1、欢迎关注微信公众号“不二商院”2013 年 12 月大学英语六级考试真题(第 2 套)Part I Writing (30 minutes)Directions: 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 apoverty of attention. “ You can give examples to il
2、lustrate your point and then explainwhat you can do to avoid being distracted by irrelevant information. You shouldwrite at least 150 words but no more than 200 words._Part II Listening Comprehension (30 minutes)Section ADirections: In this section, you will hear 8 short conversations and 2 long con
3、versations. At the end ofeach conversation, one or more questions will be asked about what was said. Both theconversation and the questions will be spoken only once. After each question there will be apause. During the pause, you must read the four choices marked A, B, C and D), anddecide which is t
4、he best answer. Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1with a single line through the centre.1. A Labor problems. B Weather conditions. C An error in the order. DMisplacingof goods.2. A What the woman says makes a lot of sense.B The rich are opposed to social welfare. C He is sympatheti
5、c with poor people.DHe agrees with Mr. Johnsons views.3. A He will be practicing soccer. B He has work to finish in time. C He will be attending a meeting. DHe has a tough problem to solve.4. A Mary should get rid of her pet as soon as possible.B Mary will not be able to keep a dog in the building.C
6、 Mary is not happy with the ban on pet animals.DMary might as well send her dog to her relative.5. A The twins voices are quite different. B Lisa and Gale are not very much alike. C He does not believe they are twin sisters.DThe woman seems a bit hard of hearing.6. A The serious economic crisis in B
7、ritain. 、B A package deal to be signed in November. C A message from their business associates.DTheir ability to deal with financial problems.7. A It is impossible to remove the stain completely.B The man will be charged extra for the service.C The man has to go to the main cleaning facility.欢迎关注微信公
8、众号“不二商院”DCleaning the pants will take longer than usual.8. A European markets. B A protest rally. C Luxury goods.DImported products.Conversation OneQuestions 9 to 12 are based on the conversation you have just heard.9. A He made a business trip. B He had a quarrel with Marsha. C He talked to her on
9、the phone.DHe resolved a budget problem.10. A She may have to be fired for poor performance.B She has developed some serious mental problem.C She is in charge of the firms budget planning.DShe supervises a number of important projects.11. A She failed to arrive at the airport on time.B David promise
10、d to go on the trip in her place, C Something unexpected happened at her home. DShe was not feeling herself on that day.12. A He frequently gets things mixed up. B He is always finding fault with Marsha. C He Ires been trying hard to cover for Marsha.DHe often fails to follow through on his projects
11、.Conversation TwoQuestions 13 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 13. A They are better sheltered from all the outside temptations.B They are usually more motivated to compete with their peers.C They have more opportunities to develop their leadership skills.DThey take an active
12、 part in more extracurricular activities.14. A Its chief positions are held by women. B Its teaching staff consists of women only. C Its students aim at managerial posts.DIts students are role models of women.15. A It is under adequate control.B It is traditional but coloufful.C They are more or les
13、s isolated from the outside world.DThey have ample opportunities to meet the opposite sex.Section BDirections: In this section, you will hear 3 short passages. At the end of each passage, you will hearsome questions. Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After you heara questi
14、on, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C andD ). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet I with a single line through thecentre. Passage OneQuestions 16 to 19 are based on the passage you have just heard.欢迎关注微信公众号“不二商院”16. A By invading the personal space o
15、f listeners. B By making gestures at strategic points. C By speaking in a deep, loud voice.DBy speaking with the local accent.17. A To promote sportsmanship among business owners.B To encourage people to support local sports groups.C To raise money for a forthcoming local sports event.DTo show his f
16、amilys contribution to the community.18. A They are known to be the style of the sports world.B They would certainly appeal to his audience.C They represent the latest fashion in the business circles.DThey are believed to communicate power and influence.19. A To cover up his own nervousness.B To cre
17、ate a warm personal atmosphere.C To enhance the effect of background music.DTo allow the audience to better enjoy his slides.Passage TwoQuestions 20 to 22 are based on the passage you have just heard. 20. A She was the first educated slave of John Wheatleys.B She was the greatest female poet in Colo
18、nial America.C She was born about the time of the War of Independence.DShe was the first African-American slave to publish a book.21. A Revise it a number of times.B Obtain consent from her owner.C Go through a scholarly examination. DTurn to the colonial governor for help.22. A Literary works calli
19、ng for the abolition of slavery.B Religious scripts popular among slaves in America.C A rich stock of manuscripts left by historical figures. DLots of lost works written by African-American women.Passage ThreeQuestions 23 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.23. A It is a trait of gene
20、rous characterB It is a reflection of self-esteem. . C It is an indicator of high intelligence.DIt is a sign of happiness and confidence.24. A Itwas self-defeating. B It was aggressive. C It was the essence of comedy.DIt was something admirable.25. A It is a double-edged sword.B It is a feature of a
21、 given culture. C It is a unique gift of human beings.DIt is a result of both nature and nurture.欢迎关注微信公众号“不二商院”Section CDirections: In this section, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read for the firsttime, you should listen carefully for its general idea. When the passage is
22、 read for thesecond time, you are required to fill in the blanks with the exact words you have just heard.Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, you should check what you havewritten.It is important that we be mindful of the earth, the planet out of which we are born and by which wear
23、e nourished, guided, healedthe planet, however, which we have 26_ to a considerable degree inthese past two centuries of 27_ exploitation. This exploitation has reached such 28_that presently itappears that some hundreds of thousands of species will be 29_ before the end of the century.In our times,
24、 human shrewdness has mastered the deep 30_ of the earth at a level far beyond thecapacities of earlier peoples. We can break the mountains apart; we can drain the rivers and flood thevalleys. We can turn the most luxuriant forests into throwaway paper products. We can 31_the greatgrass cover of the
25、 western plains and pour 32_chemicals into the soil until the soft is dead and blowsaway in the wind. We can pollute the air with acids, the rivers with sewage (污水), the seas with oil. Wecan invent computers 33_processing ten million calculations per second. And why? To increase thevolume and the sp
26、eed with which we move natural resources through the consumer economy to the junkpile or the waste heap. Our managerial skills are measured by the competence 34_in accelerating thisprocess. If in these activities the physical features of the planet are damaged, if the environment is madeinhospitable
27、 for 35_living species, then so be it. We are, supposedly, creating a technological wonderworld.PartIII Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)Section ADirection：In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word foreach blank from a list of choices given in a word b
28、ank following the passage. Read thepassage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identifiedby a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with asingle line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than
29、onceQuestions 36 to 45 are based on the following passage.Quite often, educators tell families of children who are learning English as a second language to speakonly English, and not their native language, at home. Although these educators may have good 36_,their advice to families is misguided, and
30、 it 37_from misunderstandings about the process of languageacquisition. Educators may fear that children hearing two languages will become 38_ confused and thustheir language development will be 39_; this concern is not documented in the literature. Children arecapable of learning more than one lang
31、uage, whether 40_or sequentially (依次地). In fact, mostchildren outside of the United States are expected to become bilingual or even, in many cases,multilingual. Globally, knowing more than one language is viewed as an 41_ and even a necessity inmany areas. It is also of concern that the .misguided a
32、dvice that students should speak only 欢迎关注微信公众号“不二商院”English is givenprimarily to poor families with limited educational opportunities, not to wealthier families who have manyeducational advantages. Since children from poor families often are 42_as at-risk for academic failure,teachers believe that
33、advising families to speak English only is appropriate. Teachers consider learning twolanguages to be too 43_for children from poor families, believing that the children are alreadyburdened by their home situations.If families do not know English or have limited English skills themselves, how can th
34、ey communicatein English? Advising non-English-speaking families to speak only English is 44_to telling them not tocommunicate with or interact with their children. Moreover, the 45_message is that the familys nativelanguage is not important or valued.A asset IpermanentlyB delayed J prevalentC devia
35、tes KsimultaneouslyDequivalent L stemsEidentified M successivelyF intentions N underlyingGobject OvisualizingH overwhelmingSection B Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Eachstatement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Ide
36、ntify the paragraphfrom which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Eachparagraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the correspondingletter on Answer Sheet 2.The Uses of DifficultyThe brain likes a challengeand putting a few obstacles in its wa
37、y may well boost its creativity.A Jack White, the former frontman of the White Stripes and an influential figure among fellowmusicians, likes to make things difficult for himself. He uses cheap guitars that wont stay in shape orin tune. When performing, he positions his instruments in a way that is
38、deliberately inconvenient, sothat switching from guitar to organ mid-song involves a mad dash across the stage. Why? Becausehes on the run from what he describes as a disease that preys on every artist: “ease of use“. Whenmaking music gets too easy, says White, it becomes harder to make it sing. B I
39、ts an odd thought. Why would anyone make their work more difficult than it already is? Yet weknow that difficulty can pay unexpected dividends. In 1966, soon after the Beatles had finished workon “Rubber Soul“, Paul McCartney looked into the possibility of going to America to record theirnext album.
40、 The equipment in American studios was more advanced than anything in Britain, whichhad led the Beatles great rivals, the Rolling Stones, to make their latest album, “Aftermath“, in LosAngeles. McCartney found that EMIs (百代唱片) contractual clauses made it prohibitively expensiveto follow suit, and th
41、e Beatles had to make do with the primitive technology of Abbey Road.C Lucky for us. Over the next two years they made their most groundbreaking work, turning therecording studio into a magical instrument of its own. Precisely because they were 欢迎关注微信公众号“不二商院”working with oldofashioned machines, Geo
42、rge Martin and his team of engineers were forced to apply every ounce oftheir creativity to solve the problems posed to them by Lennon and McCartney. Songs like“Tomorrow Never Knows“, “ Strawberry Fields Forever“, and “A Day in the Life“ featuredrevolutionary sound effects that dazzled and mystified
43、 Martins American counterparts.D Sometimes its only when a difficulty is removed that we realise what it was doing for us. For morethan two decades, starting in the 1960s, the poet Ted Hughes sat on the judging panel of an annualpoetry competition for British schoolchildren. During the 1980s he noti
44、ced an increasing number oflong poems among the submissions, with some running to 70 or 80 pages. These poems were verballyinventive and fluent, but also “strangely boring“. After making inquiries Hughes discovered that theywere being composed on computers, then just finding their way into British h
45、omes.E You might have thought any tool which enables a writer to get words on to the page would be anadvantage. But there may be a cost to such facility. Ifi an interview with the Paris Review Hughesspeculated that when a person puts pen to paper, “you meet the terrible resistance of what happenedyo
46、ur first year at it, when you couldnt write at all“. As the brain attempts to force the unsteady handto do its bidding, the tension between the two results in a more compressed, psychologically denserexpression. Remove that resistance and you are more likely to produce a 70-page ramble (不找边际的长篇大论).F Our brains respon
