2020年7月大学英语六级考试听力真题及答案

Section A

Questions 1 to 4 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

M: Tonight we havea very special guest.Mrs.Anna Sanchez is a three-time Olympicchampion and author of the new book To the Edge.Mrs.Sanchez,thank you for joining us. 

W:Thank you for having me.

M:Let's start with your book.What does the title To the Edge mean?What are you referring to?

W:The book is about how scienceand technology has helped to push humans to the edge of their physical abilities. I argue that in the past 20 years we've had the best athletes the world has ever seen.

M:But is this a fair comparison?How do you know how,say,a football player from 50 years ago would compare to one today?

W:Well,you are right.That comparison would be perhaps impossibletomake,but the point is more aboutour knowledge today of human biochemistry,nutrition and mechanics.I believe that while our bodies have not changed in thousands of years,what has changedis the scientific knowledge. This has allowed athletes to push the limits of what was previously thought possible.

M:That's interesting.Please tell us more about these perceived limits.

W:The world is seeing sports records being broken that could only bebroken with the aid of technology, whether this be the sped of a tennis serve or the fastest time in a hundred-meter dash,or a two-hundred-meter swimming race.

M:Is there any concern that technology is giving some athletes an unfair advantage overothers?

W: That is an interesting question and one that has to be considered very carefully.Skis,for example,went from being made of wood to a metal alloy which allows fora better control and faster speed.There is no stopping technological progress.But as I said,each situation should be considered carefully on a case-by- case basis.

1.What do we learn about Anna Sanchez?

2.What is the woman's book mainly about?

3.What has changed in the past thousands of years?

4.What is the man's concern about the use of technology in sports competitions?

Questions 5 to 8 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

W:I've worked in international trade all my life.My father did so too before me.So I guess you could say it runs in the family.

M:What products have you worked with?

W.All sorts,really.I've imported textiles,machinery,toys,solar panels..all kinds of thingsover the years.Trends and demand come and go.So one needs to be very flexible to succeed in this industry. 

M:I see.What goods are you trading now?

W:I now import furniture from China into Italy and foods from Italy into China.I even use the same container.It's a very efficient way of conducting trade.

M:The same container?You mean you own a 40-foot cargo container?

W:Yeah.That's right.I have awarchouse in Genova,Italy and another in Shanghai.I source mid-century modern furniture from different factories in China.It's very good value for money.I collect it all in my warehouse,and then dispatch it to my other warchouse in Italy.Over there I do the same,but with Italian foods instead of furniture,things like pasta,cheese,wine,chocolates.And I send all that tomy warehouse in China,in the same freight container I use for the furniture.

M:So I presume yousell both lines of products wholesale in each respective country.

W:Of course,I possess a network of clients and partners in both countries.That's the main benefit of having done this for so long.I've made great business contacts over time. 

M:Howmany timesdo you ship?

W:I did 12 shipments last year,18 this year,and I hope togrow to around 25 next year.That's both ways, there and back again.Demand for authentic Italian food in China is growing rapidly,and similarly,sales of affordable yet stylish wooden furniture are also increasing in Italy.Furniture is marginally more profitable,mostly because it enjoys lower customs duties.

5.What does the woman think is required to be successful in international trade?

6.What does the woman say is special abouther way of doing trade?

7.What does the woman have in both Italy and China?

8.What does the woman say makes furniture marginally more profitable?

Section B

Questions 9 to ll are based on the passage you have just heard.

“Too many people view their jobs as a five-day prison from which they are paroled every Friday,”says Joel Gookman,founder of the Humor Project,a humor-consulting group in Saratoga Springs,New York.Humor unlocks the office prison becauseit lets adults bring someof their childlike spirit to the job.

According to Howard Pollio,professor of psychology at the University of Tennessee,Knoxville,an office with humor breaks is an officewith satisfied and productive employees.Pollio conducted a study that proved humor can help workers excel at routine production tasks.Employees perform better when they have fun.

In large corporations with a hierarchy of power,there is often no outlet for stress “Every company needs underground waysof poking fun at the organization,”says Lynn N.Mark,a speaker on workplace humor for St.Mary's Health Centrein St.Louis.Kodak's Rochester,New York branch,discovered a way for its 20000 employees to uncork their bottomed-up resentments.Their 1000-square-foot humor room features a toy store.Among the room's many stress-reducing gadgets,the main attraction is a boss doll with detachable arms and legs.Employees can take the doll apart,as long as they put its arms and legs back in place.

Sandy Cohen,ownerof a graphic print-production business,created “The Quote Board”to document the bizarre phrases people say when under strict deadlines.“When you're under stress,you say stupid things,”says Cohen.“Now,we just look at each other and say,'that'sone for the Quote Board!”

9.What does the passage say about humor in the workplace?

10.What does the study by Howard Pollioshow?

11.What can Kodak's employees do in the humor room?

Questions 12 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard.

Public interest was aroused by the latest discovery of a changed gene in obese mice.The news was made known by Rockefeller University geneticist Jeffrey Friedman.The researchers believe this gene influences development of a hormone that tells the organism how fat or full it is.Those with the changed gene may not sense when they have eaten enough or if they have sufficient fatty tissue,and thus can't tell when tostop eating. The researchers also reported finding a gene nearly identical to the mouse obesity gene in humans.The operation of this gene in humans has not yet been demonstrated,however.Still,professionals like University of Vermont psychologist Esther Rothblum reacted enthusiastically.This research indicates that people really are born with a tendency to have a certain weight,just as they are to have a particular skin color or height.Actually,behavioral geneticists believe that less than half of the total weight variation is programmed in the genes,while height is almost entirely genetically determined.

Whatever role genes play,Americans are getting fatter.A survey by the Center for Disease Control found that obesity has increased greatly over the last 10 years.Such rapid change underlines the role of environmental factors,like the abundance of rich foods in Americans'overeating. The Center for Disease Control has also found that teens are far less physically active than they were even adecade ago.Accepting that weight is predetermined can relieve guilt for overweight people.But people's belief that they cannot control their weight can itself contribute to obesity.

12.What does the speaker say has aroused public interest?

13.What do we learn about thechanged gene?

14.What does Universityof Vermont psychologist Esther Rothblum say?

15.What accounts for Americans'obesity according to a survey by the Center for Disease Control?

Section C

Questions 16 to 18 are based on the recording you have just heard.

Qualities of a relationship such as openness,compassion and mental stimulation are of concern to most of us regardless of sex,but judgingfrom the questionnaire response they are more important to women than to men.Asked to consider the ingredients of close friendship,women rated these qualities above all others.Men assigned a  lower priority to them in favor of similarity in interests,selected by 77% of men,and responsiveness in a crisis,chosen by 61%of male respondents. Mental stimulation,ranked third in popularity by men as well as women,was the only area of overlap.Among men,only 28% named openness as an important quality;caring was picked by just 23%.It is evident by their selections that when women speak of close friendships they're referring to emotional factors,while men emphasize the pleasure they find in a friend's company.That is,when a man speaks of “a friend"he islikely to be talkingabout someone he does things with a teammate,a fllow hobbyist,a drinking buddy.These activities are the fabric of the friendship;It is a"doing"relationship in which similarity in interests is the key bond.This factor was a consideration of less than 11% of women.Women opt for a warm,emotional atmosphere where communication flows freely;activity ismere background.Lastly,men,aswe  haveseen,haveserious questions about each other's loyalty Perhaps this is why they placed such strongemphasis on responsiveness in a crisis “someone I can call on for help.”Women,as their testimonies indicate,are generlly more secure with each other and consequently are more likely to treat this issue lightly.In follow-up interviews this was confirmed numerous times as woman after woman indicated that being there when needed was taken for granted.As for the hazards of friendship,more than a few relationships have been shattered because of cutthroat competition and feelings of betrayal.This applies to both men and women,but unequally.In comparison,nearly twice as many men complained about these issues as women.Further,while competition and betrayal are the main thorns to female friendship,men are plagued in almost equal amounts by two additional isues,lack of franknes and a fear of appearing unmanly.Obviously,for a man,a good friendship is hard to find.

16.What quality do men value most concerning friendship according to a questionnaire response?

17.What do women refer to when speaking ofclose friendships?

18.What may threaten a friendship for both men and women?

Questions 19 to 21 are based on the recording you have just heard.

The partial skeletons of more than 20 dinosaurs and scattered bones of about 300 more have been discovered in Utah and Colorado at what is now the Dinosaur National Monument.Many of the best specimens may be seen today at museums of natural history in the larger cities of the United States and Canada.

This dinosaur pit is the largest and best preserved deposit of dinosaurs known today.Many people get the idea from the massive bones in the pit wall that some disaster such as a volcanic explosion or a sudden flood killed a whole herd of dinosaurs in this area.This could have happened,but it probably did not.The main reasons for thinking otherwiseare the scattered bones and the thickness of the deposit.In other deposits where the animals were thought to have died together,the skeletons were usually complete andoften all the bones were in their proper places.Rounded pieces of fossil bone have been found here.These fragments got the smooth round shape by rolling along the stream bottom.

In a mass killing the bones would have been left on the stream or lake bottom togcther at the same level.But in this deposit the bones occur throughout a zone of sandstone about 12 feet thick.The mixture of swamp dwellers and dry-land types also seems to indicate that the deposit is a mixture fromdifferent places.The pit arca is a large dinosaur graveyard,not a place where they died.Most of the remains probably floateddown an eastward flowing river until they were left on a shallow sandbar. Someof them may have come from far- away dry-land areas to the west.Perhaps they drowned trying to cros a small stream or were washed away during floods.Some of the swamp dwellers may have got stuck in the verysandbar that became their grave. Others may have floatedfor miles before being stranded.Even today,similar events take place.When floods come in the spring,sheep,cattle and deer are often trapped by rising waters and often drown.Their dead bodies float downstreamuntil the flood recedes and leaves them stranded on the bar or shore where they lie,half buried in the sand,until they decay.Early travelers on the Missouri River reported that shores and bars often were lined with the decaying bodies of buffalo that had died during spring floods.

19.Where can many of the best dinosaur specimens be found in North America?

20.What occurs to many people when they see the massive bones in the pit wall?

21.What does the speaker suggest about the large number of dinosaur bonesfound in the pit?

Questions 22 to 25 are based on the recording you havejust heard.

I would like particularly to talk about the need to develop a new style of aging in our own society.Young people in this country have been accused of not caring for their parents the way they would have in the old country.And this is true,but it is also true that old people have been influenced by an American ideal of independence and autonomy.So we live alone,perhaps on the verge of starvation,in time without friends,but we are independent.This standard American style has been forced on every ethnic group,although there are many groups for whom the ideal is not practical.It is a poor ideal and pursuing it does a great deal of harm.This ideal of independence also contains a tremendous amount of unselfishness.In talking to today's young mothers,I have asked them what kind of grandmothers they think they're going to be.I hear devoted loving mothers say that when they are through raising their children,they have no intention of becoming grandmothers.They were astonished to hear that in most of the world throughout most of its history.families have been,three-or four-generation families,living under the same roof. We haveover-emphasized the small family unit father,mother,small children.We think it is wonderful if grandma and grandpa,if they're still alive,can live alone.We have reached the point where we think the only thing wecando for our children is to stay out of their way.And the only thing we can do for our daughter-in-lawis to se as littleof her as possible.Old people's nursing homes,even the best run,are filled with older people who believe the only thing they can do for their children is to look cheerful when they come to visit.So in the end,older pcople have to devote all their ener gies to“not being a burden ”We are beginning to see what a tremendous price we've paid for our emphasis on independence and autonomy.We've isolated old people and we've cut off the children from their grandparents.Oneof the reasons we have as bad a generation gap today as we do is that grandparents have stepped out.Young people are being deprived of the thing they need most perspective,to know why their parents behave so peculiarly andwhy theirgrandparents say the thingsthey do.

22.What have young Americans been accused of?

23.What does the speaker say about old people in the United States?

24.What is astonishing to the young mothers interviewed by the speaker?

25.What does the speaker sayolder people try their best to do?

1.A)【精析】细节辨认题。对话开头即说“安娜·桑彻斯是三届奥运会冠军”,由此可知，她是一位很棒的运动员。因此答案为A)。

2.D)【精析】细节辨认题。对话中女士介绍说，她的书是关于科技是如何帮助人们挑战身体极限的。选项中scale new heights(达到新的高度)是录音中 push humans to the edge oftheirphysical abilities (挑战身体能力的极限)的同义转述。因此答案为D)。

3.B)【精析】细节辨认题。对话中女士明确指出，在她看来，我们的身体在过去的几千年里其实并没有什么改变，改变的是科学知识。因此答案为B)。

4.C)【精析】细节辨认题。男士的最后一个问题表达出了他的担忧。他问女士，对于其他运动员而言，科技是否会给某些运动员带来不公平的优势。因此，他担心的是科技会导致运动员之间的不平等竞争，答案为C)。

5.B)【精析】细节辨认题。女士在谈到自己做国际贸易时说，趋势和需求一直都在变化，所以想要成功就要非常灵活。因此答案为B)。

6.D)【精析】细节推断题。女士的言语中并没有提到special一词，她只是说在中国和意大利之间进行贸易时，她选择使用同一个集装箱，而此后男士惊 异的话语让我们意识到这是非常少见的。因此答案为D)。

7.A)【精析】细节辨认题。对话中女士提到，她在意大利热那亚有一间仓库，在中国上海有另一间仓库。因此答案为A)。

8.C)【精析】细节辨认题。对话最后，女士明确指出，之所以家具的利润稍微高一点，是因为家具的关税低一些。因此答案为C)。

9.A)【精析】细节推断题。短文通篇都在讨论幽默对办公室气氛的益处，其中提到幽默会让办公室中充满童趣，接下来又提到，在权力等级分明的大公司，压力没有出口。综合考虑，幽默可以帮助员工减轻压力。因此答案为A)。

10.D)【 精析】细节辨认题。短文中明确指出，霍华德 ·波利奥的研究证明，幽默可以使员工在常规的生产任务中表现更加出色。因此答案为D)。

11.B)【精析】细节辨认题。短文中提到，纽约罗切斯特的柯达分公司发现了一个让员工释放不满的方法，他们打造了一间幽默屋，它以玩具店为特色，在众多的减压物品中，最吸引人的就是老板模样的玩偶，其胳膊和腿是可拆卸的，只要员工之后可以再把玩偶的胳膊和腿装回去，他们就可以将玩偶拆散。因此答案为B)。

12.A)【精析】细节辨认题。短文开头就点明，最近在肥胖老鼠体内发现的一种变异基因引起了公众的兴趣。因此答案为A)。

13.D)【精析】细节辨认题。短文中提到，拥有这种变异基因的老鼠可能无法感知自己已经吃饱了或者已经有了足够的脂肪组织，所以无法知道何时停止进食。因此答案为D)。

14.C)【精析】细节辨认题。短文中提到，埃斯特 ·罗斯 布鲁姆的研究表明人的体重范围是天生的，就如同人类的肤色和身高一样。因此答案为C)。

15.B)【精析】细节辨认题。短文中提到，疾病控制中心的一项研究发现，美国人的肥胖率在过去的10年里大幅上升，如此迅速的变化突出了环境因素的作用，例如大量的油腻食物以及美国人的暴饮暴食。因此答案为B)。

16.A)【精析】细节辨认题。讲座中明确提到，当被问到密友关系中的重要因素时，男性不怎么在意坦诚、同情心或者精神激励，有77%的男性认为有相同的兴趣爱好最为重要。因此答案为A)。

17.D)【精析】细节辨认题。讲座中明确提到，说到亲密的友谊时，女性指的是情感因素。因此答案为D)。

18.C)【精析】细节辨认题。讲座中提到，至于危害友谊的因素，不管是男性还是女性，很多关系都因激烈的竞争和背叛的感觉而破裂。因此答案为C)。

19.D)【精析】细节辨认题。讲座中明确提到，在美国和加拿大较大城市的自然历史博物馆里可以看到很多最好的恐龙标本。因此答案为D)。

20.B)【精析】细节辨认题。讲座中提到，很多人看到这堵恐龙化石墙，都会猜测或许是像火山爆发或者一场突如其来的大洪水之类的灾害导致了这个地区的恐龙集体灭亡。因此答案为B)。

21.A)【精析】细节辨认题。讲座中讲话人认为，这个坑区是一个巨大的恐龙墓地，而不是它们死亡的地方，大部分遗骸可能是顺着东向的河流漂流而下，最终搁浅在一个沙洲上。因此答案为A)。

22.C)【精析】细节辨认题。讲座开头即点出，这个国家的年轻人被指责不像以前的年轻人那样照顾自己的父母。因此答案为C)。

23.D)【精析】细节辨认题。讲座中提到，美国的老年人受独立自主思想的影响，希望自己能够独立生活。即便是处于饥饿的边缘，没有朋友，但他们是独立的。因此答案为D)。

24.B)【精析】细节归纳题。讲座中提到，当接受采访的妈妈们听到世界上有很多地方历来都是三代或四代同堂时，她们感觉很惊讶。选项中的extended families是录音中three-or four-generationfamilies 的同义转述。因此答案为B)。

25.B)【精析】细节辨认题。讲座中提到，到最后，老年人都在努力使自己不成为孩子们的负担。因此答案为B)。