2014.6 英语六级考试真题试卷（第二套）阅读

Questions 36 to 45 are based on the following passage.

Fear can be an effective way to change behavior. One study compared the effects of high-fear and low-fear appeals on changes in attitudes and behaviors related to dental hygiene (卫生). One group of subjects was shown awful pictures of __36__ teeth and diseased gums; another group was shown less frightening materials such as plastic teeth, charts, and graphs. Subjects who saw the frightening materials reported more anxiety and a greater __37__ to change the way they took care of their teeth than the low-fear group did.
But were these reactions actually __38__ into better dental hygiene practices? To answer this important question, subjects were called back to the laboratory on two __39__ (five days and six weeks after the experiment). They chewed disclosing wafers (牙疾诊断片) that give a red stain to any uncleaned areas of the teeth and thus provided a direct __40__ of how well they were really taking care of their teeth. The result showed that the high-fear appeal did actually result in greater and more __41__ changes in dental hygiene. That is, the subjects __42__ to high-fear warnings brushed their teeth more __43__ than did those who saw low-fear warnings.
However, to be an effective persuasive device it is very important that the message not be too frightening and that people be given __44__ guidelines to help them to reduce the cause of the fear. If this isn't done, they may reduce their anxiety by denying the message or the __45__ of the communicator. If that happens, it is unlikely that either attitude or behavior change will occur.

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A) accustomed
B) carefully
C) cautiously
D) concrete
E) credibility F) decayed
G) desire
H) dimensions
I) eligible
J) exposed K) indication
L) occasions
M) permanent
N) sensitivity
O) translated

【参考答案】
36-45：FGOLK DJCIE





A) When I was growing up, one of my father's favorite sayings (borrowed from the humorist Will Rogers) was: "It isn't what we don't know that causes the trouble: it's what we think we know that just ain't so." One of the main insights to be taken from the 100,000 Homes Campaign and its strategy to end chronic homelessness is that, until recently, our society thought it understood the nature of homelessness, but it didn't.
B) That led to a series of mistaken assumptions about why people become homeless and what they need. Many of the errors in our homelessness policies have stemmed from the conception that, the homeless are a homogeneous group. It's only in the past 15 years that organizations like Common Ground, and others, have taken a street-level view of the problem-distinguishing the "episodically homeless" from the "chronically homeless" in order to understand their needs at an individual level. This is why we can now envisage a different approach-and get better results.
C) Most readers expressed support for the effort, although a number were skeptical, and a few utterly dismissive, about the chances of long-term homeless people adapting well to housing. This is to be expected; it's hard to imagine what we haven't yet seen. As Niccolo Machiavelli wrote in The Prince, one of the major obstacles in any effort to advance systemic change is the "incredulity of men," which is to say that people "do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them, " Most of us have witnessed homeless people on the streets for decades. Few have seen formerly homeless people after they have been housed successfully. We don't have reference points for that story. So we generalize from what we know-or think we know.
D) But that can be misleading, even to experts. When I asked Rosanne Haggerty, founder of Common Ground, which currently operates 2,310 units of supportive housing (with 552 more under construction), what had been her biggest surprise in this work, she replied: "Fifteen years ago, I would not have believed that people who had been so broken and stuck in homelessness could thrive to the degree that they do in our buildings." And Becky Kanis, the campaign's director, commented: "There is this sense in our minds that someone who's on the streets is almost in their DNA different from someone who has a house. The campaign is creating a first- hand experience for many people that, that is really not the case."
E) One of the startling realizations that I had while researching this column is that anybody could become like a homeless person-all it takes is a traumatic (创伤的) brain injury. A bicycle fall, a car accident, a slip on the ice, or if you're a soldier, a head wound-and your life could become unrecognizable. James O'Connell, a doctor who has been treating the most vulnerable homeless people on the streets of Boston for 25 years, estimates that 40 percent of the long-term homeless people he's met had such a brain injury. "For many it was a head injury prior to the time they became homeless," he said. "They became unpredictable. They'd have mood swings, fits of explosive behavior. They couldn't hold onto their jobs. Drinking made them feel better. They'd end up on the streets."
F) Once homeless people return to housing, they're in a much better position to rebuild their lives. But it's important to note that housing alone is not enough. As with many complex social problems, when you get through the initial crisis, you have another problem to solve which is no less challenging. But it is a better problem.
G) Over the past decade, O'Connell has seen this happen. "I spend half my time on the streets or in the hospital and the other half making house calls to people who lived for years on the streets," he said. "So from a doctor's point, of view it's a delightful switch, but it's not as if putting someone in housing is the answer to addressing all of their problems. It's the first step."
H) Once in housing, formerly homeless people can become isolated and lonely. If they've lived on the streets for years, they may have acquired a certain standing as well as a sense of pride in their survival skills. Now indoors, those aspects of their identity may be stripped away. Many also experience a profound disorientation at the outset. "If you're homeless for more than six months, you kind of lose your bearings," says Haggerty. "Existence becomes not about overcoming homelessness but about finding food, begging, looking for a job to survive another day. The whole process of how you define stability gets reordered."
I) Many need regular, if not continuous, support with mental health problems, addictions and illnesses-and, equally important, assistance in the day-to-day challenges of life, reacquainting with family, building relationships with neighbors, finding enjoyable activities or work, managing finances, and learning how to eat healthy food.
J) Fox some people, the best solution is to live in a communal (集体) residence, with special services. This isn't available everywhere, however, hi Boston, for example, homeless people tend to be scattered in apartments throughout the city.
K) Common Ground's large residences in New York offer insight into the possibilities for change when homeless people have a rich array of supports. In addition to more traditional social services, residents also make use of communal gardens, classes in things like cooking, yoga, theatre and photography, and job placement. Last year, 188 formerly homeless tenants in four of Common Ground's residences, found jobs.
L) Because the properties have many services and are well-managed, Haggerty lias found posthousing problems to be surprisingly rare. In the past 10 years, there have been only a handful of incidents of quarrels between tenants. There is very little graffiti (涂鸦) or vandalism (破坏). And the turnover is almost negligible. In the Prince George Hotel in New York, which is home to 208 formerly homeless people and 208 low-income tenants, the average length of tenancy is close to seven years. (All residents pay 30 percent of their income for rent; for the formerly homeless, Lids comes out of their government benefits.) When people move on, it is usually because they've found a preferable apartment.
M) "Tenants also want to participate in shaping the public areas of the buildings, said Haggerty." They formed a gardening committee. They want a terrace on the roof. Those are things I didn't count on." The most common tenant demand? "People always want more storage space-but that's true of every New Yorker," she adds. "In many ways, we're a lot like a normal apartment building. Our tenants look like anyone else."
N) As I mentioned, homelessness is a catch-all for a variety of problems. A number of readers asked whether the campaign will address family homelessness, which has different causes and requires a different solution. I've been following some of the promising ideas emerging to address and prevent family homelessness. Later in 2011, I'll explore these ideas in a column. For now, I'll conclude with an update on the 100,000 Homes Campaign. Since Tuesday, New Orleans and a few other communities have reported new results. The current count of people housed is 7,043.

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46. Tenants in Common Ground's residences all want more room for storage.
47. Homes Campaign provides first-hand proof that the homeless are not what they were once believed to be.
48. Common Ground's residences are well-managed and by and large peaceful.
49. Housing the homeless is only the first step to solving all their problems.
50. A large percent of the chronically homeless have suffered from brain injury.
51. After being housed many homeless people become confused at first as to how to deal with life off the street.
52. Some people think the best way to help the homeless is to provide them with communal housing.
53. The homeless with health problems should be given regular support in their daily lives.
54. Until recently American society has failed to see what homelessness is all about.
55. Many formerly homeless tenants in New York's Common Ground's residences got hired.

【参考答案】
46-55：MDLGE HJIAK


Passage One
Questions 56 to 60 are based on the following passage.

Technology can make us smarter or stupider, and we need to develop a set of principles to guide our everyday behavior and make sure that tech is improving and not hindering our mental processes. One of the big questions being debated today is: What kind of information do we need to have stored in our heads, and what kind can we leave "in the cloud," to be accessed as necessary?
An increasingly powerful group within education are championing "digital literacy". In their view, skills beat, knowledge, developing "digital literacy" is more important than learning mere content, and all facts are now Google-able and therefore unworthy of committing to memory. But even the most sophisticated digital literacy skills won't help students and workers navigate the world if they don't have a broad base of knowledge about how the world actually operates. If you focus on the delivery mechanism and not the content, you're doing kids a disservice.
Indeed, evidence from cognitive science challenges the notion that skills can exist independent of factual knowledge. Data from the last thirty years leads to a conclusion that is not scientifically challengeable: thinking well requires knowing facts, and that's true not only because you need something to think about. The very processes that teachers care about most-critical thinking processes-are intimately intertwined (交织) with factual knowledge that is stored in long-term memory.
In order words, just because you can Google the date of Black Tuesday doesn't mean you understand why the Great Depression happened or how it compares to our recent economic slump. There is no doubt that the students of today, and the workers of tomorrow, will need to innovate, collaborate and evaluate. But such skills can't be separated from the knowledge that gives rise to them. To innovate, you have to know what, came before. To collaborate, you have to contribute knowledge to the joint venture. And to evaluate, you have to compare new information against knowledge you've already mastered.
So here's a principle for thinking in a digital world, in two parts. First, acquire a base of factual knowledge in any domain in which you want to perform well. This base supplies the essential foundation for building skills, and it can't be outsourced (外包) to a search engine.
Second, take advantage of computers' invariable memory, but also the brain's elaborative memory. Computers are great when you want to store information that shouldn't change. But brains are the superior choice when you want information to change, in interesting and useful ways: to connect up with other facts and ideas, to acquire successive layers of meaning, to steep for a while in your accumulated knowledge and experience and so produce a richer mental brew.

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56. What is the author's concern about the use of technology?
A) It may leave knowledge 14 in the cloud".
B) It may misguide our everyday behavior.
C) It may cause a divide in the circles of education.
D) It may hinder the development of thinking skills.

57. What is the view of educators who advocate digital literacy?
A) It helps kids to navigate the virtual world at will.
B) It helps kids to broaden their scope of knowledge.
C) It increase kids' efficiency of acquiring knowledge.
D) It liberates kids from the burden of memorizing facts.

58. What does evidence from cognitive science show?
A) Knowledge is better kept in long-term memory.
B) Critical thinking is based on factunal knowledge.
C) Study skills are essential to knowledge acquisition.
D) Critical thinking means challenging existing facts.

59. What does the author think is key to making evaluations?
A) Gathering enough evidence before drawing conclusions.
B) Mastering the basic rules and principles for evaluation.
C) Connecting new information with one's accumulated knowledge.
D) Understanding both what has happened and why it has happened.

60. What is the author's purpose in writing the passage?
A) To warn against learning through memorizing facts.
B) To promote educational reform in the information age.
C) To explain human brains' function in storing information.
D) To challenge the prevailing overemphasis on digital literacy.


Passage Two
Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following passage.

America's recent history has been a persistent tilt to the West-of people, ideas, commerce and even political power. California and Texas are the twin poles of the West, but very different ones. For most of the 20th century the home of Silicon Valley and Hollywood has been the brainier and trendier of the two. Texas has trailed behind: its stereotype has been a conservative Christian in cowboy boots. But twins can change places. Is that happening now?
It is easy to find evidence that California is in a panic. At the start of this month the once golden state started paying creditors in IOUs (欠条). The gap between projected outgoings and income for the current fiscal (财政的) year has leapt to a horrible $26 billion. With no sign of a new budget to close this gulf, one credit agency has already downgraded California's debt. As budgets are cut, universities will let in fewer students, prisoners will be released early and schemes to protect the vulnerable will be rolled back.
By contrast, Texas has coped well with the recession, with an unemployment rate two points below the national average and one of the lowest rates of housing repossession, hi part this is because Texan banks, hard hit in the last property bust, did not overexpand this time. Texas also clearly offers a different model, based on small government. It has no state capital-gains or income tax, and a business-friendly and immigrant-tolerant attitude. It is home to more Fortune 500 companies than any other state.
Despite all tins, it still seems too early to hand over America's future to Texas. To begin with, that lean Texan model has its own problems. It has not invested enough in education. and many experts rightly worry about a " lost generation" of mostly Hispanic Texans with insufficient skills for the demands of the knowledge economy.
Second, it has never paid to bet against a state with as many inventive people as California. Even if Hollywood has gone into depression, it still boasts an unequalled array of sunrise industries and the most brisk venture-capital industry on the planet. The state also has an awesome ability to reinvent itself-as it did when its defence industry collapsed at the end of the cold war.
The truth is that both states could learn from each other. Texas still lacks California's great universities and lags in terms of culture. California could adopt not just Texas's leaner state, but also its more bipartisan (两党的) approach to politics. There is no perfect model of government: it is America's genius to have 50 public-policy laboratories competing to find out what works best.

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61. What does the author say about California and Texas in Paragraph 1?
A) They have been competing for the leading position.
B) California has been superior to Texas in many ways.
C) They are both models of development for other states.
D) Texas's cowboy culture is less known than California's.

62. What does the author say about today's California?
A) Its debts are pushing it into bankruptcy.
B) Its budgets have been cut by $26 billion.
C) It is faced with a serious financial crisis.
D) It is trying hard to protect the vulnerable.

63. In what way is Texas different from California?
A) It practices small government.
B) It is home to traditional industries.
C) It has a large Hispanic population.
D) It has an enviable welfare system.

64. What problem is Texas confronted with?
A) Its Hispanic population is mostly illiterate.
B) Its sunrise industries are shrinking rapidly.
C) Its education cannot meet the needs of the knowledge economy.
D) Its immigrants have a hard time adapting to its cowboy culture.

65. What do we learn about American politics from the passage?
A) Each state has its own way of governing.
B) Most states favor a bipartisan approach.
C) Parties collaborate in drawing public policies.
D) All states believe in government, for the people.