gets sorted and flattened. C) Local recycling programs often require people to separate plastics, papers and glass. But Yehenew Gedshew says sorters at his recycling centre do all that work. He says the centre ships most of its plastic to a processing centre in North Carolina, more than 500 kilometres to the south. At that centre, mountains of bottles become piles of plastic. They are ready to be melted and shaped into something new. D) From the store to the recycling bin, and from there to just about anywhere you can imagine, plastic bottles spend a lot of time on the road. And so have we. We now go to Fayetteville, North Carolina. The city is home to the Clear Path Recycling centre. It is one of the largest plastic recycling centres in the United States. E) The Clear Path Recycling Centre receives 8 to 10 trucks a day. That means more than 18,000 kilograms of plastic every day. The goods come to the centre in large piles or bales, like the ones at the recycling centre in Maryland. F) Not far from the Clear Path Recycling is a huge storage area for the plastic objects. They enter the recycling centre to begin the process that will change them. “This is where the whole bottles enter the whole bottle wash. It’ s just like your front-end loading washing machine at your house. It’ s just a lot longer, and a lot bigger.“ G) Hot water washes paper labels off the drink bottles and removes dirt. The plastic is broken up into what the plastics recycling industry calls “PET flake(PET碎片).“ Another centre will buy the flake to melt and mould into something else. H) Plastic bottles spend their lives on the move. Machines mould and fill them with our favourite drinks. When we are done drinking, machines destroy the bottles and make them into new bottles. Their journey never ends. But our trip has come to an end in Wilson, North Carolina. I) In our program, we have described the trip made by plastic bottles from stores to recycling bins and then to recycling centres. The bottles are then broken down into small pieces, which are put into bags. Now, we will witness the rebirth of a plastic bottle. J) Mark Rath is a supervisor at Peninsula Packaging. At his business, pieces of plastic become products like carry-out trays at food stores and restaurants. Peninsula Packaging melts and flattens plastic so it can be shaped and moulded. The process is complex. “We take the clear chips like this, and it goes into an oven, and it cooks for about 3 to 4 hours in that oven.“ K) The plastic cooks at almost 200 °C. When the melted plastic comes out of the oven, it is made into carry-out trays or other food packaging. “We unwind the plastic into a very long oven where we heat it again, and then we’ll form it in a forming station. We’ll follow it through and see what happens to it.“ What happens to the recycled plastic involves a vacuum, lots of pressure, and— believe it or not—more recycling. L) Mark Rath says all of the plastics in this packaging centre become some kind of container in their next lives. “That’ll end up being a fresh-cut-salad base. Not sure where it goes, but it’ll end up some place with celery and carrots and tomatoes.“ It has taken several days, but a plastic bottle like the one we bought in Washington, DC has now become a salad tray in North Carolina. M) Countless things affect the health of our environment. What we take from nature may not harm it as much as what we add to it. For years, many people have harmed the environment by throwing away plastic grocery bags. But in Washington, a “bag tax“ has changed the behaviour of many people, and the way business affects the environment. N) The Anacostia River flows through southeast Washington into the better-known Potomac River. The Anacostia is often called the city’s “other river.“ Tommy Wells is a member of the Washington, DC city council. He is worried about the health of river. He notes that some people have called the Anacostia, one of the 10 most polluted rivers in the country. Mr. Wells says he was tired of seeing so many plastic bags in or near the river. “I wanted something that got into people’ s heads; not their pockets.“ O) Stores in Washington now require people to pay five cents for each disposable plastic bag. The money goes into the “Anacostia River Clean Up Fund.“ People who bring their own bag do not pay anything extra. Has the “bag tax“ helped? Bret Bolin is with the Anacostia Watershed Society, a group that is working to protect the river. “In just about 3 and a half months of the bag fee, people were already reporting that they were seeing a lot less bags in the river and at cleanup sites than in past years.“ Councilman Tommy Wells agrees that the bag tax worked. “There was a 60 percent reduction of the amount of bags that were pulled out of the river.“ The local government estimates that stores gave shoppers almost 300 million bags in 2009. Mr. Bolin says the bag tax caused the number to drop sharply. “And they were estimating something like 55 million being distributed in 2010, which is an 80 percent reduction, which is amazing.“

Old stereotypes die hard. Picture a video-game player and you will likely imagine a teenage boy, by himself, compulsively hammering away at a game involving rayguns and aliens that splatter when blasted. Ten years ago that might have borne some relation to reality. But today a gamer is as likely to be a middle-aged commuter playing “Angry Birds“ on her smartphone. In America, the biggest market, the average game-player is 37 years old. Two-fifths are female. Over the past ten years the video-game industry has grown from a small business to a huge, mainstream one. With global sales of $56 billion in 2010, it is more than twice the size of the recorded-music industry. Despite the downturn, it is growing by almost 9% a year. Is this success due to luck or skill? The answer matters, because the rest of the entertainment industry has tended to treat gaming as being a lucky beneficiary of broader technological changes. Video gaming, unlike music, film or television, had the luck to be born digital. In fact, there is plenty for old media to learn. Video games have certainly been swept along by two forces: demography and technology. The first gaming generation—the children of the 1970s and early 1980s—is now over 30. Many still love gaming, and can afford to spend far more on it now. Meanwhile rapid improvements in computing power have allowed game designers to offer experiences that are now often more cinematic than the cinema. But even granted this good fortune, the game-makers have been clever. They have reached out to new customers with new methods. They have branched out into education, corporate training and even warfare, and have embraced digital downloads and mobile devices with enthusiasm. Though big-budget games are still popular, much of the growth now comes from “casual“ games that are simple, cheap and playable in short bursts on mobile phones or in web browsers. The industry has excelled in a particular area—pricing. In an era when people are disinclined to pay for content on the web, games publishers were quick to develop “freemium“ models, where you rely on non-paying customers to build an audience and then extract cash only from a fanatical few. As gaming comes to be seen as just another medium, its tech-savvy approach could provide a welcome shot in the arm for existing media groups.

With its recession-friendly coffee prices, plentiful tables and available bathrooms, McDonald’ s restaurants all over the country, and even all over the world, have been adopted by wise customers as a coffeehouse for grass roots, a sort of everyman’ s Starbucks. Behind the Golden Arches, older people seeking company and conversation, schoolchildren putting off homework time and homeless people escaping the cold have transformed the banquettes into headquarters for the kind of leisurely socializing. And so restaurant managers and franchise owners are often frustrated by these, their most loyal customers. Such regulars hurt business, some say, and leave little room for other customers. Tensions can sometimes erupt. In the past month, those tensions came to a boil in New York City. When management at a McDonald’s in Flushing, Queens, called the police on a group of older Koreans, prompting outrage at the company’ s perceived rudeness, calls for a worldwide boycott and a truce mediated by a local politician, it became a famous case of a struggle that happens daily at McDonald’ s outlets in the city and beyond. Is the customer always right, even when they sit for long hours without spending? The answer seems to be yes among those who do the endless sitting at McDonald’s restaurants in Crown Heights, Brooklyn; Midtown Manhattan; Astoria, Queens; and the East Village. If Mike Black’ s friends are looking for him, they know to check the McDonald’s on Utica Avenue in Flatbush, Brooklyn, he said. That is where Mr. Black, who is in his 50s, spends hours opening and reading his junk mail.“I don’t eat fast food,“ he said, arguing that his one coffee entitled him to all the leisure time he needed. “I just come here to hang out and deal with my mail.“ At some of New York City’s 235 McDonald’s outlets, customers say they have adopted the fast-food franchise as a cafe for a less affluent crowd, a view strengthened by the company’s newer offerings, like McCafe coffee drinks. “We’re pleased many of our customers view us as a comfortable place to spend time,“ Lisa McComb, a spokeswoman for the company, said in an email, citing free Wi-Fi and areas for children to play as part of the appeal. “McDonald’s offers convenience and value in a fun and familiar atmosphere.“ But the leisurely cafe culture and the business plan behind fast food are in opposition. Although signs hang in many McDonald’ s stores instructing customers to spend half an hour or less at the ta bles, Ms. McComb said there was no national policy about discouraging longtime sitting.

中国的官方语言普通话(Mandarin)在美国的学校中突然热起来。由于中国经济在21世纪的快速发展，美国的公立和私立学校纷纷在外语课程中加入汉语这一科目。或将已有的汉语教学项目进行扩展。据统计，在美国的学校中，有5万名孩子在学习汉语。但推动汉语项目的发展不是没有遇到困难。由于缺乏受过专业训练、持有证书的教师，一些学校很难加入汉语教学的竞争。当学校聘用教师时，它们通常直接从中国招聘，这种方式为文化冲突埋下了隐患。