品德与生活2013年12月英语新六级样题及答案(新题型版)

2021年1月13日发(作者：汤子博)
样卷
Section AQuestions 36 to 45 are based on the following passage. To understand why we should be
concerned about how young people read, it helps to know something about the way the ability to read evolved. Unlike
the ability to understand and produce spoken language, the ability to read must be painstakingly 36 by each
individual. The “reading circuits” we construct in the brain can be 37 or they can be robust, depending on how often
and how 38 we use them. The deep reader enters a state of hypnotic trance (心醉神迷的状态). When readers are
enjoying the experience the most, the pace of their reading 39 slows. The combination of fast, fluent decoding of
words and slow, unhurried progress on the page gives deep readers time to enrich their reading with reflection and
analysis. It gives them time to establish an 40 relationship with the author, the two of them 41 in a long and warm
conversation like people falling in love. This is not reading as many young people know it. Their reading is
instrumental: the difference between what literary critic Frank Kermode calls “carnal (肉体的) reading” and “spiritual
reading.” If we allow our offspring to believe carnal reading is all there is — if we don’t open the door to spiritual
reading, through an early 42 on discipline and practice — we will have 43 them of an enjoyable experience they would
not otherwise encounter. Observing young people’s 44 to digital devices, some progressive educators talk about
“meeting kids where they are,” molding instruction around their onscreen habits. This is mistaken. We need, 45 , to
show them someplace they’ve never been, a place only deep reading can take them.注意:此部分试题请在答题卡 2 上
作答。A) acquired B) actually C) attachment D) cheatedE) engaged F) feeble G) illicit H) insistenceI) intimate J)
notwithstanding K) petition L) rather M) scarcely N) swayed O) vigorously Section B Into the
Unknown The world has never seen population ageing before. Can it cope? [A]Until the early 1990s
nobody much thought about whole populations getting older. The UN had the foresight to convene a “world assembly
on ageing” back in 1982, but that came and went. By 1994 the World Bank had noticed that something big was
happening. In a report entitled “Averting the Old Age Crisis”, it argued that pension arrangements in most countries
were unsustainable. [B] For the next ten years a succession of books, mainly by Americans, sounded the
alarm. They had titles like Young vs Old, Gray Dawn and The Coming Generational Storm, and their message was
blunt: health-care systems were heading for the rocks, pensioners were taking young people to the cleaners, and
soon there would be intergenerational warfare. [C] Since then the debate has become less emotional, not least
because a lot more is known about the subject. Books, conferences and research papers have multiplied.
International organisations such as the OECD and the EU issue regular reports. Population ageing is on every agenda,
from G8 economic conferences to NATO summits. The World Economic Forum plans to consider the future of pensions
and health care at its prestigious Davos conference early next year. The media, including this newspaper, are giving
the subject extensive coverage. [D]Whether all that attention has translated into sufficient action is another
question. Governments in rich countries now accept that their pension and health-care promises will soon become
unaffordable, and many of them have embarked on reforms, but so far only timidly. That is not surprising: politicians
with an eye on the next election will hardly rush to introduce unpopular measures that may not bear fruit for years,
perhaps decades. [E] The outline of the changes needed is clear. To avoid fiscal (财政的) meltdown, public
pensions and health- care provision will have to be reined back severely and taxes may have to go up. By far the most
effective method to restrain pension spending is to give people the opportunity to work longer, because it increases
tax revenues and reduces spending on pensions at the same time. It may even keep them alive longer. John Rother,
the AARP’s head of policy and strategy, points to studies showing that other things being equal, people who remain
at work have lower death rates than their retired peers. [F] Younger people today mostly accept that they will
have to work for longer and that their pensions will be less generous. Employers still need to be persuaded that older
workers are worth holding on to. That may be because they have had plenty of younger ones to choose from, partly
thanks to the post-war baby-boom and partly because over the past few decades many more women have entered
the labour force, increasing employers’ choice. But the reservoir of women able and willing to take up paid work is
running low, and the baby-boomers are going grey. [G]In many countries immigrants have been filling such
gaps in the labour force as have already emerged (and remember that the real shortage is still around ten years off).
Immigration in the developed world is the highest it has ever been, and it is making a useful difference. In still-fertile
America it currently accounts for about 40% of total population growth, and in fast-ageing western Europe for about
90%. [H]On the face of it, it seems the perfect solution. Many developing countries have lots of young people in
need of jobs; many rich countries need helping hands that will boost tax revenues and keep up economic growth. But
over the next few decades labour forces in rich countries are set to shrink so much that inflows of immigrants would
have to increase enormously to compensate: to at least twice their current size in western Europe’s most youthful
countries, and three times in the older ones. Japan would need a large multiple of the few immigrants it has at present.
Public opinion polls show that people in most rich countries already think that immigration is too high. Further big
increases would be politically unfeasible. [I] To tackle the problem of ageing populations at its root, “old”
countries would have to rejuvenate (使年轻) themselves by having more of their own children. A number of them have
tried, some more successfully than others. But it is not a simple matter of offering financial incentives or providing
more child care. Modern urban life in rich countries is not well adapted to large families. Women find it hard to
combine family and career. They often compromise by having just one child. [J] And if fertility in ageing
countries does not pick up? It will not be the end of the world, at least not for quite a while yet, but the world will
slowly become a different place. Older societies may be less innovative and more strongly disinclined to take risks
than younger ones. By 2025 at the latest, about half the voters in America and most of those in western European
countries will be over 50—and older people turn out to vote in much greater numbers than younger ones. Academic
studies have found no evidence so far that older voters have used their power at the ballot box to push for policies that
specifically benefit them, though if in future there are many more of them they might start doing so. [K]
Nor is there any sign of the intergenerational warfare predicted in the 1990s. After all, older people themselves mostly
have families. In a recent study of parents and grown- up children in 11 European countries, Karsten Hank of
Mannheim University found that 85% of them lived within 25km of each other and the majority of them were in touch
at least once a week. [L] Even so, the shift in the centre of gravity to older age groups is bound to have a
profound effect on societies, not just economically and politically but in all sorts of other ways too. Richard Jackson
and Neil Howe of America’s CSIS, in a thoughtful book called The Graying of the Great Powers, argue that, among
other things, the ageing of the developed countries will have a number of serious security implications.
[M]For example, the shortage of young adults is likely to make countries more reluctant to commit the few they have
to military service. In the decades to 2050, America will find itself playing an ever-increasing role in the developed
world’s defence effort. Because America’s population will still be growing when that of most other developed countries
is shrinking, America will be the only developed country that still matters geopolitically (地缘政治上).Ask me in 2020
[N] There is little that can be done to stop population ageing, so the world will have to live with it. But some of the
consequences can be alleviated. Many experts now believe that given the right policies, the effects, though grave,
need not be catastrophic. Most countries have recognised the need to do something and are beginning to act.
[O] But even then there is no guarantee that their efforts will work. What is happening now is
historicallyunprecedented. Ronald Lee, director of the Centre on the Economics and Demography of Ageing at the
University of California, Berkeley, puts it briefly and clearly: “We don’t really know what population ageing will be like,
because nobody has done it yet.”注意:此部分试题请在答题卡 2 上作答。
46. Employers should realise it is important to keep older workers in the workforce.
47. A recent study found that most old people in some European countries had regular weekly contact with their adult
children.
48. Few governments in rich countries have launched bold reforms to tackle the problem of population ageing.
49. In a report published some 20 years ago, the sustainability of old-age pension systems in most countries was
called into doubt.
50. Countries that have a shortage of young adults will be less willing to send them to war.
51. One-child families are more common in ageing societies due to the stress of urban life and the difficulties of
balancing family and career.
52. A series of books, mostly authored by Americans, warned of conflicts between the older and younger generations.
53. Compared with younger ones, older societies tend to be less innovative and take fewer risks.
54. The best solution to the pension crisis is to postpone the retirement age.
55. Immigration as a means to boost the shrinking labour force may meet with resistance in some rich countries.
Section C Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or