2011年12月英语六级考试大作战-模拟题(3)_第3页

Passage Two

　　Some unusual words describe how a person spends his or her time. For example, someone who likes to spend a lot of time sitting or lying down while watching television is sometimes called a couch potato. A couch is a piece of furniture that people sit on while watching television。

　　Robert Armstrong, an artist from California, developed the term couch potato in 1976. Several years later, he listed the term as a trademark with the United States government. Mr. Armstrong also wrote a funny book about life as a full-time television watcher. It is called the “Official Couch Potato Handbook。”

　　Couch potatoes enjoy watching television just as mouse potatoes enjoy working on computers. A computer mouse is the device that moves the pointer, on a computer screen. The description of mouse potato became popular in 1993. American writer Alice Kahn is said to have invented the term to describe young people who spend a lot of time using computers。

　　Too much time inside the house using a computer or watching television can cause someone to get cabin fever. A cabin is a simple house usually built far away from the city. People go to a cabin to relax and enjoy quiet time。

　　Cabin fever is not really a disease. However, people can experience boredom and restlessness if they spend too much time inside their homes. This is especially true during the winter when it is too cold or snowy to do things outside. Often children get cabin fever if they cannot go outside to play. So do their parents. This happens when there is so much snow that schools and even offices and stores are closed。

　　Some people enjoy spending a lot of time in their homes to make them nice places to live. This is called nesting or cocooning. Birds build nests out of sticks to hold their eggs and baby birds. Some insects build cocoons around themselves for protection while they grow and change. Nests and cocoons provide security for wildlife. So people like the idea of nests and cocoons, too。

　　Questions 29 to 31 are based on the passage you have just heard。

　　29. What do we know about the “Official Couch Potato Handbook”？

　　30. What does the writer say about cabin fever?

　　31. Which statement is true according to the passage?

　　Passage Three

　　If you can read a clock, you can know the time of day. But no one knows what time itself is. We cannot see it. We cannot touch it. We cannot hear it. We know it only by the way we mark its passing. For all our success in measuring the smallest parts of time, time remains one of the great mysteries of the universe。

　　One way to think about time is to imagine a world without time. There could be no movement, because time and movement cannot be separated. A world without time could exist only as long as there were no changes. For time and change are linked. We know that time has passed when something changes. In the real world—the world with time—changes never stop. Some changes happen only once in a while, like an eclipse of the moon. Others happen repeatedly, like the rising and setting of the sun. Humans always have noted natural events that repeat themselves. When people began to count such events, they began to measure time。

　　In early human history, the only changes that seemed to repeat themselves evenly were the movements of objects in the sky. The most easily seen result of these movements was the difference between light and darkness。

　　The sun rises in the eastern sky, producing light. It moves across the sky and sinks in the west, causing darkness. The appearance and disappearance of the sun were even and unfailing. The periods of light and darkness it created were the first accepted periods of time. We have named each period of light and darkness—one day。

　　People saw the sun rise higher in the sky during the summer than in winter. They counted the days that passed from the sun’s highest position until it returned to that position. They counted three hundred and sixty-five days. We now know that is the time Earth takes to move once around the sun. We call this period of time a year。

　　Questions 32 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard。

　　32. What is the only way people know what time itself is?

　　33. When did people begin to measure time?

　　34. What is the most easily seen result of the objects’ movements in the sky?

　　35. What is the main subject of this passage?             

　　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。

　　Within the halls of the North American International Auto Show, the world’s automakers were jockeying yesterday to promote their electric cars. But outside in the ever-changing marketplace, automakers could face a number of (36) obstacles to selling electric vehicles。

　　For one, gas prices have been falling. The auto industry has had similar experience before. In the 1970s’ gas crisis, Detroit’s automakers jumped to produce (37) profitable trucks and SUVs while neglecting smaller car lines. When oil prices spiked again, the companies were unprepared for consumer (38) purchases to swing back to fuel-efficient vehicles. Over this summer, as oil prices spiked at an all-time high, consumers cried for smaller, more energy-saving vehicles. Now that prices at the pump are under $2 a gallon, analysts say consumers are (39) migrating back to trucks and sport-utility vehicles。

　　Also (40) complicating the move toward electric cars is that individual states are pursuing different environmental (41) agendas. Last month, Hawaii teamed up with Silicon Valley upstart Better Place to build electric-car (42) recharging stations at parking spaces. But California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has thrown his weight behind an (43) approach centered on hydrogen fuel cells, (44) launching a program to ensure that every Californian has access to hydrogen fuel along the state’s major highways by 2010。

　　Moreover, the infrastructure for electric cars is missing. While plug-in vehicles are ideal for urban drivers, few will have access to a plug to charge the car overnight. (45) Meanwhile, utilities aren’t about to invest in thousands of public plug-in stations until there are thousands of plug-in drivers on the road。

　　And then there’s the battery dilemma. (46) Automakers can’t afford the batteries for these electric vehicles until they are manufactured in high volumes. But batteries can’t be produced in such large quantities until automakers produce a high volume of electric cars。