2015年6月英语六级真题第2套

Part I Writing (30 minutes)

Directions: For this part, you are allowed 80 minutes to write an essay commenting on Albert Einstein’sremark “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” You can give an example or two toillustrate your point of view. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.

Part II Listening Comprehension (30 minutes) 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. 注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。

1. A) The woman thinks she is cleverer than the man. B) The man behaves as if he were a thorough fool. C) The man is unhappy with the woman’s remark. D) The woman seldom speaks highly of herself.

2. A) Three crew members were involved in the incident. B) None of the hijackers carried any deadly weapons. C) None of the passengers were injured or killed. D) The plane had been scheduled to fly to Japan. 3. A) At a travel agency. B) At a hotel front desk. C) At a checkout counter. D) At a commercial bank.

4. A) Chinatown has got the best restaurants in the city. B) The critic thought highly of the Chinese restaurant. C) The restaurant places many ads in popular magazines.

D) The restaurant was not up to the speakers’ expectations. 5. A) ProL Laurence is going into an active retirement. B) ProL Laurence has stopped conducting seminars.

C) The professor’s graduate seminar is well received. D) The professor will lead a quiet life after retirement. 6. A)Assigning Leon to a new position. B) Finding a replacement for Leon.

C) Arranging for Rodney’s visit tomorrow. D) Finding a solution to Rodney’s problem.

7. A) Photography is one of Helen’s many hobbies. B) Helen asked the man to book a ticket for her. C) The photography exhibition will close tomorrow. D) Helen has been looking forward to the exhibition. 8. A) The speakers share the same opinion. B) Steve knows how to motivate employees.

C) The man has a better understanding of Steve. D) The woman is out of touch with the real world.

Questions 9 to 12 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 9. A) It is well paid. B) It is stimulating. C) It is demanding. D) It is fairly secure. 10. A) A quick promotion. B) Free accommodation. C) Moving expenses. D) A lighter workload.

11. A) He has difficulty communicating with local people. B) He has to spend a lot more traveling back and forth. C) He has trouble adapting to the local weather. D) He has to sign a long-term contract.

12. A) The woman will help the man make a choice. B) The man is going to attend a job interview. C) The man is in the process of job hunting. D) The woman sympathizes with the man.

Questions 13 to 15 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 13. A) To inquire about the interest rates at the woman’s bank. B) To inquire about the current financial market situation. C) To see if he can find a job in the woman’s company. D) To see if he can get a loan from the woman’s bank. 14. A) Long-term investment. B) A three-month deposit. C) Any high-interest deposit. D) Any high-yield investment. 15. A) She treated him to a meal. B) She gave him loans at low rates. C) She offered him dining coupons. D) She raised interest rates for him.

Section B

Directions:In this section, you will hear3 short passages. At the end of eachpassage, 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. 注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1作答。 Passage One

Questions 16 to 18 are bused on the passage you have just heard. 16. A) Strict professional training. B) Years of practical experience.

C) A refined taste for artistic works. D) The ability to predict fashion trends.

17. A) Purchasing handicrafts from all over the world. B) Conducting trade in art works with dealers overseas. C) Strengthening cooperation with foreign governments. D) Promoting all kinds of American hand-made specialties. 18. A) She has access to fashionable things. B) She can enjoy life on a modest salary. C) She is doing what she enjoys doing. D) She is free to do whatever she wants.

Passage Two

Questions 19 to 22 are based on the passage you have just heard. 19. A) It is a Portuguese company selling coffee in New York. B) Its most important task is to conduct coffee studies. C) It represents several countries that export coffee. D) Its role is to regulate international coffee prices. 20. A) The freezing weather in Brazil. B) The impact of global warming. C) The increased coffee consumption. D) The fluctuation of coffee prices. 21. A) He is doing a bachelor’s degree. B) He is young, handsome and single. C) He is a heavy coffee drinker. D) He is tall, rich and intelligent.

22. A) A visit to several coffee-growing plantations. B) Coffee prices and his advertising campaign. C) A vacation on some beautiful tropical beach. D) A quick promotion and a handsome income.

Passage Three

Questions 23 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard. 23. A) They were held up in a traffic jam. B) They boarded a wrong coach in a hurry. C) They were late for the first morning bus.

D) They were delayed by the train for hours.

24. A) It was canceled because of an unexpected strike. B) It was the most exciting trip they ever had. C) It was spoiled by poor accommodations. D) It was postponed due to terrible weather. 25. A) Go overseas. B) Stay at home.

C) Take romantic cruises. D) Take escorted trips.

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. 注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。

Why would an animal kill itself? It seems a strange question, and yet it is one that has 26 some people for a long time. The lemming (旅鼠) is one such animal. Lemmings periodically commit mass 27, and no one knows just why!

The small 28, which inhabit the Scandinavian mountains, sustain themselves on a diet of roots and live in nests they make underground. When their food supply is 29large, the lemmings live a normal, undisturbed life.

However, when the lemmings’ food supply becomes too low to support the population, a singular30 commences. The lemmings leave their nests all together at the same time, forming huge crowds. Great numbers of the lemmings begin a long and hard journey across the Scandinavian plains, a journey that may last weeks. The lemmings eat everything in their path, continuing their31march until they reach the sea.

The reason for what follows remains a mystery for zoologists and naturalists. Upon reaching the coast, the lemmings do not stop but swim by the thousands into the surf. Most 32 only a short time before they tire, sink, and drown.

A common theory for this unusual phenomenon is that the lemmings do not realize that the ocean is such 33 water. In their cross-country journey, the animals must traverse many smaller bodies of water, such as rivers and small lakes. They may 34 that the sea is just another such swimmable35. But no final answer has been found to the mystery.

Part III Reading Comprehension (40 minutes) Section A

Directions: In this 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 care fully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet2 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.

Travel websites have been around since the l990s, when Expedia, Travelocity, and other holiday booking sites were launched, allowing travelers to compare flight and hotel prices with the click of a mouse. With information no longer 36 by travelagents or hidden in business networks, the travel industry was revolutionized, as greater transparency helped 37 prices.

Today, the industry is going through a new revolution—this time transforming service quality. Online rating platforms— 38 in hotels, restaurants, apartments, and taxis—allow travelers to exchange reviews and experiences for all to see. Hospitality “businesses are now ranked, analyzed, and compared not by industry 39 , but by the very people for whom the service is intended—the customer. This has 40 a new relationshipbetween buyer and seller. Customers have always voted with their feet; they can now explain their decision to anyone who is interested. As a result, businesses are much more 41 , often in very specific ways, which creates powerful 42 to improve service.

Although some readers might not care for gossipy reports of unfriendly bellboys (行李员) in Berlin or malfunctioning hotel hairdryers in Houston, the true power of online reviews lies not just in the individual stories, but in the websites’ 43 to aggregate a large volume of ratings.

The impact cannot be 44 .Businesses that attract top ratings can enjoy rapid growth, as new customers are attracted by good reviews and 45 provide yet more positive feedback. So great is the influence of online ratings that many companies now hire digital reputation managers to ensure a favorable online identity. A) accountable B) capacity C) controlled D) entail E) forged F) incentives G) occasionally H) overstated I) persisting J) pessimistic K) professionals L) slash M) specializing N) spectators O) subsequently

Section 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. Identify the paragraph from which the in formation is derived. You may 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. Plastic Surgery

A better credit card is the solution to ever larger hack attacks [A] A thin magnetic strip (magstripe) is all that stands between your credit-card information and the bad guys. And they’ve been working hard to break in. That’s why 2014 is shaping up as a major showdown: banks, law enforcement and technology companies are all trying to stop a network of hackers who are succeeding in stealing account numbers, names, email addresses and other crucial dataused in identity theft. More than 100 million accounts at Target, Neiman Marcus and Michaels stores were affected in some way during the most recent attacks, starting last November.

[B]Swipe (刷卡) is the operative word: cards are increasingly vulnerable to attacks when you make purchases in a store. In several recent incidents, hackers have been able to obtain massive information of credit-, debit- (借记) or prepaid-card numbers using malware, i.e. malicious software, inserted secretly into the retailers’ point-of-sale system—the checkout registers. Hackers then sold the data to a second group of criminals operating in shadowy corners of the web. Not long after, the stolen data was showing up on fake cards and being used for online purchases.

[C] The solution could cost as little as $2 extra for every piece of plastic issued. The fix is a security technology used heavily outside the US. While American credit cards use the 40-year-old magstripe technology to process transactions, much of the rest of the world uses smarter cards with a technology called EMV (short for Europay, MasterCard, Visa) that employs a chip embedded in the card plus a customer PIN (personal identification number) to authenticate (验证) every transaction on the spot. If a purchaser fails to punch in the correct PIN at the checkout, the transaction gets rejected. (Onlinepurchases can be made by setting up a separate transaction code. )

[D] Why haven’t big banks adopted the more secure technology? When it comes to mailing out new credit cards, it’s all about relative costs, says David Robertson, who runs the Nilson Report, an industry newsletter. “The cost of the card, putting the sticker on it, coding the account number and expiration date, embossing (凸印) it, the small envelope—all put together, you’re in the dollar range.” A chip-and-PIN card currently costs closer to$3, says Robertson, because of the price of chips. (Once large issuers convert together，the chip costs should drop.)

[E] Multiply S3 by the more than 5 billion magstripe credit and prepaid cards in circulation in the US. Then consider that there’s an estimated$12.4 billion in card fraud on a global basis, says Robertson. With 44% of that in the U.S.，American credit-card fraud amounts to about$5.5 billion annually. Card issuers have so far calculated that absorbing the liability for even big hacks like the Target one is still cheaper than replacing all that plastic.

[F] That leaves American retailers pretty much alone the world over in relying on magstripe technology to charge purchases—and leaves consumers vulnerable. Each magstripe has three tracks of information, explains payments security expert Jeremy

Gumbley, the chief technology officer of CreditCall, an electronicpayments company. The first and third are used by the bank or card issuer. Your vital account information lives on the second track, which hackers try to capture. “Malware is scanning through the memory in real time and looking for data,”he says. “It creates a text file that gets stolen.’’

[G] Chip-and-PIN cards, by contrast, make fake cards or skimming impossible because the information that gets scanned is encrypted(加密). The historical reason the US has stuck with magstripe, ironically enough, is once superior technology. Our cheap, ultra·reliable wired networks made credit-card authentication over the phone frictionless. In France, card companies created EMV in part because the telephone monopoly was so maddeningly inefficient and expensive. The EMV solution allowed transactions to be verified locally and securely.

[H] Some big banks, like Wells Far90, are now offering to convert your magstripe card to a chip-and-PIN model. (It’s actually a hybrid(混合体)that will still have a magstripe, since most US merchants don’t have EMV terminals.)Should you take them up on it?If you travel internationally, the answer is yes.

[I] Keep in mind, too, that credit cards typically have better liability protection than debit cards. If someone uses your credit card fraudulently(欺诈性地), it’s the issuer or merchant, not you,that takes the hit. Debit cards have different liability limits depending on the bank and the events surrounding any fraud. “If it’s available, the logical thing is to get a chip-and-PIN card from your bank.”says Eric Adamowsky, a co-founder of CreditCardlnsider.com. “I would use credit cards over debit cards because of liability issues.”Cash still works pretty well too.

[J] Retailers and banks stand to benefit from the lower fraud levels of chip-and-PIN cards but have been reluctant for years to invest in the new infrastructure(基础设施)needed for the technology, especially if consumers don’t have access to it. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem; no one wants to spend the money on upgraded pointofsale systems that can read the chip cards if shoppers aren’t carrying them—yet there’s little point in consumers’carrying the fancy plastic if stores aren’t equipped to use them. (An earlier effort by Target to move to chip and PIN never gained progress.)According to Gumbley, there’s a“you-first mentality. The logjam(僵局)has to be broken.”

[K] JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently expressed his willingness to do so, noting that banks and merchants have spent the past decade suing each other over interchange fees—the percentage of the transaction price they keep—rather than deal with the growing hacking problem. Chase offers a chip-enabled card under its own brand and several others for travel-related companies such as British Airways and Ritz-Carlton.

[L] The Target and Neiman hacks have also changed the cost calculation: although retailers have been reluctant to spend the$6.75 billion that Capgemini consultants estimate it will take to convert all their registers to be chip-and-PIN-compatible, the potential liability they now face is dramatically greater. Target has been hit with class actions from hacked consumers. “It’s the ultimate nightmare,’’a retail executive from a well-known chain admitted to TIME.

[M] The card-payment companies MasterCard and Visa are pushing hard for change. The two firms have warned all parties in the transaction chain—merchant, network, bank that if they don’t become EMV-compliant by October 2015, the party that is least compliant will bear the fraud risk.

[N] In the meantime, app-equipped smartphones and digital wallets—all of which can use EMV technology—are beginning to make inroads(侵袭)on cards and cash. PayPal, for instance, is testing an app that lets you use your mobile phone to pay on the fly at local merchants—without surrendering any card information to them. And further down the road is biometric authentication, which could be encrypted with, say, a fingerprint. [O] Credit and debit cards, though, are going to be with us for the foreseeable future, and so are hackers, if we stick with magstripe technology. “It seems crazy to me,”says Gumbley, who is English, “that a cutting-edge-technology country is depending on a 40-year-old technology.”That’s why it may be up to consumers to move the needle on chip and PIN. Says Robertson: “When you get the consumer into a position of worry and inconvenience, that’s where the rubber hits the road.”

46. It is best to use an EMV card for international travel.

47. Personal information on credit and debit cards is increasingly vulnerable to hacking.

48. The French card companies adopted EMV technology partly because of inefficient telephone service.

49. While many countries use the smarter EMV cards, the US still clings to its old magstripe technology.

50. Attempts are being made to prevent hackers from carrying out identity theft. 51. Credit cards are much safer to use than debit cards.

52. Big banks have been reluctant to switch to more secure technology because of the higher costs involved.

53.The potential liability for retailers using magstripe is far more costly than upgrading their registers.

54. The use of magstripe cards by American retailers leaves consumers exposed to the risks of losing account information.

55. Consumers will be a driving force behind the conversion from magstripe to EMV technology.

Section C

Directions:There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished 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 One

Questions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.

I’ll admit I’ve never quite understood the obsession (难以破除的成见) surrounding genetically modified (GM) crops. To environmentalist opponents, GM foods are simply evil, an understudied, possibly harmful tool used by big agricultural businesses to control global seed markets and crush local farmers. They argue that GM foods have never delivered on their supposed promise, that money spent on GM crops would be better channeled to organic farming and that consumers should be protected with warning labels on any products that contain genetically modified ingredients. To supporters, GM crops are a key part of the effort to sustainably provide food to meet a growing global population. But more than that, supporters see the GM opposition of many environmentalists as fundamentally anti-science, no different than those who question the basics of man-made climate change.

For both sides, GM foods seem to act as a symbol: you’re pro-agricultural business or anti-science. But science is exactly what we need more of when it comes to GM foods, which is why I was happy to see Nature devote a special series of articles to the GM food controversy. The conclusion: while GM crops haven’t yet realized their initial promise and have been dominated by agricultural businesses, there is reason to continue to use and develop them to help meet the enormous challenge of sustainably feeding a growing planet.

That doesn’t mean GM crops are perfect, or a one-size-fits-all solution to global agriculture problems. But anything that can increase farming efficiency—the amount of crops we can produce per acre of land—will be extremely useful. GM crops can and almost certainly will be part of that suite of tools, but so will traditional plant breeding, improved soil and crop management—and perhaps most important of all, better storage and transport infrastructure (基础设施), especially in the developing world. (It doesn’t do much good for farmers in places like sub-Saharan Africa to produce more food if they can’t get it to hungry consumers.) I’d like to see more non-industry research done on GM crops—not just because we’d worry less about bias, but also because seed companies like Monsanto and Pioneer shouldn’t be the only entities working to harness genetic modification. I’d like to see GM research on less commercial crops, like corn. I don’t think it’s vital to label GM ingredients in food, but I also wouldn’t be against it—and industry would be smart to go along with labeling, just as a way of removing fears about the technology.

Most of all, though, I wish a tenth of the energy that’s spent endlessly debating GM crops was focusedon those more pressing challenges for global agriculture. There are much bigger battles to fight. 注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。

56. How do environmentalist opponents view GM foods according to the passage? A) They will eventually ruin agriculture and the environment. B) They are used by big businesses to monopolize agriculture. C) They have proved potentially harmful to consumers’ health. D) They pose a tremendous threat to current farming practice.

57. What does the author say is vital to solving the controversy between the two sides of the debate?

A) Breaking the GM food monopoly. B) More friendly exchange of ideas. C) Regulating GM food production.

D) More scientific research on GM crops.

58. What is the main point of the Nature articles?

A) Feeding the growing population makes it imperative to develop GM crops. B) Popularizing GM technology will help it to live up to its initial promises. C) Measures should be taken to ensure the safety of GM foods. D) Both supporters and opponents should make compromises.

59. What is the author’s view on the solution to agricultural problems? A) It has to depend more and more on GM technology.

B) It is vital to the sustainable development of human society. C) GM crops should be allowed until better alternatives are found.

D) Whatever is useful to boost farming efficiency should be encouraged. 60. What does the author think of the ongoing debate around GM crops? A) It arises out of ignorance of and prejudice against new science.

B) It distracts the public attention from other key issues of the world.

C) Efforts spent on it should be turned to more urgent issues of agriculture. D) Neither side is likely to give in until more convincing evidence is found.

Passage Two

Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage.

When the right person is holding the right job at the right moment, that person’s influence is greatly expanded. That is the position in which Janet Yellen, who is expected to be confirmed as the next chair of the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) in January, now finds herself. If you believe, as many do, that unemployment is the major economic and social concern of our day, then it is no stretch to think Yellen is the most powerful person in the world right now.

Throughout the 2008 financial crisis and the recession and recovery that followed, central banks have taken on the role of stimulators of last resort, holding up the global economy with vast amounts of money in the form of asset buying. Yellen, previously a Fed vice chair, was one of the principal architects of the Fed’s $3.8 trillion money dump. A star economist known for her groundbreaking work on labor markets, Yellen was a kind of prophetess early on in the crisis for her warnings about the subprime (次级债) meltdown. Now it will be her job to get the Fed and the markets out of the biggest and most unconventional monetary program in history without derailing the fragile recovery.The good news is that Yellen,67, is

particularly well suited to meet these challenges. She has a keen understanding of financial markets, an appreciation for their imperfections and a strong belief that human suffering was more related to unemployment than anything else.

Some experts worry that Yellen will be inclined to chase unemployment to the neglect of inflation.

But with wages still relatively flat and the economy increasingly divided between the well-off and the long-term unemployed, more people worry about the opposite, deflation (通货紧缩) that would aggravate the economy’s problems.

Either way, the incoming Fed chief will have to walk a fine line in slowly ending the stimulus. It must be steady enough to deflate bubbles (去泡沫) and bring markets back down to earth but not so quick thatit creates another credit crisis.

Unlike many past Fed leaders, Yellen is not one to buy into the finance industry’s argument that itshould be left alone to regulate itself. She knows all along the Fed has been too slack on regulation of finance. Yellen is likely to address the issue right after she pushes unemployment below 6%, stabilizes markets and makes sure that the recovery is more inclusive and robust. As Princeton Professor Alan Blinder says, “She’s smart as a whip, deeply logical, willing to argue but also a good listener. She can persuade without creating hostility.” All those traits will be useful as the global economy’s new power player takes on its most annoying problems.

注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。

61. What do many people think is the biggest problem facing Janet Yellen? A) Lack of money. B) Subprime crisis. C) Unemployment.

D) Social instability.

62. What did Yellen help the Fed do to tackle the 2008 financial crisis? A) Take effective measures to curb inflation. B) Deflate the bubbles in the American economy.

C) Formulate policies to help financial institutions. D) Pour money into the market through asset buying. 63. What is a greater concern of the general public? A) Recession. B) Deflation. C) Inequality. D) Income.

. What is Yellen likely to do in her position as the Fed chief? A) Develop a new monetary program. B) Restore public confidence. C) Tighten financial regulation. D) Reform the credit system.

65. How does Alan Blinder portray Yellen? A) She possesses strong persuasive power. B) She has confidence in what she is doing.

C) She is one of the world’s greatest economists. D) She is the most powerful Fed chief in history.

Part IV Translation (30 minutes)

Directions:For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to translate a passage from Chinese into English. You should write your answer on Answer Sheet 2. 中国传统的待客之道要求饭菜丰富多样，让客人吃不完。中国宴席上典型的菜单包括开席的一套凉菜及其后的热菜，例如肉类、鸡鸭、蔬菜等。大多数宴席上，全鱼被认为是必不可少的，除非已经上过各式海鲜。如今，中国人喜欢把西方特色菜与传统中式菜肴融于一席，因此牛排上桌也不少见。沙拉也已流行起来，尽管传统上中国人一般不吃任何未经烹饪的菜肴。宴席通常至少有一道汤，可以最先或最后上桌。甜点和水果通常标志宴席的结束。