历年真题：2009年6月大学英语六级真题
Section C
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
English is the leading international language. In different countries around the globe, English is acquired as the mother (36) ________, in others it’s used as a second language. Some nations use English as their (37) ________ language, performing the function of (38) ________; in others it’s used as an international language for business, (39) ________ and industry.
What factors and forces have led to the (40) ________ of English? Why is English now considered to be so prestigious that, across the globe, individuals and societies feel (41) ________ if they do not have (42) ________ in this language? How has English changed through 1,500 Years? These are some of the questions that you (43) ________ when you study English.
You also examine the immense variability of English and (44) ________. You develop in-depth knowledge of the intricate structure of the language. Why do some non-native speakers of English claim that it’s a difficult language to learn, while (45) ________? At the University of Sussex, you are introduced to the nature and grammar of English in all aspects. This involves the study of sound structures, the formation of words, the sequencing words and the construction of meaning, as well as examination of the theories explaining the aspects of English usage. (46) ________, which are raised by studying how speakers and writers employ English for a wide variety of purposes.
36. tongue
37. official
38. administration
39. commerce
40. spread
41. disadvantageed
42. competence
43. investigate
44. You also examine the immense variability of English and come to understand how it's used as a symbol of individual identity and social connection。
45. Why do some non-native speakers of English claim that it's a difficult language to learn while infants born into English speaking communities acquire their language before they learn to use forks and knives?
46. You are encouraged to develop your own individual responses to various practical and theoretical issues
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 statements in the fewest possible words. Please write your answers on Answer Sheet 2.
Questions 47 to 51 are based on the following passage.
There is nothing new about TV and fashion magazines giving girls unhealthy ideas about how thin they need to be in order to be considered beautiful. What is surprising is the method psycholo gists at the University of Texas have come up with to keep girls from developing eating disorders. Their main weapon against superskinny (role) models: a brand of civil disobedience dubbed “body activism.”
Since 2001, more than 1,000 high school and college students in the U.S. have participated in the Body Project, which works by getting girls to understand how they have been buying into the notion that you have to be thin to be happy or successful. After critiquing (评论) the so-called thin ideal by writing essays and role-playing with their peers, participants are directed to come up with and execute small, nonviolent acts. They include slipping notes saying “Love your body the way it is” into dieting books at stores like Borders and writing letters to Mattel, makers of the impossibly proportioned Barbie doll.
According to a study in the latest issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, the risk of developing eating disorders was reduced 61% among Body Project participants. And they continued to exhibit positive body-image attitudes as long as three years after completing the program, which consists, of four one-hour sessions. Such lasting effects may be due to girls’ realizing not only how they were being influenced but also who was benefiting from the societal pressure to be thin. “These people who promote the perfect body really don’t care about you at all,” says Kelsey Hertel, a high school junior and Body Project veteran in Eugene, Oregon. “They purposefully make you feel like less of a person so you’ll buy their stuff and they’ll make money.”
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
47. Were do girls get the notion that they need to be thin in order to be considered beautiful?
48. By promoting “body activism,” University of Texas psychologists aim to prevent ________.
49. According to the author, Mattel’s Barbie dolls are ________.
50. The positive effects of the Body Project may last up to ________.
51. One Body Project participant says that the real motive of those who promote the perfect body is to ________.
46. TV and fashion magazines
48. Developing eating disorders
49. Impossibly proportioned
50. 3 years
51. Make money
Section B
Passage OneQuestions 52 to 56 are based on the following passage.
For hundreds of millions of years, turtles (海龟) have struggled out of the sea to lay their eggs on sandy beaches, long before there were nature documentaries to celebrate them, or GPS satellites and marine biologists to track them, or volunteers to hand-carry the hatchlings (幼龟) down to the water’s edge lest they become disoriented by headlights and crawl towards a motel parking lot instead. A formidable wall of bureaucracy has been erected to protect their prime nesting on the Atlantic coastlines. With all that attention paid to them, you’d think these creatures would at least have the gratitude not to go extinct.
But Nature is indifferent to human notions of fairness, and a report by the Fish and Wildlife Service showed a worrisome drop in the populations of several species of North Atlantic turtles, notably loggerheads, which can grow to as much as 400 pounds. The South Florida nesting population, the largest, has declined by 50% in the last decade, according to Elizabeth Griffin, a marine biologist with the environmental group Oceana. The figures prompted Oceana to petition the government to upgrade the level of protection for the North Atlantic loggerheads from “threatened” to “endangered”—meaning they are in danger of disappearing without additional help.
Which raises the obvious question: what else do these turtles want from us, anyway? It turns out, according to Griffin, that while we have done a good job of protecting the turtles for the weeks they spend on land (as egg-laying females, as eggs and as hatchlings), we have neglected the years spend in the ocean. “The threat is from commercial fishing,” says Griffin. Trawlers (which drag large nets through the water and along the ocean floor) and longline fishers (which can deploy thousands of hooks on lines that can stretch for miles) take a heavy toll on turtles.
Of course, like every other environmental issue today, this is playing out against the background of global warming and human interference with natural ecosystems. The narrow strips of beach on which the turtles lay their eggs are being squeezed on one side by development and on the other by the threat of rising sea levels as the oceans warm. Ultimately we must get a handle on those issues as well, or a creature that outlived the dinosaurs (恐龙) will meet its end at the hands of humans, leaving our descendants to wonder how creature so ugly could have won so much affection.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
52. We can learn from the first paragraph that ________.
A.human activities have changed the way turtles survive
B.efforts have been made to protect turtles from dying out
C.government bureaucracy has contributed to turtles’ extinction
D.marine biologists are looking for the secret of turtles’ reproduction
53. What does the author mean by “Nature is indifferent to human notions of fairness” (Line 1, Para. 2)?
A.Nature is quite fair regarding the survival of turtles.
B.Turtles are by nature indifferent to human activities.
C.The course of nature will not be changed by human interference.
D.The turtle population has decreased in spite of human protection.
