1、大学英语六级-168 及答案解析(总分：100.00，做题时间：90 分钟)The trend toward smaller families may not be as modern as we think. Although on average each woman had four or five children, only two typically survived childhoodthe number found in the average American family today. Even our style of rearing children is starti
2、ng to parallel hunting-gathering communities, in which girls and boys are permitted to play together from a young age, and consequently experiment at sex earlier and engage in trial marriages. Clearly we“ve moved away from the agricultural custom of arranged marriages and cloistering girls to preser
3、ve their virginity. Moreover, the home is no longer the “lace of production“, as it was in farm days. We don“t make our soap, grow our vegetables and slaughter our chicken for the dinner table. Instead, we hunt and gather in the grocery store and return to our “home base“ to consume the food we have
4、 collected. No wonder we are so in love with fast foods. It probably harks back to (类似于) an eating strategy our primitive relatives adopted over 50 million years ago. There“s no mistaking the trend: Humans are once again on the move. Husband and wife are no longer bound to a single plot of land for
5、their livelihood. Women are back in production as well as reproduction. As we head back to the future, there“s every reason to believe the sexes will enjoy the kind of equality that is a function of our birthright. By equality, I mean a more equitable division of powernot that our roles will converg
6、e. Alike men and women have never been and never will be. Very simply, we think differently, which is again tied to our long hunting-gathering heritage. For 2 million years, women carried around children and have been the nurturers. That“s probably why tests show they are both more verbal and more a
7、ttuned to nonverbal cues. Women, on the other hand, tend to have superior mathematical and visual-spatial skills because they roamed long distances from the campsite, had to scheme ways to trap prey and then had to find their way back. That specialization is reflected in genuine gender differences i
8、n the brain today. Nature not only intended men and women to put their bodies together; we“ve meant to put our heads together as well. That“s what“s so thrilling about what“s happening now. All those male and female skills are beginning to work together again. At long last, society is moving in a di
9、rection that should be highly compatible with our ancient human spirit.（分数：25.00）(1).It can be learned from the first paragraph that _.（分数：5.00）A.girls in a hunting-gathering society are more likely to engage in trial marriagesB.people in modern society are more of consumers than producersC.women ar
10、e playing a more important role in modern societyD.gender differences are reflected especially in brain volume(2).It can be inferred from the first two paragraphs that _.（分数：5.00）A.we and people in agricultural society have similar ways of bringing up childrenB.people in the primitive society also h
11、ad a passion for fast foodC.our eating habit is similar to that in the primitive societyD.of the four or five children born into today“s American society, only three will survive(3).By saying that the sexes will enjoy equality, the author means that _.（分数：5.00）A.men and women will have the same role
12、B.men and women will be entitled to equal rights from the time they are bornC.men and women will do the same thingD.the distribution of power will be fairer between men and women(4).Judging from the skills women acquire, they might be suitable to be a/an _.（分数：5.00）A.engineerB.nurseC.workerD.long-di
13、stance runner(5).The phrase “compatible with“ in the last sentence of the passage can be replaced by _.（分数：5.00）A.competitive withB.adaptable toC.comprehensible toD.in accordance withMany people seem to think that science fiction is typified by the Bug-eyed Monster, embodying every feature that most
14、 people find repulsive. This is unfortunate because it degrades a worthwhile literary endeavor (努力). Instead, the basic interest of science fiction lies in the relation between man and his technology and between man and the universe. Science fiction is a literature of change and a literature of the
15、future, and the aspects of human life that it considers make it well worth reading and studying for no other literary form does quite the same things. What is science fiction? To begin, the following definition should be helpful: Science fiction is a literary subgenre which postulates (假定) a change
16、(for human beings) from conditions as we know them and follows the implications of the change to a conclusion. The first point that science fiction is a literary subgenre is a very important one, but one which is often overlooked or ignored in most discussions of science fiction. Specifically, scien
17、ce fiction is either a short story or a novel. There are only a few dramas which could be called science fiction, the body of poetry that might be labeled science fiction is only slightly larger. To say that science fiction is a subgenre of prose fiction is to say that it has all the basic character
18、istics and serves the same basic functions in much the same way as prose fiction in general, that is, it shares a great deal with all other novels and short stories. Everything that can be said about prose fiction, in general, applies to science fiction. Every piece of science fiction, whether short
19、 story or novel, must have a narrator, a plot, a setting, characters, language and theme. The themes of science fiction are concerned with interpreting man“s nature and experience in relation to the world around him. Themes in science fiction are constructed and presented in exactly the same ways th
20、at themes are dealt with in any other kind of fiction. They are the result of a particular combination of a narrator, plot, character, setting, and language. In short, the reasons for reading and enjoying science fiction, and the ways of studying and analyzing it, are basically the same as they woul
21、d be for any other story or novel.（分数：25.00）(1).According to the first paragraph, why has science fiction been popular?（分数：5.00）A.Because with the growth of literacy, the size of the reading public has increased.B.Because competition from television has created a demand for exciting fiction.C.Becaus
22、e science fiction is easier to understand than another kind of fiction.D.Because the increased importance of technology has given science fiction an increased relevance.(2).According to the definition of science fiction, a fictional work that places human beings in a prehistoric world inhabited by d
23、inosaurs _.（分数：5.00）A.can“t be called science fiction because it does not deal with the futureB.can“t be called science fiction because it does not deal with technologyC.can be called science fiction because it deals with man“s relation to the worldD.can be called science fiction because it places p
24、eople in a new environment(3).Why is science fiction called a subgenre of prose fiction?（分数：5.00）A.Because it is not important enough to be a literary genre.B.Because it cannot be made into a dramatic presentation.C.Because it shares the same characteristics with prose fiction.D.Because it shows the
25、 close relation between man and the universe.(4).One implication of the final sentence in the passage is that _.（分数：5.00）A.the reader should turn to commentaries on general fictionB.there is no reason for readers not to like science fictionC.readers should compare other novels and stories to science
26、 fictionD.those who can appreciate prose fiction can appreciate science fiction(5).What is the appropriate title for this passage?（分数：5.00）A.Man and the UniverseB.A Type of WritingC.The Definition of Science FictionD.The Bug-eyed MonsterDeck officers on American aircraft carriers use hand gestures t
27、o guide planes around their vessels. These signals are fast, efficient and perfect for a noisy environment. Unfortunately, they work only with people. They are utterly lost on robotic drones (无人遥控飞机)and even if a drone is under the control of a remote pilot deep in the bowels (内部最深处) of the ship, th
28、at pilot often has difficulty reading them. Since drones are becoming more and more important in modern warfare, this is a nuisance. Life would be easier for all if drones were smart enough to respond directly to a deck officer“s gesticulations. Making them that smart is the goal of Yale Song, a com
29、puter scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is not there yet but, as he reports in ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems, he and his colleagues David Demirdjian and Randall Davis have developed a promising prototype. To try teaching drones the language of hand sign
30、als, Mr Song and his colleagues made a series of videos in which various deck officers performed to camera a set of 24 commonly used gestures. They then fed these videos into an algorithm (计算程序) of their own devising that was designed to analyze the position and movement of a human body, and told th
31、e algorithm what each gesture represented. The idea was that the algorithm would learn the association and, having seen the same gesture performed by different people, would be able to generalize what was going on and thus recognize gestures performed by strangers. Unfortunately, it did not quite wo
32、rk out like that. In much the same way that spoken language is actually a continuous stream of sound (perceived gaps between words are, in most cases, an audio illusion), so the language of gestures to pilots is also continuous, with one flowing seamlessly into the next. And the algorithm could not
33、cope with that. To overcome this difficulty, Mr Song imposed gaps by chopping the videos up into three-second blocks. That allowed the computer time for reflection. Its accuracy was also increased by interpreting each block in light of those immediately before and after it, to see if the result was
34、a coherent message of the sort a deck officer might actually wish to impart. The result is a system that gets it right three-quarters of the time. Obviously that is not enough. You would not entrust the fate of a multi-million-dollar drone to such a system. But it is a good start. If Mr Song can pus
35、h the accuracy up to that displayed by a human pilot, then the task of controlling activity on deck should become a lot easier.（分数：25.00）(1).In what aspect should drones be improved in preparation for the modern warfare?（分数：5.00）A.Having better image transmission to its remote pilot.B.Being remotely
36、 controlled by deck officers.C.Being capable of identifying deck officers“ gestures.D.Being able to fly silently and invisibly.(2).What is the key to teaching drones the language of hand signals?（分数：5.00）A.Recording various deck officers“ gestures for drones.B.Making standard gesture videos for deck
37、 officers.C.Converting hand signals into computer-sensible instructions.D.Simplifying various gestures into 24 commonly used ones.(3).Why can“t the algorithm achieve the desired result?（分数：5.00）A.The flowing gestures are too fast to read.B.It can“t divide the continuous gestures into units.C.The ges
38、tures sometimes cause illusions.D.It can“t give results promptly.(4).How did Mr Song deal with the difficulty confronting him?（分数：5.00）A.He cut the videos into two or three blocks.B.He arranged the videos in a coherent order.C.He increased the accuracy of the algorithm by imposing gaps in the videos
39、.D.He improved the cooperation between the computer and the deck officer.(5).What is the biggest problem that Mr Song“s system confronts at present?（分数：5.00）A.Its cost is too high as the drone is already expensive.B.Its accuracy is not high enough for military use.C.Pilots resent the idea of coopera
40、ting with the computer.D.It is not compatible with the current military hardware.Are you worried that using your tablet screen in bed at night may stop you getting a good sleep? You may well be, following a spate of headlines reporting on the work of scientists at the Lighting Research Centre, part
41、of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. Mariana Figueiro led a team of scientists who found that exposure to the light from self-luminous displays, such as Apple iPads, could be linked to increased risk for sleep disorders because these devices emit optical radiation at short wavelength
42、s close to the peak sensitivity of melatonin (褪黑激素) suppression. Melatonin is a hormone used by the body as a biological indicator of how dark it is outside. In Figueiro“s experiment, carried out on 13 volunteers aged around 20, the scientists found that two hours of iPad use before bedtime suppress
43、ed the body“s melatonin levels by around 23%. However, Russell Foster, a professor of circadian neuroscience at the University of Oxford, is not convinced. For a start, he said, melatonin levels were not a good way to predict how much sleep someone will get. “The relationship between melatonin and s
44、leep is completely flawed,“ he said. Melatonin is not a sleep hormonewhat it does is provide a biological representation of the dark. There is no empirical evidence that suggests that lower levels of melatonin will have a direct effect on the sleep axis. “If you take melatonin, it can speed up the s
45、hifting effect of light on the clock and, in some people, has a slight sleep-inductive effect. Making the jump from the biology of what we know of melatonin to the effect it“s having on sleep is completely flawed.“ The levels of light needed to suppress melatonin are an order of magnitude different
46、from the amount of light needed to shift a person“s body clock. In Figueiro“s study, the participants experienced light exposure levels that ranged from 5 to 50 lux. Foster said a person would need around 500 to 1000 lux to shift their circadian clocks. He said the issue at stake was an important on
47、e, namely the potential adverse effects of light and use of computer and television screens on sleep, the body“s circadian system and brain alertness. “Does this paper give us any empirical evidence of the effects of light on the clock? No, it doesn“t, “ he said. “Extrapolating from these data into
48、a more global effect can“t be done.“ Foster advised people not to get unduly concerned as a result of Figueiro“s research. “On the basis of these data, we cannot say anything empirical about sleep; I wouldn“t worry. The bigger issue of the impact of light, particularly before you go to bed, is serio
49、usthere may well be effects of light on alertness.“（分数：25.00）(1).What can we learn from the experiment of Figueiro and her colleagues?（分数：5.00）A.Exposure to the screen light stimulated radiation-related problems.B.Using Apple iPads increased the risk of sleep disorders.C.The light from tablet screen suppressed the melatonin levels.D.People with low hormone levels didn“t know how dark it was outside.(2).How did Foster look at the relationship between melatonin and sleep?（分数：5.00）A.There was no direct relationship between melatonin and sleep.B.Melatonin af
