历年真题：2009年12月英语六级真题及答案
18. A) The course is open to all next semester.
B) The notice may not be reliable.
C) The woman has not told the truth.
D) He will drop his course in marketing.
Questions 19 to 22 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
19. A) A director of a sales department.
B) A manager at a computer store.来源：www.examda.com
C) A sales clerk at a shopping center.
D) An accountant of a computer firm.
20. A) Handling customer complaints.
B) Recruiting and training new staff.
C) Dispatching ordered goods on time.
D) Developing computer programs.
21. A) She likes something more challenging.
B) She likes to be nearer to her parents.
C) She wants to have a better-paid job.
D) She wants to be with her husband.
22. A) Right away.
B) In two months.
C) Early next month.
D) In a couple of days.
Questions 23 to 25 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
23. A) It will face challenges unprecedented in its history.
B) It is a resolute advocate of the anti-global movement.
C) It is bound to regain its full glory of a hundred years ago.
D) It will be a major economic power by the mid-21st century.
24. A) The lack of overall urban planning.
B) The huge gap between the haves and have-nots.
C) The inadequate supply of water and electricity.
D) The shortage of hi-tech personnel.
25. A) They attach great importance to education.
B) They are able to grasp growth opportunities.
C) They are good at learning from other nations.
D) They have made use of advanced technologies.
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 Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.
Passage One
Questions 26 to 29 are based on the passage you have just heard.
26. A) She taught chemistry and microbiology courses in a college.
B) She gave lectures on how to become a public speaker.
C) She helped families move away from industrial polluters.
D) She engaged in field research on environmental pollution.
27. A) The job restricted her from revealing her findings.
B) The job posed a potential threat to her health.
C) She found the working conditions frustrating.
D) She was offered a better job in a minority community.
28. A) Some giant industrial polluters have gone out of business.
B) More environmental organizations have appeared.
C) Many toxic sites in America have been cleaned up.
D) More branches of her company have been set up.
29. A) Her widespread influence among members of Congress.
B) Her ability to communicate through public speaking.
C) Her rigorous training in delivering eloquent speeches.
D) Her lifelong commitment to domestic and global issues.
Passage Two采集者退散
Questions 30 to 32 are based on the passage you have just heard.
30. A) The fierce competition in the market.
B) The growing necessity of staff training.
C) The accelerated pace of globalisation.
D) The urgent need of a diverse workforce.
31. A) Gain a deep understanding of their own culture.
B) Take courses of foreign languages and cultures.
C) Share the experiences of people from other cultures.
D) Participate in international exchange programmes.
32. A) Reflective thinking is becoming critical.
B) Labor market is getting globalised.
C) Knowing a foreign language is essential.
D) Globalisation will eliminate many jobs.
Passage Three
Questions 33 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.
33. A) Red-haired women were regarded as more reliable.
B) Brown-haired women were rated as more capable.
C) Golden-haired women were considered attractive.
D) Black-haired women were judged to be intelligent.
34. A) They are smart and eloquent.
B) They are ambitious and arrogant.
C) They are shrewd and dishonest.
D) They are wealthy and industrious.
35. A) They force people to follow the cultural mainstream.
B) They exaggerate the roles of certain groups of people.
C) They emphasize diversity at the expense of uniformity.
D) They hinder our perception of individual differences.
Section C
Directions: In this section, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read for the first time, you should listen carefully for its general idea. When the passage is read for the second time, you are required to fill in the blanks numbered from 36 to 43 with the exact words you have just heard. For blanks numbered from 44 to 46 you are required to fill in the missing information. For these blanks, you can either use the exact words you have just heard or write down the main points in your own words. Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, you should check what you have written.
The ancient Greeks developed basic memory systems called mnemonics. The name is from their Goddess of memory “Mnemosyne”. In the ancient world, a trained memory was an asset, particularly in public life. There were no devices for taking notes, and early Greek orators(演说家) delivered long speeches with great because they learned the speeches using mnemonic systems.
The Greeks discovered that human memory is an associative process—that it works by linking things together. For example, think of an apple. Theyour brain registers the word “apple”, it the shape, color, taste, smell and of that fruit. All these things are associated in your memory with the word “apple”.
. An example could be when you think about a lecture you have had. This could trigger a memory about what you’re talking about through that lecture, which can then trigger another memory.
. An example given on a website I was looking at follows: Do you remember the shape of Austria, Canada, Belgium, or Germany? Probably not. What about Italy, though? . You made an association with something already known, the shape of a boot, and Italy’s shape could not be forgotten once you had made the association.
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. Please write your answers onAnswer Sheet 2.
Questions 47 to 51 are based on the following passage.
Many countries have made it illegal to chat into a hand-held mobile phone while driving. But the latest research further confirms that the danger lies less in what a motorist’s hands do when he takes a call than in what the conversation does to his brain. Even using a “hands-free” device can divert a driver’s attention to an alarming extent.
Melina Kunar of the University of Warwick, and Todd Horowitz of the Harvard Medical School ran a series of experiments in which two groups of volunteers had to pay attention and respond to a series of moving tasks on a computer screen that were reckoned equivalent in difficulty to driving. One group was left undistracted while the other had to engage in a conversation using a speakerphone. As Kunar and Horowitz report, those who were making the equivalent of a hands-free call had an average reaction time 212 milliseconds slower than those who were not. That, they calculate, would add 5.7 metres to the braking distance of a car travelling at 100kph. They also found that the group using the hands-free kit made 83% more errors in their tasks than those who were not talking.
To try to understand more about why this was, they tried two further tests. In one, members of a group were asked simply to repeat words spoken by the caller. In the other, they had to think of a word that began with the last letter of the word they had just heard. Those only repeating words performed the same as those with no distraction, but those with the more complicated task showed even worse reaction times—an average of 480 milliseconds extra delay. This shows that when people have to consider the information they hear carefully, it can impair their driving ability significantly.
Punishing people for using hand-held gadgets while driving is difficult enough, even though they can be seen from outside the car. Persuading people to switch their phones off altogether when they get behind the wheel might be the only answer. Who knows, they might even come to enjoy not having to take calls.
