1、2013 年 12 月六级考试真题（第一套）2013 年 12 月六级考试真题（第一套）Part I Writing Directions:For this part you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on the remark“The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.”You can give examples to illustrate your point and then explain what y
2、ou will do to make your life more meaningful You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.Part 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 ask
3、ed 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 sing
4、le line through the centre.1.A)Weather conditions.C)An error in the order.B)Labor problems.D)Misplacing of goods.2.A)What the woman says makes a lot of sense.B)The rich are opposed to social welfare.C)He agrees with Mr.Johnsons views.D)He is sympathetic with poor people.3.A)He has work to finish in
5、time.C)He has a tough problem to solve.B)He will be practicing soccer.D)He will be attending a meeting.4.A)Mary will not be able to keep a dog in the building.B)Mary should get rid of her pet as soon as possible.C)Mary might as well send her dog to her relative.D)Mary is not happy with the ban on pe
6、t animals.5.A)He does not believe they are twin sisters.C)Lisa and Gale are not very much alike.B)The woman seems a bit hard of hearing.D)The twins,voices are quite different.6.A)The serious economic crisis in Britain.C)A package deal to be signed in November.B)A message from their business associat
7、es.D)Their ability to deal with financial problems.7.A)Cleaning the pants will take longer than usual.B)The man will be charged extra for the service.C)The man has to go to the main cleaning facility.D)It is impossible to remove the stain completely.8.A)European markets.C)Luxury goods.B)Imported pro
8、ducts.D)A protest rally.2013 年 12 月六级考试真题（第一套）2 Questions 9 to 12 are based on the conversation you have just heard.9.A)He talked to her on the phone.C)He made a business trip.B)He had a quarrel with Marsha.D)He resolved a budget problem.10.A)She has developed some serious mental problem.B)She may h
9、ave to be fired for poor performance.C)She supervises a number of important projects.D)She is in charge of the firms budget planning.11.A)Something unexpected happened at her home.B)David promised to go on the trip in her place.C)She failed to arrive at the airport on time.D)She was not feeling hers
10、elf on that day.12.A)He often fails to follow through on his projects.B)He has been trying hard to cover for Marsha.C)He is always finding fault with Marsha.D)He frequently gets things mixed up.Questions 13 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard.13.A)They are better sheltered from all th
11、e outside temptations.B)They take an active part in more extracurricular activities.C)They are usually more motivated to compete with their peers.D)They have more opportunities to develop their leadership skills.14.A)Its students aim at managerial posts.C)Its chief positions are held be women.B)Its
12、students are role models of women.D)Its teaching staff consists of women only.15.A)They have ample opportunities to meet the opposite sex.B)They are more or less isolated from the outside world.C)It is traditional but colourful.D)It is under adequate control.Section B Directions:In this section,you
13、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 wi
14、th a single line through the centre.Passage One Questions 16 to 19 are based on the passage you have just heard.16.A)By speaking with the local agent.C)By making gestures at strategic points.B)By speaking in a deep,loud voice.D)By invading the personal space of listeners.17.A)To promote sportsmanshi
15、p among business owners.B)To raise money for a forthcoming local sports event.C)To encourage people to support local sports groups.D)To show his familys contribution to the community.18.A)They would certainly appeal to his audience.B)They are known to be the style of the sports world.C)They are beli
16、eved to communicate power and influence.2013 年 12 月六级考试真题（第一套）3 D)They represent the latest fashion in business circles.19.A)To create a warm personal atmosphere.C)To allow the audience to better enjoy his slides.B)To cover up his own nervousness.D)To enhance the effect of background music.Passage T
17、wo Questions 20 to 22 are based on the passage you have just heard.20.A)She was the first African-American slave to publish a book.B)She was born about the time-of the War of Independence.C)She was the greatest female poet in Colonial America.D)She was the first educated slave of John Wheatleys.21.A
18、)Turn to the colonial governor for help.C)Obtain consent from her owner.B)Go through a scholarly examination.D)Revise it a number of times.22.A)Religious scripts popular among slaves in America.B)Literary works calling for the abolition of slavery.C)A rich stock of manuscripts left by historical fig
19、ures.D)Lots of lost works written by African-American women.Passage Three Questions 23 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.23.A)It is a trait of generous character.C)It is a sign of happiness and confidence.B)It is a reflection of self-esteem.D)It is an indicator of high intelligence.
20、24.A)It was the essence of comedy.C)It was self-defeating.B)It was something admirable.D)It was aggressive.25.A)It is a feature of a given culture.C)It is a result of both nature and nurture.B)It is a double-edged sword.D)It is a unique gift of human beings.Section C Directions:In this section,you w
21、ill 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
22、,you should check what you have written.It is important that we be mindful of the earth,the planet out of which we are born and by which we are nourished,guided,healed the planet,however,which we have 26 to a considerable degree in these past two centuries of 27 exploitation.This exploitation has re
23、ached such 28 that presently it appears that some hundreds of thousands of species will be 29 before the end of the century.In our times,human shrewdness has mastered the deep 30 of the earth at a level far beyond the capacities of earlier peoples.We can break the mountains apart;we can drain the ri
24、vers and flood the valleys.We can turn the most luxuriant forests into throwaway paper products.We can 31 the great grass cover of the western plains and pour 32 chemicals into the soil until the soil is dead and blows away in the wind.We can pollute the air with acids,the rivers with sewage(污水),the
25、 seas with oil.We can invent computers 33 processing ten million calculations per second.And why?To increase the volume and the speed with which we move natural resources through the consumer economy to the junk pile or the waste heap.Our managerial skills are measured by the competence 34 _ in acce
26、lerating this process.If in these activities the physical features of the planet are damaged,if the environment is made inhospitable for 35 living species,then so be it.We are,supposedly,creating a technological wonderworld.2013 年 12 月六级考试真题（第一套）4 Part Reading Comprehension Section A Directions：In t
27、his 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 correspo
28、nding 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.Quite often,educators tell families of children who are learning English as a second language to speak
29、only English,and not their native language,at home.Although these educators may have good 36 their advice to families is misguided,and it 37 from misunderstandings about the process of language acquisition.Educators may fear that children hearing two languages will become 38 confused and thus their
30、language development will be 39 ;this concern is not documented in the literature.Children are capable of learning more than one language,whether 40 or sequentially（依次地）In fact,most children outside of the United States are expected to becoming bilingual or even,in many cases,multilingual.Globally,k
31、nowing more than one language is viewed as an 41 and even a necessity in many areas.It is also of concern that the misguided advice that students should speak only English is given primarily to poor families with limited educational opportunities,not to wealthier families who have many educational a
32、dvantages.Since children from poor families often are 42 as at-risk for academic failure,teachers believe that advising families to speak English only is appropriate.Teachers consider learning two languages to be too 43 for children from poor families,believing that the children are already burdened
33、 by their home situations.If families do not know English or have limited English skills themselves,how can they communicate in English?Advising non-English-speaking families to speak only English is 44 to telling them not to communicate with or interact with their children.Moreover,the 45 message i
34、s that the familys native language is not important or valued.Section B Directions: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 ma
35、y 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 Uses of Difficulty The brain likes a challenge and putting a few obstacles in its way may well boost its creativity.A Jack White,the former frontm
36、an of the White Stripes and an influential figure among fellow musicians,likes to make things difficult for himself.He uses cheap guitars that wont stay in shape or in tune.When performing,he positions his A)asset I)permanently B)delayed J)prevalent C)deviates K)simultaneously D)equivalent L)stems E
37、)identified M)successively F)intentions N)underlying object overwhelming O)visualizing 2013 年 12 月六级考试真题（第一套）5 instruments in a way that is deliberately inconvenient,so that switching from guitar to organ mid-song involves a mad dash across the stage.Why?Because hes on the run from what he describes
38、 as a disease that preys on every artist:“ease of use”.When making music gets too easy,says White,it becomes harder to make it sing.B Its an odd thought.Why would anyone make their work more difficult than it already is?Yet we know that difficulty can pay unexpected dividends.In 1966,soon after the
39、Beatles had finished work on“Rubber Soul”,Paul McCartney looked into the possibility of going to America to record their next album.The equipment in American studios was more advanced than anything in Britain,which had led the Beatles great rivals,the Rolling Stones,to make their latest album.“After
40、math”,in Los Angeles.McCartney found that EMIs(百代唱片）contractual clauses made it prohibitively expensive to follow suit,and the 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 the recording stud
41、io into a magical instrument of its own.Precisely because they were working with old-fashioned machines,George Martin and his team of engineers were forced to apply every ounce of their creativity to solve the problems posed to them by Lennon and McCartney.Songs like“Tomorrow Never Knows”.“Strawberr
42、y Fields Forever”,and“A Day in the Life”featured revolutionary sound effects that dazzled and mystified Martini American counterparts.D Sometimes its only when a difficulty is removed that we realise that it was doing for us.For more than two decades,starting in the 1960s,the poet Ted Hughes sat on
43、the judging panel of an annual poetry competition for British schoolchildren.During the 1980s he noticed an increasing number of long poems among the submissions,with some running to 70 or 80 pages.These poems were verbally inventive and fluent,but also“strangely boring”.After making inquiries Hughe
44、s discovered that they were being composed on computers,then just finding their way into British homes.E You might have thought any tool which enables a writer to get words on to the page would be an advantage.But there may be a cost to such facility.In an interview with the Paris Review Hughes spec
45、ulated that when a person puts pen to paper,“you meet the terrible resistance of what happened your first year at it,when you couldnt write at all”.As the brain attempts to force the unsteady hand to do its bidding,the tension between the two results in a more compressed,psychologically denser expre
46、ssion.Remove that resistance and you are more likely to produce a 70-page ramble(不着边际的长篇大论).F Our brains respond better to difficulty than we imagine.In schools,teachers and pupils alike often assume that if a concept has been easy to learn,then the lesson has been successful.But numerous studies ha
47、ve now found that when classroom material is made harder to absorb,pupils retain more of it over the long term,and understand it on a deeper level.G As a poet,Ted Hughes had an acute sensitivity to the way in which constraints on self-expression,like the disciplines of metre and rhyme（韵律）,spur creat
48、ive thought.What applies to poets and musicians also applies to our daily lives.We tend to equate（等同）happiness with freedom,but,as the psychotherapist and writer Adam Phillips has observed,without obstacles to our desires its harder to know what we want,or where were heading.He tells the story of a
49、patient,a first-time mother who complained that her young son was always clinging to her,wrapping himself around her legs wherever she went.She never had a moment to herself,she said,because her son was“always in the way”.When Phillips asked her where she would go if he wasnt in the way,she replied
50、cheerfully,“Oh,I wouldnt know where I was!”H Take another common obstacle:lack of money.People often assume that more money will make them happier.But economists who study the relationship between money and happiness have consistently found that,above a certain income,the two do not reliably correla