20xx年12月英語六級考前沖刺試題第一套Part I Writing (30 minutes)Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a composition on the topic: Overseas Study at an Early Age. You should write at least 150 words following the outline given below:1. 目前很多父母在子女高中畢業(yè)前就送他們出國學(xué)習(xí)2. 形成這種趨勢的原因3. 我對此的看法考試大論壇Overseas Study at an Early Age_Part II Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning) (15 minutes)Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on Answer Sheet 1. For questions 1-4, markY (for YES) if the statement agrees with the information given in the passage;N (for NO) if the statement contradicts the information given in the passage;NG (for NOT GIVEN) if the information is not given in the passage.For question 5-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.The Next Disaster: Are We Ready?Are We Really Prepared?After the attacks on September 11 and the hurricanes that slammed the Gulf Coast last year, youd expect our major cities to be ready with disaster plans that will save lives and property. Theres no doubt well be hit againmaybe even harderbecause the list of possible calamities(災(zāi)難)is long: from a bird flu pandemic to a massive California earthquake, to more monster storms, to another terrorist attack.But are we really prepared to protect people, as well as their homes and businesses? Every major urban area has received federal funding, much of it from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in order to make their cities more secure. But there are no set criteria for measuring preparedness (the feds are working on that), and the quality of disaster plans varies widely throughout the country.So we decided to do an independent assessment of 10 high-risk urban areas, focusing on key security indicators. We analyzed public data, consulted with federal and local emergency workers, and contacted the mayors offices to gauge(測量)the readiness of these cities to meet both natural and man-made disasters.Our criteria fell under three main categories: Emergency Readiness, Crisis Communications, and Medical Response.Emergency ReadinessAre there at least 1,000 first responders (such as police, fire and EMTs) per 100,000 residents? Theyre our first line of protection in almost any disaster situationprofessionals who are trained to handle everything from rescuing victims to providing first aid, to enforcing quarantines(封鎖), to directing traffic for evacuations(疏散).Are there federal search-and-rescue teams based within 50 miles? Large cities often have specialized teams to deal with such things as high-rise-building rescues or hazardous chemical spills. But these squads are sometimes small, ill-equipped, or run on a shoestring. This is not true of federal urban search-and-rescue task forces that the DHS supports across the country. Each task force is made of 62 members and 4 canines, as well as a "comprehensive cache" of equipment. DHS task forces are not automatically assigned; a city needs to apply and present its case.Has the city or state earned "green status" from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention? Suppose that in the midst of a flu pandemic or bio terror attack, your city ran low on critical medicines. The CDC stands ready to help by distributing drugs and medical equipment from its Strategic National Stockpile. But the agency wants to know that a city or state is able to quickly mobilize hundreds of health workers and volunteers trained to handle the logistics, and has space set aside for storage and refrigeration. Youre best off if your city has earned the CDCs "green status"even if the state itself has notbecause it means local health teams can handle the supplies on their own.Does the city website explain clearly what to do in case of evacuation? Who can forget the images of stranded New Orleans residents, or the 5-mph crawl out of Houston? It turned out that New Orleanss evacuation plans were both inadequate and poorly communicated. One way cities can avoid a similar nightmare is to put clear and easy-to-find evacuation information on their websites. Some cities, such as Boston and Washington, post the preferred street routes. Others, like Las Vegas, wont disclose details due to security fears, but their websites may provide ways to quickly get evacuation details when you need them (such as numbers to call or alert services you can sign up for). Among the more important things to address are people without vehicles of their own (a huge failing in New Orleans) and instructions for pet owners.Does the website include details for residents with special needs? In July 1995, a vicious heat wave killed nearly 500 people in Chicago; a disproportionate number of them were older residents who lived alone. In any crisis, the elderly and disabled can be uniquely vulnerable. Thats why cities such as Houston are creating registries of residents who would need special help. Such lists would indicate, for instance, that a certain person in a certain apartment building is wheel-chair-bound. Other cities are instructing people with disabilities to call 911 for assistancethough this relies on phone systems that could be overloaded or go dead. If a citys disaster planning shows no awareness of special-needs people, it isnt complete.Crisis CommunicationsCan first responderspolice, fire and medicaltalk to one another? On September 11, firefighters died inside the World Trade Center because they could not make contact with police helicopters trying to radio warnings. Incompatible communications is a country-wide problem, and converting or replacing decades-old radio systems can be a long, expensive process. Cities have gotten a big boost if theyve taken part in RapidCom, a DHS program providing technical assistance and training that speeds up the transition.Has the city adopted E911? Many cities have upgraded their 911 call centers in recent years, but theyre even better prepared if theyve incorporated "E911" (or "enhanced 911"). This technology enables emergency operators to identify the precise location of cell-phone callers through GPS systems. If you wind up stranded in floodwaters, E911 could save your life.Does the city provide 24-hour emergency alerts? What if an evacuation order goes out, but its 3 a.m. and youre sound asleep? Not a problem if your city has a way of alerting you at any time of day. Some rely on street sirens(警報器)to do the trick. Others have used their websites to invite residents to sign up for e-mail notifications or automated phone calls in an emergency.Medical ResponseAre there at least 500 hospital beds for every 100,000 residents? Getting to victims quickly is a critical first step. But youd better have a place to take them for treatment. A reasonable standard, according to preparedness experts, is 500 hospital beds for every 100,000 peoplea ratio that would likely mean a city could find enough spare beds in an emergency. Of course, beds alone wont s help a massive number of burn victims or people suffering from chemical exposure unless the hospital is prepared to treat them. But all the cities in our survey have specialty units in their hospitals that can handle such cases.Are local teams trained to respond quickly and work together? If and urban area was targeted by weapons of mass destruction, city health officials couldnt just wait for federal help to arrive. First responders and hospital would need to react right away. They could also need medical volunteerssay, to help vaccinate people or distribute medicines and supplies. How to ensure that all these professionals and volunteers work together as seamlessly as possible? If a city is part of DHSs Metropolitan Medical Response System, it has obtained federal assistance in developing plans, and has received critical training and equipment.Are there labs nearby that specialize in biological and chemical threats? The CDC is on the cutting edge with its Laboratory Response Networkintegrated labs nationwide that have the equipment and expertise to quickly identify pathogens and toxic chemicals. An LRN lab in Florida was the first to detect anthrax(炭疽熱)in terrorist mailings in 2001. Laboratories can be members only if they have highly trained staff and exceptional facilities, as well as track record of testing accuracy. A handful of LRN labs qualify as "Level 1", meaning they can test for chemical poisons such as mustard and nerve agents.1. A bird flu, a massive earthquake, a monster storm and a terrorist attack are all threats to major cities in the U.S.2. The author does an assessment of all high-risk urban areas in the U.S.3. Policemen, firemen and emergency doctors all can be called first responders.4. Each federal urban search-and-rescue task force is made up of at least 60 members.5. If a city has earned the CDCs green status "green status", it means that its local health teams can _ on their own.6. You can get evacuation details through the ways provided by the website of Las Vegas though it doesnt disclose the details due to _.7. Incompatible communications is a country-wide problem in the U.S. because of the _ which should be converted or replaced.8. Emergency operators can identify the precise location of cell-phone callers through GPS systems with the use of _.9. According to preparedness experts, if a city has at least 500 hospital beds for every 100,000 residents, it could find _ in an emergency.10. As a part of DHSs Metropolitan Medical Response System, a city can obtain _ in developing plansPart IV Reading Comprehension (Reading in Depth) (25 minutes)Section ADirections: In this section, there is a short passage with 5 questions or incomplete statements. Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions or complete statements in the fewest possible words. Please write your answers on Answer Sheet 2.By the mind-nineteenth century, the term "icebox" had entered the American language, but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet of ordinary citizens in the United States. The ice trade grew with the growth of cities. Ice was used in hotels, taverns(酒館), and hospitals, and by some forward-looking city dealers in fresh meat, fresh fish, and butter. After the Civil War (1861-1865), as ice was used to refrigerate freight cars, it also came into household use. Even before 1880, half of the ice sold in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third of that sold in Boston and Chicago, went to families for their own use. This had become possible because a new household convenience, the icebox, a precursor of the modern fridge, had been invented.Making an efficient icebox as not as easy as we might now suppose. In the early nineteenth century, the knowledge of the physics of heat, which was essential to a science of refrigeration, was rudimentary(未發(fā)展的). The commonsense notion that the best icebox was one that prevented the ice from melting was of course mistaken, for it was the melting of the ice that performed the cooling. Nevertheless, early efforts to economize ice included wrapping up the ice in blankets, which kept the ice from doing its job. Not until near the end of the nineteenth century did inventors achieve the delicate balance of insulation and circulation needed for an efficient icebox.But as early as 1803, and ingenious Maryland farmer, Thomas Moore, had been on the right track. He owned a farm about twenty miles outside the city of Washington, for which the village of Georgetown was the market center. When he used an icebox of his own design to transport his butter to market, he found that customers would pass up the rapidly melting stuff in the tubs of his competitors to pay a premium price for his butter, still fresh and hard in neat, one-pound bricks. One advantage of his icebox, Moore explained, was that farmers would no longer have to travel to market at night in order to keep their produce cool.47. What is the topic of the passage?48. Where was ice used after the Civil War?49. What was essential to a science of refrigeration according to the passage?50. It can be inferred from the passage that the theoretical foundation of ice box should be that _.51. Without an ice box, farmers had to go to the market at night because _.Section BDirections: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the center.Passage OneQuestions 52 to 66 are based on the following passage.Racket, din clamor, noise. Whatever you want to call it, unwanted sound is Americas most widespread nuisance. But noise is more than just a nuisance. It constitutes a real and present danger to peoples health. Day and night, at home, at work, and at play, noise can produce serious physical and psychological stress. No one is immune to this stress. Though we seem to adjust to noise by ignoring it, the ear, in fact, never closes and the body still respondssometimes with extreme tension, as to a strange sound in the night.The annoyance we feel when faced with noise is the most common outward symptom of the stress building up inside us. Indeed, because irritability is so apparent, legislators have made public annoyance the basis of many noise abatement(消除) programs. The more subtle and more serious health hazards associated with stress caused by noise traditionally have been given much less attention. Nevertheless, when we are annoyed or made irritable by noise, we should consider these symptoms fair warning that other things may be happening to us, some of which may be damaging to our health.Of the many health hazards related to noise, hearing loss is the most clearly observable and measurable by health professionals. The other hazards are harder to pin down. For many of us, there may be a risk that exposure to the stress of noise increases susceptibility to disease and infection. The more susceptible among us may experience noise as a complicating factor in heart problems and other diseases. Noise that causes annoyance and irritability in healthy persons may have serious consequences for those already ill in mind or body.Noise affects us throughout our lives. For example, there are indications of effects on the unborn child when mothers are exposed to industrial and environmental noise. During infancy and childhood, youngsters exposed to high noise levels may have trouble falling asleep and obtaining necessary amounts of rest.why, then, is there not greater alarm about these dangers? Perhaps it is because the link between noise and many disabilities or diseases has not vet been conclusively demonstrated. Perhaps it is because we tend to dismiss annoyance as a price to pay for living in the modern world. It may also be because we still think of hearing loss as only an occupational hazard.52. The phrase "immune to" (Line 3, Para. 1) are used to mean _.A unaffected by B hurt byC unlikely to be seen by D unknown by53. The authors attitude toward noise would best be described as _.A unrealistic B traditional C concerned D hysterical54. Which of the following best states the main idea of the passage?A Noise is a major problem; most people recognize its importance.B Although noise can be annoying, it is not a major problem.C Noise is a major problem and has not yet been recognized as such.D Noise is a major problem about which nothing can be done.55. The author condemns noise essentially because it _.A is against the law B can make some people irritableC is a nuisance D is a danger to peoples health56. The author would probably consider research about the effects noise has on people to be _.A unimportant B impossibleC a waste of money D essentialPassage TwoQuestions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage.Freshwater life itself has never come easy in the Middle East. Ever since The Old Testament(舊約全書), God punished man with 40 days and 40 nights of rain. Water supplies here have been dwindling. The rainfall only comes in winter and drains quickly through the semiarid land, leaving the soil to bake and to thirst for next November.The regions accelerating population, expanding agriculture, industrialization, and higher living standards demand more freshwater. Drought and pollution limit its a availability. War and mismanagement waste it. Said Joyce Starr of the Global Water Summit Initiative, based in Washington, D.C. "Nations like Israel and Jordan are swiftly sliding into that zone where they are suing all the water resources available to them. They have only 15 to 20 years left before their agriculture, and ultimately their food security, is threatened."I came here to examine this crisis in the making, to investigate fears that "water wars" are imminent, that water has replaced oil as the regions most contentious commodity. For more than two months I traveled through three river valleys and seven nationsfrom southern Turkey down the Euphrates River to Syria, Iraq, and on to Kuwait; to Israel and Jordan, neighbors across the valley of the Jordan; to the timeless Egyptian Nile.Even amid the scarcity there are haves and have-nots. compared with the United States, which in 1990 had freshwater potential of 10,000 cubic meters (2.6 million gallons) a year for each citizen, Iraq had 5,500, Turkey had 4,000, and Syria had more than 2,800. Egypts potential was only 1,100. Israel had 460. Jordan had a meager 260. But these are not firm figures, because upstream use of river water can dramatically alter the potential downstream.Scarcity is only one element of the crisis. Inefficiency is another, as is the reluctance of some water-poor nations to change priorities from agriculture to less water-intensive enterprises. Some experts suggest that if nations would share both water technology and resources, they could satisfy the regions population, currently 159 million. But in this patchwork of ethnic and religious rivalries, water seldom stands alone as an issue. It is entangled in the politics that keep people from trusting and seeking help from one another. Here, where water, like truth, is precious, each nation tends to find its own water and supply its own truth.As Israeli hydrology professor Uri Shamir told me:" If there is political will for peace, water will not be a hindrance. If you want reasons to fight, water will not be a hindrance. If you want reasons to fight, water will give you ample opportunities."57. Why does the author use the phrase "for next November" (Line 3, Para. 1)?A According to the Old Testament freshwater is available only in November.B Rainfall comes only in winter starting from November.C Running water systems will not be ready until next November.D It is a custom in that region that irrigation to crops is done only in November.58. What is NOT the cause for the imminent water war?A Lack of water resources. B Lack of rainfall.C Inefficient use of water. D Water has replaced oil.59. One way for the region to use water efficiently is to _.A develop other enterprises that cost less waterB draw a plan of irrigation for the various nationsC import water from water-rich nationsD stop wars of any sort for good and all60.