2013年12月英語新六級(jí)樣題及答案（新題型版）

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Tape Script of Listening Comprehension

Section A

Directions: In this section, you will hear 8 short conversations and 2 long

conversations. At the end of each conversation, one or more questions will be asked about what was said. Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once. After each question there will be a pause. During the pause, you must read the four choices marked A), B), C) and D), and decide which is the best answer. Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.

1. W: Did you hear that Anna needs to stay in bed for four weeks?

M: Yeah. She injured her spine in a fall. And the doctor told her to lie flat on her back for a month, so it can mend.

Q: What can we learn from the conversation?

2. W: We’re taking up a collection to buy a gift for Gemma. She’ll have been with the company 25 years next week.

M: Well, count me in, but I’m a bit short on cash now. When do you need it?

Q: What is the man going to do?

3. W: Tony’s mother has invited me to dinner. Do you think I should tell her in advance that I’m a vegetarian?

M: Of course. I think she’d appreciate it—imagine how you’d both feel if she fixed a turkey dinner or something.

Q: What does the man suggest the woman do?

4. W: I hope you’re not too put out with me for the delay. I had to stop by Fred’s home to pick up a book on my way here.

M: Well, that’s not a big deal. But you might at least phone if you know you’re going to keep someone waiting.

Q: What do we learn about the woman from the conversation?

5. W: I don’t think we have enough information for our presentation. But we have to give it tomorrow. There doesn’t seem to be much we can do about it.

M: Yeah. At this point, we’ll have to make do with what we’ve got.

Q: What does the man suggest they do?

6. M: This truck looks like what I need, but I’m worried about maintenance. For us, it’ll have to operate for long periods of time in very cold temperatures.

W: We have several models that are specially adapted for extreme conditions. Would you like to see them?

Q: What do we learn about the man from the conversation?

7. W: I’d like to exchange this shirt. I’ve learned that the person I bought it for is allergic to wool.

M: Maybe we can find something in cotton or silk. Please come this way.

Q: What does the woman want to do?

8. W: I think your article in the school newspaper is right on target. And your viewpoints have certainly convinced me.

M: Thanks. But in view of the general responses, you and I are definitely in the minority.

Q: What does the man mean?

Conversation One

W: One of the most interesting experiments with dolphins must be one done by Dr Jarvis Bastian. What he tried to do was to teach a male dolphin called Buzz and a female called Doris to communicate with each other across a solid barrier.

M: So how did he do it exactly?

W: Well, first of all he kept the two dolphins together in the same tank and taught them to press levers whenever they saw a light. The levers were fitted to the side of the tank next to each other. If the light flashed on and off several times, the dolphins were supposed to press the left-hand lever followed by the right-hand one. If the light was kept steady, the dolphins were supposed to press the levers in reverse order. Whenever they responded correctly they were rewarded with fish.

M: Sounds terribly complicated ...

W: Well, that was the first stage. In the second stage, Dr Bastian separated the dolphins into two tanks. They could still hear one another but they couldn’t actually see each other. The levers and the light were set up in exactly the same way, except that this time it was only Doris who could see the light indicating which lever to press first. But in order to get their fish both dolphins had to press the levers in the correct order. This meant of course that Doris had to tell Buzz whether it was a flashing light or whether it was a steady light.

M: So did it work?

W: Well – amazingly enough, the dolphins achieved a 100% success rate ...

Questions 9 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

9. What is the purpose of Dr Jarvis Bastian’s experiment?

10. What were the dolphins supposed to do when they saw the steady light? 11. How did the second stage of the experiment differ from the first stage?

Conversation Two

W: There’s an element there about competition, though, isn’t there? Because British Railways are a nationalised industry, there’s only one railway system in the country. If you don’t like a particular can of baked beans, you can go and buy another, but if you don’t like a particular railway, you can’t go and use another.

M: Some people who write to me say this. They say that if you didn’t have a monopoly, you wouldn’t be able to do the things you do. Well, I don’t think we do anything deliberately to upset our customers. We have particular problems. Since 1946 when the Transport Act came in, we were nationalised.

W: Do you think that’s a good thing? Has it been a good thing for the railways, do you think, to be nationalised?

M: Oh, I think so, yes. Because in general, modes of transport are all around, let’s face the fact. The car arrived, the car is here to stay. There’s no question about that. W: So what you’re saying then is that if the railways hadn’t been nationalised, they would simply have disappeared.

M: Oh, I think they would have. They’re disappearing fast in America. Er, the French railways lose £1 billion a year, the German railways £2 billion a year. But you see, those governments are prepared to pour money into the transport system to keep it going.

W: So in a sense you’re caught between two extremes, on the one hand you’re trying not to lose too much money, and on the other hand you’ve got to provide the best service.

M: Yes, you’re right.

Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

12. What does the woman say about British Railways?

13. What do some people who write to the man complain about? 14. What does the man say threatens the existence of railways? 15. What does the man say about railways in other countries?

Section B

Directions: In this section, you will hear 3 short passages. At the end of each passage,

you will hear some questions. Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.

Passage One

Enjoying an iced coffee? Better skip dinner or hit the gym afterwards, with a cancer charity warning that some iced coffees contain as many calories as a hot dinner.

The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) conducted a survey of iced coffees sold by some popular chains in Britain including Starbucks, Caffe Nero and Costa Coffee to gauge the calories as studies increasingly link obesity with cancer.

The worst offender — a coffee from Starbucks — had 561 calories. Other iced coffees contained more than 450 calories and the majority had in excess of 200.

Health experts advise that the average woman should consume about 2,000 calories a day and a man about 2,500 calories to maintain a healthy weight. Dieters

aim for 1,000 to 1,500 calories a day.

“The fact that there is an iced coffee on the market with over a quarter of a

woman’s daily calories allowance is alarming,” Dr. Rachel Thompson, science program manager at London-based WCRF, said in a widely-reported statement.

“This is the amount of calories you might expect to have in an evening meal, not in a drink.”

The WCRF has estimated that 19,000 cancers a year in Britain could be prevented if people lost their excess weight, with growing evidence that excess body fat increases the risk of various cancers.

“If you are having these types of coffee regularly, then they will increase the chances of you becoming overweight, which in turn increases your risk of developing cancer, as well as other diseases such as heart disease,” she added.

Questions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard.

16. What warning did some health experts give?

17. What does the speaker suggest people do after they have an iced coffee?

18. What could British people expect if they maintained a normal body weight according to the WCRF?

Passage Two

In a small laboratory at the Medical University of South Carolina, Dr. Vladimir Mironov has been working for a decade to grow meat.

A developmental biologist and tissue engineer, Dr. Mironov is one of only a few scientists worldwide involved in bioengineering “cultured” meat.

It’s a product he believes could help solve future global food crises resulting from shrinking amounts of land available for growing meat the old-fashioned way.

Growth of cultured meat is also under way in the Netherlands, Mironov told Reuters in an interview, but in the United States, it is science in search of funding and demand.

The new National Institute of Food and Agriculture won’t fund it, the National Institutes of Health won’t fund it, and NASA funded it only briefly, Mironov said.

“It’s classic disruptive technology,” Mironov said. “Bringing any new technology on the market, on average, costs $1 billion. We don’t even have $1 million.”

Director of the Advanced Tissue Biofabrication Center in the Department of Regenerative Medicine and Cell Biology at the medical university, Mironov now primarily conducts research on tissue engineering, or growing, of human organs.

“There’s an unpleasant factor when people find out meat is grown in a lab. They don’t like to associate technology with food,” said Nicholas Genovese, a visiting scholar in cancer cell biology.

“But there’re a lot of products that we eat today that are considered natural that are produced in a similar manner,” Genovese said.

Questions 19 to 21 are based on the passage you have just heard.

19. What does Dr. Mironov think of bioengineering cultured meat?

20. What does Dr. Mironov say about the funding for their research?

21. What does Nicholas Genovese say about a lot of products we eat today?

Passage Three

Florence Hayes is a journalist for the Greenville Journal, the daily newspaper in town. Specifically, she covers crime in the Greenville area. This responsibility takes her to many different places every week—the police station, the court and the hospital. Most of the crimes that she writes about fall into two groups: violent crimes and crimes against property.

There isn’t much violent crime in a small town like Greenville, or at least not as much as in large urban areas. But assaults often occur on Friday and Saturday nights near the bars downtown. There’re also one or two rapes on campus every semester. Florence is very interested in this type of crime and tries to write a long article about each one. She expects that this will make women more careful when they walk around Greenville alone at night. Fortunately, there’re usually no murders in Greenville.

Crimes against property make up most of Ms. Hayes’ reporting. They range from minor cases of deliberate damaging of things to much more serious offenses, such as car accidents involving drunk drivers, or bank robberies. But Florence has to report all of these violations, from the thief who took typewriters from every unlocked room in a dormitory to the thief who stole $1 million worth of artwork from the university museum.

Ms. Hayes enjoys working for a newspaper, but she sometimes gets unhappy about all the crimes she has to report. She would prefer to start writing about something more interesting and less unpleasant, such as local news or politics. Maybe next year!

Questions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.

22. What is Florence Hayes’ main responsibility as a journalist?

23. What does the speaker say about security in Greenville?

24. What do we learn about crimes against property in the Greenville area? 25. What would Florence Hayes prefer to do?

Section C

Directions: In this section, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read for the first time, you should listen carefully for its general idea. When the passage is read for the second 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 have written.

George Herbert Mead said that humans are talked into humanity. He meant that we gain personal identity as we communicate with others. In the earliest years of our lives, our parents tell us who we are. “You’re (26) intelligent.” “You’re so strong.” We first see ourselves through the eyes of others, so their messages form important (27) foundations of our self-concepts. Later we interact with teachers, friends, (28) romantic partners, and co-workers who communicate their views of us. Thus, how we see ourselves reflects the views of us that others communicate.

The (29) profound connection between identity and communication is dramatically evident in children who (30) are deprived of human contact. Case studies of children who were isolated from others reveal that they lack a firm self-concept, and their mental and psychological development is severely hindered by lack of language.

Communication with others not only affects our sense of identity but also directly influences our physical and emotional (31) well-being. Consistently, research shows that communicating with others promotes health, whereas social isolation (32) is linked to stress, disease, and early death. People who lack close friends have greater levels of anxiety and depression than people who are close to others. A group of researchers reviewed (33) scores of studies that traced the relationship between health and interaction with others. The conclusion was that social isolation is (34) statistically as dangerous as high blood pressure, smoking and obesity. Many doctors and researchers believe that loneliness harms the immune system, making us more (35) vulnerable to a range of minor and major illnesses.