2018年12月6级真题第二套

2018

年

12

月大学 英语六级考试真题（第

2

套）

Part I

Writing

(30 minutes)

Directions:

For

this

part,

you

are

allowed

30

minutes

to

write

an

essay

on

how

to

balance

job

responsibilities

and

personal interests.

You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.

Part III

Reading Comprehension

(40 minutes)

Section A

Directions:

In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list

of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices.

Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on

Answer Sheet 2

with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.

Questions 26 to 35 are based on the following passage.

Surfing the Internet during class doesn't just steal focus from the educator; it also hurts students who're already

struggling to

26

the material. A new study from Michigan State University, though, argues that all

students

—

including high achievers

—

see a decline in performance when they browse the Internet during class for

non-academic purposes.

To measure the effects of Internet- based distractions during class, researchers

27

500 students taking an

introductory psychology class at Michigan State University. Researchers used ACT scores as a measure of intellectual

28

. Because previous research has shown that people with high intellectual abilities are better at

29

out

distractions, researchers believed students with high ACT scores would not show a

30

decrease in performance due

to their use of digital devices. But students who surfed the web during class did worse on their exams regardless of their

ACT scores, suggesting that even the academically smartest students are harmed when they're distracted in class.

College professors are increasingly

31

alarm bells about the effects smartphones, laptops, and tablets have on

academic performance. One 2013 study of college students found that 80% of students use their phones or laptops during

class, with the average student checking their digital device 11 times in a

32

class. A quarter of students report that

their use of digital devices during class causes their grades to

33

.

Professors sometimes implement policies designed to

34

students' use of digital devices, and some instructors

even confiscate (

没收

) tablets and phones. In a world where people are increasingly dependent on their phones, though,

such strategies often fail. One international study found that 84% of people say they couldn't go a day without their

smartphones. Until students are able to

35

the pull of social networking, texting, and endlessly surfing the web,

they may continue to struggle in their classes.

A)aptitude

I

）

obscure

B)eradication

J)obsess

C) evaluated

K) raising

D)evaporated

L

）

resist

E)filtering

M

）

significant

F)grasp

N) suffer

G)legacy

O

）

typical

H) minimize

Section B

Directions:

In

this

section,

you

are

going

to

read

a

passage

with

ten

statements

attached

to

it.

Each

statement

contains

information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a

paragraph

more

than

once. Each

paragraph

is

marked with

a

letter.

Answer

the

questions

by

marking

the

corresponding

letter on

Answer Sheet 2

.

A Pioneering Woman of Science Re-Emerges after 300 Years

[A] Maria Sibylla Merian, like many European women of the 17th century, stayed busy managing a household and

rearing children. But on top of that, Merian, a German- born woman who lived in the Netherlands, also managed a

successful career as an artist, botanist, naturalist and entomologist

（昆虫学家）

.

[B]

“

She was a scientist on the level with a lot of people we spend a lot of time talking about,

”

said Kay Etheridge, a

biologist at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania who has been studying the scientific history of Merian

’

s work.

“

She didn't

do as much to change biology as Charles Darwin, but she was significant.

”

[C] At a time when natural history was a valuable tool for discovery, Merian discovered facts about plants and insects

that were not previously known. Her observations helped dismiss the popular belief that insects spontaneously emerged

from mud. The knowledge she collected over decades didn't just satisfy those curious about nature, but also provided

valuable insights into medicine and science. She was the first to bring together insects and their habitats, including food

they ate, into a single ecological composition.

[D] After years of pleasing a fascinated audience across Europe with books of detailed descriptions and life-size

paintings of familiar insects, in 1699 she sailed with her daughter nearly 5,000 miles from the Netherlands to South America

to study insects in the jungles of what is now known as Suriname. She was 52 years old. The result was her masterpiece,

Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium.

[E] In her work, she revealed a side of nature so exotic, dramatic and valuable to Europeans of the time that she

received much acclaim. But a century later, her findings came under scientific criticism. Shoddy

（粗糙的）

reproductions of

her work along with setbacks to women's roles in 18th- and 19th-century Europe resulted in her efforts being largely

forgotten.

“

It was kind of stunning when she sort of dropped off into oblivion

（遗忘）

,

”

said Dr. Etheridge.

“

Victorians

started putting women in a box, and they're still trying to crawl out of it.

”

[F] Today, the pioneering woman of the sciences has re- emerged. In recent years, feminists, historians and artists have

all praised Merian's tenacity

（坚韧）

, talent and inspirational artistic compositions. And now biologists like Dr. Etheridge

are digging into the scientific texts that accompanied her art. Three hundred years after her death, Merian will be celebrated

at an international symposium in Amsterdam this June.

[G] And last month, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium was republished. It contains 60 plates

（插图）

and

original descriptions, along with stories about Merian's life and updated scientific descriptions. Before writing

Metamorphosis, Merian spent decades documenting European plants and insects that she published in a series of books. She

began in her 20s, making textless, decorative paintings of flowers with insects.

“

Then she got really serious,

”

Dr.

Etheridge said. Merian started raising insects at home, mostly butterflies and caterpillars.

“

She would sit up all night until

they came out of the pupa

（蛹）

so she could draw them,

”

she said.

[H] The results of her decades' worth of careful observations were detailed paintings and descriptions of European

insects, followed by unconventional visuals and stories of insects and animals from a land that most at the time could only

imagine. It's possible Merian used a magnifying glass to capture the detail of the split tongues of

sphinx moths

（斯芬克

斯飞蛾）

depicted in the painting. She wrote that the two tongues combine to form one tube for drinking nectar

（花蜜）

.

Some criticized this detail later, saying there was just one tongue, but Merian wasn't wrong. She may have observed the

adult moth just as it emerged from its pupa.

For a brief moment during that stage of its life cycle, the tongue consists of

two tiny half-tubes before merging into one.

[I] It may not have been ladylike to depict a giant spider devouring a hummingbird, but when Merian did it at the turn

of the 18th century, surprisingly, nobody objected. Dr. Etheridge called it revolutionary. The image, which also contained

novel descriptions of ants, fascinated a European audience that was more concerned with the exotic story unfolding before

them than the gender of the person who painted it.

[J]

“All of these things shook up their nice, neat little view,” Dr. Etheridge said. But later, people of the Victorian era

thought differently. Her work had been reproduced, sometimes incorrectly. A few observations were deemed impossible.

“She'd been called a silly woman for saying that a spider could eat a bird,” Dr. Etheridge said. But Henry Walter Bates, a

friend of Charles Darwin, observed it and put it in book in 1863, proving Merian was correct.

[K] In the same plate, Merian depicted and described leaf-

cutter ants for the first time. “In America there are large ants

which can eat whole trees bare as a broom handle in a single night,

”

she wrote in the description. Merian noted how the

ants took the leaves below ground to their young. And she wouldn't have known this at the time, but the ants use the leaves