历年6级阅读真题及翻译Word文档格式.docx

1、Passage One： For hundreds of millions of years, turtles （海龟） have struggled out of the sea to lay their eggs on sandy beaches, long before there were nature documentaries to celebrate them, or GPS satellites and marine biologists to track them, or volunteers to hand-carry the hatchlings （幼龟） down to

2、 the waters edge lest they become disoriented by headlights and crawl towards a motel parking lot instead. A formidable wall of bureaucracy has been erected to protect their prime nesting on the Atlantic coastlines. With all that attention paid to them, youd think these creatures would at least have

3、 the gratitude not to go extinct. But Nature is indifferent to human notions of fairness, and a report by the Fish and Wildlife Service showed a worrisome drop in the populations of several species of North Atlantic turtles, notably loggerheads, which can grow to as much as 400 pounds. The South Flo

4、rida nesting population, the largest, has declined by 50% in the last decade, according to Elizabeth Griffin, a marine biologist with the environmental group Oceana. The figures prompted Oceana to petition the government to upgrade the level of protection for the North Atlantic loggerheads from “thr

5、eatened” to “endangered”meaning they are in danger of disappearing without additional help. Which raises the obvious question: what else do these turtles want from us, anyway? It turns out, according to Griffin, that while we have done a good job of protecting the turtles for the weeks they spend on

6、 land （as egg-laying females, as eggs and as hatchlings）, we have neglected the years spend in the ocean. “The threat is from commercial fishing,” says Griffin. Trawlers （which drag large nets through the water and along the ocean floor） and longline fishers （which can deploy thousands of hooks on l

7、ines that can stretch for miles） take a heavy toll on turtles. Of course, like every other environmental issue today, this is playing out against the background of global warming and human interference with natural ecosystems. The narrow strips of beach on which the turtles lay their eggs are being

8、squeezed on one side by development and on the other by the threat of rising sea levels as the oceans warm. Ultimately we must get a handle on those issues as well, or a creature that outlived the dinosaurs （恐龙） will meet its end at the hands of humans, leaving our descendants to wonder how creature

9、 so ugly could have won so much affection. Passage Two： There are few more sobering online activities than entering data into college-tuition calculators and gasping as the Web spits back a six-figure sum. But economists say families about to go into debt to fund four years of partying, as well as s

10、tudying, can console themselves with the knowledge that college is an investment that, unlike many bank stocks, should yield huge dividends. A 2008 study by two Harvard economists notes that the “labor-market premium to skill”or the amount college graduates earned thats greater than what high-school

11、 graduate earneddecreased for much of the 20th century, but has come back with a vengeance （报复性地） since the 1980s. In 2005, The typical full-time year-round U.S. worker with a four-year college degree earned $50,900, 62% more than the $31,500 earned by a worker with only a high-school diploma. There

12、s no question that going to college is a smart economic choice. But a look at the strange variations in tuition reveals that the choice about which college to attend doesnt come down merely to dollars and cents. Does going to Columbia University （tuition, room and board $49,260 in 2007-08） yield a 4

13、0% greater return than attending the University of Colorado at Boulder as an out-of-state student （$35,542）? Probably not. Does being an out-of-state student at the University of Colorado at Boulder yield twice the amount of income as being an in-state student （$17,380） there? Not likely. No, in thi

14、s consumerist age, most buyers arent evaluating college as an investment, but rather as a consumer productlike a car or clothes or a house. And with such purchases, price is only one of many crucial factors to consider. As with automobiles, consumers in todays college marketplace have vast choices,

15、and people search for the one that gives them the most comfort and satisfaction in line with their budgets. This accounts for the willingness of people to pay more for different types of experiences （such as attending a private liberal-arts college or going to an out-of-state public school that has

16、a great marine-biology program）. And just as two auto purchasers might spend an equal amount of money on very different cars, college students （or, more accurately, their parents） often show a willingness to pay essentially the same price for vastly different products. So which is it? Is college an

17、investment product like a stock or a consumer product like a car? In keeping with the automotive worlds hottest consumer trend, maybe its best to characterize it as a hybrid （混合动力汽车）; an expensive consumer product that, over time, will pay rich dividends. X 2008 年12月英语六级阅读真题 Sustainable development

18、is applied to just about everything from energy to clean water and economic growth, and as a result it has become difficult to question either the basic assumptions behind it or the way the concept is put to use. This is especially true in agriculture, where sustainable development is often taken as

19、 the sole measure of progress without a proper appreciation of historical and cultural perspectives. To start with, it is important to remember that the nature of agriculture has changed markedly throughout history, and will continue to do so .medieval agriculture in northern Europe fed, clothed and

20、 sheltered a predominantly rural society with a much lower population density than it is today. It had minimal effect on biodiversity, and any pollution it caused was typically localized. In terms of energy use and the nutrients（营养成分） captured in the product it was relatively inefficient. Contrast t

21、his with farming since the start of the industrial revolution. Competition from overseas led farmers to specialize and increase yields. Throughout this period food became cheaper, safe and more reliable. However, these changes have also led to habitat（栖息地）loss and to diminishing biodiversity. Whats

22、more, demand for animal products in developing countries is growing so fast that meeting it will require an extra 300 million tons of grain a year by 2050.yet the growth of cities and industry is reducing the amount of water available for agriculture in many regions. All this means that agriculture

23、in the 21stcentury will have to be very different from how it was in the 20th.thiswill require radical thinking. For example, we need to move away from the idea that traditional practices are inevitably more sustainable than new ones. We also need to abandon the notion that agriculture can be “zero

24、impact”. The key will be to abandon the rather simple and static measures of sustainability, which centre on the need to maintain production without increasing damage. Instead we need a more dynamic interpretation, one that looks at the pros and cons（正反两方面）of all the various way land is used. There

25、are many different ways to measure agricultural performance besides food yield: energy use, environmental costs, water purity, carbon footprint and biodiversity. It is clear, for example, that the carbon of transporting tomatoes from Spain to the UK is less than that of producing them in the UK with

26、 additional heating and lighting. But we do not know whether lower carbon footprints will always be better for biodiversity. What is crucial is recognizing that sustainable agriculture is not just about sustainable food production. 可持续发展适用于诸如能源，净水，经济增长等几乎所有的方面，因此，要对可持续发展的基本假设或其概念的实施方法提出质疑也变得日益困难。这在农

27、业方面尤其显著，可持续发展经常被认为是农业进步的唯一标准，而这并没有从历史和文化的角度进行适当的评估。首先，重要的是认识到农业的本质随着历史的发展已经发生了显著的变化，并且这种变化仍将持续。中世纪北欧的农业为以农业为主导的社会提供了衣食和住所，而当时的人口密度远低于现在。那是的农业对生物多样性的影响有限，产生的任何污染通常都是地方性的。当时的农业在能源利用以及农产品的营养成分方面是相对低效的。对比一下工业革命开始以后出现的农场化。来自国外的竞争促使农民专业化并且提高产量。在这个时期，食品价格下降，安全性和可靠性都有所提高。但是，这些变化也是导致了栖息地的流失和生物多样性的减少。此外，发展中国家

28、队畜产品的需求增长如此迅速，以至于在2050年之前每年需要额外收货3亿吨谷物才能满足该需求。但是城市和工业的发展导致在很多地区农业可利用的水资源越来越少。所有这些都意味着21世纪的农业将非常不同于20世纪的农业。这需要激进的思考方式。例如，我们需要摒弃传统生产比新型生产注定更有利于可持续发展的方法，而这些方法的核心在于需要在保持生产的同时避免产生更多的破坏。我们同样需要抛弃农业可以“零污染”的观念。关键在于放弃相对简单和静态的衡量可持续发展性的方法，而这些方法的核心在于需要在保持生产的同时避免产生更多的破坏。取而代之的是更加动态的解释，可以兼顾到种种土地使用方式的正反两面。除了粮食产量以外，还

29、有很多不同的方式可以衡量农业的效益；能源利用，环境成本，水源纯净程度，碳排放和生物多样性。例如，显然把番茄从西班牙运到英国的碳排放量要少于在英国用额外的供暖和照明设备种植番茄。但是我们不知道降低碳排放量是否总是对生物多样性是有益的。关键是要意识到农业可持续的发展并不仅仅是关于可持续的食物生产。Passage Two： The percentage of immigrants （including those unlawfully present） in the United states has been creeping upward for years. At 12.6 percent,

30、it is now higher than at any point since the mid1920s. We are not about to go back to the days when Congress openly worried about inferior races polluting Americas bloodstream. But once again we are wondering whether we have too many of the wrong sort newcomers. Their loudest critics argue that the

31、new wave of immigrants cannot, and indeed do not want to, fit in as previous generations did. We now know that these racist views were wrong. In time, Italians, Romanians and members of other so-called inferior races became exemplary Americans and contributed greatly, in ways too numerous to detail,

32、 to the building of this magnificent nation. There is no reason why these new immigrants should not have the same success. Although children of Mexican immigrants do better, in terms of educational and professional attainment, than their parents UCLA sociologist Edward Telles has found that the gains dont continue. Indeed, the fouth generation is marginally worse off than the third James Jackson, of the University of Michigan, has found a similar trend among black Caribbean immigrants, Tells fears that Mexican-Americans may be fated to follow in the footsteps of Amer