2018年12月大学英语六级考试真题与答案下载(第二套)

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 carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.
 

Surfing the Internet during class doesn't just steal focus from the educator；it also hurts students who're already struggling to __26__ the material. A new study from Michigan State University, though, argues that all students—including high achievers—see a decline in performance when they browse the Internet during class for non-academic purposes.

To measure the effects of Internet-based distractions during class, researchers __27__ 500 students taking an introductory psychology class at Michigan State University. Researchers used ACT scores as a measure of intellectual __28__ Because previous research has shown that people with high intellectual abilities are better at __29__ out distractions, researchers believed students with high ACT scores would not show a __30__ decrease in performance due to their use of digital devices. But students who surfed the web during class did worse on their exams regardless of their ACT scores, suggesting that even the academically smartest students are harmed when they're distracted in class.

College professors are increasingly __31__ alarm bells about the effects smartphones, laptops, and tablets have on academic performance. One 2013 study of college students found that 80% of students use their phones or laptops during class, with the average student checking their digital device 11 times in a __32__ class. A quarter of students report that their use of digital devices during class causes their grades to __33__.

Professors sometimes implement policies designed to __34__ students' use of digital devices, and world where people are increasingly some instructors even confiscate (没收）tablets and phones. In dependent on their phones, though, such strategies often fail. One international study found that 84% of people say they couldn't go a day without their smartphones. Until students are able to __35__ the pull of social networking, texting, and endlessly surfing the web, they may continue to straggle in their classes.

A) aptitude B) eradication C) evaluated D) evaporated E) filtering F) grasp G) legacy H) minimize I) obscure J) obsess K) raising L) resist M) significant N) suffer O) typical

Section B

Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information 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.
 

A Pioneering Woman of Science Re-Emerges after 300 Years

A) Maria Sibylla Merian, like many European women of the 17th century, stayed busy managing a household and rearing children. But on top of that, Merian, a German-born woman who lived in the Netherlands, also managed a successful career as an artist, botanist, naturalist and entomologist (昆虫学家).

B) "She was a scientist on the level with a lot of people we spend a lot of time talking about," said Kay Etheridge, a biologist at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania who has been studying the scientific history of Merian's work. "She didn't do as much to change biology as Charles Darwin, but she was significant. "

C) At a time when natural history was a valuable tool for discovery, Merian discovered facts about plants and insects that were not previously known. Her observations helped dismiss the popular belief that insects spontaneously emerged from mud. The knowledge she collected over decades didn't just satisfy those curious about nature, but also provided valuable insights into medicine and science. She was the first to bring together insects and their habitats, including food they ate, into a single ecological composition.

D) After years of pleasing a fascinated audience across Europe with books of detailed descriptions and life-size paintings of familiar insects, in 1699 she sailed with her daughter nearly 5, 000 miles from the Netherlands to South America to study insects in the jungles of what is now known as Suriname. She was 52 years old. The result was her masterpiece, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium.

E) In her work, she revealed a side of nature so exotic, dramatic and valuable to Europeans of the time that she received much acclaim. But a century later, her findings came under scientific criticism. Shoddy（粗糙的）reproductions of her work along with setbacks to women's roles in 18th- and 19th- century Europe resulted in her efforts being largely forgotten. "It was kind of stunning when she sort of dropped off into oblivion（遗忘）," said Dr. Etheridge. "Victorians started putting women in a box, and they're still trying to crawl out of it."

F) Today, the pioneering woman of the sciences has re-emerged. In recent years, feminists，historians and artists have all praised Merian's tenacity（坚韧）, talent and inspirational artistic compositions. And now biologists like Dr. Etheridge are digging into the scientific texts that accompanied her art. Three hundred years after her death, Merian will be celebrated at an international symposium in Amsterdam this June.

G) And last month, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium was republished. It contains 60 plates (插图）and original descriptions, along with stories about Merian's life and updated scientific descriptions. Before writing Metamorphosis, Merian spent decades documenting European plants and insects that she published in a series of books. She began in her 20s, making textless, decorative paintings of flowers with insects. "Then she got really serious," Dr. Etheridge said. Merian started raising insects at home, mostly butterflies and caterpillars. "She would sit up all night until they came out of the pupa (桶）so she could draw them," she said.

H) The results of her decades' worth of careful observations were detailed paintings and descriptions of European insects, followed by unconventional visuals and stories of insects and animals from a land that most at the time could only imagine. It's possible Merian used a magnifying glass to capture the detail of the split tongues of sphinx moths (斯芬克斯飞蛾）depicted in the painting. She wrote that the two tongues combine to form one tube for drinking nectar (花蜜）. Some criticized this detail later, saying there was just one tongue, but Merian wasn't wrong. She may have observed the adult moth just as it emerged from its pupa. For a brief moment during that stage of its life cycle, the tongue consists of two tiny half-tubes before merging into one.

I) It may not have been ladylike to depict a giant spider devouring a hummingbird, but when Merian did it at the turn of the 18th century, surprisingly, nobody objected. Dr. Etheridge called it revolutionary. The image, which also contained novel descriptions of ants, fascinated a European audience that was more concerned with the exotic story unfolding before them than the gender of the person who painted it.

J) "All of these things shook up their nice, neat little view," Dr. Etheridge said. But later, people of the Victorian era thought differently. Her work had been reproduced, sometimes incorrectly. A few observations were deemed impossible. "She'd been called a silly woman for saying that a spider could eat a bird," Dr. Etheridge said. But Henry Walter Bates, a friend of Charles Darwin, observed it and put it in book in 1863, proving Merian was correct.

K) In the same plate, Merian depicted and described leaf-cutter ants for the first time. "In America there are large ants which can eat whole trees bare as a broom handle in a single night, she wrote in the description. Merian noted how the ants took the leaves below ground to their young. And she wouldn't have known this at the time, but the ants use the leaves to farm fungi (菌类）underground to feed their developing babies.

L) Merian was correct about the giant bird-eating spiders, ants building bridges with their bodies and other details. But in the same drawing, she incorrectly lumped together army and leaf-cutter ants. And instead of showing just the typical pair of eggs in a hummingbird nest, she painted four. She made other mistakes in Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium as well: not every caterpillar and butterfly matched.

M) Perhaps one explanation for her mistakes is that she cut short her Suriname trip after getting sick, and completed the book at home in Amsterdam. And errors are common among some of history's most- celebrated scientific minds, too. "These errors no more invalidate Ms. Merian's work than do well- known misconceptions published by Charles Darwin or Isaac Newton, " Dr. Etheridge wrote in a paper that argued that too many have wrongly focused on the mistakes of her work.

N) Merian's paintings inspired artists and ecologists. In an 1801 drawing from his book, General Zoology Amphibia, George Shaw, an English botanist and zoologist, credited Merian for describing a frog in the account of her South American expedition, and named the young tree frog after her in his portrayal of it. It wouldn't be fair to give Merian all the credit. She received assistance naming plants, making sketches and referencing the work of others. Her daughters helped her color her drawings.

O) Merian also made note of the help she received from the natives of Suriname, as well as slaves or servants that assisted her. In some instances she wrote moving passages that included her helpers in descriptions. As she wrote in her description of the peacock flower, "The Indians, who are not treated well by their Dutch masters, use the seeds to abort their children, so that they will not become slaves like themselves. The black slaves from Guinea and Angola have demanded to be well treated, threatening to refuse to have children. In fact, they sometimes take their own lives because they are treated so badly, and because they believe they will be born again, free and living in their own land. They told me this themselves. "

P) Londa Schiebinger, a professor of the history of science at Stanford University, called this passage rather astonishing. It's particularly striking centuries later when these issues are still prominent in public discussions about social justice and women's rights. "She was ahead of her time," Dr. Etheridge said.

36. Merian was the first scientist to study a type of American ant.
37. The European audience was more interested in Merian's drawings than her gender.
38. Merian's masterpiece came under attack a century after its publication.
39. Merian's mistakes in her drawings may be attributed to her shortened stay in South America.
40. Merian often sat up the whole night through to observe and draw insects.
41. Merian acknowledged the help she got from natives of South America.
42. Merian contributed greatly to people's better understanding of medicine and science.
43. Merian occasionally made mistakes in her drawings of insects and birds.
44. Now, Merian's role as a female forerunner in sciences has been re-established.
45. Merian made a long voyage to South America to study jungle insects over three centuries ago.

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 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.

While human achievements in mathematics continue to reach new levels of complexity, many of us who aren't mathematicians at heart (or engineers by trade) may struggle to remember the last time we used calculus (微积分）.

It's a fact not lost on American educators, who amid rising math failure rates are debating how math can better meet the real-life needs of students. Should we change the way math is taught in schools, or eliminate some courses entirely?

Andrew Hacker, Queens College political science professor, thinks that advanced algebra and other higher-level math should be cut from curricula in favor of courses with more routine usefulness, like statistics.

"We hear on all sides that we're not teaching enough mathematics, and the Chinese are running rings around us," Hacker says. "I'm suggesting we're teaching too much mathematics to too many people. . . not everybody has to know calculus. If you're going to become an aeronautical (航空的）engineer, fine. But most of us aren't."

Instead, Hacker is pushing for more courses like the one he teaches at Queens College： Numeracy 101. There, his students of "citizen statistics" learn to analyze public information like the federal budget and corporate reports. Such courses, Hacker argues, are a remedy for the numerical illiteracy of adults who have completed high-level math like algebra but are unable to calculate the price of, say, a carpet by area.

Hacker's argument has met with opposition from other math educators who say what's needed is to help students develop a better relationship with math earlier, rather than teaching them less math altogether.

Maria Droujkova is a founder of Natural Math, and has taught basic calculus concepts to 5-year-olds. For Droujkova, high-level math is important, and what it could use in American classrooms is an injection of childlike wonder.

"Make mathematics more available," Droujkova says. "Redesign it so it's more accessible to more kinds of people: young children, adults who worry about it, adults who may have had bad experiences. "

Pamela Harris, a lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin, has a similar perspective. Harris says that American education is suffering from an epidemic of "fake math"一an emphasis on rote memorization (死记硬背）of formulas and steps, rather than an understanding of how math can influence the ways we see the world.

Andrew Hacker, for the record, remains skeptical.

"I'm going to leave it to those who are in mathematics to work out the ways to make their subject interesting and exciting so students want to take it," Hacker says. "All that I ask is that alternatives be offered instead of putting all of us on the road to calculus. "

46. What does the author say about ordinary Americans?
A) They struggle to solve math problems.
B) They think math is a complex subject.
C) They find high-level math of little use.
D) They work hard to learn high-level math.
47. What is the general complaint about America's math education according to Hacker?
A) America is not doing as well as China.
B) Math professors are not doing a good job.
C) It doesn't help students develop their literacy.
D) There has hardly been any innovation for years.
48. What does Andrew Hacker's Numeracy 101 aim to do?
A) Allow students to learn high-level math step by step.
B) Enable students to make practical use of basic math.
C) Lay a solid foundation for advanced math studies.
D) Help students to develop their analytical abilities.
49. What does Maria Droujkova suggest math teachers do in class?
A) Make complex concepts easy to understand.
B) Start teaching children math at an early age.
C) Help children work wonders with calculus.
D) Try to arouse students' curiosity in math.
50. What does Pamela Harris think should be the goal of math education?
A) To enable learners to understand the world better.
B) To help learners to tell fake math from real math.
C) To broaden Americans' perspectives on math.
D) To exert influence on world development.

Passage Two

Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.

For years, the U. S. has experienced a shortage of registered nurses. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that while the number of nurses will increase by 19 percent by 2022, demand will grow faster than supply, and that there will be over one million unfilled nursing jobs by then.

So what's the solution? Robots.

Japan is ahead of the curve when it comes to this trend. Toyohashi University of Technology has developed Terapio, a robotic medical cart that can make hospital rounds, deliver medications and other items, and retrieve records. It follows a specific individual, such as a doctor or nurse, who can use it to record and access patient data. This type of robot will likely be one of the first to be implemented in hospitals because it has fairly minimal patient contact.

Robots capable of social engagement help with loneliness as well as cognitive functioning, but the robot itself doesn't have to engage directly—it can serve as an intermediary for human communication. Telepresence robots such as MantaroBot, Vgo, and Giraff can be controlled through a computer, smartphone, or tablet, allowing family members or doctors to remotely monitor patients or Skype them, often via a screen where the robot's ' face' would be. If you can't get to the nursing home to visit grandma, you can use a telepresence robot to hang out with her. A 2016 study found that users had a "consistently positive attitude" about the Giraff robot's ability to enhance communication and decrease feelings of loneliness.

A robot's appearance affects its ability to successfully interact with humans, which is why the RIKEN-TRI Collaboration Center for Human-Interactive Robot Research decided to develop a robotic nurse that looks like a huge teddy bear. RIBA (Robot for Interactive Body Assistance), also known as ‘Robear', can help patients into and out of wheelchairs and beds with its strong arms.

On the less cute and more scary side there is Actroid F, which is so human-like that some patients may not know the difference. This conversational robot companion has cameras in its eyes, which allow it to track patients and use appropriate facial expressions and body language in its interactions. During a month- long hospital trial, researchers asked 70 patients how they felt being around the robot and "only three or four said they didn't like having it around."

It's important to note that robotic nurses don't decide courses of treatment or make diagnoses (though robot doctors and surgeons may not be far off). Instead, they perform routine and laborious tasks, freeing nurses up to attend to patients with immediate needs. This is one industry where it seems the integration of robots will lead to collaboration, not replacement.

51. What does the author say about Japan?
A) It delivers the best medications for the elderly.
B) It takes the lead in providing robotic care.
C) It provides retraining for registered nurses.
D) It sets the trend in future robotics technology.
52. What do we learn about the robot Terapio?
A) It has been put to use in many Japanese hospitals.
B) It provides specific individualized care to patients.
C) It does not have much direct contact with patients.
D) It has not revolutionized medical service in Japan.
53. What are telepresence robots designed to do?
A) Directly interact with patients to prevent them from feeling lonely.
B) Cater to the needs of patients for recovering their cognitive capacity.
C) Closely monitor the patients' movements and conditions around the clock.
D) Facilitate communication between patients and doctors or family members.
54. What is one special feature of the robot Actroid F?
A) It interacts with patients just like a human companion.
B) It operates quietly without patients realizing its presence.
C) It likes to engage in everyday conversations with patients.
D) It uses body language even more effectively than words.
55. What can we infer from the last paragraph?
A) Doctors and surgeons will soon be laid off.
B) The robotics industry will soon take off.
C) Robots will not make nurses redundant.
D) Collaboration will not replace competition.