英语六级的考试听力原文

　　Section A

　　Short Conversation

　　11. M: Oh, Im so sorry I forgot to bring along the book you borrowed from the library.

　　W: What a terrible memory you have! Anyway, I wont need it until Friday night. As long as I can get it by then, OK?

　　Q: What do we learn from this conversation?

　　12. W: Doctor, I havent been able to get enough sleep lately, and Im too tired to concentrate in class.

　　M: Well, you know, spending too much time indoors with all that artificial lighting can do that to you. Your body loses track of whether its day or night.

　　Q: What does the man imply?

　　13. M: I think Ill get one of those new T-shirts, you know, with the schools logo on both the front and back.

　　W: Youll regret it. They are expensive, and Ive heard the printing fades easily when you wash them.

　　Q: What does the woman mean?

　　14. W: I think your article in the school newspaper is right on target, and your viewpoints have certainly convinced me.

　　M: Thanks, but in view of the general responses, you and I are definitely in the minority.

　　Q: What does the man mean?

　　15. M: Daisy was furious yesterday because I lost her notebook. Should I go see her and apologize to her again?

　　W: Well, if I were you, Id let her cool off a few days before I approach her.

　　Q: What does the woman suggest the man do?

　　16. M: Would you please tell me where I can get batteries for this brand of camera?

　　W: Let me have a look. Oh, yes, go down this aisle, pass the garden tools, youll find them on the shelf next to the light bulbs.

　　Q: What is the man looking for?

　　17. M: Our basketball team is playing in the finals but I dont have a ticket. I guess Ill just watch it on TV. Do you want to come over?

　　W: Actually I have a ticket. But Im not feeling well. You can have it for what it cost me.

　　Q: What do we learn from the conversation?

　　18. M: Honey, Ill be going straight to the theatre from work this evening. Could you bring my suit and tie along?

　　W: Sure, its the first performance of the State Symphony Orchestra in our city, so suit and tie is a must.

　　Q: What do we learn from the conversation?

　　Long Conversations

　　Conversation 1

　　M: I got two letters this morning with job offers, one from the Polytechnic, and the other from the Language School in Pistoia, Italy.

　　W: So you are not sure which to go for?

　　M: Thats it. Of course, the conditions of work are very different: The Polytechnic is offering two-year contract which could be renewed, but the language school is only offering a years contract, and thats a different minus. It could be renewed, but you never know.

　　W: I see. So its much less secure. But you dont need to think too much about steady jobs when you are only 23.

　　M: Thats true.

　　W: What about the salaries?

　　M: Well, the Pistoia job pays much better in the short term. Ill be getting the equivalent of about ￡22,000 a year there, but only ￡20,000 at the Polytechnic. But then the hours are different. At the Polytechnic Id have to do 35 hours a week, 20 teaching and 15 administration, whereas the Pistoia school is only asking for 30 hours teaching.

　　W: Mmm

　　M: Then the type of teaching is so different. The Polytechnic is all adults and mostly preparation for exams like the Cambridge certificates. The Language School wants me to do a bit of exam preparation, but also quite a lot of work in companies and factories, and a couple of childrens classes. Oh, and a bit of literature teaching.

　　W: Well, that sounds much more varied and interesting. And Id imagine you would be doing quire a lot of teaching outside the school, and moving around quite a bit.

　　M: Yes, whereas with the Polytechnic position, Id be stuck in the school all day.

　　Questions 19 to 21 are based on the conversation you have just heard:

　　Q19. What do we learn about the man from the conversation?

　　Q20. What do we learn about the students at the Polytechnic?

　　Q21. What does the woman think of the job at the Language School?

　　Conversation 2

　　W: Good evening and welcome to tonights edition of Legendary Lives. Our subject this evening is James Dean, actor and hero for the young people of his time. Edward Murray is the author of a new biography of Dean. Good evening, Edward.

　　M: Hello Tina.

　　W: Edward, tell us what you know about Deans early life.

　　M: He was born in Indiana in 1931, but his parents moved to California when he was five. He wasnt there long though because his mother passed away just four years later. Jimmys father sent him back to Indiana after that to live with his aunt.

　　W: So how did he get into acting?

　　M: Well, first he acted in plays at high school, then he went to college in California where he got seriously into acting. In 1951 he moved to New York to do more stage acting.

　　W: Then when did his movie career really start?

　　M: 1955. His first starring role was in East of Eden. It was fabulous. Dean became a huge success. But the movie that really made him famous was his second one, Rebel Without a Cause, that was about teenagers who felt like they didnt fit into society.

　　W: So how many more movies did he make?

　　M: Just one more, then he died in that car crash in California in 1955.

　　W: What a tragedy! He only made three movies! So what made him the legend he still is today?

　　M: Well I guess his looks, his acting ability, his short life, and maybe the type of character he played in his movies. Many young people saw him as a symbol of American youths.

　　Q22 What is the woman doing?

　　Q23 Why did James Dean move back to Indiana when he was young?

　　Q24 What does the man say James Dean did at college in California?

　　Q25 What do we know about James Dean from the conversation?

　　Section B

　　第一篇

　　Among global warmings most frightening threats is the prediction is that the polar ice-caps will melt, raising sea level so much that coastal cities from New York to Los Angles to Shanghai will be flooded. Scientists agree that key player in this scenario is the West Antarctic ice sheet, a Brazil-size mass of frozen water that is much as 7000 feet thick. Unlike floating ice shelves which have little impact on sea level when they break up, the ice sheet is anchored to bedrock will blow the sea surface. Surrounded by open ocean, it is also vulnerable, but Antarctic experts disagree strongly on just how unstable it is. Now, new evidence reveals that all or most of the Antarctic ice sheet collapsed at least once during the past 1.3 million years, a period when global temperatures probably were not significantly higher than they are today. And the ice sheet was assumed to have been stable. In geological time, a million years is recent history. The proof, which was published last week in Science, comes from a team of scientists from Uppsala University in Sweden and California Institute of Technology who drew deep holes near the edge of ice sheet. Within samples collected from the solid substances lying beneath the ice. They found fossils of microscopic marine plants which suggest that the region was once open ocean not solid ice. As Herman Engleheart, a co-author from the California Institute of Technology says, the West Antarctic ice sheet disappear once and can disappear again.

　　26. What is one of the most frightening threats of global warming according to the passage?

　　27. What did scientists disagree on?

　　28. What is the latest information revealed about the West Antarctic ice sheet?

　　29. What the scientists latest findings suggest?

　　第二篇

　　Its always fun to write about research that you can actually try out for yourself.

　　Try this: Take a photo and upload it to Facebook, then after a day or so, note what the URL link to the picture is and then delete it. Come back a month later and see if the link works. Chances are: It will.

　　Facebook isnt alone here. Researchers at Cambridge University have found that nearly half of the social networking sites dont immediately delete pictures when a user requests they be removed. In general, photo-centric websites like Flickr were found to be better at quickly removing deleted photos upon request.

　　Why do deleted photos stick around so long? The problem relates to the way data is stored on large websites: While your personal computer only keeps one copy of a file, large-scale services like Facebook rely on what are called content delivery networks to manage data and distribution. Its a complex system wherein data is copied to multiple intermediate devices, usually to speed up access to files when millions of people are trying to access the service at the same time. But because changes arent reflected across the content delivery networks immediately, ghost copies of files tend to linger for days or weeks.

　　In the case of Facebook, the company says data may hang around until the URL in question is reused, which is usually after a short period of time, though obviously that time can vary considerably.

　　30 What does the speaker ask us to try out?

　　31 What accounts for the failure of some websites to remove photos immediately?

　　32 When will the unwanted data eventually disappear from Facebook according to the company?

　　第三篇

　　Enjoying an iced coffee? Better skip dinner or hit the gym afterwards, with a cancer charity warning that some iced coffees contain as many calories as a hot dinner.

　　The World Cancer Research Fund conducted a survey of iced coffees sold by some popular chains in Britain including Starbucks, Caffe Nero and Costa Coffee to gauge the calories as studies increasingly link obesity with cancer.

　　The worst offender - a coffee from Starbucks -- had 561 calories. Other iced coffees contained more than 450 calories and the majority had an excess of 200.

　　Health experts advise that the average woman should consume about 2,000 calories a day and a man about 2,500 calories to maintain a healthy weight. Dieters aim for 1,000 to 1,500 calories a day.

　　The fact that there is an iced coffee on the market with over a quarter of a womans daily calories allowance is alarming, Dr Rachel Thompson, science programme manager at London-based WCRF, said in a widely-reported statement.

　　This is the amount of calories you might expect to have in an evening meal, not in a drink.

　　The WCRF has estimated that 19,000 cancers a year in Britain could be prevented if people lost their excess weight with growing evidence that excess body fat increases the risk of various cancers.

　　If you are having these types of coffee regularly then they will increase the chances of you becoming overweight, which in turn increases your risk of developing cancer, as well as other diseases such as heart disease. she added.

　　33. What warning did some health experts give?

　　34. What does the author suggest people do after they have an iced coffee?

　　35. What could British people expect if they maintain a normal body weight according to the WCRF?

　　Section C

　　Psychologists are finding that hope plays a surprisingly vital role in giving people a measurable advantage in rounds as diverse as academic achievement, bearing up in tough jobs, and coping with tragic illness. And, by contrast, the loss of hope, is turning out to be a stronger sign that a person may commit suicide than other factors long thought to be more likely risks. Hope has proven a powerful predictor of outcome in every study weve done so far, said Doctor Charles R. Snyder, a psychologist, who has devised a scale to assess how much hope a person has. For example, in research with 3920 college students, Doctor Snyder and his colleagues found that the level of hope among freshmen at the beginning of their first semester was a more accurate predictor of their college grades, than were their SAT scores or their grade point averages in high school, the two measures most commonly used to predict college performance. Students with high hope set themselves higher goals and know how to work to attain them, Doctor Snyder said. When you compare students of equivalent intelligence and past academic achievements, what sets them apart is hope. In devising a way to assess hope scientifically, Doctor Snyder went beyond the simple notion that hope is merely the sense that everything will turn out all right. That notion is not concrete enough and it blurs two key components of hope, Doctor Snyder said, Having hope means believing you have both the will and the way to accomplish your goals, whatever they may be.