2018年12月英语六级第一套

2018年12月英语六级真题（第一套）（文都网校版）

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
can cite examples to illustrate your views. You should write at least 150
words but no more than 200 words.
PartⅡ Listening Comprehension (30 minutes)
Section A
Directions: In this section, you will hear two long conversations. At
the end of each conversation, you will hear four questions. Both the
conversation 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 1 with a single line through the centre.
Questions 1 to 4 are based on the conversation you have just
heard.
1. A) It can benefit professionals and non-professionals alike.
B) It lists the various challenges physicists are confronting.

C) It describes how some mysteries of physics were solved.
D) It is one of the most fascinating physics books ever written.
2. A) Physicists’ contribution to humanity.
B) Stories about some female physicists.
C) Historical evolution of modern physics.
D) Women’s changing attitudes to physics.
3. A)By exposing a lot of myths in physics.
B) By describing her own life experiences.
C) By including lots of fascinating knowledge.
D) By telling anecdotes about famous professors.
4. A) It avoids detailing abstract concepts of physics.
B) It contains a lot of thought- provoking questions.
C) It demonstrates how they can become physicists.
D)It provides experiments they can do themselves.
Questions 5 to 8 are based on the conversation you have just
heard.

5. A) He is too busy to finish his assignment in time.
B) He does not know what kid of topic to write on.
C) He does not understand the professor’s instructions.
D) He has no idea how to proceed with his dissertation.
6. A) It is too broad.
B) It is outdated.
C) It is challenging.
D) It is interesting.
7. A) Biography.
B) Nature.
C) Photography.
D) Beauty.
8. A) Improve his cumulative grade.
B) Develop his reading ability.
C) Stick to the topic assigned.

D) List the parameters first.
Section B
Directions:In this section, you will hear two passages. At the end of
each passage, you will hear three or four 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 1
with a single line through the centre.
Questions 9 to 11 are based on the passage you have just heard.
9. A) The unprecedented high temperature in Greenland.
B) The collapse of ice on the northern tip of Greenland.
C) The unusual clod spell in the Arctic area in October.
D) The rapid change of Arctic temperature within a day.
10.A) It has created a totally new climate pattern.
B) It will pose a serious threat to many species.
C) It typically appears about once every ten years.
D) It has puzzled the climate scientists for decades.

11.A) Extinction of Arctic wildlife.
B) Iceless summers in the Arctic.
C) Emigration of indigenous people.
D) Better understanding of ecosystems.
Questions 12 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard.
12.A) A good start.
B) A detailed plan.
C) A strong determination.
D) A scientific approach.
13.A) Most people get energized after a sufficient rest.
B) Most people tend to have finite source of energy.
C) It is vital to take breaks between demanding mental tasks.
D) It is most important to have confidence in one’s willpower.
14. A) They could keep on working longer.
B) They could do more challenging tasks.

C) They found it easier to focus on work at hand.
D) They held more positive attitudes toward life.
15. A) They are part of their nature.
B) They are subject to change.
C) They are related to culture.
D) They are beyond control.
Section C
Directions: In this section, you will hear three recordings of lectures
or talks followed by three or four questions. The recordings will be
played 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 1 with a single line through the
centre.
Questions 16 to 18 are based on the recording you have just heard.
16. A) About half of current jobs might be automated.
B) The jobs of doctors and lawyers would be threatened.
C) The jobs market is becoming somewhat unpredictable.

D) Machine learning would prove disruptive by 2013.
17. A) They are widely applicable for massive open online courses.
B) They are now being used by numerous high school teachers.
C) They could read as many as 10,000 essays in a single minute.
D) They could grade high-school essays just like human teacher.
18. A) It needs instructions throughout the process.
B) It dose poorly on frequency, high-volume tasks.
C) It has to rely on huge amounts of previous data.
D) It is slow when it comes to tracking novel things.
Questions 19 to 22 are based on the recording you have just heard.
19. A) The engineering problems with solar power.
B) The generation of steam with the latest technology.
C) The importance of exploring new energy sources.
D) The theoretical aspects of sustainable energy.
20. A) Drive trains with solar energy.

B) Upgrade the city’s train facilities.
C) Build a new ten-kilometre railway line.
D) Cut-down the city’s energy consumption.
21. A) Build a tank for keeping calcium oxide.
B) Find a new material for storing energy.
C) Recover super-heated steam.
D) Collect carbon dioxide gas.
22. A) The lack of supervision by both the nation and local
government.
B) The impact of the current economics crisis at home and abroad.
C) The poor management of day centres and home help services.
D) The poor relation between national heath and social care
services.
Questions 23 to 25 are based on the recording you have just heard.
23. A) It was mainly provided by voluntary services.
B) It mainly caters to the need of privileged.

C) It called for a sufficient number of volunteers.
D) It has deteriorated over the past sixty years.
24. A) Their longer lifespans.
B) Fewer home helpers available.
C) Their preference for private services.
D) More of them suffering serious illness.
25. A) They are unable to pay for health services.
B) They have long been discriminated against.
C) They are vulnerable to illness and diseases.
D) They have contributed a great deal to society.
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.
In what’s probably the craziest headline I’ve ever written, I’ve
reported that 26 in livestock protection are happening with scientists
painting eyes on the butts of cows. The experiment is based upon the
idea that farmers who’re protecting their herd from lions would shoot
and kill lions in an effort to protect their livestock. While this makes a
lot of sense, it results in many lion deaths that 27 would have been
unnecessary. Researchers in Australia have been 28 and testing a
method of trickery to make lions think they are being watched by the
painted eyes on cow butts.
This idea is based on the principle that lions and other 29 are far
less likely to attack when they feel they are being watched. As
conservation areas become smaller, lions are increasingly coming into
contact with human populations, which are expanding to the 30 of
these protected areas.
Efforts like painting eyes on cow butts may seem crazy at first, but
they could make actual headway in the fight for conservation. “If the
method works, it could provide farmers in Botswana-and 31 —with a

low-cost, sustainable tool to protect their livestock, and a way to keep
lions safe from being killed.”
Lions are 32 ambush(埋伏)hunters, so when they feel their prey has
33 them, they usually give up on the hunt. Researchers are 34 testing
their idea on a select herd of cattle. They have painted half of the cows
with eyes and left the other half as normal. Through satellite tracking of
both the herd and the lions in the area, they will be able to 35 if their
psychological trickery will work to help keep farmers from shooting
lions.
A) advances I) otherwise
B) boundaries J) predators
C) challenging K) primarily
D) currently L) retorted
E) determine M) spotted
F) devising N) testimonies
G) elsewhere O) wrestle
H) nevertheless
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.
Resilience Is About How You Recharge, Not How You Endure
[A] As constant travelers and parents of a 2-year- old, we sometimes
fantasize about how much work we can do when one of us gets on a
plane, undistracted by phones, friends, or movies. We race to get all our
ground work done: packing, going through security, doing a last-
minute work call, calling each other, then boarding the plane. Then,
when we try to have that amazing work session in flight, we get nothing
done. Even worse, after refreshing our email or reading the same
studies over and over, we are too exhausted when we land to soldier on
with(继续处理) the emails that have inevitably still piled up.
[B] why should flying deplete us? We’re just sitting there doing
nothing. Why can’t we be tougher, more resilient(有复原力的) and
determined in our work so we can accomplish all of the goals we set for
ourselves? Based on our current research, we have come to realize that
the problem is not our hectic schedule or the plane travel itself; the
problem comes from a misconception of what it means to be resilient,
and the resulting impact of overworking.

[C] We often take a militaristic, “tough” approach to resilience
and determination like a Marine pulling himself through the mud, a
boxer going one more round, or a football player picking himself up off
the ground for one more play. We believe that the longer we tough it
out, the tougher we are, and therefore the more successful we will be.
However, this entire conception is scientifically inaccurate.
[D] The very lack of a recovery period is dramatically holding back
our collective ability to be resilient and successful. Research has found
that there is a direct correlation between lack of recovery and increased
incidence of health and safety problems. And lack of recovery —
whether by disrupting sleep with thoughts of work or having
continuous cognitive arousal by watching our phones —is costing our
companies $$62 billion a year in lost productivity.
[E] And just because work stops, it doesn’t mean we are
recovering. We “stop” work sometimes at 5pm, but then we spend
the night wrestling with solutions to work problems, talking about our
work over dinner, and falling asleep thinking about how much work
we’ll do tomorrow. In a study just released, researchers from Norway
found that 7.8% of Norwegians have become workaholics(工作狂). The
scientists cite a definition “workaholism”as “being overly concerned
about work, driven by an uncontrollable work motivation, and investing

so much time and effort in work that it impairs other important life
areas.”
[F] We believe that the number of people who fit that definition
includes the majoriy of American workers, which prompted us to begin
a study of workaholism in the U.S. Our study will use a large corporate
dataset from a major medical company to examine how technology
extends our working hours and thus interferes with necessary cognitive
recovery, resulting in huge health care costs and turnover costs for
employers.
[G] The misconception of resilience is often bred from an early age.
Parents trying to teach their children resilience might celebrate a high
school student staying up until 3am to finish a science fair project. What
a distortion of resilience! A resilient child is a well-rested one. When an
exhausted student goes to school, he risks hurting everyone on the
road with his impaired driving; he doesn’t have the cognitive
resources to do well on his English test; he has lower self-control with
his friends; and at home, he is moody with his parents. Overwork and
exhaustion are the opposite of resilience and the bad habits we acquire
when we’re young only magnify when we hit the workforce.
[H] As Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz have written, if you have too
much time in the performance zone, you need more time in the

recovery zone, otherwise you risk burnout. Gathering your resources to
“try hard” requires burning energy in order to overcome your
currently low arousal level. It also worsens exhaustion. Thus the more
imbalanced we become due to overworking, the more value there is in
activities the allow us to return to a state of balance. The value of a
recovery period rises in proportion to the amount of work required of
us.
[I] So how do we recover and build resilience? Most people assume
that if you stop doing a task like answering emails or writhing a paper,
your brain will naturally recover, so that when you start again later in
the day or the next morning, you’ll have your energy back. But surely
everyone reading this has had times when you lie in bed for hours,
unable to fall asleep because your brains is thinking about work. If you
lie in bed for eight hours, you may have rested, but you can still feel
exhausted the next day. That’s because rest and recovery are not the
same thing.
[J] If you’re trying to build resilience at work, you need adequate
internal and external recovery periods. As researchers Zijlstra, Cropley
and Rydstedt write in their 2014 paper: “Internal recovery refers to the
shorter periods of relaxation that take place within the frames of the
work day or the work setting in the form of short scheduled or

unscheduled breaks, by shifting attention or changing to other work
tasks when the mental or physical resources required for the initial task
are temporarily depleted or exhausted. External recovery refers to
actions that take place outside of work—e.g. in the free time between
the work days, and during weekends, holidays or vacations.” If after
work you lie around on your bed and get irritated by political
commentary on your phone or get stressed thinking about decisions
about how to renovate your home, your brain has not received a break
from high mental arousal states. Our brains need a rest as much as our
bodies do.
[K] If you really want to build resilience, you can start by
strategically stopping. Give yourself the resources to be tough by
creating internal and external recovery periods. Amy Blankson describes
how to strategically stop during the day by using technology to control
overworking. She suggests downloading the Instant or Moment apps to
see how many times you turn on your phone each day. You can also use
apps like Offtime or Unplugged to create tech free zones by
strategically scheduling automatic airplane modes. The average person
turns on their phone 150 times every day. If every distraction took only
1 minute, that would account for 2.5 hours a day.

[L] In addition, you can take a cognitive break every 90 minutes to
charge your batteries. Try to not have lunch at your desk, but instead
spend time outside or with your friends—not talking about work. Take
all of your paid time off, which not only gives you recovery periods, but
raises your productivity and likelihood of promotion.
[M] As for us, we’ve started using our plane time as a work-free
zone, and thus time to dip into the recovery phase. The results have
been fantastic. We are usually tired already by the time we get on a
plane, and the crowded space and unstable internet connection make
work more challenging. Now, instead of swimming upstream, we relax,
sleep, watch movies, or listen to music. And when we get off the plane,
instead of being depleted, we feel recovered and ready to return to the
performance zone.
36. It has been found that inadequate recovery often leads to poor
health and accidents.
37. Mental relaxation is much needed, just as physical relaxation is.
38. Adequate rest not only helps one recover, but also increases
one’s work efficiency.
39. The author always has a hectic time before taking a flight.

40. Recovery may not take place even if one seems to have stopped
working.
41. It is advised that technology be used to prevent people from
overworking.
42. Contrary to popular belief, rest does not equal recovery.
43. The author has come to see that his problem results from a
misunderstanding of the meaning of resilience.
44. People’s distorted view about resilience may have developed
from their upbringing.
45. People tend to think the more determined they are, the greater
their success will be.
Section C
Directions: There are 2 passages in this passage is
followed by some questions or unfinished 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 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.
Children with attention problems in early childhood were 40% less
likely to graduate from high school, says a new study from Duke
University.
The study included 386 kindergarteners from schools in the Fast
Track Project, a multi- site clinical trial in the U.S. that in 1991 began
tracking how children developed across their lives.
With this study, researchers examined early academic attention and
socio-emotional skills and how each contributed to academic success
into young adulthood.
They found that early attention skills were the most consistent
predictor of academic success, and that likability by peers also had a
modest effect on academic performance.
By fifth grade, children with early attention difficulties had lower
grades and reading achievement scores than their peers. As fifth-
graders, children with early attention problems obtained average
reading scores at least 3% lower than their contemporaries’ and
grades at least 8% lower than those of their peers. This was after
controlling for IQ, socio-economic status and academic skills at school
entry.

Although these may not seem like large effects, the impact of early
attention problems continued throughout the children’s academic
careers. Lower reading achievement scores and grades in fifth grade
contributed to reduced grades in middle school and thereby
contributed to a 40% lower high school graduation rate.
“The children we identified as having attention difficulties were
not diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder(注意力缺乏多
动症)(ADHD), although some may have had the disorder. Our findings
suggest that even more modest attention difficulties can increase the
risk of negative academic outcomes,” said David Rabiner, an associate
dean of Duke’s Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, whose research has
focused on ADHD and interventions to improve academic performance
in children with attention difficulties.
Social acceptance by peers in early childhood also predicted grades
in fifth grade, Children not as liked by their first-grade peers had
slightly lower grades in fifth grade, while those with higher social
acceptance had higher grades.
“This study shows the importance of so-called ‘non-cognitive’
or soft skills in contributing to children’s positive peer relationships,
which, in turn, contribute to their academic successs,” said Kenneth
Dodge, director of the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy.

The results highlight the need to develop effective early
interventions to help those with attention problems stay on track
academically and for educators to encourage positive peer
relationships, the researchers said.
“We’re learning that student success requires a more
comprehensive approach, one that incorporates not only academic
skills but also social, self-regulatory and attention skills,” Dodge said.
“If we neglect any of these areas, the child’s development lags. If we
attend to these areas, a child’s success may reinforce itself with
positive feedback loops.”
46. What is the focus of the new study from Duke University?
A) The contributor to children’s early attention.
B) The predictors of children’s academic success.
C) The factors that affect children’s emotional well-being.
D) The determinants of children’s development of social skills.
47. How did the researchers ensure that their findings are valid?
A) By attaching equal importance to all possible variables examined.
B) By collecting as many typical samples as were necessary.

C) By preventing them from being affected by factors not under
study.
D) By focusing on the family background of children being studied.
48. What do we learn from the findings of the Duke study?
A) Modest students are generally more attentive than their
contemporaries.
B) There are more children with attention difficulties than previously
thought.
C) Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder accounts for most
academic failures.
D) Children’s academic performance may suffer from even slight
inattention.
49. What does the Duke study find about children better accepted
by peers?
A) They do better academically.
B) They are easy to get on with.
C) They are teachers’ favorites.

D) They care less about grades.
50. What can we conclude from the Duke study?
A) Children’s success is related to their learning environment.
B) School curriculum should cover a greater variety of subjects.
C) Social skills are playing a key role in children’s development.
D) An all-round approach should be adopted in school education.
Passage Two
Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.
On Jan. 9,2007, Steve Jobs formally announced Apple’s
“revolutionary mobile phone”— a device that combined the
functionality of an iPod, phone and Internet communication into a
single unit, navigated by touch.
It was a huge milestone in the development of smartphones, which
are now owned by a majority of American adults and are increasingly
common across the globe.
As smartphones have multiplied, so have questions about their
impact on how we live and how we work. Often the advantages of
convenient, mobile technology are both obvious and taken for granted,

leaving more subtle topics for concerned discussion: Are smartphones
disturbing children’s sleep? Is an inability to get away from work
having a negative impact on health? And what are the implications for
privacy?
But today, on the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, let’s take a
moment to consider a less obvious advantage: the potential for
smartphone technology to revolutionize behavioral science. That’s
because, for the first time in human history, a large proportion of the
species is in continuous contact with technology that can record key
features of an individual’s behavior and environment.
Researchers have already begun to use smartphones in social
scientific research, either to query people regularly as they engage in
their normal live or to record activity using the device’s built-in
sensors. These studies are confirming, challenging and extending
what’s been found using more traditional approaches, in which people
report how they behaved in real life or participate in relatively short and
artificial laboratory- based tasks.
Such studies are just first steps. As more data are collected and
methods for analysis improve, researchers will be in a better position to
identify how different experiences, behaviors and environments relate
to each other and evolve over time, with the potential to improve

people’s productivity and wellbeing in a variety of domains. Beyond
revealing population-wide patterns, the right combination of data and
analysis can also help individuals identify unique characteristics of their
own behavior, including conditions that could indicate the need for
some form of intervention—such as an unusual increase in behaviors
that signal a period of depression.
Smartphone-based data collection comes at an appropriate time in
the evolution of psychological science. Today, the field is in transition,
moving away from a focus on laboratory studies with undergraduate
participants towards more complex, real-world situations studied with
more diverse groups of people. Smartphones offer new tools for
achieving these ambitions, providing rich data about everyday
behaviors in a variety of contexts.
So here’s another way in which smartphones might transform the
way we live and work: by offering insights into human psychology and
behavior and, thus, supporting smarter social science.
does the author say about the negative impact of
smartphones?
A)It has been overshadowed by the positive impact.
B)It has more often than not been taken for granted.

C)It is not so obvious but has caused some concern.
D)It is subtle but should by no means be overstated.
is considered a less obvious advantage of smartphone
technology?
A)It systematically records real human interactions.
B)It helps people benefit from technological advances.
C)It brings people into closer contact with each other.
D)It greatly improves research on human behavior.
characterizes traditional psychological research?
A)It is based on huge amounts of carefully collected data.
B)It relies on lab observations and participants’ reports.
C)It makes use of the questionnaire method.
D)It is often expensive and time- consuming.
will future psychological studies benefit individuals?
A)By helping them pin down their unusual behaviors.
B)By helping them maintain a positive state of mind.

C)By helping them live their lives in a unique way.
D)By helping them cope with abnormal situations.
do we learn about current psychological studies?
A)They are going through a period of painful transition.
B)They are increasingly focused on real-life situations.
C)They are conducted in a more rigorous manner.
D)They are mainly targeted towards undergraduates.
Part Ⅳ Translation (30 minutes)
Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to translate a
passage from Chinese into should write your answer on
Answer Sheet 2.
中国越来越重视公共图书馆，并鼓励人们充分加以利用 。新近公布的统计
数字表明，中国的公共图书馆数量在逐年增长。许多图书馆通过翻新和扩建，
为读者创造了更为安静、舒适的环境。大型公共图书馆不仅提供种类繁多的参
考资料，而且定期举办讲座 、展览等活动。近年来，也出现了许多数字图书
馆，从而节省了存放图书所需的空间。一些图书馆还推出 了自动服务秕，使读
者借书还书更加方便，进一步满足了读者的需求。