1、大学英语六级改革适用（阅读）模拟试卷 214及答案与解析 Section A 0 In 1915 Einstein made a trip to Gottingen to give some lectures at the invitation of the mathematical physicist David Hilbert. He was particularly eager to explain all the intricacies of relativity to him. The visit was a triumph, and he said to a friend exci
2、tedly, “I was able to【 C1】 _Hilbert of the general theory of relativity.“ Amid all of Einsteins personal turmoil(焦躁 )at the time, a new scientific【 C2】_was about to emerge. He was struggling to find the right equations that would【 C3】 _his new concept of gravity, ones that would define how objects m
3、ove through space and how space is curved by objects. By the end of the summer, he realized the mathematical approach he had been【 C4】 _for almost three years was flawed. And now there was a【 C5】 _pressure. Einstein discovered to his【 C6】_that Hilbert had taken what he had learned from Einsteins lec
4、tures and was racing to come up with the correct equations first. It was an enormously【 C7】 _task. Although Einstein was the better physicist, Hilbert was the better mathematician. So in October 1915 Einstein threw himself into a month-long frantic【 C8】 _in which he returned to an earlier mathematic
5、al strategy and wrestled with equations, proofs, corrections and updates that he rushed to give as lectures to Berlins Prussian Academy of Sciences on four【 C9】_Thursdays. His first lecture was delivered on Nov. 4, 1915, and it explained his new approach, though he admitted he did not yet have the p
6、recise mathematical formulation of it. Einstein also took time off from【 C10】 _revising his equations to engage in an awkward fandango(方丹戈双人舞 )with his competitor Hilbert. A)extinction B)describe C)furiously D)complex E)repetitive F)anxiety G)contending H)competitive I)convince J)successive K)endeav
7、or L)darted M)horror N)coarsely O)pursuing 1 【 C1】 2 【 C2】 3 【 C3】 4 【 C4】 5 【 C5】 6 【 C6】 7 【 C7】 8 【 C8】 9 【 C9】 10 【 C10】 Section B 10 Baby Boomers Are Killing Themselves at an Alarming Rate AIt has long held true that elderly people have higher suicide rates than the overall population. But numb
8、ers released in May by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a dramatic rise in suicides among middle-aged people, with the highest increases among men in their 50s, whose rate went up by nearly 50 percent to 30 per 100,000; and women in their early 60s, whose rate rose by nearly 60 pe
9、rcent(though it is still relatively low compared with men, at 7 in 100,000). This is an alarming trend among baby boomers. BThere are no large-scale studies yet figuring out the reasons behind the increase in baby boomer suicides. Part of it is likely tied to the recent economic downturn. But the tr
10、end started a decade before the 2008 recession, and psychologists and academics say it likely stems from a complex series of issues. C“Weve been a pretty youth-oriented generation,“ said Bob Knight, professor of gerontology(老人医学 )and psychology at the University of Southern California, who is also a
11、 baby boomer. “We havent idealized growing up and getting mature in the same way that age groups have.“ Even as they become grandparents and deal with normal signs of getting old, such as hearing and vision losses, many boomers are reluctant to accept the realities of aging, Knight said. To those gr
12、owing up in the 1950s and 60s, America seemed to promise a limitless array of possibilities. The Great Depression and World War II were over, medical innovations such as the polio vaccine(脊髓灰质炎疫苗 )and antibiotics(抗生素 )appeared to wipe out disease and disability; the birth-control pill sparked a sexu
13、al revolution. The economy was thriving, and as they came of age, boomers embraced new ways of living as civil rights activists, as hippies, as feminists, as war protesters. D“There was a sense of rebelliousness, of I dont want to live the way my parents did or their parents did,“ said Patrick Arbor
14、e, director and founder of the Center for Elderly Suicide Prevention at San Franciscos Institute on Aging. “There was a lot of movement to different parts of the country. With that came a lot of freedom, but there also came a loss of connections. It was not uncommon to see people married three or fo
15、ur times.“ EHow did a generation that started out with so much going for it end up so desperate in midlife? It could be that those very advantages made it harder to cope with setbacks, said Barry Jacobs, director of behavioral sciences at the Crozer-Keystone Family Medicine Residency Program in Penn
16、sylvania. “There was an illusion of choice where people thought theyd be able to re-create themselves again and again,“ he said. “These people feel a greater sense of disappointment because their expectations of leading glorious lives didnt come to realization.“ FInstead, compared with their parents
17、 generation, boomers have higher rates of weight problems, prescription and illegal drug abuse, alcoholism, divorce, depression and mental disorders. As they age, many add to that list of chronic illness, disabilities and the strains of caring for their parents and for adult children who still depen
18、d on them financially. GPerhaps a little more adversity in youth could have helped prepare them for the inevitable indignities of aging, Knight suggested, adding that “the earlier-born are sort of tougher in the face of stress.“ Despite the hardships of life in the first half of the 20th century, he
19、 said, older generations didnt have the same kind of concept of being stressed out. HOlder generations also had clearer milestones for success. “They won the Great War, they saved the world,“ said David Jobes, a professor of psychology at Catholic University and a clinician at the Washington Psychol
20、ogical Center in Friendship Heights. IBaby boomers, on the other hand, have struggled more with existential questions of purpose and meaning. Growing up in a post-Freudian society, they were raised with a new vocabulary of emotional awareness and an emphasis on self-actualization. But that did not n
21、ecessarily translate into an increased ability to cope with difficult emotionsespecially among men. Women tend to be better connected socially and share their feelings more freely protective factors when looking at their risk for suicide. And African Americans and Hispanics tend to have lower rates
22、of suicide than whites, possibly because of stronger community connections, or because of different expectations. JCombine high expectations with a weaker economy, and the risk goes up. “We know that what men want to do is work thats a very strong ethic for them,“ Arbore said. “When their jobs are b
23、eing threatened, they see themselves as still needing to be in that role; they feel ashamed when theyre not able to find another job. The idea that so many of us in this country have been brought up with that you work hard, you get your house, you get your American dream, everything is sunny hasnt w
24、orked out. A lot of these boomers arent going to earn as much money as their parents did. They arent going to be as secure as their parents were. And thats quite troubling for the boomers.“ KMike Murray of Rising Sun, Md., struggled with major depression for most of his adult years, even as he marri
25、ed, raised two children and owned a successful grass-mowing business. His wife, Becky Murray, who ran the business with him, describes him as a perfectionist. “He always did well in school, he was a straight-A student; anything he did, he did well,“ she said. LBut in 2004 a back injury forced him to
26、 go on disability and on powerful pain medications. In 2010 he made two attempts to overdose, and in early 2011, two days after his 49th birthday, he killed himself with a shotgun. “He was handsome, he was smart, people loved him,“ Murray said, but added that he felt increasingly depressed. And whil
27、e he was grateful for his disability checks, she said, “It was very hard for him to accept this and to not contribute to his family.“ MNor are women immune. When Liz Strands 53-year-old friend killed herself two years ago in California, her house was underwater and needed repairs, she had a painful
28、ankle that was made worse by being overweight, and although she had tried to find a partner, she was unmarried, like one-third of baby boomers. N“When everything started exploding on her it was too much for her,“ Strand said, adding that as a boomer she herself recalls the shock of realizing that th
29、e good times were not eternal. “I just thought everything was going to continue to improve. I remember hearing at one point in a college class that, No, its a pendulum. It was a real wake-up call.“ OWhat makes boomers anxiety worse is a sense that the world is more hazardous than when they were youn
30、g, Arbore said. Then, the atom bombs seemed large, but they were distant and abstract; attacks like the ones on the World Trade Center and the Boston Marathon have changed the pattern. “These events used to happen 6,000 miles away; now they happen here,“ He said. PIt is unclear whether younger gener
31、ations will follow or resist the boomer trend as they age, or if boomers will continue to kill themselves at such high rates as they move into retirement. 11 Women are inclined to have better social connections and share their feelings more freely. 12 The sense that the world is getting more dangero
32、us makes boomers more anxious. 13 According to psychologists and academics, the increase in baby boomer suicides might originate from a complex series of issues. 14 The American dream does not seem to work out on the generation of baby boomers. 15 The reality that baby boomers fail to reach their ex
33、pectations of leading a splendid life leads to their great despair. 16 Although older generations led a hard life in the first half of the 20th century, they didnt have the feeling of being stressed out. 17 Men in their 50s show the fastest growth in suicide rates. 18 Hardships in young age might ha
34、ve done good to baby boomers when they are facing the unavoidable indignities of aging. 19 Many baby boomers are unwilling to accept the fact of getting old. 20 Compared with the older generation, baby boomers were confronted with a lot more problems, including providing financial support to their a
35、dult children. Section C 20 The need for solar electricity is clear. It is safe, ecologically sound, efficient, continuously available, and it has no moving parts. The basic problem with the use of solar photovoltaic devices is economics, but until recently very little progress had been made toward
36、the development of low-cost photovoltaic devices. The larger part of research funds has been devoted to the study of single crystal silicon solar cells, despite the evidence that this technique holds little promise. The reason for this pattern is understandable and historical. Crystalline silicon, h
37、owever, is particularly unsuitable to terrestrial solar cells. Crystalline silicon solar cells work well and are successfully used in the space program, where cost is not an issue. While single crystal silicon has been proven in extraterrestrial use with efficiencies as high as 18 percent, and other
38、 more expensive and rare materials can have even higher efficiencies, costs must be reduced by a factor of more than 100 to make them practical for commercial uses. Besides the fact that the starting crystalline silicon is expensive, 95 percent of it is wasted and does not appear in the final device
39、. Recently, there have been some imaginative attempts to make polycrystalline and ribbon silicon which are lower in cost than high-quality single crystals; but to date the efficiencies of these apparently lower-cost materials have unacceptably small. This difficulty can be avoided by preparing compl
40、etely disordered or amorphous materials. Amorphous materials have disordered atomic structure as compared to crystalline materials: that is, they have only short-range order rather than the long-range periodicity of crystal. The advantages of amorphous solar cells are impressive. Crystalline silicon
41、 must be made 200 microns thick to absorb a sufficient amount of sunlight for efficient energy conversion, whereas only 1 micron of the proper amorphous materials is necessary. Crystalline silicon solar cells cost in excess of 100 per square foot, but amorphous films can be created at a cost of abou
42、t 50 cents per square foot. Although many scientists were aware of the very low cost of amorphous solar cells, they felt that they could never be manufactured with the efficiencies necessary to contribute significantly to the demand for electric power. This was based on a misconception about the fea
43、ture which determines efficiency. For example, it is not the conductivity of the material in the dark which is relevant, but only the photoconductivity, that is, the conductivity in the presence of sunlight. Already, solar cells with efficiencies well about 6 percent have been developed using amorph
44、ous materials, and further research will doubtlessly find even less costly amorphous materials with higher efficiencies. 21 What does the author suggest about crystal silicon? （ A） It has long been studied for its terrestrial use. （ B） It is of little use in solar photovoltaic devices. （ C） It is so
45、 economical that it is widely used in the space program. （ D） It has been efficiently used in extraterrestrial solar cells. 22 By saying that “this technique holds little promise“(Line 5, Para. 1), the author means that_. （ A） crystal silicon is impractical for commercial use （ B） little progress wi
46、ll be made on the research of crystal silicon （ C） research funds will be cut down on the study of crystal silicon （ D） researches will not continue to study crystal silicon 23 Which of the following accounts for the high cost of crystal silicon? （ A） It is mostly used in the space program. （ B） It
47、has higher efficiency than other materials. （ C） It is most difficult to find in nature. （ D） It has a very low utilization rate. 24 Many scientists believed that the efficiency of amorphous materials is related to _. （ A） their conductivity in the sun （ B） their conductivity in the dark （ C） their
48、atomic structure （ D） their size and thickness 25 In this passage, the author mainly describes _. （ A） the advantages of solar cells （ B） the efficiencies of solar cells （ C） how solar cells are manufactured （ D） in what ways solar cells are used 25 When an invention is made, the inventor has three
49、possible courses of action open to him: he can give the invention to the world by publishing it, keep the idea secret, or patent it. A granted patent is the result of a bargain struck between an inventor and the state, by which the inventor gets a limited period of monopoly and publishes full details of his invention to the public after that period terminates. Only under the most exceptional circumstances is the lifespan of a patent extended to alter this
