2013年12月六級(jí)考試真題（三）

1、2013年12月六級(jí)考試真題（第三套）PAGE 72013年12月六級(jí)考試真題（第三套）PAGE 82013年12月六級(jí)考試真題（第三套）Part WritingDirections： For this part you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay about the impact of the information explosion by referring to the saying “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” You can give exam

2、ples to illustrate your point and then explain what you can do to avoid being distracted by irrelevant information. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.Part II Listening Comprehension說明：2013年12月六級(jí)真題全國(guó)共考了兩套聽力。本套（即第三套）的聽力內(nèi)容與第二套的內(nèi)容完全相同，只是選項(xiàng)的順序不一樣而已，故在本套中沒有重復(fù)給出。Part III Readin

3、g ComprehensionSection ADirections： In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word- far 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 id

4、entified 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.Some performance evaluations require supervisors to take

5、 action. Employees who receive a very favorable evaluation may deserve some type of recognition or even a promotion. If supervisors do not acknowledge such outstanding performance, employees may either lose their 36 and reduce their effort or search for a new job at a firm that will 37 them for high

6、 performance. Supervisors should acknowledge high performance so that the employee will continue to perform well in the future.Employees who receive unfavorable evaluations must also be given attention. Supervisors must 38 the reasons for poor performance. Some reasons, such as a family illness, may

7、 have a temporary adverse 39 on performance and can be corrected. Other reasons, such as a bad attitude, may not be temporary. When supervisors give employees an unfavorable evaluation, they must decide whether to take any 40 actions. If the employees were unaware of their own deficiencies, the unfa

8、vorable evaluation can pinpoint（指出）the deficiencies that employees must correct. In this case, the supervisor may simply need to monitor the employees 41 and ensure that the deficiencies are corrected.If the employees were already aware of their deficiencies before the evaluation period, however, th

9、ey may be unable or unwilling to correct them. This situation is more serious, and the supervisor may need to take action. The action should be 42 with the firms guidelines and may include reassigning the employees to new jobs, 43 them temporarily, or firing them. A supervisors action toward a poorl

10、y performing worker can 44 the attitudes of other employees. If no 45 is imposed on an employee for poor performance, other employees may react by reducing their productivity as well.A) additionalI) identifyB) affectJ) impactC) aptlyK) penaltyD) assimilateL) rewardE) circulationM) simplifyingF) clos

11、elyN) suspendingG)consistentH)enthusiasmO) vulnerableSection 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 cho

12、ose 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 College Essay: Why Those 500 Words Drive Us CrazyMeg is a lawyer-mom in suburban Washington, D.C., where lawyer-moms are thick on the ground. Her son

13、 Doug is one of several hundred thousand high-school seniors who had a painful fall. The deadline for applying to his favorite college was Nov. 1, and by early October he had yet to fill out the application. More to the point, he had yet to settle on a subject for the personal essay accompanying the

14、 application. According to college folklore, a well-turned essay has the power to seduce (誘惑）an admissions committee. “He wanted to do one thing at a time,” Meg says, explaining her sons delay. “But really, my son is a huge procrastinator (拖延者). The essay is the hardest thing to do, so hes put it of

15、f the longest.” Friends and other veterans of the process have warned Meg that the back and forth between editing parent and writing student can be traumatic（痛苦的）.Back in the good old days say, two years ago, when the last of my children suffered the ordeal (折磨)a high-school student applying to coll

16、ege could procrastinate all the way to New Years Day of their senior year, assuming they could withstand the parental pestering (煩擾). But things change fast in the nail-biting world of college admissions. The recent trend toward early decision and early action among selective colleges and universiti

17、es has pushed the traditional deadline of January up to Nov. 1 or early December for many students.If the time for heel-dragging has been shortened, the true source of the anxiety and panic remains what it has always been. And ifs not the application itself. A college application is a relatively str

18、aightforward questionnaire asking for the basics: name, address, family history, employment history. It would all be innocent enough 20 minutes of busy work except it comes attached to a personal essay.“There are good reasons it causes such anxiety,” says Lisa Sohmer, director of college counseling

19、at the Garden School in Jackson Heights, N.Y. “Its not just the actual writing. By now everything else is already set. Your course load is set, your grades are set, your test scores are set. But the essay is something you can still control, and its open-ended. So the temptation is to write and rewri

20、te and rewrite.” Or stall and stall and stall.The application essay, along with its mythical importance, is a recent invention. In the 1930s, when only one in 10 Americans had a degree from a four-year college, an admissions committee was content to ask for a sample of applicants school papers to as

21、sess their writing ability. By the 1950s, most schools required a brief personal statement of why the student had chosen to apply to one school over another.Today nearly 70 percent of graduating seniors go off to college, including two-year and four- year institutions. Even apart from the increased

22、competition, the kids enter a process that has been utterly transformed from the one baby boomers knew. Nearly all application materials are submitted online, and the Common Application provides a one-size-fits form accepted by more than 400 schools, including the nations most selective.Those school

23、s usually require essays of their own, but the longest essay, 500 words maximum, is generally attached to the Common Application. Students choose one of six questions. Applicants are asked to describe an ethical dilemma theyve faced and its impact on them, or discuss a public issue of special concer

24、n to them, or tell of a fictional character or creative work that has profoundly influenced them. Another question invites them to write about the importance (to them, again) of diversity a word that has assumed magic power in American higher education. The most popular option: write on a topic of y

25、our choice.“Boys in particular look at the other questions and say, Oh, thats too much work,” says John Boshoven, a counselor in the Ann Arbor, Mich., public schools. “They think if they do a topic of their choice, Ill just go get that history paper I did last year on the Roman Empire and turn it in

26、to a first-person application essay! And they end up producing something utterly ridiculous.”Talking to admissions professionals like Boshoven, you realize that the list of “donts” in essay writing is much longer than the “dos.” “No book reports, no history papers, no character studies,” says Sohmer

27、. It drives you crazy, how easily kids slip into cliches(老生常談)says Boshoven.“They dont realize how typical their experiences are. I scored the winning goal in soccer against our arch- rival My grandfather served in World War II, and I hope to be just like him someday. That may mean a lot to that par

28、ticular kid. But in the world of the application essay, its nothing. Youll lose the reader in the first paragraph.”“The greatest strength you bring to this essay,” says the College Boards how-to book, “is 17 years or so of familiarity with the topic: YOU. The form and style are very familiar, and be

29、st of all, you are the world-class expert on the subject of YOU . It has been the subject of your close scrutiny every morning since you were tall enough to see into the bathroom mirror. The key word in the Common Application prompts is “you.”The college admission essay contains the grandest America

30、n themes status anxiety, parental piety（孝順）intellectual standards and so it is only a matter of time before it becomes infected by the countrys culture of excessive concern with self-esteem. Even if the question is ostensibly （表面上) about something outside the self (describe a fictional character or

31、solve a problem of geopolitics), the essay invariably returns to the favorite topic: what is its impact on YOU?“For all the anxiety the essay causes,” says Bill McClintick of Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, “its a very small piece of the puzzle. I was in college admissions for 10 years. I saw k

32、ids and parents beat themselves up over this. And at the vast majority of places, it is simply not a big variable in the colleges decision-making process.”Many admissions officers say they spend less than a couple of minutes on each application, including the essay. According to a recent survey of a

33、dmissions officers, only one in four private colleges say the essay is of “considerable importance” in judging an application. Among public colleges and universities, the number drops to roughly one in 10. By contrast, 86 percent place “considerable importance” on an applicants grades, 70 percent on

34、 “strength of curriculum.”Still, at the most selective schools, where thousands of candidates may submit identically high grades and test scores, a marginal item like the essay may serve as a tie-breaker between two equally qualified candidates. The thought is certainly enough to keep the pot boilin

35、g under parents like Meg, the lawyer-mom, as she tries to help her son choose an essay topic. For a moment the other day, she thought she might have hit on a good one. “His fathers from France,” she says. “I said maybe you could write about that, as something that makes you different. You know: half

36、 French, half American. I said, “You could write about your identity issues. He said, I dont have any identity issues! And hes right. Hes a well-adjusted, normal kid. But that doesnt make for a good essay, does it?”Today many universities require their applicants to write an essay of up to five hund

37、red words.One recent change in college admissions is that selective colleges and universities have moved the traditional deadline to earlier dates.Applicants and their parents are said to believe that the personal essay can sway the admissions committee.Applicants are usually better off if they can

38、write an essay that distinguishes them from the rest.Not only is the competition getting more intense, the application process today is also totally different from what baby boomers knew.In writing about their own experiences many applicants slip into cliches, thus failing to engage the reader.Accor

39、ding to a recent survey, most public colleges and universities consider an applicants grades highly important.Although the application essay causes lots of anxiety, it does not play so important a role in the colleges decision-making process.The question you are supposed to write about may seem outs

40、ide the self, but the theme of the essay should center around its impact on you.In the old days, applicants only had to submit a sample of their school papers to show theirwriting ability.Section CDirections: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinis

41、hed 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.Among the governments most

42、 interesting reports is one that estimates what parents spend on their children. Not surprisingly, the costs are steep. For a middle-class, husband-and-wife family (average pretax income in 2009: $76,250), spending per child is about $12,000 a year. With inflation the familys spending on a child wil

43、l total $286,050 by age 17.The dry statistics ought to inform the ongoing deficit debate, because a budget is not just a catalog of programs and taxes. It reflects a societys priorities and values. Our society does not 一 despite rhetoric (說辭) to the contrary put much value on raising children. Prese

44、nt budget policies tax parents heavily to support the elderly. Meanwhile, tax breaks for children are modest. If deficit reduction aggravates these biases, more Americans may choose not to have children or to have fewer children. Down that path lies economic decline.Societies that cannot replace the

45、ir populations discourage investment and innovation. They have stagnant（蕭條的）or shrinking markets for goods and services. With older populations, they resist change. To stabilize its population discounting immigration women must have an average of two children. Thats a fertility rate of 2.0. Many cou

46、ntries with struggling economies are well below that.Though having a child is a deeply personal decision, its shaped by culture, religion, economics, and government policy. “No one has a good answer” as to why fertility varies among countries, says sociologist Andrew Cherlin of The Johns Hopkins Uni

47、versity. Eroding religious belief in Europe may partly explain lowered birthrates. In Japan young women may be rebelling against their mothers isolated lives of child rearing. General optimism and pessimism count. Hopefulness fueled Americas baby boom. After the Soviet Unions collapse, says Cherlin,

48、 “anxiety for the future” depressed birthrates in Russia and Eastern Europe.In poor societies, people have children to improve their economic well-being by increasing the number of family workers and providing support for parents in their old age. In wealthy societies, the logic often reverses. Gove

49、rnment now supports the elderly, diminishing the need for children. By some studies, the safety nets for retirees have reduced fertility rates by 0.5 children in the United States and almost 1.0 in Western Europe, reports economist Robert Stein in the journal National Affairs. Similarly, some couple

50、s dont have children because they dont want to sacrifice their own lifestyles to the time and expense of a family.Young Americans already face a bleak labor market that cannot instill (注入) confidence about having children. Piling on higher taxes wont help. “If higher taxes make it more expensive to

51、raise children, says Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, “people will think twice about having another child.” That seems like common sense, despite the multiple influences on becoming parents.56. What do we learn from the government report? Inflation increases families expenses

52、.Raising children is getting expensive.Budget reduction is around the comer.Average family expenditure is increasing.57. What is said to be the consequence of a shrinking population?Weakened national strength.C) Economic downturn.Increased immigration.D) Social instability.58. What accounted for Ame

53、ricas baby boom?Optimism for the future.C) Religious beliefs.Improved living conditions.D) Economic prosperity.59. Why do people in wealthy countries prefer to have fewer children?They want to further improve their economic well-being.They cannot afford the time and expenses of rearing children.They

54、 are concerned about the future of the coming generation.They dont rely on their children to support them in old age.60. What is the authors purpose in writing the passage?To instill confidence in the young about raising children.To advise couples to think twice before having children.To encourage t

55、he young to take care of the elderly.To appeal for tax reduction for raising children.Passage TwoQuestions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage.Space exploration has always been the province of dreamers: The human imagination readily soars where human ingenuity (創(chuàng)造力）struggles to follow, A Voy

56、age to the Moon, often cited as the first science fiction story, was written by Cyrano de Bergerac in 1649. Cyrano was dead and buried for a good three centuries before the first manned rockets started to fly.In 1961, when President Kennedy declared that America would send a man to the moon by the d

57、ecades end, those words, too, had a dreamlike quality. They resonated（共鳴）with optimism and ambition in much the same way as the most famous dream speech of all, delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. two years later. By the end of the decade, both visions had yielded concrete results and transformed Am

58、erican society. And yet in many ways the two dreams ended up at odds with each other. The fight for racial and economic equality is intensely pragmatic (講求實(shí)用的）and immediate in its impact. The urge to explore space is just the opposite. It is figuratively and literally otherworldly in its aims.When t

59、he dust settled, the space dreamers lost out. There was no grand follow-up to the Apollo missions. The technologically compromised space shuttle program has just come to an end, with no successor. The perpetual argument is that funds are tight, that we have more pressing problems here on Earth. Amid

60、 the current concerns about the federal deficit, reaching toward the stars seems a dispensable luxury as if saving one-thousandth of a single years budget would solve our problems.But human ingenuity struggles on. NASA is developing a series of robotic probes that will get the most bang from a buck.