1990年6月英语六级真题试卷

1、1990年6月英语六级真题试卷Part I Listening Comprehension (20 minutes)Section A1.A) A new house cost thirty thousand dollars.B) Bobs house cost him sixty thousand dollars.C) Bob didnt want to buy an old house.D) Bob decided to buy an old house.（）2.A) Yes, but he needs to have the approval of his professor.B) Ye

2、s, he can study there if he is writing a research paper.C) Yes, because he is a senior student.D) No, its open only to teachers and postgraduates.（）3.A) He doesnt like seafood any more.B) A seafood dinner is too expensive.C) He doesnt have enough money.D) He likes seafood very much.（）4.A) He went to

3、 the hospital to take his wife home.B) He stayed in the hospital until very late.He tried to call the woman several times.He went to the hospital at midnight yesterday.5.Her errors were mainly in the reading part.B) It wasnt very challenging to her.C) It was more difficult than she had expected.D) S

4、he made very few grammatical mistakes in her test.（）6.A) 6 hours.B) 4 hours.C) 12 hours.D) 18 hours.（）7.A) Its dirty.B) Its faded.C) Its dyed.D) Its torn.（）8.A) Sixteen dollars.B) Eight dollars.C) Ten dollars.D) Twelve dollars.（）9.A) His watch will be fixed no later than next Monday.B) His watch nee

5、ds to be repaired.C) He may come again for his watch at the weekend.D) The woman wont repair his watch until next Monday.（）10.A) The things to do on Monday morning.B) The weather on Monday morning.C) The time to see John.D) The place John should go to.（）Section BPassage OneQuestions 11 to 14 are bas

6、ed on the passage you have just heard.11.A) The number of its readers.B) Its unusual location.C) Its comfortable chairs.D) Its spacious rooms.（）12.A) The latest version of the Bible.B) A book written by Columbus.C) A map of the New World.D) One of the earliest copies of Shakespeares work.（）13.A) It

7、has too few employees.B) It lacks money to cover its expenses.C) It is over crowded.D) It is growing too rapidly.（）14.A) From Monday to Friday.B) From Monday to Saturday.C) Every day.D) On Saturdays and Sundays.（）Passage TwoQuestions 15 to 17 are based on the passage you have just heard.15.A) They w

8、ould train the children to be happy street cleaners.B) They would make the children great scholars.C) They intended to train the children as adults were trained.D) They would give the children freedom to fully develop themselves.（）16.A) Some children are good, some are not.B) Children are good by na

9、ture.C) Most children are nervous.D) Children are not as brave as adults.（）17.A) He thinks a scholar is more respectable than a street cleaner.B) He thinks highly of teaching as a profession.C) He thinks all jobs are equally good so long as people like them.D) He thinks a street cleaner is happier t

10、han a scholar.（）Passage ThreeQuestions 18 to 20 are based on the passage you have just heard.18.A) The daughter of a prison guard.B) The Emperor of Rome.C) A Christian couple.D) A Christian named Valentine.（）19.A) To propose marriage.B) To celebrate Valentines birthday.C) To express their respect fo

11、r each other.D) To show their love.（）20.A) It is an American folktale.B) It is something recorded in Roman history.C) It is one of the possible origins of this holiday.D) It is a story from the Bible.（）Part II Reading Comprehension (35 minutes)Passage OneQuestions 21 to 25 are based on the following

12、 passage.One day in January 1913. G. H. Hardy, a famous Cambridge University mathematician received a letter from an Indian named Srinivasa Ramanujan asking him for his opinion of 120 mathematical theorems (定理) that Ramanujan said he had discovered. To Hardy, many of the theorems made no sense. Of t

13、he others, one or two were already well-known. Ramanujan must be some kind of trickplayer, Hardy decided, and put the letter aside. But all that day the letter kept hanging round Hardy. Might there be something in those wild-looking theorems?That evening Hardy invited another brilliant Cambridge mat

14、hematician, J. E. Littlewood, and the two men set out to assess the Indians worth. That incident was a turning point in the history of mathematics.At the time, Ramanujan was an obscure Madras Port Trust clerk. A little more than a year later, he was at Cambridge University, and beginning to be recog

15、nized as one of the most amazing mathematicians the world has ever known. Though he died in 1920, much of his work was so far in advance of his time that only in recent years is it beginning to be properly understood.Indeed, his results are helping solve todays problems in computer science and physi

16、cs, problems that he could have had no notion of.For Indians, moreover, Ramanujan has a special significance. Ramanujan, though born in poor and ill-paid accountants family 100 years ago, has inspired many Indians to adopt mathematics as career.Much of Ramanujans work is in number theory, a branch o

17、f mathematics that deals with the subtle (难以捉摸的) laws and relationships that govern numbers. Mathematicians describe his results as elegant and beautiful but they are much too complex to be appreciated by laymen.His life, though, is full of drama and sorrow. It is one of the great romantic stories o

18、f mathematics, a distressing reminder that genius can surface and rise in the most unpromising circumstances.21.When Hardy received the 120 theorems from Ramanujan, his attitude at first might be best described as _.A) uninterestedB) unsympatheticC) suspiciousD) curious（）22.Ramanujans position in Ca

19、mbridge University owed much to _.A) the judgement of his work by Hardy and LittlewoodB) his letter of application accepted by HardyC) his work as a clerk at Madras Port TrustD) his being recognized by the world as a famous mathematician（）23.It may be inferred from the passage that the author _.A) f

20、eels sorry for Ramanujans early deathB) is dissatisfied with the slow development of computer scienceC) is puzzled about the complexity of Ramanujans theoremsD) greatly appreciates Ramanujans mathematical genius（）24.In the last paragraph, the author points out that _.A) Ramanujans mathematical theor

21、ems were not appreciated by other mathematiciansB) extremely talented people can prove their worth despite difficult circumstancesC) Ramanujan also wrote a number of stories about mathematicsD) Ramanujan had worked out an elegant but complicated method of solving problems（）25.The word “laymen” (Last

22、 Para, Lind 6) most probably means _.A) people who do not specialize in mathematical scienceB) people who are carelessC) people who are not interested in mathematicsD) people who dont like to solve complicated problems（）Passage TwoQuestions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.Even if all the

23、 technical and intellectual problems can be solved, there are major social problems inherent in the computer revolution. The most obvious is unemployment, since the basic purpose of commercial computerization is to get more work done by fewer people. OneBritish study predicts that “automation induce

24、d unemployment” in Western Europe could reach16, 6 in the next decade, but most analyses are more optimistic. The general rule seems to be that new technology eventually creates as many jobs as it destroys, and often more. “People who put in computers usually increase their staffs as well” says CPTs

25、 Scheff. “Of course,” he adds, “one industry may kill another industry. Thats tough on some people.”Theoretically, all unemployed workers can be retrained, but retraining programs are not high on the nations agenda (议事日程). Many new jobs, moreover, will require an ability in using computers, and the

26、retraining needed to use them will have to be repeated as the technology keeps improving. Says a chilling report by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment:“Lifelong retraining is expected to become the standard for many people. “There is a already considerable evidence that the school chi

27、ldren now being educated in the use of computers are generally the children of the white middle class. Young blacks, whose unemployment rate stands today at 50 96, will find another barrier in front of them.Such social problems are not the fault of the computer, of course, but a consequence of the w

28、ay the American society might use the computer. “Even in the days of the Big, main-frame computers, when they were a machine for the few.” says Katherine Davis Fishman, author ofThe Computer Establishment, “it was a tool to help the rich get richer. It still is to a large extent. One of the great va

29、lues of the personal computer is that smaller firms, smaller organizations can now have some of the advantages of the bigger organizations.”26.The closest restatement of “one industry may kill another industry” (Para. 1 Line 11) is that _.A) industries tend to compete with one anotherB) one industry

30、 might be driven out of business by another industryC) one industry may increase its staff at the expense of anotherD) industries tend to combine into bigger ones（）27.The word “chilling” (Para. 2, Line 5) most probably means _.A) misleadingB) convincingC) discouragingD) interesting（）28.Which of the

31、following is NOT mentioned in the passage?A) Computers are efficient in retraining unemployed workers.B) Computers may offer more working opportunities than they destroy.C) Computers will increase the unemployment rate of young blacks.D) Computers can help smaller organizations to function more effe

32、ctively.（）29.From the passage it can be inferred that _.A) all school children are offered a course in the use of computersB) all unemployed workers are being retrainedC) retraining programmes are considered very important by the governmentD) in reality only a certain portion of unemployed workers w

33、ill be retrained（）30.The major problem discussed in the passage is _.A) the importance of lifelong retraining of the unemployed workersB) the social consequences of the widespread use of computers in the United StatesC) the barrier to the employment of young peopleD) the general rule of the advancem

34、ent of technology（）Passage ThreeQuestions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage.Mobility of individual members and family groups tends to split up family relationships.Occasionally the movement of a family away from a situation which has been the source of friction results in greater family or

35、ganization, but on the whole mobility is disorganizing.Individuals and families are involved in three types of mobility: movement in space, movement up or down in social status, and the movement of ideas. These are termed respectively spatial, vertical, and ideational mobility.A great increase in sp

36、atial mobility has gone along with improvements in rail and water transportation, the invention and use of the automobile, and the availability of airplane passenger service. Spatial mobility results in a decline in the importance of the traditional home with its emphasis on family continuity and st

37、ability. It also means that when individual family members or the family as a whole move away from a community, the person or the family is removed from the pressures of relatives, friends, and community institutions for conventionality and stability. Even more important is the fact that spatial mob

38、ility permits some members of a family to come in contact with and possibly adopt attitudes, values, and ways of thinking different from those held by other family members. The presence of different attitudes, values, and ways of thinking with in a family may, and often does, result in conflict and

39、family disorganization. Potential disorganization is present in those families in which the husband, wife, and children are spatially separated over a long period, or are living together but see each other only briefly because of different work schedules.One index of the increase in vertical mobilit

40、y is the great increase in the proportion of sons, and to some extent daughters, who engage in occupations other than those of the parents.Another index of vertical mobility is the degree of intermarriage between racial classes. This occurs almost exclusively between classes which are adjacent to ea

41、ch other. Engaging in a different occupation, or intermarriage, like spatial mobility, allows one to come in contact with ways of behavior different from those of the parental home, and tends to separate parents and their children.The increase in ideational mobility is measured by the increase in pu

42、blications, such as newspapers, periodicals, and books, the increase in the percentage of the population owning radios, and the increase in television sets. All these tend to introduce new ideas into the home.When individual family members are exposed to and adopt the new ideas, the tendency is for

43、conflict to arise and for those in conflict to become psychologically separated from each other.31.What the passage tells us can be summarized by the statement:A) social development results in a decline in the importance of traditional familiesB) potential disorganization is present in the American

44、familyC) family disorganization is more or less the result of mobilityD) the movement of a family is one of the factors in raising its social status（）32.According to the passage, those who live in a traditional family _.A) are less likely to quarrel with others because of conventionality and stabili

45、tyB) have to depend on their relatives and friends if they do not move away from itC) can get more help from their family members if they are in troubleD) will have more freedom of action and thought if they move away from it（）33.Potential disorganization exists in those families in which _.A) the h

46、usband, wife, and children work too hardB) the husband, wife, and children seldom get togetherC) both parents have to work full timeD) the family members are subject to social pressures（）34.Intermarriage and different occupations play an important role in family disorganization because _.A) they ena

47、ble the children to travel around without their parents permissionB) they allow one to find a good job and improve ones social statusC) they enable the children to better understand the ways of behavior of their parentsD) they permit one to come into contact with different ways of behavior and think

48、ing（）35.This passage suggests that a well-organized family is a family whose members _.A) are not psychologically withdrawn from one anotherB) never quarrel with each other even when they disagreeC) often help each other with true love and affectionD) are exposed to the same new ideas introduced by

49、books, radios, and TV sets（）Passage FourQuestions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage.To call someone bird-brained in English means you think that person is silly or stupid.But will this description soon disappear from use in the light of recent research? It seems the English may have been u

50、nfair in association birds brains with stupidity.In an attempt to find out how different creatures see the world, psychologists at Brown University in the USA have been comparing the behaviour of birds and humans. One experiment has involved teaching pigeons to recognize letters of the English alpha

51、bet. The birds study in “classrooms”, which are boxes equipped with a computer. After about four days of studying a particular letter, the pigeon has to pick out that letter from several displayed on the computer screen. Three male pigeons have learnt to distinguish all twenty-six letters of the alp

52、habet in this way.A computer record of the birds four-month study period has shown surprising similarities between the pigeons and human performance. Pigeons and people find the same letters easy, or hard, to tell apart. For example, 92 per cent of the time the pigeons could tell the letter D from t

53、he letter Z. But when faced with U and V (often confused by English children), the pigeons were right only 34 per cent of the time.The results of the experiments so far have led psychologists to conclude that pigeons and humans observe things in similar ways. This suggests that there is something fu

54、ndamental about the recognition process. If scientists could only discover just what this recognition process is it could be very useful for computer designers. The disadvantage of a present computer is that it can only do what a human being has programmed it to do and the programmer must give the c

55、omputer precise, logical instructions. Maybe in the future, though, computers will be able to think like human beings.36.The writer suggests that the expression “bird-brained” might be out of use soon because it is _.A) sillyB) impoliteC) unnecessaryD) inappropriate（）37.Psychologists have been exper

56、imenting with pigeons to find out whether the birds _.A) are really silly or stupidB) can learn to make ideas known to peopleC) see the world as human beings doD) learn more quickly than children（）38.U and V are confused by _.A) 92 per cent of pigeonsB) many English childrenC) most people learning E

57、nglishD) 34 per cent of English children（）39.There are similarities in observing things by pigeons and humans _.A) because pigeons are taught by humansB) because pigeons have brains more developed than other birdsC) because their basic ways to know the world are the sameD) because pigeons and humans have similar brains（）40.The research may help _.A) computer designersB) computer salesmenC) psychologistsD) teachers（）Part III