07年6月英语六级考试模拟试卷（九）
part Ⅰ listening comprehension (20 minutes)
section a
directions: in this section, you will hear 10 short conversations. at the end of each conversation, a question will be asked about what was said. both the conversation and the question 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 the answer sheet with a single line through the centre.
example: you will hear:
you will read: a) 2 hours b) 3 hours
c) 4 hours d) 5 hours
from the conversation we know that the two are talking about some work they will start at 9 o'clock in the morning and have to finish at 2 in the afternoon. therefore, d) "5 hours" is the correct answer. you should choose d) on the answer sheet and mark it with a single line through the centre.
sample answer [a] [b] [c] [d]
1. a) at a bus station. b) at a railway station.
c) at an airport. d) in a shopping center.
2. a) work on his paper after class. b) postpone his meeting with professor green.
c) go swimming with his friends. d) go to see professor green immediately.
3. a) she would rather invite more people to come.
b) they would prepare more food and drinks.
c) the family members always eat a lot.
d) there was too much food at a previous meeting.
4. a) he wanted to change the appointment.
b) he called dr. smith to confirm the appointment.
c) he was confused about the date of the appointment.
d) he can't see dr. smith until tomorrow.
5. a) the man was mistaken. b) the woman won't have to wait for long.
c) the woman has done a good job. d) the man doesn't work hard.
6. a) organize another activity. b) choose another restaurant.
c) wear different clothes. d) ask more friends to go together.
7. a) he told her he would send postcards.
b) it was difficult for him to have a holiday.
c) he has already been to venice for several times.
d) he didn't want to go to venice at first.
8. a) prepare for his examination. b) go to the cinema after his examination.
c) ask the woman to help him with his study. d) see a film with the woman.
9. a) share the yogurt with the man. b) ask the man to buy some yogurt.
c) go out with the man for shopping. d) eat what she brought with her.
10. a) the hotel will not be built in a short time. b) a good name hasn't been found for it yet.
c) they have decided to phone the hotel. d) it hasn't been designed yet.
section b
directions: in this section, you will hear 3 short passages. at the end of each passage, you will hear some questions. both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. after you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked a), b), c) and d). then mark the corresponding letter on the answer sheet with a single line through the centre.
passage one
questions 11 to 13 are based on the following passage.
11. a) it created more job opportunities.
b) it offered workers more chances for training.
c) it allowed workers to live far from their jobs.
d) it helped shorten the working hours.
12. a) the lack of qualified personnel. b) a decline in the number of customers.
c) difficulty in finding suitable sites. d) increases transportation costs.
13. a) prices are lower in downtown stores.
b) job opportunities are better there.
c) highway commuting has become unpleasant.
d) environmental pollution is no longer a problem.
passage two
questions 14 to 16 are based on the passage you have just heard.
14. a) most are insomniacs. b) most are teenagers.
c) most are easily cured. d) most suffer from hypersomnia.
15. a) during early childhood. b) in a person's teens.
c) in a person's twenties. d) after a person turns fifty.
16. a) avoid social situations. b) stop taking certain drugs.
c) take naps during the day. d) sleep eight hours a night.
passage three
questions 17 to 20 are based on the passage you have just heard.
17. a) environmental protection. b) pest control.
c) house construction. d) fire prevention.
18. a) it's cheaper. b) it's safer. c) it's quicker. d) it's easier.
19. a) to keep the heat inside. b) to prevent insects from escaping.
c) to keep the wood dry. d) to reduce the danger of fire.
20. a) to show that the technique will not cause fire.
b) to highlight the dangers of the old method.
c) to explain a step in the new treatment.
d) to emphasize the uniqueness of the new method.
part Ⅱreading comprehension (35 minutes)
directions: thereare 4 passages in this part. each passage is followed by some questionsor unfinished statements. for each of them there are four choicesmarked a), b), c) and d). you should decide on the best choice and markthe corresponding letter on the answer sheet with a single line throughthe centre.
passage one
questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage.
in a few weeks, high school students face the prospect of taking themuch-publicized new sat reasoning test, which for the first time willrequire them to write a timed essay. yet colleges continue to sendconfusing signals about whether students applying in the fall to attendcollege must take the new exam.
some schools, includingharvard, say they will accept scores from either the new test or theold sat i, which was administered for the last time in january and didnot contain a writing section. the university of central florida, forexample, will require the new test, which will be given for the firsttime on march 12. still others, such as the university of virginia,strongly recommend that prospective applicants take the new test butunder some circumstances also will accept the old sat. a number ofcolleges are delaying a decision. the college board, which administersthe sat, surveyed more than 1,900 four-year schools and has heard backfrom slightly more than 500. of those, 81% say they will require thenew test, including schools such as harvard that are giving students achoice in what will be a year of transition.
"anything newgoes through a special lens of evaluation," says lee stetson,admissions dean at the university of pennsylvania, which judiciouslywill use results from the new writing section until officials have achance to study the revised sat's predictive validity.
anumber of admissions deans are skeptical that the new exam will be animprovement. charles deacon, dean of undergraduate admissions atgeorgetown university, says adding the essay "will create more barriersto poor kids who are less well-prepared". the test was rushed to marketbecause the university of california system, a major college boardcustomer, threatened to stop requiring the sat, he says. the test "wasdeveloped and marketed for all the wrong reasons". deacon, who says hehas been "badgered" by the college board to endorse the new exam, hasrefused to do so.
some schools, including georgetown, iowa'sgrinnell college and pennsylvania's franklin and marshall college, saythat at least for now, they will not even look at scores from thewriting section when making admission decisions. "we have adopted await-and-see attitude," says dennis trotter of franklin and marshall.
college board officials counter that based on extensive field tests,they are confident the test is as reliable a predictor of freshman-yearperformance as the old sat. moreover, they say, well-trained scorers,many of them high school english teachers, will grade the essays, whichstudent have 25 minutes to write.
amidst all the confusion,what should students do? admissions deans and school counselors say tobe sure to check with each college for requirements.
21. if a student took the sat in october last year, he has to take another test if he applies for .
a) university of virginia b) georgetown university
c) the university of central florida d) harvard university
22. what does the article tell us about harvard university?
a) it will only accept the new sat this fall.
b) it has not made a decision on whether to accept the old sat this fall.
c) it will require scores from the writing section this fall.
d) it will ask all applicants to take the new test a year later.
23. an important reason for negative attitudes towards the new writing examination is that .
a) the examination will add to the difficulty for those students from financially underprivileged families
b) the examination was marketed much too quickly without careful consideration
c) the examination will cause short-term confusion and lead to no long-term benefits
d) the examination was a product of the college board and various universities
24. according to the author, what should students do at the moment?
a) students should make clear which test is acceptable.
b) students should contact the university for the arrangement of the test.
c) students should ask the college board for the latest information about the program.
d) students should get prepared for the new examination in less that a year.
25. what can we infer from the passage about the test?
a) students who have taken the old test are strongly advised not to take the new test.
b) as compared with the old test, the new one requires the student to write an essay in a shorter period of time.
c) the college board has decided to invite university teachers to grade the essays.
d) the college board has appealed to many universities to support the new examination.
passage two
questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.
would george w. bush have been reelected president if the publicunderstood how much responsibility his administration bears forallowing the 9/11 attacks to succeed?
the answer isunknowable and, at this date, meaningless. yet it was appalling tolearn that the white house suppressed until after the election a reportthat exposes the administration as woefully incompetent if notcriminally negligent. belatedly declassified excerpts from the 9/11commission report, which focus on the failure of the federal aviationadministration to heed multiple warnings that al qaeda (基地组织)terrorists were planning to hijack planes as suicide weapons, makeclear that this tragedy could have been avoided.
for thelast three years, administration apologists have tried to make the faathe scapegoat for the 9/11 attacks. but it is the president whoultimately is responsible for national security.
theterrible fact is that the administration took none of the steps thatwould have put the protection of human life ahead of a diverse set ofeconomic and political interests, which included not offending ourfriends the saudis and not hurting the share prices of airlinecorporations.
the warnings provided by intelligence agenciesto the faa were far clearer and more specific than suggested bycondoleezza rice's testimony before the 9/11 commission when shereluctantly conceded the existence of a presidential briefing thatwarned of impending al qaeda attacks.
given this shockingrecord of indifference on the part of the administration, it ispolitically understandable that it tried to prevent the formation ofthe 9/11 commission in the first place, and then for five monthsprevented the declassification of key sections of the final report.
had the business-friendly administration put safety first, nearly3,000 people might not have died that day. and had the president of theunited states taken some time from his ranch vacation that august toorder a nationwide airport alert, two bloody wars abroad probably wouldnot have happened.
instead, an administration that resistedspending the tens of millions required to fortify airline securitybefore 9/11 is nearing the $300-billion mark on afghanistan and iraq.and declassified documents have unmistakably said the latter hadnothing to do with 9/11, while those countries that at least indirectlydid have been let off the hook.
indeed, the 9/11 commissionwas not allowed to get near that story: the basic narrative on thetragedy derives from the interrogations of key detainees whom the 9/11commissioners were not allowed to interview. nor were they permitted toeven take testimony from the u.s. intelligence personnel whointerrogated those prisoners.
as a result, the public issimply incapable of making informed decisions on the most crucialdecisions we face-starting with whom we elect as our commander inchief.
26. according to the author, who should shoulder the major responsibility for allowing the 9/11 tragedy to happen?
a) saddam hussein. b) faa.
c) george w. bush. d) condoleezza rice.
27. what does the word "declassify" (line 3, para. 2) most probably mean?
a) to hide the important details of b) to report or represent in a untrue way
c) to form a large group d) to become no longer secret
28. what do we learn from the passage about afghanistan and iraq?
a) al qaeda terriorists had gained support from at least one of the governments.
b) 9/11 was the chief reason for the bush government to initiate both wars.
c) the two wars had already cost the americans tens of millions of dollars.
d) these two countries should be held responsible for 9/11.
29. what can we infer from the passage?
a) the federal aviation administration was not to blame in this tragedy.
b) consideration of economic interests had hindered life protection.
c) the bush government had paid such a high price for poor information collection.
d) some government officials had been bribed by al qaeda terrorists.
30. what is the author's opinion towards president bush?
a) he had been intentionally misleading as to the reasons of initiating the two wars.
b) he had been late in preventing the attacks because of a personal vocation.
c) he had done everything to help the 9/11 commission do a better job.
d) he will have probably failed to be reelected if the public had been well informed
passage three
questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage.
polls can provide important guidance for politicians, but there aretimes when it is foolish and dangerous to rely on a temporarilymisinformed public for a political compass. the current debate oversocial security provides one of the most compelling examples in modernhistory of the pitfalls of poll-driven political strategy.
yesterday two leading democratic strategists publicly took their partyto task for their"just say no" approach to president bush's program."to say there is no problem simply puts democrats out of theconversation for the great majority of the country that want politicalleaders to secure this very important retirement program," they warned,"voters are looking for reform, change, and new ideas, but democratsseem stuck in concrete."
stuck, indeed. to be more exact,they are holding their ground and refusing to surrender to a presidentwho is once again manufacturing a "crisis" for a political purpose. andwhy should they do otherwise, when this strategy is clearly working?
let's start with the facts. according to president bush, socialsecurity can pay all promised benefits for the next 37 years withoutany changes at all. even if nothing were done by 2043, the programwould still pay a higher real benefit than what people receive today.
and even looking into the future of the 75-year planning period, theshortfall is less than what we fixed in the '50s, '60s, and '80s. inother words, social security is financially stronger today than it hasbeen throughout most of its history.
so this attack onsocial security has nothing to do with the solvency (偿付能力) of theprogram. nonetheless last week, a quinnipiac university poll found thatrespondents, by a 49 to 42 percent margin, believed that socialsecurity would not be able to pay them a benefit when they retire. butthis is a ridiculous idea, based completely on misinformation. it iseven more far fetched（牵强的） than the notion, which also commanded amajority before the invasion of iraq, that saddam hussein wasresponsible for the massacre of 9/11.
in the case of socialsecurity, there is no dispute about the facts. there are just a fewcheap verbal and accounting tricks that have been used to convince thepublic that social security faces serious problems. these are easilyrefuted.
the same quinnipiac poll showed that 59 percent ofamericans disapprove of the way the president is handling socialsecurity, with only 28 percent approving. it makes no political senseto pretend that this attack on our nation's most successful and populargovernment program is actually an attempt to insure its solvency. evenin politics, there are times when honesty is the best policy.
31. what can we know about the democrats, according to the author?
a) they want to help secure the retirement program.
b) they refuse to admit that the social security program has been successful.
c) they are making efforts to solve the crisis of the social security program.
d) they organize polls in order to gain political interests.
32. the author raise the example of saddam hussein in order to show that .
a) the invasion of iraq represented the wills of common people
b) no evidence had come up to prove the relationship between saddam hussein and the massacre of 9/11
c) sometimes the public without proper information will draw foolish conclusions
d) it was wrong for the government to rely on the public for important political decisions
33. according to the author, which of the following is correct?
a) there is no point in worrying about the solvency of the social security program.
b) the majority of the public will accept the social security program in the near future.
c) only the baby boomers should worry about the future days when they grow old.
d) the democrats attack the social security program in order to question its solvency.
34. by saying "honesty is the best policy", the author seems to disapprove of .
a) the quinnipiac university who organized the poll
b) the bush administration who initiated the social security program
c) the ill-informed public who worried about their future
d) those democrats who wanted to gain political interests through this incident
35. the best title for this passage should be.
a) time to reconsider social security
b) let's be honest about social security
c) social security is an illusion
d) embrace the bright future of social security
passage four
questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage.
"when more and more people are thrown out of work, unemploymentresults," calvin coolidge once observed. as the u. s. economy crumbles,coolidge?s silly maxim might appear to be as apt as ever: the number ofunemployment?insurance claims is rising, and overall joblessness iscreeping upward. but in today's vast and complex labor market, thingsaren't always what they seem. more and more people are indeed losingtheir jobs but not necessarily because the economy appears to be inrecession. and old-fashioned unemployment isn't the inevitable resultof job loss. new work, at less pay, often is.
call itnew-wave unemployment: structural changes in the economy areoverlapping the business downturn, giving joblessness a grim new twist.small wonder that the u. s. unemployment rate is rising. now at 5.7percent, it is widely expected to edge toward 7 percent by the end ofnext year. but statistics alone can't fully capture a complex reality.the unemployment rate has been held down by slow growth in the laborforce-the number of people working or looking for work-since few peoplesense attractive job opportunities in a weak economy. in addition, manymore people are losing their jobs than are actually ending upunemployed. faced with hungry mouths to feed, thousands of women, forexample, are taking two or more part-time positions or agreeing toshave the hours they work in service-sector jobs. for better and forworse, work in america clearly isn't what it used to be. nowunemployment isn't, either.
like sour old wine in newbottles, this downturn blends a little of the old and the newreflecting a decade's worth of change in the dynamic u. s. economy.yet, in many respects the decline is following the classic pattern,with new layoffs concentrated among blue-collar workers in the most"cyclical" (循环的) industries, whose ups and downs track the economy mostclosely.
as the downturn attracts attention on workers-illfortunes, some analysts predict that political upheaval (动乱) may lieahead. real wages for the average u. s. worker peaked in 1973 and havebeen falling almost ever since. as a result, a growing group ofdownwardly mobile americans could soon begin pressing policymakers tohelp produce better-paying jobs. just how loud the outcry becomes willdepend partly on the course of the recession. but in the long run,there's little doubt that the bleak outlook for jobs and joblessness is"politically, socially and psychologically dynamite (具有爆炸性的)".
36. why does the author refer to coolidge's maxim as silly?
a) more and more people are applying for unemployment insurance.
b) unemployment rate is not likely to rise quickly nowadays.
c) losing jobs doesn't necessarily lead to unemployment.
d) today's labor market is much too complicated than coolidge's time.
37. according to the passage, the unemployment rate has been kept under limits because .
a) the number of the people in the work force slowly increases
b) very few people really lose their original jobs
c) less and less people are out finding new jobs
d) the government has taken strong measures to control the unemployment rate
38. according to the passage, under the great pressure of life, many women .
a) will do a part-time job along with the full-time job
b) would rather stay at home than apply for a part-time position
c) would be fired if they can not finish the job quickly
d) will agree to have their working hours shortened if required
39. the present downturn is similar to traditional ones in that .
a) we can never predict which way the economy will head
b) the economic prospects have been unfavorable for 10 years
c) the government has done relatively little to intervene the market
d) physical laborers are the chief victims of the economic decline
40. what can be inferred from the last paragraph?
a) blue-collar workers are given less and less wages in recent years.
b) the unemployment problem may lead to serious social problems.
c) the unemployment problem will probably become less serious in no time.
d) the government will create more jobs with better pay in the near future.