1、六级考试真题第2套2013年6月六级考试真题(第二套)Part I Writing (30 minutes)Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay commenting on the remark “Good habits result from resisting temptation.” You can cite examples to illustrate your point. You should write at least 150 words but no more than
2、200 words. 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 17, choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). For ques
3、tions 810, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.A Nation Thats Losing Its Toolbox The scene inside the Home Depot on Weyman Avenue here would give the old-time American craftsman pause.In Aisle 34 is precut plastic flooring, the glue already in place. In Aisle 26 are pref
4、abricated windows. Stacked near the checkout counters, and as colorful as a Fisher-Price toy, is a not-so-serious-looking power tool: a battery-operated saw-and-drill combination. And if you dont want to do it yourself, head to Aisle 23 or Aisle 35, where a help desk will arrange for an installer.It
5、s all very handy stuff, I guess, a convenient way to be a do-it-yourselfer without being all that good with tools. But at a time when the American factory seems to be a shrinking presence, and when good manufacturing jobs have vanished, perhaps never to return, there is something deeply troubling ab
6、out this dilution of American craftsmanship.This isnt a lament (伤感) or not merely a lament for bygone times. Its a social and cultural issue, as well as an economic one. The Home Depot approach to craftsmanship simplify it, dumb it down, hire a contractor is one signal that mastering tools and worki
7、ng with ones hands is receding in America as a hobby, as a valued skill, as a cultural influence that shaped thinking and behavior in vast sections of the country.That should be a matter of concern in a presidential election year. Yet neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney promotes himself as tool-sav
8、vy (实用工具很在行的) presidential timber, in the mold of a Jimmy Carter, a skilled carpenter and cabinet maker.The Obama administration does worry publicly about manufacturing, a first cousin of craftsmanship. When the Ford Motor Company, for example, recently announced that it was bringing some production
9、 home, the White House cheered. “When you see things like Ford moving new production from Mexico to Detroit, instead of the other way around, you know things are changing,” says Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council.Ask the administration or the Republicans or most academics why A
10、merica needs more manufacturing, and they respond that manufacturing gives birth to innovation, brings down the trade deficit, strengthens the dollar, generates jobs, arms the military and brings about a recovery from recession. But rarely, if ever, do they publicly take the argument a step further,
11、 asserting that a growing manufacturing sector encourages craftsmanship and that craftsmanship is, if not a birthright, then a vital ingredient of the American self-image as a can-do, inventive, we-can-make-anything people.Traditional vocational training in public high schools is gradually declining
12、, stranding thousands of young people who seek training for a craft without going to college. Colleges, for their part, have since 1985 graduated fewer chemical, mechanical, industrial and metallurgical (冶金的) engineers, partly in response to the reduced role of manufacturing, a big employer of them.
13、The decline started in the 1950s, when manufacturing generated a sturdy 28% of the national income, or gross domestic product, and employed one-third of the workforce. Today, factory output generates just 12% of G.D.P. and employs barely 9% of the nations workers.Mass layoffs and plant closings have
14、 drawn plenty of headlines and public debate over the years, and they still occasionally do. But the damage to skill and craftsmanship whats needed to build a complex airliner or a tractor, or for a worker to move up from assembler to machinist to supervisor went largely unnoticed.“In an earlier gen
15、eration, we lost our connection to the land, and now we are losing our connection to the machinery we depend on,” says Michael Hout, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley. “People who work with their hands,” he went on, “are doing things today that we call service jobs, in restaura
16、nts and laundries, or in medical technology and the like.”Thats one explanation for the decline in traditional craftsmanship. Lack of interest is another. The big money is in fields like finance. Starting in the 1980s, skill in finance grew in importance, and, as depicted in the news media and the movies, became a more appealing source of income.By last year, Wall Street traders, ba
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