cet6--201312第一套.doc

2013年12月大学英语六级考试真题（第1套）
Part I Writing (30 minutes)
（请于正式开考后半小时内完成该部分，之后将进行听力考试）
Directions:For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay on happiness by referring to the saying“Happiness is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them.”You can cite examples to illustrate your point and then explain how you can develop your ability to deal with problems and be happy. You should write at least words but no more than words.
Part II Listening Comprehension (30 minutes)
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1 上作答。
1. A) The rock band needs more hours of practice.
B) The rock band is going to play here for a month.
C) Their hard work has resulted in a big success.
D) He appreciates the woman‟s help with the band.
2. A) Go on a diving tour in Europe. C) Travel overseas on his own.
B) Add 300 dollars to his budget. D) Join a package tour to Mexico.
3. A) In case some problem should occur. C) To avoid more work later on.
B) Something unexpected has happened. D) To make better preparations.
4. A) The woman asked for a free pass to try out the facilities.
B) The man is going to renew his membership in a fitness center.
C) The woman can give the man a discount if he joins the club now.
D) The man can try out the facilities before he becomes a member.
5. A) He is not afraid of challenge.
B) He is not fit to study science.
C) He is worried about the test.
D) He is going to drop the physics course
6. A) Pay for part of the picnic food. C) Buy something special for Gary.
B) Invite Gary‟s family to dinner. D) Take some food to the picnic.
7. A) Bus drivers‟ working conditions. C)Public transportation.
B) A labor dispute at a bus company. D) A corporate takeover.
8. A) The bank statement. C) The payment for an order.
B) Their sales overseas. D) The check just deposited.Questions 9 to 11 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
9. A) A hotel receptionist. C) A shop assistant.
B) A private secretary. D) A sales manager.
10. A) Voice. C) Appearance.
B) Intelligence. D) Manners.
11. A) Arrange one more interview. C) Report the matter to their boss.
B) Offer the job to David Wallace. D) Hire Barbara Jones on a trial basis.
Questions 12 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
12. A) He invented the refrigerator. C) He got a degree in Mathematics.
B) He patented his first invention. D) He was admitted to university.
13. A) He distinguished himself in low temperature physics.
B) He fell in love with Natasha Willoughby.
C) He became a professor of Mathematics.
D) He started to work on refrigeration.
14. A) Finding the true nature of subatomic particles.
B) Their work on very high frequency radio waves.
C) Laying the foundations of modem mathematics.
D) Their discovery of the laws of cause and effect.
15. A) To teach at a university. C) To spend his remaining years.
B) To patent his inventions. D) To have a three-week holiday.
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 he 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.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。
Passage One
Questions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard.
16. A) They have fallen prey to wolves.
B) They have become a tourist attraction.
C) They have caused lots of damage to crops.
D) They have become a headache to the community.
17. A) To celebrate their victory. C) To scare the wolves.
B) To cheer up the hunters. D) To alert the deer.
18. A) They would help to spread a fatal disease.
B) They would pose a threat to the children.
C) They would endanger domestic animals.
D) They would eventually kill off the deer.
Passage Two
Questions 19 to 22 are based on the passage you have just heard.
19. A) She is an interpreter. C) She is a domestic servant.
B) She is a tourist guide. D) She is from the royal family.
20. A) It was used by the family to hold dinner parties.
B) It is situated at the foot of a beautiful mountain.
C) It was frequently visited by heads of state.
D) It is furnished like one in a royal palace.
21. A) It is elaborately decorated.
B) It has survived some 2,000 years.
C) It is very big, with only six slim legs.
D) It is shaped like an ancient Spanish boat.
22. A) They are uncomfortable to sit in for long.
B) They do not match the oval table at all.
C) They have lost some of their legs.
D) They are interesting to look at.
Passage Three
Questions 23 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard.
23. A) It in an uncommon infectious disease.
B) It destroys the patient‟s ability to think.
C) It is a disease very difficult to diagnose.
D) It is the biggest crippler of young adults.
24. A) Search for the best cure. C) Write a book about her life.
B) Hurry up and live life. D) Exercise more and work harder.
25. A) Aggressive. C) Sophisticated.
B) Adventurous. D) Self-centered.
Section C
Directions:In this section, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read fort 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 youhave just heard. Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, you shouldcheck what you have written.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。
It‟s difficult to estimate the number of youngsters involved in home schooling, where childrenare not sent to school and receive their formal education from one or both parents.
(26)_______ and court decisions have made it legally possible in most states for parents to educate their children at home, and each year more people take advantage of that opportunity. Some states require parents or a home tutor to meet teacher certification standards, and many require parents to completelegal forms to verify that their children are receiving (27) _______ in state-approved curricula.
Supports of home education claim that it‟s less expensive and far more (28)_______ thanmass public education. Moreover, they cite several advantages: alleviation of school overcrowding, strengthened family relationships, lower (29) _______ rates, the fact that students
are allowed to learn at their own rate, increased (30) _______, higher standardized test scores, and reduced (31) _______ problems.
Critics of the home schooling movement (32) _______ that it creates as many problems as it solves. They acknowledge that, in a few cases, home schooling offers educational opportunities superior to those found in most public schools, but few parents can provide such educational advantages. Some parents who withdraw their children from the schools (33) _______ homeschooling have an inadequate educational background and insufficient formal training to provide a satisfactory education for their children. Typically, parents have fewertechnological resources (34) _______ than do schools. However, the relatively inexpensivecomputer technology that is readily available today is causing some to challenge the notion that home schooling is in any way (35) _______ more highly structured classroom education.

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Section B
The College Essay: Why Those 500 Words Drive Us Crazy
A) Meg is a lawyer-mom in suburban Washington, D.C., where lawyer-moms are thick on the
ground. Her son 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 application. According to college folklore, a well-turned essay has the power to seduce (诱惑) an admissions committee. “He wanted to do one thing at a time,” Meg says, explaining her son‟s delay. “But really, my son is a huge procrastinator (拖延者). The essay is the hardest thing to do, so he‟s put it off 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).
B) 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 college could procrastinate all the way to New Year‟s Day of their senior year, assuming they could withstand the parental pestering (烦扰).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 universities has pushed the traditional deadline of January up to Nov. 1 or early December for many students.
C) If the time for heel-dragging has been shortened, the true source of the anxiety and panic
remains what it has always been. And it‟s not the application itself. A college application is a relatively straightforward 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.
D) “There are good reasons it causes such anxiety,” says Lisa Sohmer, director of college
counseling at the Garden School in Jackson Heights, N.Y. “It‟s not just the actual writing. By noweverything 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 it‟s open-ended. So the temptation is to write and rewrite and rewrite.” Or stall and stall and stall.
E) 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 admissionscommittee was content to ask for a sample of applicants‟ school papers to assess
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.
F) Today nearly 70 percent of graduating seniors go off to college, including two-year and
four-year institutions. Even apart from the increased 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 nation‟s most selective.
G) Those schools 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 they‟ve faced and its impact on them, or discuss a public issue of special concern 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 your choice.
H) “Boys in particular look at the other questions and say, „Oh, that‟s 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, “I‟ll just go get that history paper I did last year on the Roman Empire and turn it into a first-person application essay!‟ And they end up producing something utterly ridiculous.”
I) Talking to admissions professionals like Boshoven, you realize that the list of “don‟ts” in essay
writing is much longer than the “dos.”“No book reports, no history papers, no character studies,”says Sohmer.
J) “It drives you crazy, how easily kids slip into clichés(老生常谈),”says Boshoven. “They don‟t
realize how typical their experiences arc. „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 particular kid. But in the world of the application essay, it‟s nothing. You‟ll lose the reader in the first paragraph.”
K) “The greatest strength you bring to this essay,” says the College Board‟s how-to book, “is 17
years or so of familiarity with the topic: YOU. The form and style are very familiar, and best 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.” Thekey word in the Common Application prompts is “you.”
L) The college admission essay contains the grandest American themes―status anxiety, parental
piety (孝顺), intellectual standards—and so it is only a matter of time before it becomes infected by the country‟s culture of excessive concern with self-esteem. Even if the question isostensibly (表面上) about something outside the self (describe a fictional character or solve a problem of geopolitics), the essay invariably returns to the favorite topic: what is its impact on YOU?
M)“For all the anxiety the essay causes,” says Bill McClintick of Mercersburg Academy in
Pennsylvania, “it‟s a very small piece of the puzzle. I was in college admissions for 10 years. I saw kids and parents beat themselves up over this. And at the vast majority of places, it is simply not a big variable in the college‟s decision-making process.”
N) Many admissions officers say they spend less than a couple of minutes on each application,
including the essay. According to a recent survey of admissions 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 applicant‟s grades, 70 percent on “strength of curriculum.”
O) 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 boiling 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 father‟s from France,” she says. “I said maybe you could write about that, as something that makes you different. You know: half French, half American. I said, „You could write about your identity issues.‟ He said, „I don‟t have any identity issues!‟ And he‟s right. He‟s a well-adjusted, normal kid. But that doesn‟t make for a good essay, does it?”
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
46. Today many universities require their applicants to write an essay of up to five hundred words.
47. One recent change in college admissions is that selective colleges and universities have
movedthe traditional deadli