2007年12月英语六级阅读的冲刺备考练习及答案分析

　　1. 主旨题--看文章每段第一句

　　24. Which of the following can best sum up the passage?

　　A) Advantages and disadvantages of automation.

　　B) Labour and the effects of automation.

　　C) Unemployment benefit plans and automation.

　　D) Social benefits of automation.

　　注：文章三段第一句都出现automation，两段出现labour，因此这两个词是重点，必然在选项中出现。

　　Automation refers to the introduction of electronic control and automatic operation of productive machinery. It reduces the human factors, mental and physical, in production, and is designed to make possible the manufacture of more goods with fewer workers. The development of automation in American industry has been called the Second Industrial Revolution.

　　注：refers to 下定义

　　Labours concern over automation arises from uncertainty about the effects on employment, and fears of major changes in jobs. In the main, labour has taken the view that resistance to technical change is unfruitful. Eventually, the result of automation may well be an increase in employment, since it is expected that vast industries will grow up around manufacturing, maintaining, and repairing automation equipment. The interest of labour lies in bringing about the transition with a minimum of inconvenience and distress to the workers involved. Also, union spokesmen emphasize that the benefit of the increased production and lower costs made possible by automation should be shared by workers in the form of higher wages, more leisure, and improved living standards.

　　注：labour 雇员

　　To protect the interests of their members in the era of automation, unions have adopted a number of new policies. One of these is the promotion of supplementary unemployment benefit plans. It is emphasized that since the employer involved in such a plan has a direct financial interest in preventing unemployment, he will have a strong drive for planning new installations so as to cause the least possible problems in jobs and job assignments. Some unions are working for dismissal pay agreements, requiring that permanently dismissed workers be paid a sum of money based on length of service. Another approach is the idea of the improvement factor, which calls for wage increases based on increases in productivity. It is possible, however, that labour will rely mainly on reduction in working hours in order to gain a full share in the fruits of automation.

　　注：union 工会，和雇员有关

　　2. 词汇题找词所在句子关系

　　转折关系。例如：六级很难，但是，找转折连词But, Yet, However。

　　并列关系。例如：A and B，问A就把B内容填进去。

　　解释关系。用because和从句in which等联系。

　　例如：

　　30. An identifying figure refers to a person ______.

　　A) who serves as a model for others

　　B) who is always successful

　　C) who can be depended upon

　　D) who has been rewarded for his success

　　Admiration of one quality often leads us to admire a person as a whole, and he becomes an identifying figure. We use some people as models over a wide range of situations, imitating much that they do. We learn that they are dependable and rewarding models because imitating them leads to success.

　　注：把握and前后是并列关系。

　　3. 细节题--直接细节、因果推理、暗示

　　例如：

　　31. It is implied that fifty years ago ____________ .

　　A) eighty percent of American working people were employed in factories

　　B) twenty percent of American intellectuals were employees

　　C) the percentage of intellectuals in the total work force was almost the same as that of industrial workers

　　D) the percentage of intellectuals working as employees was not so large as that of industrial workers

　　34. According to the writer, professional knowledge or skill is _______ .

　　A) less important than awareness of being a good employee

　　B) as important as the ability to deal with public relations

　　C) more important than employer- employee relations

　　D) as important as the ability to co- operate with others in the organization

　　Ours has become a society of employees. A hundred years or so ago only one out of every five Americans at work was employed, i. e., worked for somebody else. Today only one out of five is not employed but working for himself. And when fifty years ago being employed meant working as a factory labourer or as a farmhand, the employee of today is increasingly a middle-class person with a substantial formal education, holding a professional or management job requiring intellectual and technical skills. Indeed, two things have characterized American society during these last fifty years: middle-class and upper - class employees have been the fastest-growing groups in our working population-growing so fast that the industrial worker, that oldest child of the Industrial Revolution, has been losing in numerical importance despite the expansion of industrial production.

　　Yet you will fine little if anything written on what it is to be an employee. You can find a great deal of very dubious advice on how to get a job or how to get a promotion. You can also find a good deal of work in a chosen field, whether it be the mechanist s trade or bookkeeping . Every one of these trades requires different skills, sets different standards, and requires a different preparation. Yet they all have employeeship in common. And increasingly, especially in the large business or in government, employeeship is more important to success than the special professional knowledge or skill. Certainly more people fail because they do not know the requirements of being an employee than because they do not adequately possess the skills of their trade; the higher you climb the ladder, the more you get into administrative or executive work, the greater the emphasis on ability to work within the organization rather than on technical abilities or professional knowledge.

　　4. 作者态度题正负态度

　　凡是文章探讨新事物正态度

　　凡是文章探讨老事物负态度

　　例外：中立题

　　25. The writers attitude towards the use of the telephone is ______.

　　A) affectionate

　　B) disapproving

　　C) approving

　　D) neutral

　　例子：例子必出题。文章有论点-论据-论证，例子是论证，用来支持论点，所以简而言之，例子本身不重要，但前后论点极其重要。

　　例子开始的标志：for example，后面跟着大写、时间、年代，依然是举例内容。

　　例子含义的标志：show, tell, prove, demonstrate, find, clearly

　　[Page72]

　　In the United States, the need to protect plant and animal species has become a highly controversial and sharply political issue since the passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973. The act, designed to protect species living areas, and policies that preserve land and forests compete with economic interests. In the 1990s, for example, the woodcutters in the Western United States were challenged legally in their attempt to cut trees for timber in the Cascade Mountains. The challenge was mounted to protect the endangered spotted owl, whose remaining population occupies these forests and requires the intact, ancient forest for survival. The problematic situation set the interests of environmentalists against those of corporations and of individuals who stood to lose jobs. After months of debate and legal battles, the fate of the woodcutters-and the owls-was still undecided in mid-1992.

　　注：1. controversial的意思是受争议的，同sharply political issue，contro表示反

　　2. for example前句子是重点

　　3. problematic悬而未决的

　　Similar tensions exist between the developed and the developing nations. Many people in industrialized nations, for example, believe that developing nations in tropical regions should do more to protect their rain forests and other natural areas. But the developing countries may be impoverished , with populations growing so rapidly that using the land is a means to temporarily avoid worsening poverty and starvation.

　　注：1. tension张力，冲突

　　2. 看到similar就说明第二段说的和第一段一样。

　　3. But转折是重点

　　Many of the changes to Earth that concern scientists have the potential to rob the planet of its biological richness. The destruction of Earths ozone layer , for example, could contribute to the general process of impoverishment by allowing ultra-violet rays to harm plants and animals. And global warming could wipe out species unable to quickly adapt to changing climates. Clearly, protecting will come only through coordinated international efforts to control human population, stabilize the composition of the atmosphere, and preserve intact Earths complex web life.

　　36.Why does the author say that the protection of endangered species is a highly controversial

　　issue?

　　A) Because people cant agree as to what species to protect.

　　B) Because it is difficult to find an effective way to protect such species.

　　C) Because it affects the interests of certain groups of people.

　　D) Because it is a major problem involving a series of legal procedures.

　　注：细节题。第一段economic interests

　　表示绝对的词--出现在文章中，是非常重要的出题点;如果出现在选项中，很可能是不对的。

　　全无：non-nothing-never-seldom-absolutely-hardly-little-few-prevent-exclude-neither...nor

　　全有：all-every-full-either

　　唯一：only-exactly- best-most

　　37.According to the passage, the preservation of rain forests ________.

　　A) may hamper a developing country in its fight against poverty.

　　B) benefits developed countries rather than developing countries.

　　C) should take priority over the control of human population.

　　D) will help improve the living conditions in developing countries.

　　注：细节题，对应文章第二段。举例前那句话更重要，只要表达出和经济利益冲突就对了。

　　38.According to the passage, cutting tress to grow more food _______.

　　A) will widen the gap between the developed and the developing countries.

　　B) is but a short-term relief to the food problem.

　　C) can hardly alleviate the shortage of food.

　　D) proves to be an effective way out for impoverished nations.

　　注：对应文章第二段。Short-term对应temporarily，relief对应avoid。

　　39.Amonghumanitys current problems , the chief concern of the scientists is _______.

　　A) the impoverishment of developing countries.

　　B) the explosion of the human population.

　　C) the reduction of biological diversity.

　　D) the effect of global warming.

　　注：第三段。C选项中reduction对应rob，diversity对应richness。

　　40.The authors purpose in writing this passage is ________.

　　A) to describe the difficulties in solving humanitys current problems.

　　B) to present the different views on humanitys current problems.

　　C) to analyze the contradiction between countries in dealing with humanitys current problems.

　　D) to point out that humanitys current problems can only be solved through the cooperation of nations.

　　注：看最后一句话，cooperation of nations 对应coordinated international efforts。

　　[Page80]

　　We sometimes think humans are uniquely vulnerable to anxiety, but stress seems to affect the immune defenses of lower animals too. In one experiment, for example, behavioral immunologist Mark Laudenslger, at the University of Denver, gave mild electric shocks to 24 rats. Half the animals could switch off the current by turning a wheel in their enclosure, while the other half could mot. The rats in the two groups were paired so that each time one rat turned the wheel it protected both itself and its helpless partner from the shock. Laudenslager found that the immune response was depressed below normal in the helpless rats but not in those that could turn off the electricity. What he has demonstrated, he believes, is that lack of control over an event, not the experience itself, is what weakens the immune system.

　　注：1. vulnerable易受伤害的

　　2. immune defense 免疫系统

　　3. found之后是试验告诉我们的观点

　　4. depress压抑，de往下

　　Other researchers agree. Jay Weiss, a psychologist at Duke University School of Medicine, has shown that animals who are allowed to control unpleasant stimuli dont develop sleep disturbances or changes in brain chemistry typical of stressed rats. But if the animals are confronted with situations they have no control over, they later behave passively when faced with experiences they can control. Such findings reinforce psychologists suspicions that the experience or perception of helplessness is one of the most harmful factors in depression.

　　注：1. 看第一句三个单词就知道本段内容和上一段相同。

　　2. passive被动的

　　21. Laudenslagers experiment showed that the immune system of those rats who could turn off the electricity ______.

　　A) was strengthened

　　B) was not affected

　　C) was altered

　　D) was weakened

　　注：定位文章第一段found之后

　　22. According to the passage, the experience of helplessness causes rats to ______.

　　A) try to control unpleasant stimuli

　　B) turn off the electricity

　　C) become abnormally suspicious

　　D) behave passively in controllable situations

　　注：定位第二段But之后那句话

　　23. The reason why the mice in Aders experiment avoided saccharin was that ______ .

　　A) they disliked its taste

　　B) it affected their immune systems

　　C) it led to stomach pains

　　D) they associated it with stomachaches

　　22. The first paragraph is mainly about _____.

　　the teenagers criticism of their parents

　　misunderstandings between teenagers and their parents

　　the dominance of the parents over their children

　　the teenagers ability to deal with crises

　　注：段落主旨，B和C只说了一部分。

　　It is natural for young people to be critical of their parents at times and to blame them for most of the misunderstandings between them. They have always complained, more or less justly, that their parents are out of touch with modern ways; that they are possessive and dominant that they do not trust their children to deal with crises; that they talk too much about certain problems and that they have no sense of humour, at least in parent-child relationships. I think it is true that parents often underestimate their teenage children and also forget how they themselves felt when young. Young people often irritate their parents with their choices in clothes and hairstyles, in entertainers and music. This is not their motive. They feel cut off from the adult world into which they have not yet been accepted. So they create a culture and society of their own. Then, if it turns out that their music or entertainers or vocabulary or clothes or hairstyles irritate their parents, this gives them additional enjoyment. They feel they are superior, at least in a small way, and that they are leaders in style and taste.

　　注：1. critical吹毛求疵的，很重要的

　　40. The main idea of this passage is that _____.

　　attention must be directed to the improvement of recreative possibilities

　　better use of greenspace facilities should be made so as to improve the quality of our life

　　the urban environment is providing more recreation activities than it did many years ago

　　priority must be given to the development of obligatory activities

　　Greenspace facilities are contributing to an important extent to the quality of the urban environment. Fortunately it is no longer necessary that every lecture or every book about this subject has to start with the proof of this idea. At present, it is generally accepted, although more as a self-evident statement than on the base of a closely-reasoned scientific proof. The recognition of the importance of greenspaces in the urban environment is a first step on the right way, this does not mean, however, that sufficient details are known about the functions of greenspace in towns and about the way in which the inhabitants are using these spaces. As to this rather complex subject I shall, within the scope of this lecture, enter into one aspect only, namely the recreative function of greenspace facilities.

　　注：GF对城乡环境有重要的贡献。

　　The theoretical separation of living, working, traffic and recreation which for many years has been used in town-and-country planning, has in my opinion resulted in disproportionate attention for forms of recreation far from home, whereas there was relatively little attention for improvement of recreative possibilities in the direct neighbourhood of the home. We have come to the conclusion that this is not right, because an important part of the time which we do not pass in sleeping or working, is used for activities at and around home. So it is obvious that recreation in the open air has to begin at the street-door of the house. The urban environment has to offer as many recreation activities as possible, and the design of these has to be such that more obligatory activities can also have a recreative aspect.

　　The very best standard of living is nothing if it is not possible to take a pleasant walk in the district, if the children cannot be allowed to play in the streets, because the risks of traffic are too great, if during shopping you can nowhere find a spot for enjoying for a moment the nice weather, in short, if you only feel yourself at home after the street-door of your house is closed after you.