2009年6月大学英语六级模拟题(含听力)

Part Ⅳ  Reading Comprehension (Reading in Depth)                   (25 minutes)
Section A
Directions：In this section，there is a short passage with 5 questions or incomplete statements. Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions or complete the statements in the fewest possible words on Answer Sheet 2. 
Questions 47 to 51 are based on the following passage.     
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates recently told the nation’s governors that America high school education is “obsolete”. He said, “When I compare our high schools to what I see when I’m traveling abroad, I am terrified for our workforce of tomorrow. In 2001, India graduate almost a million more students from college than the Unites States did. China graduates twice as many students with bachelor’s degrees as the US and has six times as many graduates majoring in engineering. America is falling behind.”
Gates was describing a global economy in which the chance to move up into a better economic life is slipping overseas, along with jobs that can be performed anywhere----manufacturing in China, technology support in India, online order fulfillment across borders. The Internet brings Bhutan and Bangalore just as close to our offices and living rooms as Boise. Maybe closer.
Our children’s competitors are not the other schools in the district or the state or even the nation. They are the technologically literate young people in Taiwan, India, Korea, and other developing nations. For today’s American students , learning and retraining will be a lifelong experience.
    In The World Is Flat, a recent book analyzing the shift in the global economy, Thomas Friedman points out that the dot. com bubble inspired a massive outlay (花费) of capital to connect the continents. Undersea cable, universal software, high-tech imagery, and Google have erased geography. College graduates in Latin America, Central Asia, India, China, and Russia can do the information work Americans used to count on---in many cases better and in all cases cheaper.
We are burning through reliable careers for our young people at high speed as technology relieves us of the tedium of repetitive work. The robots that vacuum our floors today will be filling out teeth tomorrow. Even jobs at Wal-Mart are endangered. Have you seen the self-check-out lanes? No cashiers required.
    To be competitive now, US students must develop sophisticated critical thinking and analytical skills to manage the conceptual nature of work they will do. They will need to be able to recognize patterns, create narrative, and imagine solutions to problems we have yet to discover. They will have to see the big picture and ask the big questions. How many high schools do you know that are nurturing minds like that?
    Are we supplying the conditions in our schools to create a new crop of original thinkers? Are we making sure of our curricula and instructional programs are not relegated (降级) for repetitive practice, gathering and organizing information, remediation, and test preparation? Are we requiring all students to use their minds well to construct knowledge , to inquire, to invent, to make meaning and relevance out of their learning? Hardly.

注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。

57. Bill Gates believes that the American high schools are obsolete in                 than schools in many other countries
58. According to the author, the challenge on American schools comes from the progression of
               .
59. By saying that “ Undersea cable, universal software, high-tech imagery, and Google have erased geography.” ( Line3-4, Para. 4), the author means that                 has enabled many jobs to be done anywhere.
60. In order to compete with overseas students, American children will probably have to      strengthen                .
61. The last paragraph calls readers’ attention to                 confronting the current American education system.

Section B
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 center
Passage One
Questions 52 to 56 are based on the following passage.

Computer science and technology is developing so fast that no one can predict exactly what new technology might be developed in the near future, and the development of computer law can hardly keep up with the developing computer technology. The wide spread application of computers in business has created new situations that no existing laws are adequate to cope with. In the following cases, computer generated information was used as evidence but was not all accepted by the court.
   A man received some treatment at a hospital but refused to pay the hospital bill because he claimed the figures were not correct. The hospital sued the man. As proof of the amount owed to it, the hospital offered in evidence a computer printout of the services rendered to the defendant and the amounts owed for them. Hospital employees testified that information as to amounts owed by patients in the hospital were stored in a computer as part of a regular business routine. The man objected to the admission of the computer printout as evidence on the ground that there was not a proper comparison checking of original slips showing services rendered against the computer printout.
  The court decided that the computer printout was admissible as evidence when it was shown that the entries were made with proper equipment in a regular courses of business. The objection that there was not a sufficient checking of the printout did not make the printout inadmissible. It was up to the jury to decide how much weight or importance should be attached to computer printout.
  In order to make it possible to admit evidence protected by computer, the law of evidence of the United States has changed greatly. According to the new rule, computer printouts of business records stored on electronic computing equipment are admissible in evidence if relevant to the material, without the necessity of identifying, locating, and producing as witnesses the individuals who made the entries in the regular course of business, if it is shown that the electronic computing equipment is recognized as standard equipment, the entries are made in the regular course of business at or reasonably near the time of the happening of the event recorded, and the foundation testimony satisfies the court the sources of information, method and time of preparation were such as to indicate its trustworthiness and justify its admission.

注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。

52. The man refused to pay the hospital bill because he claimed              .
A) the hospital overcharged him
B) he couldn’t afford the money
C) the computer printout offered by the hospital was not consistent with original slips
D) the hospital couldn’t show any proof for the amount of money he should pay
53. The court’s final decision is              .
A) the man must pay the bill
B) the computer printout was not admissible
C) the hospital failed for lack of evidence
D) not mentioned in the passage
54. According to the passage, which of the following is true?
A) The computer printout was not in keeping with the service rendered.
B) The computer printout was in keeping with the service rendered
C) The computer printout was checked to compare it with the service rendered
D) The computer printout was not checked to compare it with the service rendered
55. In order to make the computer evidence admissible, the United States              .
A) has completely changed the law of evidence
B) has begun to draw up the law of evidence
C) has abolished the law of evidence
D) has revised the law of evidence
56. The best title for this passage is               .
A) The Computer Evidence
B) The Law of Evidence
C) The Computer and the Law of Evidence
D) A Case on Computer

Passage 2
Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage.
In the Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society, Revised and Enlarged Edition (W.W. Norton) Schlesinger provides deep insights into the crises of nationhood in America. A new chapter assessed the impact both of radical multiculturalism and radical monoculturalism on the Bill of Rights. Written with his usual clarity and force, the book brings a noted historian’s wisdom and perspective to bear on America’s “culture wars.”
   Schlesinger addresses the questions: What holds a nation together? And what does it mean to be an American? Describing the emerging cult of ethnicity, Schlsinger praises its healthy effect on the campaign of multicultural advocates to divide the nation into separate ethnic and racial communities. From the start, he observes, the United States has been a multicultural nation, rich in its diversity but held together a shared commitment to the democratic process and by the freedom of intermarriage. It was this national talent for assimilation that impressed foreign visitors like Alexis de Tocqueville and James Bryce, and it is this historic goal that Schelsinger champions as the best hope for the future. Schlesinger analyses what he sees as grim consequences of identity politics: the widening of differences. Attacks on the First Amendment, he argues, threaten intellectual freedom and, ultimately, the future of the ethnic groups. His criticisms are not limited to the left. As a former target of McCarthyism, he understands that the radical right is even more willing than the radical left to restrict and weaken the Bill of Rights.
The author does not minimize the injustices concealed by the “melting pot” dream. The Disuniting Of America is both academic and personal, forceful in argument, balanced in judgment. It is a book that will no doubt anger some readers, but it will surely make all of them think again. The winner of Pulitzer prizes for history and for biography, an authoritative voice of American liberalism, Schlesinger is uniquely positioned to bring bold answers and healing wisdom to this passionate debate over who we are and what we should become.

注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。

57. According to Schlesinger, the United States is                .
A) a melting pot
B) a nation with diverse cultures held together by the democratic process
C) a federation of ethnic and racial communities
D) a nation with one culture despite its various ethnic and racial groups
58. We can infer from the passage that Schlesinger             .
A) advocates the assimilation of different cultures into one nationhood
B) holds that each racial group should keep its distinct identity
C) gives full support to the emerging cult of ethnicity
D) prefers multiculturalism to monoculturalism
59. We can infer form this passage that America              .
A) is experiencing a crisis of nationhood
B) has ended its history of racial prejudice
C) is trying to restrict the Bill of Rights
D) has tried to obstruct intellectual freedom
60. According to the author, Schlesinger’s book will              .
A) put an end to the culture wars in America.
B) cause anger among the radical right
C) cause anger among the radical left
D) provoke thinking among all readers
61. This passage is most probably taken from        .
A) a history book                          B) a new report
C) a book review                          D) a journal of literary criticism.