2023年12月9日发(作者：)
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六级听力原文
Part II Listening Comprehension
Section A
Questions 1 to 4 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
W: (1) Mr. David Jackson, a staff writer at the New Yorker, is known for his
non-fiction books of adventure. Today, we go on a different kind of adventure:
Jackson’s life of parenting his offspring. David, as a parent of an 11- and a
14-year-old, what is the most interesting issue you are dealing with right now?
M: It’s easy to focus on the challenges, but so far, I find these ages to be kind of
wonderful. (2) They are independent, and they have their own curiosities and
obsessions. You can talk to them about fairly sophisticated subject matter such as
politics.
W: Yes, that does sound refreshing compared with talking to younger children. Do
they ask you to proofread their essays?
M: Certainly, with writing they do. (3) I really just try to be encouraging. I think at
this age, editorial guidance is less important than encouragement.
W: Are there books that you think are important that your children read, and that all
children read?
M: My general thought is to read widely and to incorporate a love for reading.
Learning to love to read, I think, is the optimal thing, because it gives you a skill you
can take anywhere.
W: So you’re not too concerned like some parents with the content they’re reading? I
know I have some worries about that.
M: Yeah, read what you like. If a child loves graphic novels or comic books, whatever
it is, that is turning them on to read and turning on their imagination.
W: (4) I feel that children’s tastes in books change as they reach adolescence. I know
that mine certainly did when I was a teenager. What do you think?
M: I think it’s especially important as they get older to read subject matter that’ll open
their eyes to the world and people. So I think both fiction and non-fiction are really
important because they give you the power to begin to perceive the world through the
lives of others.
1. What do we learn about David Jackson from the conversation?
2. What does the man think of young teenagers?
3. How does the man help his kids with their essays?
4. What does the woman say about herself when she
Questions 5 to 8 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
M: (5) In this episode of Money Talks, our guest is Molly Sanders, a university student
and a successful young entrepreneur. Molly, tell us about your business.
W: Well, I sell specialty clothes through a website, mainly for women who have trouble finding suitable clothes in main street shops because of their height or weight.
But I do some men’s clothes too.
M: How did you get started in this business at such a young age? Are you studying
fashion design?
W: Actually, I’m majoring in finance, but I’ve always loved clothes. And I started
making my own at 14.
M: Did you have any sort of training in design or sewing? Or was it a natural ability?
W: I’d have to say no to both. (6) No one taught me to make clothes and most of the
things I made at first were disasters.
M: Why did you persevere? I think most people would give up if they kept failing,
especially at that age.
W: I kept on out of necessity. (7) As you can see, I’m very tall and I couldn’t find
clothes that tit me in ordinary shops. So I kept trying and developed my skills over
time.
M: Well, my notes say you earned $50,000 in profits last year, an extraordinary
amount for a 20-year-old student. How did that happen? Did you see a gap in the
market and decide to fill it?
W. No. When I started university, some classmates complimented my clothes. And
when I said I made them myself, other tall women started asking if I would make
theirs. And I did. And before I knew it, I was an entrepreneur.
M: So what are your plans for the future? Do you intend to open a physical store?
W: No. I’ll keep things online to keep costs down. (8)But I will add more clothes for
children, both girls and boys, and possibly even for infants. And I hope to add to my
range of designs for men.
5. What do we learn about the woman?
6. What does the woman say about the clothes she made at first?
7. Why did the woman persevere in making clothes for herself?
8. What does the woman plan to do in the future?
Section B
Questions 9 to 11 are based on the passage you have just heard.
Researchers have identified a potent new antibiotic compound using artificial
intelligence. The antibiotic can kill very dangerous bacteria. According to a study
published in the journal Cell, the compound successfully removed deadly strains of
bacteria in mice which are resistant to all known antibiotics.
(9) The researchers say this is the first time that artificial intelligence has been
used to find a powerful new antibiotic molecule. Why does this matter? The answer is
antibiotic resistance. This happens when bacteria develop the ability to survive the
medications designed to kill them.
(10) Antibiotic resistance is a serious threat to health and the problem is growing.
This makes finding new antibiotics very important. However, in recent decades, very
few have been developed, and those that have tend to be very similar to drugs already available. The searches also tend to only focus on a narrow spectrum of chemical
compounds, but this is where artificial intelligence comes in. Why? To find new drugs,
scientists screen molecules to predict how effective they might be. Typically, such
screening is done by humans in the lab, which is both costly and slow. Artificial
intelligence is different. It’s fast, and it can process a high volume. It can screen
hundreds of millions of compounds to identify a few interesting candidates that
require experimental testing.
(11) Artificial intelligence is also able to predict if compounds are likely to be
toxic. Some experts assert that this work signifies a paradigm shift in antibiotic
discovery. It could change drug discovery more generally.
9. What have researchers done for the first time in history?
10. What makes it important to find new antibiotic
11. What does the passage say artificial intelligence is able to do in antibiotic
research?
Questions 12 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard.
A recent study overturned what we think we know about lying. (12-1) Most of us
have a theory about how to tell if someone is telling a lie. We may develop that theory
from observations of those people we know well and see regularly, but we tend to
generalize what we gather from that unscientific daily research and make it a
universal theory.
So we might imagine that liars have evasive eyes, or the opposite—they simply
stare at you. Or perhaps it is more generally nervous behavior we associate with lies.
(12-2) Whatever the particular theory, it’s usually based on close observation of
people we know. And we get lots of practice. (13) On average, we’re lied to some 200
times per day. These are mostly harmless lies, but lies nonetheless.
But there’s a problem with our theories, even though they’re based on all these
observations. (14) The average person—you and me—tested rigorously on how well
we detect lies fails to do better than chance. That’s well established over many studies
and lots of attempts by researchers to work out reliable ways to detect lies. It’s even
relatively easy to fool lie detectors, the gold standard of lie detection, by training
yourself in breathing techniques and symptom suppression.
Is there any way to get better at detecting lies? The new research offers some
surprising advice. (15) Stop looking and listen instead. It turns out that if we’re unable
to see the face, but rather focus on the voice of the person in question, our accuracy
rate improves considerably.
12. According to the passage, how do most people detect lying?
13. What does the passage say about most lies?
14. What have many studies uncovered about the average person’s lie detection?
15. What advice does the new research offer regarding lie detection?
Section C Questions 16 to 18 are based on the recording you have just heard.
Appear to be submissive, humble, grateful and undemanding; show great
pleasure when a doctor comes into your room, even if the visit is brief and useless.
Don’t challenge anyone with authority unless you are famous or very rich.
Those are a few strategies for dealing with today’s American medical
establishment. (16) What patients want is to be treated with respect and consideration.
But in my experience, too few hospitals and doctors are ready to do that. In his book,
A Whole New Life, novelist Reynolds Price recalls that his doctors chose a crowded
hallway as the place to tell him he might have a tumor on his spinal cord. It did not
occur to the two physicians that a hallway was not the most appropriate place for that
particular piece of news.
My surgeon, who is in his mid-thirties, looks tired. He has been overwhelmed
with patients who have fallen on the winter ice. He is a witty man, but sometimes his
wit is unwelcome.
"The health insurance company Blue Cross wants me to put you out in the snow
tomorrow afternoon," he tells me after I have been in the hospital for more than a
week. I’m terrified because I have no idea where to 80. I cannot walk or even lift my
leg a few inches. The hospital social worker strikes me as an idiot. But my complaints
about her only annoy my surgeon. "I have to work with these people," he tells my
friend, Dr. Karen Brudney, when she mercifully intervenes on my behalf and arranges
for me to be transferred to another hospital.
"If you say one negative thing, they get defensive," she tells me later. "They have
this kind of institutional loyalty. (17) Always bring an advocate, that is, any other
person with you to the hospital, and write down every single question and the answer,
the name of every doctor and nurse. When people know you have their names, they
behave better. And," Brudney adds, "if you, as a patient, suggest that you might like to
control even part of the situation or be consulted or informed, then you are considered
difficult. (18) They want you to be totally passive. The entire health care system,
particularly hospitals and nursing homes, exists for reasons that have nothing to do
with taking care of patients. Patients are incidental. ”
16. What does the speaker say about most American hospitals?
17. What does Karen Brudney suggest patients do?
18. What do American doctors expect their patients to be, according to Karen
Brudney?
Questions 19 to 21 are based on the recording you have just heard.
There are probably teams you’ve worked with but you never want to work with
again. But there must have also been other teams that you would prize reuniting with
professionally. In other words, your team had vitality. (19) Vitality comes about when
the ties people form with their fellow team members are such that they stay connected
even after the team breaks up. What characteristics of a team make its members more likely to stay in contact
despite no longer working together? This question has been answered recently in a
study published in a business journal.
One of the two key factors the research team discovered is sameness.
Specifically, sharing the same gender or ethnic origin. (20) The more members of a
team share similar demographics, the more inclined they will be to remain associates
long after the team has served its purpose. After ties are established, similarity
strengthens them. As a result, they regard these individuals with greater trust and
mutual understanding, which motivates them to seek further opportunities for
collaboration. In effect, people tend to create stronger and longer-lasting connections
with similar others. Someone who looks and sounds different from us may have the
resources we need to be more successful. Yet, we find them to be significantly less
credible simply because they are different. If you are a fierce advocate of workplace
diversity, you’ll no doubt be horrified by such a revelation.
The second factor identified by the researchers is the quality of the relationships
among the team members. The more they trust one another, share the same goals and
depend on each other for the achievement of those goals, the stronger their chances of
maintaining their connections, despite no longer working as one team. Teams with
quality relationships have a shared belief that it’s safe to take risks with each other,
and their members are obliged to share the workload and help out.
From personal experience, I can see both the truth and the inconsistency of such
studies. The truth is some of my closest friendships were formed as a result of having
worked together on teams, and I actively seek opportunities to work with them again.
(21) The inconsistency, though, is that I’ve never worked for a team more successful
and cohesive than the one of which I am a member right now. And yet, the four of us
have very little in common and are completely different demographically. So I am
unlikely to question the value of a diverse workforce.
19. What does the speaker say about a team with vitality?
20. What do the researchers find out about members of a team?
21. What do we learn about the team the speaker is currently working in?
Questions 22 to 25 are based on the recording you have just heard.
An American researcher who studied 600 millionaires found how rich you can
get comes down to six wealth factors. She found that six behaviors are related to net
worth potential, regardless of age or income. These were thriftiness, confidence,
responsibility, planning, focus and social indifference.
Being thrifty comes as no great surprise. Spending above your means, spending
instead of saving for retirement, spending in anticipation of becoming wealthy, makes
you a slave to the paycheck. (22) "Even with an astronomical level of income," she
wrote, "to properly build wealth, experts recommend saving 20% of your income and
living off the remaining 80%.”
Having confidence is another key characteristic, as it helps people to be thrifty. (23) It takes confidence to live within your means. It also takes confidence to invest
properly. Instead of making investing decisions with your emotions, financial planners
advise that you should leave your investments alone and focus on a long-term
investment plan. But people can’t invest or manage their own money without
accepting responsibility for the outcomes. Many millionaires take on personal
responsibility, and most also happen to be self-made, meaning they didn’t acquire
their wealth through luck.
(24) Millionaires don’t count on anyone else to make them rich, and they don’t
blame anyone else if they fall short. They focus on things they can control and align
their daily habits to the goals they have set for themselves. They tend to be
goal-oriented and hard workers, which enables them to plan financially and focus on
seeing those plans through. 92% of the millionaires surveyed developed a long- term
plan for their money and 97% almost always achieved the goals they set for
themselves.
And it is these behaviors that make it easy for them to be socially indifferent.
They resist lifestyle creep, the tendency to spend more whenever one earns more. (25)
Essentially, they don’t yield to pressure to buy the latest thing or to keep up with
others or what they have acquired. Instead of being focused on what might make them
happy today, they’re focused on their long-term wealth-building plan.
22. What do experts recommend concerning being thrifty?
23. How does confidence help people to be thrifty?
24. How do millionaires react when they fail in their investment?
25. Why does the speaker say millionaires are socially indifferent?
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