2019年6月六级阅读试题

第一套

The Best Retailers Combine Bricks and Clicks

A) Retail profits are falling sharply. Stores are closing. Malls are emptying. The depressing stories just keep coming. Reading the earnings announcements of large retail stores like Macy’s, Nordstrom, and Target is about as uplifting as a tour of an intensive care unit. The interact is apparently taking down yet another industry. Brick and mortar stores (实体店) seem to be going the way of the yellow pages. Sure enough, the Census Bureau just released data showing that online retail sales surged 15.2 percent between the first quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016.

B) But before you dump all of your retail stocks, there are more facts you should consider. Looking only at that 15.2 percent \"surge\" would be misleading. It was an increase that was on a small base of 6.9 percent. Even when a tiny number grows by a large percentage terms, it is often still tiny.

C) More than 20 years after the internet was opened to commerce, the Census Bureau tells us that brick and mortar sales accounted for 92.3 percent of retail sales in the first quarter of 2016. Their data show that only 0.8 percent of retail sales shifted from offline to online between the beginning of 2015 and 2016.

D) So, despite all the talk about drone (无人机) deliveries to your doorstep, all the retail executives expressing anxiety over consumers going online, and even a Presidential candidate exclaiming that Amazon has a \"huge antitrust problem,\" the Census data suggest that physical retail is thriving. Of course, the closed stores, depressed executives, and sinking stocks suggest otherwise. What's the real story?

E) Many firms operating brick and mortar stores are in trouble. The retail industry is getting reinvented, as we describe in our new book Matchmakers. It's standing in the Path of what Schumpeter called a gale (大风) of creative destruction. That storm has been brewing for some time, and as it has reached gale force, most large retailers are searching for a response. As the CFO of Macy’s put it recently, “We’re frankly scratching our heads.”

F) But it’s not happening as experts predicted. In the peak of the dot. com bubble, brick and mortar retail was one of those industries the internet was going to kill-and quickly. The dot.corn bust discredited most predictions of that sort and in the years that followed, onventional retailers’ confidence in the future increased as Census continued to report weak online sales. And then the gale hit.

G) It is becoming increasingly clear that retail reinvention isn’t a simple battle to the death

between bricks and clicks. It is about devising retail models that work for people who are making increasing use of a growing array of internet-connected tools to change how they search, shop, and buy. Creative retailers are using the new technologies to innovate just about everything stores do from managing inventory, to marketing, to getting paid.

H) More than drones dropping a new supply of underwear on your doorstep, Apple’s massively successful brick-and-mortar-and-glass retail stores and Amazon’s small steps in the same direction are what should keep old-fashioned retailers awake at night. Not to mention the large number of creative new retailers, like Bonobos, that are blending online and offline experiences in creative ways.

I) Retail reinvention is not a simple process, and it’s also not happening on what used to be called \"Internet Time.\" Some internet-driven changes have happened quickly, of course. Craigslist quickly overtook newspaper classified ads and turned newspaper economics upside down. But many widely anticipated changes weren’t quick, and some haven’t really started. With the benefit of hindsight (后见之明), it looks like the interact will transform the economy at something like the pace of other great inventions like electricity. B2B commerce, for example, didn’t move mainly online by 2005 as many had predicted in 2000, nor even by 2016, but that doesn’t mean it won’t do so over the next few decades.

J) But the gale is still blowing. The sudden decline in foot traffic in recent years, even though it hasn’t been accompanied by a massive decline in physical sales, is a critical warning. People can shop more efficiently online and therefore don’t need to go to as many stores to find what they want. There’s a surplus of physical shopping space for the crowds, which is one reason why stores are downsizing and closing.

K) The rise of the mobile phone has recently added a new level of complexity to the process of retail reinvention. Even five years ago most people faced a choice. Sit at your computer, probably at home or at the office, search and browse, and buy. Or head out to the mall, or Main Street, look and shop, and buy. Now, just about everyone has a smartphone, connected to the internet almost everywhere almost all the time. Even when a retailer gets a customer to walk in the store, she can easily see if there’s a better deal online or at another store nearby.

L) So far, the main thing many large retailers have done in response to all this is to open online stores, so people will come to them directly rather than to Amazon and its smaller online rivals. Many are having the same problem that newspapers have. Even if they get online traffic, they struggle to make enough money online to compensate for what they are losing offline.

M) A few seem to be making this work. Among large traditional retailers, Walmart recently reported the best results, leading its stock price to surge, while Macy’s, Target, and Nordstrom’s

dropped. Yet Walmart’s year-over-year online sales only grew 7 percent, leading its CEO to lament (哀叹), “Growth here is too slow.” Part of the problem is that almost two decades after Amazon filed the one.click patent, the online retail shopping and buying experience is filled with frictions. A recent study graded more than 600 internet retailers on how easy it was for consumers to shop, buy, and pay. Almost half of the sites didn’t get a passing grade and only 18 percent got an A or B.<

N) The turmoil on the ground in physical retail is hard to square with the Census data. Unfortunately, part of the explanation is that the Census retail data are unreliable. Our deep 100k into those data and their preparation revealed serious problems. It seems likely that Census simply misclassifies a large chunk of online sales. It is certain that the Census procedures, which lump the online sales of major traditional retailers like Walmart with“non-store retailers\"1ike food trucks. can mask major changes in individual retail categories. The bureau could easily present their data in more useful ways. but they have chosen not to.

O) Despite the turmoil, brick and mortar won’t disappear any time soon.The big questions are which, if any, of the large traditional retailers will still be on the scene in a decade or two because they have successfully reinvented themselves, which new players will operate busy stores on Main Streets and maybe even in shopping malls, and how the shopping and buying experience will have changed in each retail category. Investors shouldn’t write off brick and mortar. Whether they should bet on the traditional players who run those stores now is another matter

36.Although online retailing has existed for some twenty years, nearly half of the internet retailers still fail to receive satisfactory feedback from consumers, according to a recent survey. 37.Innovative retailers integrate internet technologies with conventional retailing to create new retail models.

38.Despite what the Census data suggest, the value of physical retail’s stocks has been dropping. 39.Innovative—driven changes in the retail industry didn’t take place as quickly as widely anticipated.

40. Statistics indicate that brick and mortar sales still made up the lion’s share of the retail business.

41. Companies that successfully combine online and offline business models may prove to be a big concern for traditional retailers.

42.Brick and mortar retailers’ faith in their business was strengthened when the dot com bubble burst.

43. Despite the tremendous challenges from online retailing, traditional retailing will be here to stay for quite some time.

44. With the rise of online commerce, physical retail stores are likely to suffer the same fate as i the yellow pages.

45. The wide use of smartphones has made it more complex for traditional retailers to reinvent

their business.

Passage one

Professor Stephen Hawking has warned that the creation of powerful artificial intelligence (AI) will be “either the best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity”, and praised the creation of an academic institute dedicated to researching the future of intelligence as “crucial to the future of our civilization and our species.”

Hawking was speaking at the opening of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (LCFI) at Cambridge University, a multi-disciplinary institute that will attempt to tackle some of the open-ended questions raised by the rapid pace of development in AI research. “We spend a great deal of time studying history,” Hawking said, “which, let’s face it, is mostly the history of stupidity. So it’s a welcome change that people are studying instead the future of intelligence.”

While the world-renowned physicist has often been cautious about AI, raising concerns that humanity could be the architect of its own destruction if it creates a super-intelligence with a will of its own, he was also quick to highlight the positives that AI research can bring. “The potential benefits of creating intelligence are huge,” he said. “We cannot predict what we might achieve when our own minds are amplified by AI. Perhaps with the tools of this new technological revolution, we will be able to undo some of the damage done to the natural world by the last one – industrialization. And surely we will aim to finally eradicate disease and poverty. And every aspect of our lives will be transformed. In short, success in creating AI could be the biggest event in the history of our civilization.”

Huw Price, the centre’s academic director and the Bertrand Russell professor of philosophy at Cambridge University, where Hawking is also an academic, said that the centre came about partially as a result of the university’s Centre for Existential Risk. That institute examined a wider range of potential problems or humanity, while the LCFI has a narrow focus.

AI pioneer Margaret Boden, professor of cognitive science at the University of Sussex, praised the progress of such discussions. As recently as 2009, she said, the topic wasn’t taken seriously, even among AI researchers. “AI is hugely exciting,” she said, “but it has limitations, which present grace dangers given uncritical use.”

The academic community is not alone in warning about the potential dangers of AI as well as the potential benefits. A number of pioneers from the technology industry, most famously the entrepreneur Elon Musk, have also expressed their concerns about the damage that a super-intelligent AI could do to humanity.

46. What did Stephen Hawking think of artificial intelligence?

A) It would be vital to the progress of human civilization.

B) It might be a blessing or a disaster in the making. C) It might present challenges as well as opportunities. D) It would be a significant expansion of human intelligence. 47. What did Hawking say about the creation of the LCFI?

A) It would accelerate the process of AI research. B) It would mark a step forward in the AI industry. C) It was extremely important to the destiny of humankind. D) It was an achievement of multi-disciplinary collaboration. 48. What did Hawking say was a welcome change in AI research? A) The shift of research focus from the past to the future. B) The shift of research from theory to implementation. C) The greater emphasis on the negative impact of AI. D) The increasing awareness of mankind’s past stupidity. 49. What concerns did Hawking raise about AI? A) It may exceed human intelligence sooner or later. B) It may ultimately over-amplify the human mind. C) Super-intelligence may cause its own destruction. D) Super—intelligence may eventually ruin mankind.

50. What do we learn about some entrepreneurs from the technology industry? A) They are much influenced by the academic community. B) They are most likely to benefit from AI development. C) They share the same concerns about AI as academic.

D) They believe they can keep AI under human control.

Passage two

The market for products designed specifically for older adults could reach $30 billion by next year, and startups(初创公司)want in on the action. What they sometimes lack is feedback from the people who they hope will use their products. So Brookdale, the country’s largest owner of retirement communication, has been inviting a few select entrepreneurs just to move in for a few days, show off their products and hear what the residents have to say.

That’s what brought Dayle Rodriguez, 28, all the way from England to the dining room of Brookdale South Bay in Torrance, California. Rodriguez is the community and marketing manager for a company called Sentab. The startup’s product, Sentab TV, enables older adults who may not be comfortable with computers to access email, video chat and social media using just their televisions and a remote control.

“It’s nothing new, it’s nothing too complicated and it’s natural because lots of people have TV remotes,” says Rodriguez.

But none of that is the topic of conversation in the Brookdale dining room. Instead, Rodriguez solicits residents’ advice on what he should get on his cheeseburger and how he should spend the afternoon. Playing cards was on the agenda, as well as learning to play mahjong(麻将). Rodriguez says it’s important that residents here don’t feel like he’s selling them something. “I’ve had more feedback in a passive approach,” he says. “Playing pool, playing cards, having dinner, having lunch,” all work better “than going through a survey of questions. When they get to know me and to trust me, knowing for sure I’m not selling them something – there’ll be more honest feedback from them.”

Rodriguez is just the seventh entrepreneur to move into one of Brookdale’s 1,100 senior living communities. Other new products in the program have included a kind of full-body blow dryer and specially designed clothing that allows people with disabilities to dress and undress themselves.

Mary Lou Busch, 93, agreed to try the Sentab system. She tells Rodriguez that it might be good for someone, but not for her.

“I have the computer and Face Time, which I talk with my family on,” she explains. She also has an iPad and a smartphone. “So I do pretty much everything I need to do.”

To be fair, if Rodriguez had wanted feedback from some more technophobic(害怕技术的) seniors, he might have ended up in the wrong Brookdale community. This one is located in the heart of Southern California’s aerospace corridor. Many residents have backgrounds in engineering, business and academic circles.

But Rodriguez says he’s still learning something important by moving into this Brookdale community: “People are more tech-proficient than we thought.” And besides, where else would he learn to play mahjong? 51. What does the passage say about the startups?

A) They never lose time in upgrading products for seniors. B) They want to have a share of the seniors’ goods market. C) They invite seniors to their companies to try their products.

D) They try to profit from promoting digital products to seniors. 52. Some entrepreneurs have been invited to Brookdale to . A) have an interview with potential customers B) conduct a survey of retirement communities C) collect residents’ feedback on their products

D) show senior residents how to use IT products 53. What do we know about SentabTV?

A) It is a TV program catering to the interest of the elderly. B) It is a digital TV which enjoys popularity among seniors. C) It is a TV specially designed for seniors to view programs.

D) It is a communication system via TV instead of a computer. 54. What does Rodriguez say is important in promoting products? A) Winning trust from prospective customers. B) Knowing the likes and dislikes of customers. C) Demonstrating their superiority on the spot.

D) Responding promptly to customer feedback.

55. What do we learn about the seniors in the Brookdale community? A) Most of them are interested in using the Sentab. B) They are quite at ease with high-tech products. C) They have much in common with seniors elsewhere.

D) Most of them enjoy a longer life than average people.

第二套

Companies Are Working with Consumers to Reduce Waste

A) As consumers, we are very wasteful. Annually, the world generates 1.3 billion tons of solid waste. This is expected to go up to 2.2 billion by 2025. The developed countries are responsible for 44% of waste, and in the U.S. alone, the average person throws away their body weight in rubbish every month.

B) Conventional wisdom would seem to suggest that companies have no incentive to lengthen the life cycle of their products and reduce the revenue they would get from selling new goods. Yet, more and more businesses are thinking about how to reduce consumer waste. This is partly driven by the rising price of raw materials and metals. It is also partly due to both consumers and companies becoming more aware of the need to protect our environment.

C) When choosing what products to buy and which brands to buy from, more and more consumers are looking into sustainability. This is opposed to just price and performance they were concerned about in the past. In a survey of 54 of the world’s leading brands, almost all of them reported that consumers are showing increasing care about sustainable lifestyles. At the same time, surveys on consumers in the U.S. and the U.K. show that they also care about minimizing energy use and reducing waste.

D) For the most part, consumers control what happens to a product. But some companies are realizing that placing the burden of recycling entirely on the consumer is not an effective strategy, especially when tossing something away seems like the easiest and most convenient option.

E) Some retailers and manufacturers in the clothing, footwear, and electronics industries have launched environmental programs. They want to make their customers interested in preserving their products and preventing things that still have value from going to the garbage dump. By offering services to help expand the longevity of their products, they’re promising quality and durability to consumers, and receiving the reputational gains for being environmentally friendly.

F) For example, the Swedish jeans company Nudie Jeans offers free repair at twenty of their shops. Instead of discarding their old worn-out jeans, customers bring them in to be renewed. The company even provides mail-order repair kits and online videos, so that customers can learn how to fix a pair of jeans at home. Their philosophy is that extending the life of a pair of jeans is not only great for the environment, but allows the consumer to get more value out of their product. When customers do want to toss their pair, they can give them back to the store, which will repurpose and resell them. Another clothing company, Patagonia, a high-end outdoor clothing store, follows the same principle. It has partnered with DIY website iFixit to teach consumers how to repair their clothing, such as waterproof outerwear, at home. The company also offers a repair program for their customers for a modest fee. Currently, Patagonia repairs about 40,000 garments a year in their Reno, Nevada, service center. According to the company’s CEO, Rose Marcario, this is about building a company that cares about the environment. At the same time, offering repair supports the perceived quality of its products.

G) In Brazil, the multinational corporation Adidas has been running a shoe-recycling program called “Sustainable Footprint” since 2012. Customers can bring shoes of any brand into an Adidas store to be shredded and turned into alternative fuels for energy creation instead of being burned as trash. They are used to fuel cement ovens. To motivate visitors to bring in more old shoes, Adidas Brazil promotes the program in stores by showing videos to educate customers, and it even offers a discount each time a customer brings in an old pair of shoes. This boosts the reputation and image of Adidas by making people more aware of the company’s values.

H) Enormous opportunities also lie with e-waste. It is estimated that in 2014 the world produced some 42 million metric tons of e-waste (discarded electrical and electronic equipment and its parts) with North America and Europe accounting for 8 and 12 million metric tons respectively. The materials from e-waste include iron, copper, gold, silver, and aluminum materials that could be reused, resold, salvaged, or recycled. Together, the value of these metals is estimated to be about $52 billion. Electronics giants like Best Buy and Samsung have provided

e-waste take-back programs over the past few years, which aim to refurbish (翻新) old electronic components and parts into new products.

I) For other companies interested in reducing waste, helping the environment, and providing the sustainable lifestyles that consumers seek, here are some first steps for building a relationship with customers that focuses on recycling and restoring value to products:

J) Find partners. If you are a manufacturer who relies on outside distributors, then retailers are the ideal partner for collecting old products. Power tool maker DeWalt partners with companies, such as Lowes and Napa Auto Parts, to collect old tools at their stores for recycling. The partnership benefits both sides by allowing unconventional partners (for example, two companies from two different industries) to work together on a specific aspect of the value chain, like, in this example, an engine firm with an accessory one.

K) Create incentives. Environmental conscientiousness isn’t always enough to make customers recycle old goods. For instance, DeWalt discovered that many contractors were holding on to their old tools, even if they no longer worked, because they were expensive purchases and it was hard to justify bringing them in to recycle. By offering instant discounts worth as much as $100, DeWalt launched a trade-in program to encourage people to bring back tools. As a result, DeWalt now reuses those materials to create new products.

L) Start with a trial program, and expect to change the details as you go. Any take-back program will likely change over time, depending on what works for your customers and company goals. Maybe you see low customer participation at first, or conversely, so much success that the cost of recycling becomes too high. Best Buy, for instance, has been bearing the lion’s share of e-waste volume since two of its largest competitors, Amazon and Wal-mart, do not have their own recycling programs. Since the launch of its program, Best Buy changed its policy to add a $25 fee for recycling old televisions in order to keep the program going.

M) Build a culture of collective values with customers. A stronger relationship between the retailer/producer and the consumer isn’t just about financial incentives. By creating more awareness around your efforts to reduce waste, and by developing a culture of responsibility, repair, and reuse, you can build customer loyalty based on shared values and responsibilities.

N) These examples are just the tip of the iceberg, but they demonstrate how helping customers get more use of their materials can transform value chains and operations. Reducing waste by incorporating used materials into production can cut costs and decrease the price of procurement (采购): less to be procured from the outside and more to be re-utilized from the inside.

O) Companies play a big role in creating a circular economy, in which value is generating

less from extracting new resources and more from getting better use out of the resources we already have--but they must also get customers engaged in the process.

36. Some companies believe that products’ prolonged lifespan benefits both the environment and customers.

37. A survey shows shoppers today are getting more concerned about energy conservation and environmental protection when deciding what to buy.

38. Companies can build customer loyalty by creating a positive culture of environmental awareness.

39. When companies launch environmental programs, they will have their brand reputation enhanced.

40. One multinational company offers discounts to customers who bring in old footwear to be used as fuel.

41. Recycling used products can help manufacturers reduce production costs. 42. Electronic products contain valuable metals that could be recovered.

43. It seems commonly believed that companies are not motivated to prolong their products’ lifespan.

44. It is advisable for companies to partner with each other in product recycling.

45. Some businesses have begun to realize it may not be effective to let consumers take full responsibility for recycling.

Passage one

Effective Friday, Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) has declared a strike against 11 video game publishers over games that went into production after Feb. 17, 2015. The companies include some of the heavyweights of the industry, like Electronic Arts Productions, Insomniac Games, Activision and Disney.

The strike comes in light of an unsuccessful 19 months of negotiations after the existing labor contract known as the Interactive Media Agreement expired in late 2014. overall, the strike is an effort to provide more secondary compensation along with other concerns, such as transparency upon hiring talent and on-set (制作中) safety precautions.

The video gaming industry has ballooned in recent years. The Los Angeles Times reports that the industry is in the midst of an intense increase in cash flow. In 2015, gaming produced $23.5 billion in domestic revenue.

But SAG-AFTRA says voice actors don’t receive residuals (追加酬金) for their gaming work. Instead, they receive a fixed rate, which is typically about $825 for a standard four-hour vocal session. So the voice actors are pushing for the idea of secondary compensation—a performance

bonus every time a game sells 2 million copies or downloads, or reaches 2 million subscribers, with a cap at 8 million.

“It’s a very small number of games that would trigger this secondary compensation issue,” said voice actor Crispin Freeman, who’s a member of the union’s negotiating committee. “This is an important aspect of what it means to be a freelance (从事自由职业的) performer, who isn’t regularly employed every single day working on projects.”

Another major complaint from the actors is the secrecy of the industry. “I can’t imagine if there’s any other acting job in the world where you don’t know what show you’re in, when you’re hired,” says voice actor Keythe Farley, who chairs the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee.

“And yet that happens every day in the video game world,” Farley told reporters during a press conference Friday. “I was a main character in Fallout 4, a character by the name of Kellogg, and I never knew that I was doing vocal recording for that game throughout the year and a half.”

Scott Witlin, the lawyer representing the video game companies, says voice actors “represent less than one tenth of 1 percent of the work that goes into making a video game.” So “even though they’re the top craftsmen in their field,” Witlin says, “if we pay them under a vastly different system than the people who do the 99.9 percent of the work, that’s going to create far more problems for the video game companies.”

46. Why did SAG-AFTRA declare a strike against some video game publishers? A) The labor contract between them had been violated. B) Its appeal to renegotiate the contract had been rejected. C) It had been cheated repeatedly in the 19 months of talks. D) The negotiations between them had broken down.

47. What do we learn from the passage about the video gaming industry?

A) It has reaped huge profits in recent years. B) It has become more open and transparent. C) It has attracted many famous voice actors. D) It has invested a lot in its domestic market. 48. What are the voice actors demanding?

A) More regular employment. B) A non-discriminatory contract. C) Extra pay based on sales revenues. D) A limit on the maximum work hours. 49. What does Keythe Farley say about voice actors?

A) They are kept in the dark about many details of their job.

B) They are discriminated against in the gaming industry. C) They are not paid on a regular basis. D) They are not employed full-time. 50. What is the argument of lawyer Scott Witlin?

A) Voice actors should have a pay raise if they prove to be top craftsmen. B) Changing the pay system would cause the industry more problems. C) Voice actors are mere craftsmen, not professional performers. D) Paying voice actors on an hourly basis is in line with the law.

Passage two

Officials at the White House announced a new space policy focused on managing the increasing number of satellites that companies and governments are launching into space. Space Policy Directive-3 lays out general guidelines for the United States to mitigate (缓解) the effects of space debris and track and manage traffic in space.

This policy sets the stage for the Department of Commerce to take over the management of traffic in space. The department will make sure that newly launched satellites don’t use radio frequencies that would interfere with existing satellites, and schedule when such new satellites can be launched. This only applies to American space activities, but the hope is that it will help standardize a set of norms in the dawning commercial spaceflight industry throughout the world.

Space, especially the space directly around our planet, is getting more crowded as more governments and companies launch satellites. One impetus for the policy is that companies are already starting to build massive constellations (星座), comprising hundreds or thousands of satellites with many moving parts among them. With so much stuff in space, and a limited area around our planet, the government wants to reduce the chances of a collision. Two or more satellites slamming into each other could create many more out-of-control bits that would pose even more hazards to the growing collection of satellites in space.

And it’s not like this hasn’t happened before. In 2009 an old Russian craft slammed into a communications satellite, creating a cloud of hundreds of pieces of debris and putting other hardware at risk. Journalist Sarah Scoles reports that NASA currently tracks about 24,000 objects in space, and in 2016 the Air Force had to issue 3,995,874 warnings to satellite owners alerting them to a potential nearby threat from another satellite or bit of debris.

That’s why this new policy also includes directions to update the current U.S. Government Orbital Debris Mitigation Standard Practices, which already require any entity that launches a satellite or spacecraft to vigorously analyze the likelihood that any of their actions, from an unexpected failure or normal operations, will create more space debris. It includes accounting for any piece of debris they plan to release over 5mm that might stay in orbit for 25 years or more. It might seem surprising to think about an item staying in space for that long, but the oldest satellite still in orbit-Vanguard 1-turned 60 in 2018.

Agencies and companies throughout the world are working on developing technology that

would dispose of or capture space debris before it causes serious damage. But for now, the U.S. government is more focused on preventing new debris from forming than taking the trash out of orbit.

51. What is the purpose of the new U.S. space policy?

A) To lay out general guidelines for space exploration. B) To encourage companies to join in space programs. C) To make the best use of satellites in space. D) To improve traffic conditions in space.

52. What is the Department of Commerce expected to do under the new policy?

A) Reduce debris in space. B) Monitor satellite operations.

C) Regulate the launching of new satellites. D) Update satellite communications technology.

53. What does the U.S. government hope to do with the new space policy?

A) Set international standards for the space flight industry. B) Monopolize space industry by developing a set of norms. C) Facilitate commercial space flights throughout the world. D) Promote international collaboration in space exploration.

54. What is a space vehicle launching entity required to do according to the current U.S. Government Orbital Debris Mitigation Standard Practices?

A) Give an estimate of how long its debris will stay in space. B) Account for the debris it has released into space at any time. C) Provide a detailed plan for managing the space debris it creates. D) Make a thorough analysis of any possible addition to space debris. 55. What are space agencies and companies aiming to do at present?

A) Recycle used space vehicles before they turn into debris. B) Develop technology to address the space debris problem. C) Limit the amount of debris entering space. D) Cooperate closely to retrieve space debris.

第三套

In the real world, nobody cares that you went to an Ivy League school

A) As a high school junior, everything in my life revolved around getting into the right college. I diligently attended my SAT, ACT, and Advanced Placement test preparation courses. I juggled （尽力应付）cross-country and track schedules, newspaper staff, and my church’s youth group and drama team. I didn’t drink, party, or even do much dating. The right college, I thought, was one with prestige, one with a name. It didn’t have to be the Ivy League, but it needed to be “top school.”

B) Looking back now, nine years later, I can’t remember exactly what it was about these universities that made them seem so much better. Was it a curriculum that appeared more rigorous, perhaps? Or an alumni network that I hoped would open doors down the line? Maybe. “I do think there are advantages to schools with more recognition,” notes Marybeth Gasman, a professor of higher education at the University of Pennsylvania. “I don’t necessarily think that’s a reason to go to one.”

C) In reflection, my firm belief in the power of the brand was naive, not to mention a bit snobby. I quickly passed over state schools and southern schools, believing their curriculums to be automatically inferior to northeastern or western counterparts. Instead, I dreamed of living in New York City and my parents obliged me with a visit to New York University’s (NYU) campus. During the tour, tuition fees were discussed. (NYU is consistently ranked one of the country’s most expensive schools, with room and board costs totaling upwards of $,000 a year.) Up until then, I hadn’t truly realized just how expensive an education can be. Over the next few months, I realized not only could I not afford my dream school, I couldn’t even afford the ones where I’d been accepted. City University of New York (CUNY), Rutgers University, and Indiana University were out of reach as were Mississippi State and the University of Alabama, where I would have to pay out-of-state fees. Further complicating my college search was a flourishing stack career—I wanted to keep running but my times weren’t quite fast enough to secure a scholarship.

D) And so, at 11pm on the night of Georgia State University’s (GSU) midnight deadline, I applied online. Rated No.466 overall on Forbes’ Lists Top Colleges, No. 183 in Research Universities, and No. 108 in the South, I can’t say it was my top choice. Still, the track coach had offered me a walk-on spot, and I actually found the urban Atlanta campus a decent consolation prize after New York City.

E) While it may have been practical, it wasn’t prestigious, But here’s the thing: I loved my “lower-tier” (低层次的) university. (I use the term “low-tier” cautiously, because GSU is a well-regarded research institution that attracts high quality professors and faculty from all over the country.) We are taught to believe that only by going to the best schools and getting the best grades can we escape the rat race and build a better future. But what if lower-tier colleges and universities were the ticket to escaping the rat race? After all, where else can you leave school with a decent degree—but without a lifetime of debt?

F) My school didn’t come pre-packaged like the more popular options, so we were left to take care of ourselves, figuring out city life and trying to complete degree programs that no one was championing for us to succeed in. What I’m saying is, I loved my university because it taught us all to be resourceful and we could make what we wanted out of it.

G) I was lucky enough to have my tuition covered by a lottery-funded scholarship called HOPE (Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally). When I started college, the HOPE scholarship was funded by the state of Georgia and offered to graduating high school seniors with a GPA of 3.0 or higher. Living costs and books I paid for with money earned during high school, supplemented by a small college fund my deceased grandfather left for me and a modest savings account my parents created when I was born.

H) So what about all that name recognition? Sure, many of my colleagues and competitors have more glamorous alma maters（母校）than I do. As a journalist, I have competed against NYU, Columbia, and Northeastern graduates for jobs. And yet, not a single interviewer has ever asked me about my educational background. In fact, almost every interview I’ve ever had was due to a connection—one that I’ve gained through pure determination, not a school brand.

I) According to The Boston Globe, students who earned their bachelor’s in 2012 have an average monthly loan payment of $312, which is one-third more than those who graduated in 2004. Ultimately, that’s the thing universities don’t want to admit. Private universities are money-making institutions. If you can afford to buy prestige, that’s your choice. For the rest of us, however, our hearty lower-tiered universities are just fine, thank you.

J) Wealthy universities talk up the benefits their name will give graduates; namely, strong alumni networks, star faculty, and a résumé boost. But you needn’t attend an Ivy League school to reap those rewards. Ludacris and the former CEO of Bank of America Ken Lewis are alumni of my college, as well as VICE’s first female editor-in-chief, Ellis Jones. Successful people tend to be successful no matter where they go to school. And lower-tier schools can have alumni networks just as strong as their big name counterparts. In fact, lower-tier school alumni networks are arguably stronger, because fellow alumni recognize that you didn’t necessarily have an easy path to follow. They might be more willing to offer career help, because your less famous school denotes that, like them., you are also full of energy and perseverance.

K) The Washington Post reported on a recent study by Princeton economists, in which college graduates, who applied to the most selective schools in the 12th grade were compared to those who applied to slightly less selective schools. They found that students with more potential earned more as adults, and the reverse held true as well, no matter where they went to school.

L) Likewise, star faculty is not always found where you’d expect. Big name schools are not necessarily the best places for professors; plus, many professors split teaching time between multiple colleges and/or universities. This means, for instance, a CUNY student could reasonably expect to receive the same quality of instruction from a prestigious professor as they would if they were enrolled in the same class at NYU.

M) It’s possible that some hiring managers may be drawn to candidates with a particular educational résumé, but it’s no guarantee. According to a 2012 survey described in The Atlantic, college reputation ranked lowest in relative importance of attributes in evaluating graduates for hire, beaten out by top factors like internships, employment during college, college major, volunteer experience, and extracurriculars.

N) Maybe students who choose less prestigious universities are bound to succeed because they are determined to. I tend to think so. In any case, if I could do it again, I’d still make the same choice. Today I’m debt-free, resourceful—and I understand that even the shiniest packaging can’t predict what you’ll find on the inside.

36. Modest institutions can also have successful graduates and strong alumni networks.

37. The money the author made in high school helped pay for her living expenses and books at college.

38. The author came to see how costly college education could be when she was trying to choose a university to attend.

39. A recent study found that a graduate’s salary is determined by their potential, not the university they attended.

40. The author cannot recall for sure what made certain top universities appear a lot better. 41. None of the author’s job interviewers cared which college she went to.

42. The author thinks she did the right thing in choosing a less prestigious university.

43. In order to be admitted to a prestigious university, the author took part in various extracurricular activities and attended test preparation courses.

44. The author liked her university which was not prestigious but less expensive. 45. Colleges are reluctant to admit that graduates today are in heavier debt.

Passage one

Economically speaking, are we better off than we were ten years ago? Twenty years ago? In their thirst for evidence on this issue, commentators seized on the recent report by the Census Bureau, which found that average household income rose by 5.2% in 2015. Unfortunately, that conclusion puts too much weight on a useful, but flawed and incomplete, statistic. Among the more significant problems with the Census’s measure are that: 1) it excludes taxes, transfers, and compensation like employer-provided health insurance; and 2) it is based on surveys rather than data. Even if precisely measured, income data exclude important determinants of economic well-being, such as the hours of work needed to earn that income.

While thinking about the question, we came across a recently published article by Charles Jones and Peter Klenow, which proposes an interesting new measure of economic welfare. While

by no means perfect, it is considerably more comprehensive than average income, taking into account not only growth in consumption per person but also changes in working time, life expectancy, and inequality. Moreover, it can be used to assess economic performance both across countries and over time.

The Jones-Klenow method can be illustrated by a cross-country example. Suppose we want to compare the economic welfare of citizens of the U.S. and France in 2005.

In 2005, as the authors observe, real consumption per person in France was only 60% as high as the U.S., making it appear that Americans were economically much better off than the French on average. However, that comparison omits other relevant factors: leisure time, life expectancy, and economic inequality. The French take longer vacations and retire earlier, so typically work fewer hours; they enjoy a higher life expectancy, presumably reflecting advantages with respect to health care, diet, lifestyle, and the like; and income and consumption are somewhat more equally distributed there than in the U.S. Because of these differences, comparing France’s consumption with the U.S.’s overstates the gap in economic welfare.

Similar calculations can be used to compare the U.S. and other countries. For example, this calculation puts economic welfare in the United Kingdom at 97% of U.S. levels, but estimates Mexican well-being at 22%.

The Jones-Klenow measure can also assess an economy’s performance over time. According to this measure, as of the early-to-mid-2000s, the U.S. had the highest economic welfare of any large country. Since 2007, economic welfare in the U.S. has continued to improve. However, the pace of improvement has slowed markedly.

Methodologically, the lesson from the Jones-Klenow research is that economic welfare is multi-dimensional. Their approach is flexible enough that in principle other important quality-of-life changes could be incorporated—for example, decreases in total emissions of pollutants and declines in crime rates.

46. What does the author think of the 2015 report by the Census Bureau?

A) It is based on questionable statistics. B) It reflects the economic changes. C) It evidences the improved welfare. D) It provides much food for thought.

47. What does the author say about the Jones-Klenow method?

A) It is widely used to compare the economic growth across countries. B) It revolutionizes the way of measuring ordinary people’s livelihood. C) It focuses on people’s consumption rather that their average income.

D) It is a more comprehensive measure of people’s economic well-being.

48. What do Jones and Klenow think of the comparison between France and the U.S. in terms of real consumption per person?

A) It reflected the existing big gap between the two economies. B) It neglected many important indicators of people’s welfare. C) It covered up the differences between individual citizens. D) It failed to count in their difference in natural resources. 49. What is an advantage of the Jones-Klenow method?

A）It can accurately pinpoint a country’s current economic problems. B) It can help to raise people’s awareness of their economic well-being.

C) It can diagnose the causes of a country’s slowing pace of economic improvement. D) It can compare a country’s economic conditions between different periods of time. 50. What can we infer from the passage about American people’s economic well-being?

A) It is much better than that of their European counterparts. B) It has been on the decline ever since the turn of the century. C) It has not improved as much as reported by the Census Bureau. D) It has not been accurately assessed and reported since mid-2000s.

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