2012年12月大学英语六级第二套真题听力原文

Section A
11. M: This is the second time this week my boss asked me to work extra hours. I’m glad to get a
bigger paycheck, but I don’t want such a heavy schedule.
W: Better watch your step. A lot of people would like to trade places with you.
Q: What does the woman imply the man should do?
12. W: Oh, there you are. Your wife just called. I told her you were around somewhere, but I
couldn’t find you. She’s like you to call her at home.
M: At home? She should be at work. I hope nothing is wrong.
Q: What does the man imply?
13. M: We have to get up early tomorrow if we want to be at the railway station by 8:00. Perhaps
we should go to bed now.
W: I suppose so, but I have to finish this memo and put it in the mail.
Q: What do we learn from the conversation?
14. W: Let me check, sir. A suite on the third floor was reserved by a Mr. Colmar form July 10th to
16th.
M: I’m afraid there’s a mistake, madam. I told my secretary to book a specious double room rather than a luxurious suite.
Q: What is the wrong of the reservation?
15. W: Profits are down considerably this quarter. Do you have any idea what might be the
problem?
M: I guess it’s just that this is a slack time of the year. I hear other companies are having the same problem.
Q: What are the speakers talking about?
16. M: I forgot to pick up the groceries on the way home. I’ll just rest a minute and then go and get
them.
W: No problem. We can make do with what’s left here, and get them tomorrow.
Q: What does the woman suggest they man do?
17. W: Somebody should do something about the air-conditioning. It’s ridiculous. I have to wear a
sweater to work in the middle of summer.
M: I agree. It’s been like this for weeks.
Q: What are the speakers talking about?
18. W: I lost the diamond out of my ring. Do you know where I could have it replaced?
M: I’ve never had a stone put in anything, but I know that the jewelry shop on Oxford Street has a good reputation.
Q: What does the woman intend to do?
Now you’ll hear two long conversions
Conversation One
W: Mr. Stern, may I ask you? Do you think it was necessary and fair to arrest Steve Bril?
M: I don’t know whether you realise that this man has been eating a part of park for five years. And he is encouraging other people to do the same thing every single day. He has been organizing groups to destroy our urban wildlife.
W: But Mr. Stern, this situation has been going on happily for five years. Why do you suddenly decide to do something about it?
M: Well, at first, we just thought he was eccentric person, a bit odd, you know. But over the years we came to realise that he is a dangerous guy. He has been ruining our city environment. Parks are to look at, not to eat. It’s just as if you’re going to allow people walk through a zoo, and eat the baby bears.
W: But surely you or your park keepers, Mr. Stern, could have discouraged Mr. Bril from his activity without going such drastic measures, without arresting him.
M: Steve is a nice fellow, but what he is doing is illegal. He knows an awful lot about wild weeds.
We’ll be very happy to let him organize tours if he just wouldn’t eat the plants and wouldn’t encourage other people to do so, too. You never know what this could lead to, all sorts of people ruining our park in all sorts of ways. This kind of thing is very definitely criminal behavior and must be stopped.
Questions 19 to 22 are based on the conversation you have just heard
19. What does the man say Steve Bril has been doing?
20. Why was Steve Bril not arrested years ago?
21. What does the woman think of the action taken against Steve Bril?
22. What finally net to Steve Bril’s arrest?
Conversation Two
M: Mary, are your children still at school?
W: Yes, my eldest boy, Martin, left school last year. He works at a day center nearby for physically handicapped adults. My daughter Liz is in the fourth year at a comprehensive school.
M: How is her foreign language?
W: Very good. She likes French and German. She is not very scientific. Christopher, my youngest child, is in the last year of junior school. He is much more practically oriented, strong in math and science.
M: He will be going to a comprehensive school, I suppose.
W: We have the choice of three comprehensive schools.
M: Really? It’s unusual to have so many to choose from.
W: Well, yes. Parter school seems to have done all right. We’re err…um.... There’re certain criticisms about it, but on the whole, we are not too dissatisfied.
M: Well, generally speaking, what do you think one considers when one is trying to choose? Well, I don’t know if one can really choose one school actually you tend to. Children go where they’re sent.
W: You can’t err…um…very easily unless you are very rich and can afford to choose a private school. And since we’re not very rich, we’ve got all three children to consider. We can’t do that.
So they go to the local comprehensive school. What really matters is, you know, the quality of the staff, the size of the school. I think the size of the school has a lot of to do with it.
Questions 23 to 25 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
23. What do we learn about the woman’s daughter Liz?
24. What does the woman say about her youngest child, Christopher?
25. What can we conclude from the conversation?
Section B
Passage One
Years ago, when I was a young assistant professor at the Harvard Business School, I thought that the key to developing managerial leadership lay in raw brain power. I thought the role of business schools was to develop future managers who knew all about the various functions of business. My thinking gradually became tempered by living and working outside the United States and by serving seven years as a college president. During my presidency of Babson College, I added several traits or skills that I felt a good manager must possess. The first is the ability to express oneself in a clear, articulate fashion. Good oral and written communication skills are absolutely essential if one is to be an effective manager. Second, one must possess the required set of qualities called leadership skills. To be a good leader, one must understand and be sensitive to people and be able to inspire them toward the achievement of common goals. Next, I concluded that effective managers must be broad human beings who not only understand the world of business but also have a sense of the cultural, social,
political, historical, and the international aspects of life and society. This suggests that exposure to the liberal arts and humanities should be part of every manager’s education. Finally, as I pondered the business and government-related scandals that have occupied the front pages of newspapers, it became clear that a good manager in today’s world must have courage and a strong sense of integrity. He must know where to draw the line between right and wrong.
Questions 26 to 29 are based on the passage you have just heard.
26. What did the speaker use to think business schools should do to produce managers?
27. What might have changed the speaker’s view of point?
28. What does the speaker stress as part of manager’s education?
29. What convinced the speaker that managers need a sense of integrity?
Passage Two
With top colleges charging as much as $50,000 per year, the idea that students may spend their first two years learning next-to-nothing is enough to make parents pause. How can you make that investment worthwhile? And does going to college really make you smarter? It depends on what you study and whether you study enough. A discussion at The New York Times this week tackled the issue, with several academics weighing in on whether college is worthwhile, and whether schools are dumbing down their curricula to appeal to more people. In their new book Academically Adrift, sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa found that 32 percent of the students they followed did not take “any courses with more than 40 pages of reading per week” in a typical semester, and half of the students didn’t take “any courses in which they had to write more than 20 pages for the class”. Using these criteria, they determined that 45 percent of college students make little academic progress during the first two years of a four-year degree. Their research raises a few red flags. On the one hand, is it any surprise that a public school system forced to “teach to the test” produces large numbers of students who are unwilling to think analytically, learn on their own, or write a research paper? On the other, does the number of pages read plus the number of pages written equals an accurate assessment of academic progress? A literature or history major, for instance, would have far more reading to do than a math major, but the math workload isn’t lighter lifting just because it involves reading fewer pages per week.
Questions 30 to 32 are based on the passage you have just heard.
30. Why do parents hesitate to pay for their kids’ college education according to the speaker?
31. What does the survey by the 2 sociologists show about the students?
32. What does the speaker imply about the research by the 2 sociologists?
Passage Three
Entertaining a close circle of friends isn’t usually difficult. You all know each other so there’s no problem about conversation. And even if the food is a bit sketchy, no one really minds because they’ve come to see you, not a free meal. Well, most of them anyway. It’s the guests you don’t know very well who present unexpectable traps. Therefore, in such categories, as the new husband or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend of an intimate friend, the business acquaintances who may be useful to your career, worst of all, the totally unpredictable friend of a friend, my advice in such cases is if you’re an indifferent cook, don’t do any cooking. It’s far better to stick to coffee and drinks, with a few expensive biscuits on the side. You can always plead that your flat is so small for more than 2 to eat comfortably, that you get home too late to prepare a decent meal, that your oven is on the blink. Any reasonable excuses will do, even it’s not believed. If you fancy yourself as a cook, and are anxious to make a good impression, do your homework first. Nothing is more discouraging than to spend hours preparing a delicious meat dish followed by, say, fresh strawberries, only to discover that your first-time guest is a strict vegetarian or is on a slimming diet. This may result in the rest of you tucking into a vast meal while your guest toys suspiciously with a few sides of tomato. “No, thank you, I won’t have any creamed carrots out for my waist line.”
Questions 33 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.
33. What kind of guest is most likely to give you a hard time according to the speaker?
34. What should you do before preparing a meal for your guests?
35. What is the speaker mainly talking about?
Section C
People with disabilities comprise a large but diverse segment of the population. It is estimated
that over 35 million Americans have physical, mental, or other disabilities. Approximately, half of these disabilities are “developmental,” i.e., they occur prior to the individual’s twenty-second birthday, often from genetic conditions, and are severe enough to affect three or more areas of development, such as mobility, communication and employment. Most other disabilities are considered accidental, i.e., caused by outside forces.
Before the 20th century, only a small percentage of people with disabilities survived for long. Medical treatment for such conditions as stroke or spinal cord injury was unavailable. People whose disabilities should not have inherently affected their life span were often so mistreated that they perished. Advancements in medicine and social services have created a climate in which people with disabilities can expect to have such basic needs as food, shelter and medical treatment met. Unfortunately, these basics are often all that is available. Civil liberties, such as the right to vote, marry, get an education, and gain an employment have historically been denied on the basis of disability.
In recent decades, the disability rights movement has been organized to combat these violations of civil rights. Disabled people formed grassroots coalitions to advocate their rights to integration and meaningful equality of opportunity. Congress responded by passing major legislation, recognizing people with disabilities as a protected class. In the mid-1970s, critical legislation mandated access to education, public transportation, and public facilities, and prohibited employment discrimination by federal agencies or employers receiving federal funds.。