2017年12月大学英语六级考试真题（第3套)Part IWriting(30 minutes)(请于正式开考后半小时内完成该部分，之后将进行听力考试)Directions:For this part,you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on the saying "Help others,and youwill be helped when you are in need"You can cite examples to illustrate your views.You should write at least 150 wordsbut no more than 200 words.Listening Comprehension(30minutes)说明：由于2017年12月六级考试全国共考了2套听力，本套真题听力与前2套内容完全一样，只是顺序不一样，因此在本套真题中不再重复出现。Reading Comprehension(40 minutes)Section ADirections:In this section,there is a passage with ten blanks.You are required to select one word for each blank from a listof choices given in a word bank following the passage.Read the passage through carefully before making your choices.Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter.Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2with a single line through the centre.You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.Question 26 to 35 are based on the following passage.Many European countries have been making the shift to electr ic vehicles and Germany has just stated that they plan toban the sale of vehicles using gasoline and diesel as fuel by 2030.The country is also planning to reduce its carbon footprintby 80-95%by 2050,26a shift to green energy in the country.Effectively,the ban will include the registration ofnew cars in the country as they will not allow any gasoline 27vehicle to be registered after 2030.Part of the reason this ban is being discussed and28 is because energy officials see that they will not reach theiremissions goals by 2050 if they do not 29 a large portion of vehicle emissions.The country is still 30 that itwill meet its emissions goals,like reducing emissions by 40%by 2020,but the31 of electric cars in the country hasnot occurred as fast as expected.Other efforts to increase the use ofelectr ic vehicles include plans to build over 1 million hybrid and electric car batterycharging stations across the country.By 2030,Germany plans on having over 6 million charging stations 32.According to the International Business Times,electric car sales are expected to increase as Volkswagen is still recoveringfrom its emissions scandal.There are33 around 155,000 registered hybrid and electric vehicles on German roads,dwarfed by the 45million gasoline and diesel cars driving there now.As countries continue setting goals of reducing emissions,greater stepsthe results of such bans will likely only start to be seen by generations down the line,bettering the world for the future.A)acceptanceD)incidentallyB)currentlyJ)installedC)disruptingK)noticeableD)eliminateL)poweredE)exhaustM)restorationF)futileN)skepticalG)hopefulO)sparkingH)implementedSection BDirections:In this section,you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it.Each statement containsinformation given in one of the paragraphs.Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived.You may choose aparagraph more than once.Each paragraph is marked with a letter.Answer the questions by marking the correspondingletter on Answer Sheet 2.Apple's Stance Highlights a More Confrontational Teach IndustryA)The battle between Apple and law enforcement officials over unlocking a terrorist's smartphone is the culminationof a slow turning of the tables between the technology industry and the United States government.B)After revelations by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J.Snowden in 2013 that thegovernment both cozied up to (certain tech companies and hacked into others to gain access to private data on anenormous scale,tech giants began to recognize the United States government as a hostile actor.But if the confrontation hascrystallized in this latest battle,it may already be heading toward a predictable conclusion:In the long run,the techcompanies are destined to emerge victorious.C)It may not seem that way at the moment.On the one side,you have the United States government's mighty legaland security apparatus fighting for data of the most sympathetic sort:the secrets buried in a dead mass murderer'sphone.The action stems from a federal court order issued on Tuesday requiring Apple to help the Federal Bureau ofInvestigation (F.B.I)to unlock an iPhone used by one of the two attackers who killed 14 people in San Bernardino,California,in December.D)In the other corner is the world's most valuable company,whose chiefexecutive,Timothy D.Cook,has said he willappeal the court's order.Apple argues that it is fighting to preserve a principle that most of us who are addicted to oursmartphones can defend:Weaken a single iPhone so that its contents can be viewed by the American govemment and yourisk weakening all iPhones for any government intruder,anywhere.E)There will probably be months of legal tussling,and it is not at all clear which side will prevail in court,nor in thebattle for public opinion and legislative favor.Yet underlying all of this is a simple dynamic:Apple,Google,Facebook andother companies hold most of the cards in this confrontation.They have our data,and their businesses depend on the globalpublic's collective belief that they will do every thing they can to protect that data.F)Any crack in that front could be fatal for tech companies that must operate worldwide.If Apple is forced to open upan iPhone for an American law enforcement investigation,what is to prevent it from doing so for a request from the Chineseor the Iranians?If Apple is forced to write code that lets the F.B.I.get into the Phone 5c used by Syed Rizwan Farook,themale attacker in the San Bemardino attack,who would be responsible if some hacker got hold of that code and broke intoits other devices?G)Apple's stance on these issues emerged post-Snowden,when the company started putting in place a series oftechnologies that,by default,make use of encryption to limit access to people's data.More than that,Apple -and,indifferent ways,other tech companies,including Google,Facebook,Twitter and Microsoft-have made their opposition tothe government's claims a point of corporate pride.H)Appl's emerging global brand is privacy;it has staked its corporate reputation,not to mention the investment ofconsiderable technical and financial resources,on limiting the sort of mass surveillance that was uncovered by Mr.Snowden.So now,for many cases involving govemmental intrusions into data,once-lonely privacy advocates findthemselves fighting alongside the most power ful company in the world.I)"A comparison point is in the 1990s battles over encryption,"said Kurt Opsahl,general counsel of the ElectronicFrontier Foundation,a privacy watchdog group."Then you had a few companies involved,but not one of the largestcompanies in the world coming out with a lengthy and impassioned post,like we saw yesterday from Tim Cook.Its profilehas really been raised."J)Apple and other tech companies hold another ace:the technical means to keep making their devices more and moreinaccessible.Note that Apple's public opposition to the government's request is itself a hindrance to mass governmentintrusion.And to get at the contents of a single iPhone,the government says it needs a court order and Apple's help to writenew code;in earlier versions of the iPhone,ones that were created before Apple found religion on (privacy,theF.B.I.may have been able to break into the device by itself.K)You can expect that noose (to continue to tighten.Experts said that whether or not Apple loses this specificcase,measures that it could put into place in the future will almost certainly be able to further limit the govemment's reach.L)That's not to say that the outcome of the San Bernardino case is insignificant.As Apple and several security expertshave argued,an order compelling Apple to write software that gives the F.B.I.access to the iPhone in question wouldestablish an unsettling precedent.The order essentially asks Apple to hack its own devices,and once it is in place,theprecedent could be used to justify law enforcement efforts to get around encryption technologies in other investigations farremoved from national security threats.M)Once armed with a method for gaining access to iPhones,the govemment could ask to use it proactively)before a suspected terrorist attack-leaving Apple in a bind as to whether to comply or risk an attack and suffer apublic-relations nightmare."This is a brand-new salvo in the war against encryption,"Mr.Opsahl said."We've had plentyof debates in Congress and the media over whether the government should have a backdoor,and this is an end run aroundthat-here they come with an order to create that backdoor."N)Yet it's worth noting that even if Apple ultimately loses this case,it has plenty of technical means to close abackdoor over time."If they're anywhere near worth their salt as engineers,I bet they're rethinking their threat model as wespeak,"said Jonathan Zdziarski,a digital forensic expert who studies the iPhone and its vulnerabilities.O)One relatively simple fix,Mr.Zdziarski said,would be for Apple to modify future versions of the iPhone to requirea user to enter a passcode before the phone will accept the sort of modified operating system that the F.B.I.wants Apple tocreate.That way,Apple could not unilaterally introduce a code that weakens the iPhone-a user would have to consent toit.P)"Nothing is 100 percent hacker-proof"Mr.Zdziarski said,but he pointed out that the judge's order in this caserequired Apple to provide"reasonable security assistance"to unlock Mr.Farook's phone.If Apple alters the security modelof future iPhones so that even its own engineers'"reasonable assistance"will not be able to crack a given device whencompelled by the government,a precedent set in this case might lose its lasting force.In other words,even if the F.B.I.winsthis case,in the long run,it loses.36.It is a popular beliefthat tech companies are committed to protecting their customers'private data.37.The US government believes that its access to people's iPhones could be used to prevent terrorist attacks.38.A federal court asked Apple to help the FBI access data in a terrorist's iPhone.39.Privacy advocates now have Apple fighting alongside them against government access to personal data.40.Snowden revealed that the American government had tried hard to access private data in massive scale.41.The FBI might have been able to access private data in earlier iPhones without Apple's help.42.After the Snowden incident,Apple made clear its position to counter government intrusion into personal data by meansof encryption.43.According to one digital expert,no iPhone can be entirely free from hacking.44.Timothy Cook's long web post has helped enhance Apple's image.45.Apple's CEO has decided to appeal the federal court's order to unlock a user's iPhone.Section CDirections:There are 2 passages in this section.Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements.Foreach of them there are four choices marked A),B),C)and D).You should decide on the best choice and mark thecorresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.Passage OneQuestion 46 to 50 are based on the following passage.At the base of a mountain in Tanzania's Gregory Rift,Lake Natron bums bright red,surrounded by the remains ofanimals that were unfortunate enough to fall into the salty water.Bats,swallows and more are chemically preserved in thepose in which they perished,sealed in the deposits of sodium carbonate in the water.The lake's landscape is bizarre anddeadly-and made even more so by the fact that it's the place where nearly 75percent of the world's flamingos(areborn.The water is so corrosive that it can burn the skin and eyes of unadapted animals.Flamingos,however,are the onlyspecies that actually makes life in the midst of all that death.Once every three or four years,when conditions are right,thelake is covered with the pink birds as they stop flight to breed.Three-quarters of the world's flamingos fly over from othersalt lakes in the Rift Valley and nest on salt-crystal islands that appear when the water is at specific level-too high and thebirds can't build their nests,too low and predators can more briskly across the lake bed and attack.When the water hits theright level.The baby birds are kept safe form predators by a corrosive ditch."Flamingos have evolved very leathery skin on their legs so they can tolerate the salt water,"says David Harper,aprofessor at the University of Leicester."Humans cannot,and would die if their legs were exposed for any length of time."So far this year,water levels have been too high for the flamingos to nest.Some fish,too,have had limited success vacationing at the lake as less salty lagoons (form on the outer edgesfrom hot springs flowing into Lake Natron.Three species oftilapia (thrive there part-time."Fish have a refuge inthe streams and can expand into the lagoons when the lake is low and the lagoons are separate,"Harper said."All thelagoons join when the lake is high and fish must retreat to their stream refuges or die."Otherwise,no fish are able to survivein the naturally toxic lake.This unique ecosystem may soon be under pressure.The Tanzanian government has once again started mining the lakefor soda ash,used for making chemicals,glass and detergents.Although the planned operation will be located more than 40miles away,drawing the soda ash in through pipelines,conser vationists worry it could still upset the natural water cycle andbreeding grounds.For now,though,life prevails-even in a lake that kills almost everything it touches.46.What can we learn about Lake Natron?A)It is simply uninhabitable for most animals.B)It remains little known to the outside world.C)It is a breeding ground for a variety of birds.D)It makes an ideal habitat for lots of predators.47.Flamingos nest only when the lake water is at a specific level so that their babies canA)find safe shelter more easilyC)stay away from predatorsB)grow thick feathers on their feetD)get accustomed to the salty water48.Flamingos in the Rift Valley are unique in thatA)they can move swiftly across lagoons C)they breed naturally in corrosive ditchesB)they can survive well in salty water D)they know where and when to nestA)They can take refuge in the less salty waters.B)They can flee quick enough from predators.C)They can move freely from lagoon to lagoon.D)They can stand the heat of the spring water.50.What may be the consequence of Tanzanian government's planned operation?A)The accelerated extinction of flam ingos.B)The change of flamingos'migration route.C)The overmining of Lake Natron's soda ash.D)The disruption of Lake Natron's ecosystem.Passage TwoQuestions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.It is the season for some frantic last-minute math across the country,employees of all stripe are counting backward inan attempt to figure out just how much paid time-off they have left it their reserves.More of them,though,will skip thosecalculations altogether and just power through the holidays into 2017:More than half of American workers don't use up allof their allotted vacation days each year.Not so long ago,people would have turned up their noses at that kind of dedication to the job.As marketing professorsSilvia Bellezza,Neeru Paharia,and Anat Keinan recently explained in Harvard Business Review(HBR),leisure time wasonce seen as an indicator of high social status,something attainable only for those at the top.Since the middle of the 20thcentury,though,things have turned the opposite way-these days,punishing hours at your desk,rather than days off,areseen as the mark of someone important.In a series of several experiments,the researchers illustrated just how much we've come to admire busyness,or at leastthe appearance of it.Volunteers read two passages,on about a man who led a life of leisure and another about a man whowas over-worked and over -scheduled;when asked to determine which of the two had a higher social status,the majority ofthe participants said the latter.The same held true for people who used products that implied they were short on time:In oneexperiment,for example,customers of the grocery-delivery service Peapod were seen as of higher status than people whoshopped at grocery stores that were equally expensive;in another,people wearing wireless headphones were consideredfurther up on the social ladder than those wearing regular headphones,even when both were just used to listen to music.In part,the authors wrote in HBR,this pattern may have to do with the way work itself has changed over the pastseveral decades.We think that the shift from leisure-as-status to busyness-as-status may be linked to the development ofknowledge-intensive economics.In such economies,individuals who possess the human capital characteristics thatemployers or clients value(e.g,competence and ambition)are expected to be in high demand and short supply on the jobmarket.Thus,by telling others that we are busy and working all the time,we are implicitly suggesting that we are soughtafter,which enhances our perceived status.Even if you feel tempted to sacrifice your own vacation days for fake busyness,though,at least consider leaving yourweekends unscheduled.It's for your own good.51.What do most employees plan to do towards the end of the year?A)Go for a vacation.C)Set an objective for next year.B)Keep on working.D)Review the year's achievements.52.How would people view dedication to work in the past?A)They would regard it as a matter of course.B)They would consider it a must for success.C)They would look upon it with contempt.D)They would deem it a trick of businessmen.53.What did the researchers find through a series of experiments?A)The busier one appears,the more respect one earns.B)The more one works,the more one feels exploited.C)The more knowledge one has,the more competent one will be.D)The higher one's status,the more vacation time one will enjoy.54.What may account for the change of people's attitude towards being busy?A)The fast pace of life in modern society.B)The fierce competition in the job market.C)The widespread use of computer technology.D)The role of knowledge in modern economy.55.What does the author advise us to do at the end ofthe passageA)Schedule our time properly for efficiency.B)Plan our weekends in a meaningful way.C)Plan time to relax however busy we are.D)Avoid appearing busy when we are not.Part IVTranslation(30 minutes)Directions:For this part,you are allowed 30 minutes to translate a passage from Chinese into English.You should writeyour answer on Answer Sheet 2.洞庭湖位于湖南省东北部，面积很大，但湖水很浅。洞庭湖是长江的蓄洪池，湖的大校很大程度上取决于季节变化。湖北和湖南两省因其与湖的相对位置而得名，湖北意为“湖的北边”，而湖南则为“湖的南边”。洞庭湖作为龙舟赛的发源地，在中国文化中享有盛名。据说龙舟赛始于洞庭湖东岸。为的是搜寻楚国爱国诗人屈原的遗体。龙舟赛与洞庭湖及周边的美景，每年都吸引着成千上万来自全国和世界各地的游客。