试卷代号： A
大学英语四级考试(CET 6)
试题册
注意事项
一、 将自己的校名、姓名、学校代号、准考证号写在答题卡1和答题卡2上，将本试卷代号划在答题卡2上。
二、 把试题册、答题卡均不得带出考场。考试结束后，教师收卷后才可离开考场。
三、 仔细读懂题目的说明。
四、 在30分钟内做完答题卡1上的作文题。30分钟后考生按指令启封试题册。在接着的15分钟内完成快速阅读理解部分的试题。然后监考员收取答题卡1，考生在答题卡2上完成其余部分的试题。全部答题时间为125分钟，不得拖延答题。
五、 考生必须在答题卡上作答，凡写在试题册上的大案一律无效。
六、 多项选择题每题只有一个答案;如多选，则该题无分。选定答案后用HB-2B浓度的铅笔在相应的字母中划一条横线。划线要有一定的粗度，要盖过字母的底色。
七、 如果要改动答案，必须先用橡皮擦净原来选定的答案，然后按规定重新答题。
八、 在考试过程中要注意对自己的答案保密。若被他人抄袭，一经发现，后果自负。
Part Ⅰ Writing (30 minutes)
注意：此部分试题在答题卡 1上，请在答题卡1上作答。
Part Ⅱ Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes)
Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on Answer Sheet 1.For questions 1-7,choose the best answer from the four choices marked A),B),C)and D). For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.
The Internet
Internet was born 40 years ago, in a lab at the University of California, Los Angeles. Today it wraps the entire planet and features in the daily routine of more than 1.5 billion people. But do you know hte following facts and information about the computer?
Could the Net Become Self-aware?
In engineering terms, it is easy to see qualitative similarities between the human brain and the Internet's complex network of nodes (节点), as they both hold, process, recall and transmit information. "The Internet behaves a fair bit like a mind, "says Ben Goertzel, chair of the Artificial General Intelligence Research Institute. " It might ready have a degree of consciousness".
Not that it will necessarily have the same kind of consciousness as humans; it is unlikely to be wondering who it is, for instance. To Francis Heylighen, who studies consciousness and artificial intelligence at the Free University of Brussels in Belgium, consciousness is merely a system of mechanisms for making information processing more efficient by adding a level of control over which of the brain's processes get the most resources. Adding consciousness is more a matter of fine-tuning and increasing control than a jump to a wholly different level," Heylighen says.
.How-might this manifest itself? Heylighen speculates that it might turn the Internet into a self-aware network that constantly strives to become better at what it does, reorganizing itself and filling gaps in its own knowledge and abilities.
If it is not already semiconscious, we could do various things to help wake it up, such as requiring the net to monitor its own knowledge gaps and do something about them. It shouldn’t be something to fear, says Goertzel;" The outlook for humanity is probably better in the case that an emergent, coherent and purposeful Internet mind develops. "
Heylighen agrees, but warns that we might find it a little disappointing. " We probably would not notice a whole lot of a difference, initially, "he says.
And when might this begin? According to Heylighen, it all depends on Internet fashion trends. If the effort that has gone into developing social networking sites goes into developing Internet consciousness, it could happen within a decade, he says.
How Big Is the Net?
Recent estimates suggest that well over1 billion people rely on computers to access the Internet. Yet there are also a billion or so other people who use cellphones to visit cyberspace, making them as much a part of the online community as someone surfing from a PC.
That the Internet is vast is undoubted. In July 2008, web surfers were introduced
Cuil. com, billed by its designers as "the world's biggest search engine". It indexed an impressive 120 billion pages, but shortly before its launch Google announced that its systems had registered a trillion unique pages.
Even this might represent a fraction of what is out there. Some estimates suggest that there could be hundreds of times more information stored on the Internet than Google or Cuil have so far indexed.
One thing's for sure: the Internet and its contents will continue to grow rapidly. According to Google, several billion web pages are added each day. And in the minute it has taken you to read this, the total has leapt by about 700,000.Index that!
Where Are the Net's Dark Corners?
If your emails mysteriously disappear, or your favorite website is suddenly unobtainable, you might have run into one "black hole". Though nowhere near as destructive as their cosmological(宇宙论的) cousins, information black holes can create all kinds of problems for surfers. Essentially they are points on the network at which data packets simply disappear due to broken connections, say, or misconfigured routers---devices that maintain lists of addresses and which help direct Internet traffic. A team including computer scientist Ethan Katz-Bassett at the University of Washington in Seattle has detected almost 1. 5 million black holes since it began looking in 2007. The majority persist for over 2 hours, he says. Unfortunately it is tough to predict where they will appear next, so it's hard for the average surfer to avoid them.
Far easier to avoid are a kind of online chat-room called Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels. Though the majority are legitimate, a few IRC channels have a very dark reputation, and are run as open markets for stolen goods. One 2007 survey found $37 million worth of illegal stuff in IRC channels, including 80,000 credit card numbers and bank account details. And if that is not bad enough, some of these chat-rooms are also used by hackers to send commands to their networks of evil software bots, or botnets. When a PC is infected by a virus or evil software it may be hijacked and used as part of a botnet to launch spam or cyber-attacks elsewhere.
.Then there are significant pockets of cyberspace ----some 5 per cent of all Internet addresses----that are not fully connected to the rest of the net. Dubbed the" dark Internet" ,they are often the result of faulty routers or networks with strict security policies that block traffic.
Amongst these dark regions are blocks of seemingly unused Internet addresses that may suddenly and briefly flare into activity. Although this behavior might have an innocent explanation ,it can also hint at dubious activities.
A three-year study by online security consultants Arbor Networks revealed that dark Internet addresses can be a source of cyber-attacks and junk email. The study suggests that hackers or spammers hijack routers and use them to create false addresses which are left dormant until the hackers bring them to life to facilitate their nefarious(恶毒的)ends. These dark addresses seem to be multiplying in proportion to the growth of the net, says Arbor Networks' Craig Labovitz.
Is the Net Hurting the Environment?
Sending an email across the Atlantic Ocean does not burn any jet fuel, but the Internet is not without its own, huge carbon footprint. One estimate suggests it takes a huge 152 billion kilowatt-hours per year just to power the data centers that keep the net running. Add to that the energy used by all the computers and peripherals linked to it and the whole thing could be responsible for as much as 2 per cent of all human-made CO2 emissions, putting it on a par with the aviation industry.
The way we use our computers also has an impact. According to Google, the production of the electricity needed for a single Internet search generates 200 milligrams of CO2. This may not sound much, but it adds up:1000 searches produce the same CO2 emissions as an average European car travelling 1 kilometre. Worse, Internet traffic is currently growing at around 50 percent each year. According to the international environmental coalition The Climate Group, total emissions from computers will increase by 380 percent, to the equivalent of 1.4 gigatonnes(十亿吨)of CO2, by 2020.
If the IT industry continues with business as usual, there is no question that the Internet's energy consumption will skyrocket, says Bill Weihl, Google's green-energy tsar. As a result, many organizations are turning to so-called green data centers which are far more efficient at cooling computers. At the same time, new computers are becoming more efficient. This has led to the energy needed to send each megabyte of data across the net to fall by about 30 per cent annually, says Jonathan Koomey, an energy expert at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Oakland, California.
IBM says it is developing carbon-neutral data centres, using a novel form of water cooling which channels the heat given off by chips to provide warmth for nearby homes and offices. In a similar vein, Google has patented the idea of sea-based floating data centres which use wave motion as a power source, while cold water sucked up from the deep ocean could cool the computer chips.
.The Internet itself could help us to reduce our energy consumption. Video conferencing is just one example, says Koomey. " Moving electrons is always better than moving atoms," he says. What no one knows, however, is whether the technology has led to any significant reduction in travel, or whether uptake in video conferencing has actually increased our CO2 emissions.
注意：此部分试题在答题卡1上作答;8-10题在答题卡1上。
1. Human brain and the net are similar in that both of them .
A) have the same kind of consciousness
B) can be tested by engineering techniques
C) have the ability to handle information
D) can be described in qualitative terms
2. How does Francis Heylighen understand the consciousness of the net?
A) It will one day replace that of humans and try to find its own identity.
B) It makes information processed in an organized and productive way.
C) It is creating a step-by-step revolution in the development in the network.
D) It is a completely different technique in the field of artificial intelligence.
3. Heylighen predicts that a self-aware network will .
A) improve automatically its own knowledge and abilities
B) try to do better than its human counterparts
C) organize itself again in a totally different way
D) track down accurately the latest knowledge and information
4. What service can Cuil. com deliver to its users?
A) It provides information which can be found at Google.
B) It works on building the largest data base around the world.
C) It designs search engines for its users when asked.--.
D) It helps the users to search for the information they want.
5. Information black holes can be annoying because .
A) it's not easy to foretell their visits on the net
B) it usually dominates the net page as long as over two hours
C) it steals the users' account number for email box
D) it prevents the users from visiting the websites they like
.6. In what aspect can an IRC channel be taken advantage of?
A) All kinds of goods are traded through the channel.
B) It is used as a place for hackers to send commands.
C) It becomes a factory to develop and produce virus.
D) Its chatrooms are in fact the birthplace of junk emails.
7. According to Arbor Networks, dark Internet addresses .
A) can be inactivated so as to avoid being used by ill-intentioned networks
B) are the result of strict policies that block traffic on the net
C) are probably the ideal hidden place for hackers and junk emails
D) seem to increase in accordance with the development of the net
Part III Listening Comprehension (35 minutes)
Section A
Directions: In this section, you will hear 8 short conversations and 2 long conversations. At the end of each conversation, one or more questions will be asked about what was said. Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once. After each question there will be pause. During the pause, you must read the four choices marked A), B), C) and D), and decide which is the best answer. Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
11. A) She isn’t going to change her major.
B) She plans to major in tax law.
C) She studies in the same school as her brother.
D) She isn’t going to work in her brother’s firm.
12. A) She will do her best if the job is worth doing.
B) She prefers a life of continued exploration.
C) She will stick to the job if the pay is good.
D) She doesn’t think much of job-hopping.
13. A) Stop thinking about the matter. B) Talk the drug user out of the habit.
C) Be more friendly to his schoolmate. D) Keep his distance from drug addicts.
14. A) The son. B) The father. C) The mother. D) Aunt Louise.
15. A) Stay away for a couple of weeks. B) Check the locks every two weeks.
C) Look after the Johnsons’ house. D) Move to another place.
16. A) He didn’t want to warm up for the game.
B) He didn’t want to be held up in traffic.
C) He wanted to make sure they got tickets.
.D) He wanted to catch as many game birds as possible.
17. A) It will reduce government revenues.
B) It will stimulate business activities.
C) It will mainly benefit the wealthy.
D) It will cut the stockholders’ dividends.
18. A) The man should phone the hotel for directions.
B) The man can ask the department store for help.
C) She doesn’t have the hotel’s phone number.
D) The hotel is just around the corner.
Questions 19 to 21 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
19. A) To interview a few job applicants.
B) To fill a vacancy in the company.
C) To advertise for a junior sales manager.
D) To apply for a job in a major newspaper.
20. A) A hardworking ambitious young man.
B) A young man good at managing his time.
C) A college graduate with practical working experience.
D) A young man with his own idea of what is important.
21. A) Not clearly specified. B) Reasonable enough.
C) Not likely to be met. D) Apparently sexist.
Questions 22 to 25 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
22. A) The latest developments of an armed rebellion in Karnak.
B) The fall of Karnak’s capital city into the hands of the reble forces.
C) The epidemic that has just broken out in the country of Karnak.
D) The peace talks between the rebels and the government in Karnak.
23. A) The epidemic has been brought under control.
B) There are signs of progress in the peace process.
C) Great improvements are being made in its capital.
D) There’s little hope of bringing the conflict to an end.
24. A) Late in the morning B) Early in the afternoon.
C) Sometime before dawn. D) Shortly after sunrise.
25. A) Inadequate medical care. B) Continuing social unrest.
C) Lack of food, water and shelter. D) Rapid spreading of the epidemic
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.
.注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
Passage One
Questions 26 to 28 are based on the passage you have just heard.
26. A) One of the bridges between North and South London collapsed.
B) The heart of London was flooded.
C) An emergency exercise was conducted.
D) A hundred people in the suburbs were drowned.
27. A) Fifty underground stations were made waterproof.
B) A flood wall was built.
C) An alarm system was set up.
D) Rescue teams were formed.
28. A) Most Londoners were frightened.
B) Most Londoners became rather confused.
C) Most Londoners took Exercise Flood call calmly.
D) Most Londoners complained about the trouble caused by Exercise Flood call.
Passage Two
Questions 29 to 31 are based on the passage you have just heard.
29. A) It limited their supply of food.
B) It made their eggshells too fragile
C) It destroyed many of their nests.
D) It killed many baby bald eagles.
30. A) They found ways to speed up the reproduction of bald eagles.
B) They developed new types of feed for baby bald eagles.
C) They explored new ways to hatch baby bald eagles.
D) They brought in bald eagles from Canada.
31. A) Pollution of the environment.
B) A new generation of pest killers.
C) Over-killing by hunters.
D) Destruction of their natural homes.
.Passage Three
Questions 32 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.
32. A) Why people hold back their tears.
B) Why people cry.
C) How to restrain one’s tears.
D) How tears are produced.
33. A) What chemicals tears are composed of.
B) Whether crying really helps us feel better.
C) Why some people tend to cry more often than others.
D) How tears help people cope with emotional problems.
34. A) Only one out of four girls cries less often than boys.
B) Of four boys, only one cries very often.
C) Girls cry four times as often as boys.
D) Only one out of four babies doesn’t cry often.
35. A) Only humans respond to emotions by shedding tears.
B) Only humans shed tears to get rid of irritating stuff in their eyes.
C) Only human tears can resist invading bacteria.
D) Only human tears can discharge certain chemicals.
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.
注意：此部分试题在答题卡2上;请在答题卡2上作答。
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 on Answer Sheet 2.
Questions 47 to 51 are based on the following passage.
The prospects for women who are scientists and engineers at major research universities have improved, although women continue of face inequalities in salary and access to some other resources, a panel of the National Research Council concludes in a new report.
In recent years “men and women faculty in science, engineering and mathematics have enjoyed comparable opportunities,” the panel said in its report, released on Tuesday. It found that women who apply for university jobs and, once they have them, for promotion and tenure(教师任期), are at least as likely to succeed as men. But compared with their numbers among new Ph.D.’s, women are still underrepresented(未被充分代表的)in applicant pools, a puzzle that offers an opportunities for further research, the panel said.
The panel said one factor outshined all others in encouraging women to apply for jobs: having women on the committees appointed to fill them.
In another report this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at the University of Wisconsin reviewed a variety of studies and concluded that the achievement gap between boys and girls in mathematics performance had narrowed to the vanishing point.
.“US girls have now reached parity(平等)with boys, even in high school and even for measures requiring complex problem solving,” the Wisconsin researchers said. Although girls are still underrepresented in the ranks of young math prodigies, they said, that gap is narrowing, which undermines claims that a greater prevalence of profound mathematical talent in males is biologically determined. The researchers said this and other phenomenon “ provide abundant evidence for the impact of socio-cultural and other environmental factors on the development of mathematical skills and talent and the size, if any, of math gender gaps.”
The research council. an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, convened its expert panel at the request of Congress. The panel surveyed six disciplines—biology, chemistry, mathematics, civil and electrical engineering and physics----and based its analysis on interviews with faculty members at 89 institutions and data from federal agencies, professional societies and other sources.
The panel was led by Claude Canizares, a physicist who is vice president for research at M.I. T., and Dr. Sally Shaywitz of Yale Medical School, an expert on learning.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2 上作答。
47. In spite of much improvement, women still remain confronted with the inequalities in____。
48. Compared to the number of men Ph.D. in applicant pools, women Ph.D. are still _______________.
49. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin concluded that the achievement gap between boys and girls in their mathematics performance _________.
50. Those factors that affect the development of mathematical skills and talent are _________.
51. The panel has studied six disciplines and their analysis is based on _________ at 89 institutions as well as data from federal agencies, professional societies and other sources.
Section B
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.
Passage One
Questions 52 to 56 are based on the following passage.
An epidemic of swine flu has recently developed in Mexico and the United States, says the CDC. Swine flu has killed many people, and the outbreak has features that suggest it could become a global pandemic(大流行病)A pandemic is an epidemic that spreads around the whole world. Pandemics also often cause more severe disease than epidemics.
Flu is a disease caused by the influenza virus. Humans, pigs, birds and other animals all can be infected by influenza viruses. Typically, influenza viruses can infect only one species, so the influenza viruses of humans are different from those pigs and birds. However, sometimes a virus can infect more than one species. For example, pigs sometimes can be infected not only with pig influenza viruses, but also with human and bird influenza viruses. Then these viruses can come up to one another secretly and swap (交换) genes, creating new viruses that have a mix of genes---from human, pig, and bird viruses. That is what has happened with this new swine flu virus.
Sometimes this swapping of genes allows a virus that was originally able to infect only pigs or only birds to also infect humans. When that happens, we refer to the illness as" swine flu" or" bird flu". This current virus could actually be called "swine/bird flu" , since it has some genes from pig flu viruses and other genes from bird flu viruses.
.Most viruses that cause swine flu or bird flu are very hard to pass from one human to another; they don't cause, epidemics. Sometimes, however, further changes in gene create a virus that can spread rapidly among humans, and can produce a more severe illness. One reason this illness is more severe is that the virus is so new. The regular flu that comes each year is caused by a regular human influenza virus that often has similarities to the viruses that have caused the flu in years past, so people have some degree of immunity to the latest virus. The unusual swine flu or bird flu viruses that develop the ability for person-to-person spread are so different that people have little or no immunity to them.
The worst global pandemic in modern times was the influenza pandemic of 1918 to 1919. It affected about a third of the human race, and killed at least 40 million people in less than a year---more than have been killed by AIDS in three decades. The world economy went into a deep recession. The average length of life dropped for 10 years.
Unfortunately, the new swine flu virus can be transmitted between humans. It is not clear yet how easily it is transmitted, nor how it is transmitted. Almost surely it is transmitted by sneezing and coughing, and by skin-to-skin contact with an infected person.
注意：此部分试题请在答题卡2上作答。
52. According to the passage, a pandemic .
A) proves to be identical to an epidemic.
B) always follows an epidemic.
C) tends to be widespread and produces more serious disease
D) turns out be fatal to people who get infected
53. What can we know about the present epidemic ---swine flu?
A) The genes of the flu virus come from pigs.
B) It will soon spread and cause a pandemic.
C) There has been further change in the genes of the viruses.
D) It is similar to the influenza pandemic of 1918 to 1919.
54. Why is the swine flu very dangerous to humans?
A) Because it is fatal and has killed many people.
B) Because it has spread to many countries.
C) Because people know nothing about it.
D) Because people know no immunity to it.
55. What can know about the influenza pandemic of 1918 to 1919?
A) It is the only large-scale epidemic in modern times.
B) It killed about one third of the world’s population.
C) It killed more people than AIDS did.
D) It had a great impact on the world’s economy.
56. What do scientists say about the transmission of the swine flu virus?
A) It is easily transmitted from person to person.
B) It remains unclear how it is transmitted.
C) It is transmitted by sneezing or coughing.
D) It is transmitted by skin-to-skin contact.
.