2016年6月六级真题（第1套）

College English Test Band Six

Part Two Listening Comprehension

Section A

Directions: In this section,

you will hear two long conversations.

At the end of each conversation,

you will hear four questions.

Both the conversation and the questions

will be spoken only once. After you hear a question,

you must choose the best answer from the

four choices marked A), B), C) and D).

Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1

with a single line through the centre.

Conversation One

M: So, how long have you been

a market research consultant?

W: Well,

I started straight after finishing university.

M: Did you study market research?

W: Yeah, and it really helped me

to get into the industry,

but I have to say that it’s more important

to get experience in different types of market research

to find out exactly what you’re interested in.

M: So what are you interested in?

W: Well, at the moment,

I specialize in quantitative advertising research,

which means that I do two types of projects.

Trackers, which are ongoing projects

that look at trends or customer satisfaction

over a long period of time.

The only problem with trackers is

that it takes up a lot of your time.

But you do build up a good relationship with the client.

I also do a couple of ad hoc jobs

which are much shorter projects.

M: What exactly do you mean by ad hoc jobs?

W: It’s basically when companies need quick answers

to their questions about their consumers’ habits.

They just ask for one questionnaire

to be sent out for example,

so the time you spend on an ad hoc project

tends to be fairly short.

M: Which do you prefer, trackers or ad hoc?

W: I like doing both and in fact I need to do both

at the same time to keep me from going crazy.

I need the variety.

M: Can you just explain what process

you go through with a new client?

W: Well, together we decide on the methodology

and the objectives of the research.

I then design a questionnaire.

Once the interviewers have been briefed,

I send the client a schedule and

then they get back to me with deadlines.

Once the final charts and tables are ready,

I have to check them and organize a presentation.

M: Hmm, one last question,

what do you like and dislike about your job?

W: As I said,

variety is important and as for what I don’t like,

it has to be the checking of charts and tables.

Questions 1 to 4 are based on

the conversation you have just heard.

1. What position does the woman hold

in the company?

2. What does the woman specialize in

at the moment?

3. What does the woman say about trackers?

4.What does the woman dislike about her job?

Conversation Two

W: Hello, I’m here with Frederick.

Now Fred,

you went to university in Canada?

M: Yeah, that’s right.

W: OK, and you have very strong views

about universities in Canada.

Could you please explain?

M: Well,

we don’t have private universities in Canada.

They’re all public.

All the universities are owned by the government,

so there is the Ministry of Education in charge of

creating the curriculum for the universities

and so there is not much room for flexibility.

Since it’s a government-operated institution,

things don’t move very fast.

If you want something to be done,

then their staff do not have

so much incentive to help you

because he’s a worker for the government.

So I don’t think it’s very efficient.

However,

there are certain advantages of public universities,

such as the fees being free.

You don’t have to pay for your education.

But the system isn’t efficient,

and it does not work that well.

W: Yeah, I can see your point,

but in the United States we have

many private universities,

and I think they are large bureaucracies also.

Maybe people don’t act that much differently,

because it’s the same thing working

for a private university.

They get paid for their job.

I don’t know if they’re that much more

motivated to help people.

Also, we have a problem in the United States

that usually only wealthy kids go to the best schools

and it’s kind of a problem actually.

M: I agree with you.

I think it’s a problem because you’re not

giving equal access to education to everybody.

It’s not easy, but having only public universities

also might not be the best solution.

Perhaps we can learn from Japan where they have

a system of private and public universities.

Now, in Japan, public universities

are considered to be the best.

W: Right. It’s the exact opposite

in the United States.

M: So, as you see,

it’s very hard to say which one is better.

W: Right, a good point.

Questions 5 to 8 are based on

the conversation you have just heard.

5. What does the woman want Frederick

to talk about?

6. What does the man say about

the curriculum in Canadian universities?

7. On what point do the speakers agree?

8. What point does the man make

at the end of the conversation?

Section B

Directions: In this section,

you will hear two passages.

At the end of each passage,

you will hear three or four questions.

Both the passage and the questions

will be spoken only once.

After you hear a question,

you must choose the best answer from the

four choices marked A), B), C) and D).

Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1

with a single line through the centre.

Passage One

A recent International Labour Organization

report says the deterioration of real wages

around the world calls into question

the true extent of an economic recovery,

especially if government rescue packages

are phased out too early.

The report warns the picture on wages

is likely to get worse this year,

despite indications of an economic rebound.

Patrick Belser,

an International Labour Organization specialist,

says declining wage rates are linked to

the levels of unemployment.

“The quite dramatic unemployment figures,

which we now see in some of the countries,

strongly suggest that there will be greater pressure

on wages in the future as more people

will be unemployed,

more people will be looking for jobs

and the pressure on employers to raise wages

to attract workers will decline.

So,we expect that the second part of the year

will not be very good in terms of wage growth. ”

The report finds more than a quarter

of the countries experienced flat

or falling monthly wages in real terms.

They include, the United States, Austria,

Costa Rica, South Africa and Germany.

International Labour Organization economists say

some nations have come up with policies

to lessen the impact of lower wages

during the economic crisis.

An example of these is work sharing with

government subsidies. Under this scheme,

the number of individual working hours is

reduced in an effort to avoid layoffs.

For this scheme to work,

the government must provide wage subsidies

to compensate for lost pay due to the shorter hours.

Questions 9 to 11 are based on

the passage you have just heard.

9. What is the International Labour

Organization report mainly about?

10. According to an International Labour

Organization specialist, how will employers feel

if there are more people looking for jobs?

11. What does the speaker mean

by the work-sharing scheme?

Passage Two

Is there really a magic memory pill

or a herbal recall remedy?

I have been frequently asked if these

memory supplements work.

You know, one of the first things

I like to tell people when they ask me

about these supplements is

that a lot of them are promoted

as a cure for your memory.

But your memory doesn’t need a cure.

What your memory needs is a good workout.

So really those supplements aren’t going to

give you that perfect memory

in the way that they promise.

The other thing is that a lot of these supplements

aren’t necessarily what they claim to be,

and you really have to be wary

when you take any of them.

The science isn’t there behind most of them.

They’re not really well-regulated unless

they adhere to some industry standard.

You don’t really know that

what they say is in there isn't there.

What you must understand is that those supplements,

especially in some eastern cultures,

are part of a medical practice tradition.

People don’t just go in a local grocery store

and buy these supplements.

In fact, they are prescribed

and they’re given at a certain level,

a dosage that is understood by a practitioner

who’s been trained.

And that’s not really the way

they’re used in this country.

The other thing people do forget is

that these are medicines,

so they do have an impact.

A lot of times people are not really aware

of the impact they have, or the fact that

taking them in combination with other medications

might put you at an increased risk for something

that you wouldn’t otherwise be encountering

or be at risk for.

Questions 12 to 15 are based on

the passage you have just heard.

12. What question is frequently put to the speaker?

13. What does the speaker say

about most memory supplements?

14. What do we learn about

memory supplements in eastern cultures?

15. What does the speaker say

about memory supplements at the end?

Section C

Directions: In this section,

you will hear three recordings of lectures or talks

followed by three or four questions.

The recordings will be played only once.

After you hear a question,

you must choose the best answer from the

four choices marked A), B), C) and D).

Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1

with a single line through the centre.

Recording One

The negative impacts of natural disasters

can be seen everywhere.

In just the past few weeks,

the world has witnessed the destructive power

of earthquakes in Indonesia,

typhoons in the Philippines,

and the destructive sea waves

that struck Samoa and neighboring islands.

A study by the Center for Research on the

Epidemiology of Disasters finds that,

between 1980 and 2007, nearly 8, 400 natural

disasters killed more than two million people.

These catastrophic events caused more than

$1.5 trillion in economic losses.

U.N.weather expert Geoffrey Love says

that is the bad news. “Over the last 50 years,

economic losses have increased by a factor of 50.

That sounds pretty terrible,

but the loss of life has decreased by a factor of 10

simply because we are getting better

at warning people. We are making a difference.

Extreme events, however, will continue to occur.

But, the message is that

they need not be disasters.”

Loew, who is director of Weather and Disaster

Risk Reduction at the World Meteorological

Organization, says most of the deaths and

economic losses were caused by weather,

climate, or water-related extremes.

These include droughts, floods, windstorms,

strong tropical winds and wildfires.

He says extreme events will continue.

But, he says extreme events become disasters

only when people fail to prepare for them.

“Many of the remedies are well-known.

From a planning perspective,

it’s pretty simple. Build better buildings.

Don’t build where the hazards will destroy them.

From an early-warning perspective,

make sure the warnings go right down

to the community level.

Build community action plans.”

The World Meteorological Organization points

to Cuba and Bangladesh as examples of countries

that have successfully reduced the loss of life

caused by natural disasters by taking preventive action.

It says tropical storms formerly claimed dozens,

if not hundreds of lives, each year, in Cuba.

But, the development of an early-warning system

has reversed that trend.

In 2008, Cuba was hit by five successive hurricanes,

but only seven people were killed.

Bangladesh also has achieved substantial results.

Major storm surges in 1970 and 1991 caused

the deaths of about 440,000 people.

Through careful preparation,

the death toll from a super tropical storm

in November 2007 was less than 3,500.

Questions 16 to 18 are based on

the recording you have just heard.

16. What is the talk mainly about?

17. How can we stop extreme events

from turning into disasters?

18. What does the example of Cuba serve to show?

Recording Two

As U.S. banks recovered with the help of

the American government and the American

taxpayer, President Obama held meetings

with top bank executives,

telling them it’s time to return the favor.

“The way I see it—our banks now

have a greater obligation to the goal

of a wider recovery,”he said.

But the President may be giving the

financial sector too much credit.

“It was in a free fall,

and it was a very scary period.”

Economist Martin Neil Baily said.

After the failure of Lehman Brothers,

many of the world’s largest banks feared

the worst as the collapse of the housing bubble

exposed investments in risky loans.

Although he says the worst is over,

Baily says the banking crisis is not.

More than 130 U.S. banks failed in 2009.

He predicts high failure rates for smaller,

regional banks in 2010 as Commercial Real Estate

loans come due.“So there may actually

be a worsening of credit availability

to small-and medium-sized businesses

in the next year or so.”

Analysts say the biggest problem

is high unemployment,

which weakens demand and

makes banks reluctant to lend.

But U.S. Bancorp chief Richard Davis

sees the situation differently.

“We’re probably more optimistic than the experts

might be. With that in mind,

we’re putting in everything we can.

Lending is the coal to our engine,

so we want to make more loans.

We have to find a way to qualify more people

and not put ourselves at risk. ”

While some economists predict

continued recovery in the future,

Baily says the only certainty is that

banks are unlikely to make the same mistakes twice.

“You know, forecasting’s become a very hazardous

business so I don’t want to commit myself too much.

I don’t think we know exactly what’s going to happen

but it’s certainly possible that we could get

very slow growth over the next year or two. ”

If the economy starts to shrink again,

Baily says it would make a strong case

for a second stimulus—something the

Obama administration hopes will not be necessary.

Questions 19 to 22 are based

on the recording you have just heard.

19. What does President Obama hope the banks will do?

20. What is Martin Neil Baily’s prediction

about the financial situation in the future?

21. What does U.S. Bancorp chief Richard Davis

say about its future operation?

22. What does Martin Neil Baily think of

a second stimulus to the economy?

Recording Three

A new study has failed to find any

conclusive evidence that lifestyle changes

can prevent cognitive decline in older adults.

Still there are good reasons to make positive changes

in how we live and what we eat as we age.

Cognitive decline is the loss of ability to

learn new skills, or recall words, names,

and faces that is most common as we age.

To reduce or avoid it,

researchers have examined the effect of smoking,

diet, brain-challenging games,

exercise and other strategies.

Researchers at Duke University scrutinized

more than 160 published studies and

found an absence of strong evidence

that any of these approaches

can make a big difference.

Co-author James Burke helped design the study.

“In the observational studies we found that

some of the B vitamins were beneficial.

Exercise, diet, cognitive stimulation showed

some positive effects, although the evidence was

not so strong that we could actually

consider these firmly established.”

Some previous studies have suggested

that challenging your brain

with mentally stimulating activities might help.

And Burke says that actually does seem to help,

based on randomized studies—

the researcher’s gold standard.

“Cognitive stimulation is one of the areas

where we did find some benefit.

The exact type of stimulation that an individual uses

is not as important as being intellectually engaged.”

The expert review also found insufficient

evidence to recommend any drugs

or dietary supplements

that could prevent or slow cognitive decline.

However, given that there is at least

some evidence for positive effects

from some of these lifestyle changes,

plus other benefits apparently

unrelated to cognitive decline,

Burke was willing to offer some recommendations.

“I think that by having people adopt a healthy lifestyle,

both from a medical standpoint

as well as nutritional and

cognitive stimulation standpoint,

we can reduce the incidence of cognitive decline,

which will be proof that these factors are,

in fact, important. ”

James Burke of Duke University is

one of the authors of a study reviewing

previous research on cognitive decline.

The paper is published online

by the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Questions 23 to 25 are based

on the recording you have just heard.

23.According to the speaker,

what might be a symptom of cognitive decline

in older adults?

24. According to James Burke,

what does seem to help reduce cognitive decline?

25. What did James Burke recommend

to reduce the incidence of cognitive decline?

This is the end of listening comprehension.