1990 年 6 月英语六级真题试卷
Part I Listening Comprehension (20 minutes)
Section A
1.
A) A new house cost thirty thousand dollars.
B) Bob’s house cost him sixty thousand dollars.
C) Bob didn’t 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) Yes, he can study there if he is writing a research paper.
C) Yes, because he is a senior student.
D) No, it’s open only to teachers and postgraduates.
3.
A) He doesn’t like seafood any more.
B) A seafood dinner is too expensive.
C) He doesn’t have enough money.
D) He likes seafood very much.
4.
A) He went to 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 wasn’t very challenging to her.
C) It was more difficult than she had expected.
D) She made very few grammatical mistakes in her test.
6.
A) 6 hours.
B) 4 hours.
C) 12 hours.
D) 18 hours.
7.
A) It’s dirty.
B) It’s faded.
C) It’s dyed.
D) It’s 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 needs to be repaired.
C) He may come again for his watch at the weekend.
D) The woman won’t 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 B
Questions 11 to 14 are based on the passage you have just heard.
Passage One
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 Shakespeare’s work.
13. A) It 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.
Questions 15 to 17 are based on the passage you have just heard.
Passage Two
15. A) They would 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 nature.
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 than a scholar.
Questions 18 to 20 are based on the passage you have just heard.
Passage Three
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 Valentine’s birthday.
C) To express their respect for 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 One
Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following 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 the 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 mathematician, J. E.
Littlewood, and the two men set out to assess the Indian’s 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 recognized 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 today’s problems in computer science and
physics, 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 accountant’s family 100 years ago, has inspired many Indians to
adopt mathematics as career.
Much of Ramanujan’s work is in number theory, a branch of 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
of 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) uninterested
B) unsympathetic
C) suspicious
D) curious
22. Ramanujan’s position in Cambridge University owed much to ________.
A) the judgement of his work by Hardy and Littlewood
B) his letter of application accepted by Hardy
C) his work as a clerk at Madras Port Trust
D) his being recognized by the world as a famous mathematician
23. It may be inferred from the passage that the author ________.
A) feels sorry for Ramanujan’s early death
B) is dissatisfied with the slow development of computer science
C) is puzzled about the complexity of Ramanujan’s theorems
D) greatly appreciates Ramanujan’s mathematical genius
24. In the last paragraph, the author points out that ________.
A) Ramanujan’s mathematical theorems were not appreciated by other mathematicians
B) extremely talented people can prove their worth despite difficult circumstances
C) Ramanujan also wrote a number of stories about mathematics
D) Ramanujan had worked out an elegant but complicated method of solving problems
25. The word “laymen” (Last Para, Lind 6) most probably means ________.
A) people who do not specialize in mathematical science
B) people who are careless
C) people who are not interested in mathematics
D) people who don’t like to solve complicated problems
Passage Two
Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.
Even if all the 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. One
British study predicts that “automation induced unemployment” in Western Europe
could reach
16~, 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
CPT’s Scheff. “Of course,” he adds, “one industry may kill another industry. That’s
tough on some people.”
Theoretically, all unemployed workers can be retrained, but retraining programs
are not high on the nation’s agenda(议事日程). Many new jobs, moreover, will require
an ability in using computers, and the 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 children 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 way 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 of
The Computer Establishment, “it was a tool to help the rich get richer. It still
is to a large extent. One of the great values 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 another
B) one industry might be driven out of business by another industry
C) one industry may increase its staff at the expense of another
D) industries tend to combine into bigger ones
27. The word “chilling” (Para. 2, Line 5) most probably means ________.
A) misleading
B) convincing
C) discouraging
D) interesting
28. Which of the 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 effectively.
29. From the passage it can be inferred that ________.
A) all school children are offered a course in the use of computers
B) all unemployed workers are being retrained
C) retraining programmes are considered very important by the government
D) in reality only a certain portion of unemployed workers will be retrained
30. The major problem discussed in the passage is ________.
A) the importance of lifelong retraining of the unemployed workers
B) the social consequences of the widespread use of computers in the United States
C) the barrier to the employment of young people
D) the general rule of the advancement of technology
Passage Three
Questions 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 organization, 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 spatial 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 stability. 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 mobility 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 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 mobility 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 each 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 publications,
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 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
families
B) potential disorganization is present in the American family
C) family disorganization is more or less the result of mobility
D) 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 stability
B) have to depend on their relatives and friends if they do not move away from
it
C) can get more help from their family members if they are in trouble
D) 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 husband, wife, and children work too hard
B) the husband, wife, and children seldom get together
C) both parents have to work full time
D) the family members are subject to social pressures
34. Intermarriage and different occupations play an important role in family
disorganization because ________.
A) they enable the children to travel around without their parents’ permission
B) they allow one to find a good job and improve one’s social status
C) they enable the children to better understand the ways of behavior of their
parents
D) they permit one to come into contact with different ways of behavior and thinking
35. This passage suggests that a well-organized family is a family whose members
________.
A) are not psychologically withdrawn from one another
B) never quarrel with each other even when they disagree