2014年6月大学英语六级真题试卷（一）

Tests may be the most unpopular part of academic life. Students hate them because they produce fear and【B1】______about being evaluated, and a focus on grades instead of learning for learning’s sake.

But tests are also valuable. A well-constructed test【B2】___what you know and what you still need to learn. Tests help you see how your performance【B3】that of others. And knowing that you’ll be tested on【B4】material is certainly likely to【B5】___you to learn the material more thoroughly.

However, there’s another reason you might dislike tests: You may assume that tests have the power to【B6】___your worth as a person. If you do badly on a test, you may be tempted to believe that you’ve received some【B7】___information about youself from the professor, information that says you’re a failure in some significant way.

This is a dangerous—and wrong-headed—assumption. If you do badly on a test, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or stupid. Or that you’ll never do better again, and that your life is【B8】______. If you don’t do well on a test, you’re the same person you were before you took the test—no better, no worse. You just did badly on a test. That’s it.

【B9】___, tests are not a measure of your value as an individual—they are a measure only of how well and how much you studied. Tests are tools; they are indirect and【B10】___measures of what we know.

For investors who desire low risk and guaranteed income, U. S. government bonds are a secure investment because these bonds have the financial backing and full faith and credit of the federal government. Municipal bonds, also secure, are offered by local governments and often have【C1】___such as tax-free interest. Some may even be【C2】___. Corporate bonds are a bit more risky.

Two questions often【C3】___first-time corporate bond investors. The first is “If I purchase a corporate bond, do I have to hold it until the maturity date?” The answer is no. Bonds are bought and sold daily on【C4】securities exchanges. However, if you decide to sell your bond before its maturity date, you’re not guaranteed to get the face value of the bond. For example, if your bond does not have【C5】that make it attractive to other investors, you may be forced to sell your bond at a【C6】, i. e. , a price less than the bond’s face value. But if your bond is highly valued by other investors, you may be able to sell it at a premium, i. e. , a price above its face value. Bond prices generally【C7】___inversely(相反地)with current market interest rates. As interest rates go up, bond prices fall, and vice versa(反之亦然). Thus, like all investments, bonds have a degree of risk.

The second question is “How can I【C8】___the investment risk of a particular bond issue?” Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service rate the level of risk of many corporate and government bonds. And【C9】, the higher the market risk of a bond, the higher the interest rate. Investors will invest in a bond considered risky only if the【C10】___return is high enough.

A)advantages I)fluctuate

B)assess J)indefinite

C)bother K)insured

D)conserved L)major

E)deduction M)naturally

F)discount N)potential

G)embarrass O)simultaneously

H)features

Lessons from a Feminist Paradise

[A]On the surface, Sweden appears to be a feminist paradise. Look at any global survey of gender equality and Sweden will be near the top. Family-friendly policies are its norm—with 16 months of paid parental leave, special protections for part-time workers, and state-subsidized preschools where, according to a government website, “gender-awareness education is increasingly common. ” Due to an unofficial quota system, women hold 45 percent of positions in the Swedish parliament. They have enjoyed the protection of government agencies with titles like the Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality and the Secretariat of Gender Research. So why are American women so far ahead of their Swedish counterparts in breaking through the glass ceiling?

[B]In a 2012 report, the World Economic Forum found that when it comes to closing the gender gap in “ economic participation and opportunity,” the United States is ahead of not only Sweden but also Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Sweden’s rank in the report can largely be explained by its political quota system. Though the United States has fewer women in the workforce(68 percent compared to Sweden’s 77 percent), American women who choose to be employed are far more likely to work full-time and to hold high-level jobs as managers or professionals. They also own more businesses, launch more start-ups(新创办的企业),and more often work in traditionally male fields. As for breaking through the glass ceiling in business, American women are well in the lead.

[C]What explains the American advantage? How can it be that societies like Sweden, where gender equality is vigorously pursued and enforced, have fewer female managers, executives, professionals, and business owners than the laissez-faire(自由放任的)United States? A new study by Cornell economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn gives an explanation.

[D]Generous parental leave policies and readily available part-time options have unintended consequences: instead of strengthening women’s attachment to the workplace, they appear to weaken it. In addition to a 16-month leave, a Swedish parent has the right to work six hours a day(for a reduced salary)until his or her child is eight years old. Mothers are far more likely than fathers to take advantage of this law. But extended leaves and part-time employment are known to be harmful to careers—for both genders. And with women a second factor comes into play: most seem to enjoy the flexible-time arrangement(once known as the “mommy track”)and never find their way back to full-time or high-level employment. In sum: generous family-friendly policies do keep more women in the labor market, but they also tend to diminish their careers.

[E]According to Blau and Kahn, Swedish-style paternal(父亲的)leave policies and flexible-time arrangements pose a second threat to women’s progress: they make employers cautious about hiring women for full-time positions at all. Offering a job to a man is the safer bet. He is far less likely to take a year of parental leave and then return on a reduced work schedule for the next eight years.

[F]I became aware of the trials of career-focused European women a few years ago when I met a post-doctoral student from Germany who was then a visiting fellow at Johns Hopkins. She was astonished by the professional possibilities afforded to young American women. Her best hope in Germany was a government job—prospects for woment in the private sector were dim. “ In Germany,” she told me,“we have all the benefits, but employers don’t want to hire us. “

[G]Swedish economists Magnus Henrekson and Mikael Stenkula addressed the following question in their 2009 study: why are there so few female top executives in the European egalitarian(平等主义的)welfare states? Their answer; “Broad-based welfare-state policies hinder women’s representation in elite competitive positions. “

[H]It is tempting to declare the Swedish policies regressive(退步的)and hail the American system as superior. But that would be shortsighted. The Swedes can certainly take a lesson from the United States and look for ways to clear a path for their ambitious female careerists. But most women are not committed careerists. When the Pew Research Center recently asked American parents to identify their “ideal” life arrangement, 47 percent of mothers said they would prefer to work part-time and 20 percent said they would prefer not to work at all. Fathers answered differently: 75 percent preferred full-time work. Some version of the Swedish system might work well for a majority of American parents, but the United States is unlikely to fully embrace the Swedish model. Still, we can learn from their experience.

[I]Despite its failure to shatter the glass ceiling, Sweden has one of the most powerful and innovative economies in the world. In its 2011-2012 survey, the World Economic Forum ranked Sweden as the world’s third most competitive economy; the United States came in fifth. Sweden, dubbed the “rockstar of the recovery” in the Washington Post, also leads the world in life satisfaction and happiness. It is a society well worth studying, and its efforts to conquer the gender gap impart a vital lesson—though not the lesson the Swedes had in mind.

[J]Sweden has gone farther than any other nation on earth to integrate the sexes and to offer women the same opportunities and freedoms as men. For decades, these descendants of the Vikings have been trying to show the world that the right mix of enlightened policy, consciousness raising, and non-sexist child rearing would close the gender divide once and for all. Yet the divide persists.

[K]A 2012 press release from Statistics Sweden bears the title “Gender Equality in Sweden Treading(踩)Water”and notes:

The total income from employment for all ages is lower for women than for men.

One in three employed women and one in ten employed men work part-time.

Women’s working time is influenced by the number and age of their children, but men’s working time is not affected by these factors.

Of all employees, only 13 percent of the women and 12 percent of the men have occupations with an even distribution of the sexes.

[L]Confronted with such facts, some Swedish activists and legislators are demanding more extreme and far-reaching measures, such as replacing male and female pronouns with a neutral alternative and monitoring children more closely to correct them when they gravitate(被吸引)toward gendered play. When it came to light last year that mothers, far more than fathers, chose to stay home from work to care for their sick kids, Ulf Kristersson, minister of social security, quickly commissioned a study to determine the causes of and possible cures for this disturbing state of affairs.

[M]Swedish family policies, by accommodating women’s preferences effectively, are reducing the number of women in elite competitive positions. The Swedes will find this paradoxical and try to find solutions. Let us hope these do not include banning gender pronouns, policing children’s play, implementing more gender quotas, or treating women’s special attachment to home and family as a social injustice. Most mothers do not aspire to(向往)elite, competitive full-time positions: the Swedish policies have given them the freedom and opportunity to live the lives they prefer. Americans should look past the gender rhetoric and consider what these Scandinavians have achieved. On their way to creating a feminist paradise, the Swedes have unintentionally created a haven(避风港)for normal mortals.

Texting has long been bemoaned(哀叹)as the downfall of the written word, “ penmanship for illiterates,” as one critic called it. To which the proper response is LOL. Texting properly isn’t writing at all. It’s a “ spoken” language that is getting richer and more complex by the year.

First, some historical perspective. Writing was only invented 5,500 years ago, whereas language probably traces back at least 80,000 years. Thus talking came first; writing is just a craft that came along later. As such, the first writing was based on the way people talk, with short sentences. Howerer, while talking is largely subconscious and rapid, writing is deliberate and slow. Over time, writers took advantage of this and started crafting long-winded sentences such as this one:” The whole engagement lasted above 12 hours, till the gradual retreat of the Persians was changed into a disorderly flight, of which the shameful example was given by the principal leaders and…”

No one talks like that casually—or should. But it is natural to desire to do so for special occasions. In the old days, we didn’t much write like talking because there was no mechanism to reproduce the speed of conversation. But texting and instant messaging do—and a revolution has begun. It involves the crude mechanics of writing, but in its economy, spontaneity and even vulgarity, texting is actually a new kind of talking, with its own kind of grammar and conventions.

Take LOL. It doesn’t actually mean “laughing out loud” in a literal sense anymore. LOL has evolved into something much subtler and sophisticated and is used even when nothing is remotely amusing. Jocelyn texts “Where have you been?” and Annabelle texts back “LOL at the library studying for two hours. ” LOL signals basic empathy(同感)between texters, easing tension and creating a sense of equality. Instead of having a literal meaning, it does something—conveying an attitude—just like the -ed ending conveys past tense rather than “meaning” anything. LOL, of all things, is grammar.

Of course no one thinks about that consciously. But then most of communication operates without being noticed. Over time, the meaning of a word or an expression drifts—meat used to mean any kind of food, silly used to mean, believe it or not, blessed.

Civilization, then, is fine—people banging away on their smartphones are fluently using a code separate from the one they use in actual writing, and there is no evidence that texting is raining composition skills. Worldwide people speak differently from the way they write, and texting—quick, casual and only intended to be read once—is actually a way of talking with your fingers.

It’s possible to admire Oprah Winfrey and still wish Harvard hadn’t awarded her an honorary doctor of law degree and the commencement(毕业典礼)speaker spot at yesterday’s graduation. There’s no question Oprah’s achievements place her in the temple of American success stories. Talent, charm, and an exceptional work ethic have rarely hurled anyone as far as they have this former abused teenage mother from rural Mississippi who became one of the world’s most successful entertainment icons and the first African-American female billionaire.

Honorary degrees are often conferred on non-academic leaders in the arts, business, and politics. Harvard’s list in recent years has included Kofi Annan, Bill Gates, Meryl Streep, and David Souter. But Oprah’s particular brand of celebrity is not a good fit for the values of a university whose motto(座右铭), Veritas, means truth. Oprah’s passionate advocacy extends, unfortunately, to a hearty embrace of fake science. Most notoriously, Oprah’s validation of Jenny McCarthy’s claim that vaccines cause autism(自闭症)has no doubt contributed to much harm through the foolish avoidance of vaccines.

Famous people are entitled to a few failings, like the rest of us, and the choice of commencement speakers often reflects a balance of institutional priorities and aspirations. Judging from our conversations with many students, Oprah was a widely popular choice.

But this vote of confidence in Oprah sends a troubling message at precisely the time when American universities need to do more to advance the cause of reason. As former Dean of Harvard College, Harry Lewis, noted in a blog post about his objections, “ It seems very odd for Harvard to honor such a high profile popularizer of the irrational…at a time when political and religious nonsense so jeopardize the rule of reason in this allegedly enlightened democracy and around the world. “

As America’s oldest and most visible university, Harvard has a special opportunity to convey its respect for science not only through its research and teaching programs but also in its public affirmation of evidence-based inquiry.

Unfortunately, many American universities seem awfully busy protecting their brand name and not nearly busy enough protecting the pursuit of knowledge. A recent article in The Harvard Crimson noted the shocking growth of Harvard’s public relations arm in the last five years and it questioned whether a focus on risk management and avoiding controversy was really the best outward-looking face of this great institution.

As American research universities begin to resemble profit centers and entertainment complexes, it’s easy to lose sight of their primary mission; to produce and spread knowledge. This mission depends on traditions of rational discourse and vigorous defense of the scientific method. Oprah Winfrey’s honorary doctorate was a step in the wrong direction.