2011年12月英語六級聽力短文答案及評析

Section B
Passage One
 The University of Tennessee’s Walters Life Sciences building, is a model animal facility, spotlessly clean, careful in obtaining prior approval for experiments from an animal care committee. Of the 15,000 mice house there in a typical year, most give their lives for humanity. These are good mice and as such won the protection of the animal care committee. At any given time however some mice escape and run free. These mice are pests. They can disrupt experiments with the bacteria organisms they carry. They are bad mice and must be captured and destroyed. Usually, this is accomplished by means of sticky traps, a kind of fly paper on which they become increasingly stuck. But the real point of the cautionary tale, says animal behaviorist Herzau, is that the labels we put on things can affect our moral responses to them. Using stick traps or the more deadly snap traps would be deemed unacceptable for good mice. Yet the killing of bad mice requires no prior approval. Once the research animal hits the floor and becomes an escapee, says Herza, its moral standard is instantly diminished. In Herzau’s own home, there was more ironic example when his young son’s pet mouse Willy died recently, it was accorded a tearful ceremonial burial in garden. Yet even as they mourned Willy, says Herzau, he and his wife were setting snap traps to kill the pest mice in their kitchen with the bare change in labels from pet to pest, the kitchen mice obtained totally different moral standards
【材料評析】
本篇文章主要是講述人們對待老鼠不同的道德態(tài)度。
同是一個實(shí)驗(yàn)室里面老鼠，如果是為了人類實(shí)驗(yàn)做貢獻(xiàn)，就是人們眼中的好老鼠；而一旦老鼠從實(shí)驗(yàn)室里面跑出來，攜帶病菌危害到了人類健康，那么這些逃跑掉的老鼠就成為了人們眼中的壞老鼠。人類會使用那些捕鼠夾子來消滅壞老鼠，但是對待好老鼠的時候態(tài)度截然不同，比如作者兒子的寵物老鼠死掉了，他們家甚至給它辦了一場葬禮。
作者的觀點(diǎn)就是：如果我們對一樣事物貼上了標(biāo)簽，那么在道德層面上，我們內(nèi)心會根據(jù)標(biāo)簽的不同作出不同的反應(yīng)。并不是事物本身有任何好與不好，只是人類自作主張給各個事物貼上了不同的標(biāo)簽。

Questions:
26 What does the passage say about most of the mice used for experiments?
【答案】D）They sacrifice their lives for the benefit of humans.
27 Why did the so-called bad mice have to be captured and destroyed?
【答案】C) They may affect the results of experiments.
28 When are mice killed without prior approval?
【答案】C) When they become escapees.
29 Why does the speaker say what the Herzau’s did at home is ironical?
【答案】A）While holding a burial ceremony for a pet mouse, they were killing pest mice.

Passage Two
There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these three trembling cities the greatest is the last, the city of final destination, the city that has a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York's high-strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from Italy to set up a small grocery store in a slum, or a young girl arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh eyes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company.
【材料評析】
這篇文章的主題是城市和文化。屬于散文性質(zhì)。
講述了不同的人帶給紐約不同的氣息。第一種，紐約本地人，讓紐約完整持續(xù)；第二種，紐約上班族，讓紐約躁動不安；第三種，來紐約尋夢的人，他們讓紐約充滿熱情。作者在內(nèi)心覺得紐約正是因?yàn)橛羞@樣三種人才能如此閃耀光彩，尤其是最后一類人，為紐約做出的貢獻(xiàn)最大。
本篇文章中，The Three New Yorks 具有雙關(guān)含義，既可以指紐約城，也可以指紐約人。有些學(xué)生可能看到這里就沒看懂。遇到這種情況應(yīng)該先接著往后看，然后猜這個three New Yorks到底指什么。

Questions 30 to 32 are based on the passage you have just heard.
30. What does the speaker say about the natives of New York?
【答案】D) They take it for granted.

31. What does the speaker say commuters give to New York?
【答案】A) Tidal restlessness.

32. What do we learn about the settlers of New York?
【答案】B) They are adventurers from all over the world.

Passage Three

“If you asked me television is unhealthy”, I said to my roommate Walter, as I walked into the living room.“While you are sitting passively in front of the TV set, your muscles are turning to fat, your complexion is fading, and your eyesight is being ruined.”
“Shh~”Walter put his finger to his lips, “This is an intriguing murder mystery.”
“Really?” I replied.
“But you know, the brain is destroyed by TV viewing. Creativity is killed by that box. And people are kept from communicating with one another. From my point of view, TV is the cause of the declining interest in school and the failure of our entire educational system.”
“Ah ha, I can’t see your point.” Walter said softly. “But see? The woman on the witness stand in this story is being questioned about the murder that was committed one hundred years ago.”
Ignoring his enthusiastic description of the plot, I went on with my argument.
“As I see it,” I explained, “not only are most TV programs badly written and produced, but viewers are also manipulated by the mass media. As far as I am concerned, TV watchers are cut off from reality from nature, from the other people, from life itself! I was confident in my ability to persuade.
After a short silence, my roommate said, “Anyway, I’ve been planning to watch the football game. I am going to change the channel.”
“Don’t touch that dial!” I shouted, “I wanted to find out how the mystery turns out!”
I am not sure I got my point to cross.
【材料評析】
這是一篇很有趣的記敘文。講述了作者和室友的一段關(guān)于看電視問題的對話。
作者一直在強(qiáng)調(diào)看電視如何如何不好，并且列舉出了一大堆的原因：會讓身體變胖，面色枯黃，視力下降，并且會讓孩子們的創(chuàng)造能力，交際能力下降。但是他的室友一直沒有接他的話，一直專心于看自己的電視節(jié)目。
文章最幽默的是，最后一個情節(jié)，當(dāng)室友說要換臺的時候，作者立刻不愿意了，真是非常地諷刺，原來作者自己也是離不開電視機(jī)，受不了電視節(jié)目的誘惑的。
這篇文章難度比較低，生詞幾乎沒有，大家只要看懂情節(jié)，基本上所有問題也可以回答出來，需要仔細(xì)認(rèn)真，在聽聽力的時候虛擬場景。

33. As the speaker walked into the living room, what was being shown on TV?
【答案】D） A murder mystery

34. What does the speaker say about watching television?
【答案】C）It is unhealthy for the viewers.

35. What can we say about the speaker?
【答案】B) He can’t resist the temptation of T.V. either.