2011年12月大学英语六级真题听力mp3和文本下载

Section B
Passage One
The University of Tennessee’s Walters Life Sciences building, is a model animal facility, spotlessly clean, careful in obtaining prior approval for experiments from an animal care committee. Of the 15,000 mice house there in a typical year, most give their lives for humanity. These are good mice and as such won the protection of the animal care committee. At any given time however some mice escape and run free. These mice are pests. They can disrupt experiments with the bacteria organisms they carry. They are bad mice and must be captured and destroyed. Usually, this is accomplished by means of sticky traps, a kind of fly paper on which they become increasingly stuck. But the real point of the cautionary tale, says animal behaviorist Herzau, is that the labels we put on things can affect our moral responses to them. Using stick traps or the more deadly snap traps would be deemed unacceptable for good mice. Yet the killing of bad mice requires no prior approval. Once the research animal hits the floor and becomes an escapee, says Herza, its moral standard is instantly diminished. In Herzau’s own home, there was more ironic example when his young son’s pet mouse Willy died recently, it was accorded a tearful ceremonial burial in garden. Yet even as they mourned Willy, says Herzau, he and his wife were setting snap traps to kill the pest mice in their kitchen with the bare change in labels from pet to pest, the kitchen mice obtained totally different moral standards
【材料评析】
本篇文章主要是讲述人们对待老鼠不同的道德态度。
同是一个实验室里面老鼠，如果是为了人类实验做贡献，就是人们眼中的好老鼠；而一旦老鼠从实验室里面跑出来，携带病菌危害到了人类健康，那么这些逃跑掉的老鼠就成为了人们眼中的坏老鼠。人类会使用那些捕鼠夹子来消灭坏老鼠，但是对待好老鼠的时候态度截然不同，比如作者儿子的宠物老鼠死掉了，他们家甚至给它办了一场葬礼。
作者的观点就是：如果我们对一样事物贴上了标签，那么在道德层面上，我们内心会根据标签的不同作出不同的反应。并不是事物本身有任何好与不好，只是人类自作主张给各个事物贴上了不同的标签。

Questions:
26 What does the passage say about most of the mice used for experiments?
【答案】D）They sacrifice their lives for the benefit of humans.
27 Why did the so-called bad mice have to be captured and destroyed?
【答案】C) They may affect the results of experiments.
28 When are mice killed without prior approval?
【答案】C) When they become escapees.
29, Why does the speaker say what the Herzau’s did at home is ironical?
【答案】A）While holding a burial ceremony for a pet mouse, they were killing pest mice.

Passage Two
There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is swallowed up by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these three trembling cities the greatest is the last, the city of final destination, the city that has a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York's high-strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from Italy to set up a small grocery store in a slum, or a young girl arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh eyes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company.
【材料评析】
这篇文章的主题是城市和文化。属于散文性质。
讲述了不同的人带给纽约不同的气息。第一种，纽约本地人，让纽约完整持续；第二种，纽约上班族，让纽约躁动不安；第三种，来纽约寻梦的人，他们让纽约充满热情。作者在内心觉得纽约正是因为有这样三种人才能如此闪耀光彩，尤其是最后一类人，为纽约做出的贡献最大。
本篇文章中，The Three New Yorks 具有双关含义，既可以指纽约城，也可以指纽约人。有些学生可能看到这里就没看懂。遇到这种情况应该先接着往后看，然后猜这个three New Yorks到底指什么。

Questions 30 to 32 are based on the passage you have just heard.
30. What does the speaker say about the natives of New York?
【答案】D) They take it for granted.
31. What does the speaker say commuters give to New York?
【答案】A) Tidal restlessness.
32. What do we learn about the settlers of New York?
【答案】B) They are adventurers from all over the world.

Passage Three
“If you asked me television is unhealthy”, I said to my roommate Walter, as I walked into the living room.“While you are sitting passively in front of the TV set, your muscles are turning to fat, your complexion is fading, and your eyesight is being ruined.”
“Shh~”Walter put his finger to his lips, “This is an intriguing murder mystery.”
“Really?” I replied.
“But you know, the brain is destroyed by TV viewing. Creativity is killed by that box. And people are kept from communicating with one another. From my point of view, TV is the cause of the declining interest in school and the failure of our entire educational system.”
“Ah ha, I can’t see your point.” Walter said softly. “But see? The woman on the witness stand in this story is being questioned about the murder that was committed one hundred years ago.”
Ignoring his enthusiastic description of the plot, I went on with my argument.
“As I see it,” I explained, “not only are most TV programs badly written and produced, but viewers are also manipulated by the mass media. As far as I am concerned, TV watchers are cut off from reality from nature, from the other people, from life itself! I was confident in my ability to persuade.
After a short silence, my roommate said, “Anyway, I’ve been planning to watch the football game. I am going to change the channel.”
“Don’t touch that dial!” I shouted, “I wanted to find out how the mystery turns out!”
I am not sure I got my point to cross.
【材料评析】
这是一篇很有趣的记叙文。讲述了作者和室友的一段关于看电视问题的对话。
作者一直在强调看电视如何如何不好，并且列举出了一大堆的原因：会让身体变胖，面色枯黄，视力下降，并且会让孩子们的创造能力，交际能力下降。但是他的室友一直没有接他的话，一直专心于看自己的电视节目。
文章最幽默的是，最后一个情节，当室友说要换台的时候，作者立刻不愿意了，真是非常地讽刺，原来作者自己也是离不开电视机，受不了电视节目的诱惑的。
这篇文章难度比较低，生词几乎没有，大家只要看懂情节，基本上所有问题也可以回答出来，需要仔细认真，在听听力的时候虚拟场景。

Questions 33- 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.
33. As the speaker walked into the living room, what was being shown on TV?
【答案】D） A murder mystery
34. What does the speaker say about watching television?
【答案】C）It is unhealthy for the viewers.
35. What can we say about the speaker?
【答案】B) He can’t resist the temptation of T.V. either.