大学英语六级改革适用阅读模拟题2019年(32)_真题-无答案

大学英语六级改革适用（阅读）模拟题2019年(32)
(总分710,考试时间130分钟)
Part III Reading Comprehension
Section B
How the CIA Works
[A]Despite plenty of Hollywood films about the CIA and its spies, many people still don't know what the agency actually does. The CIA stands for the Central Intelligence Agency. Its primary stated mission is to collect, evaluate and spread foreign intelligence to assist the president and senior United States government policymakers in making decisions about national security. The CIA may also engage in covert(秘密的)action at the president's request. It doesn't make policy. It isn't allowed to spy on the domestic activities of Americans or to participate in assassinations, either— though it has been accused of doing both.
[B]The CIA reports both to the executive and legislative branches. During the CIA's history, the amount of oversight has ebbed and flowed. On the executive side, the CIA must answer to three groups—the National Security Council, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the Intelligence Oversight Board.
CIA History
[C]The United States has always engaged in foreign intelligence activities. Covert action aided the patriots in winning the Revolutionary War. But the first formal, organized agencies didn't exist until the 1880s, when the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Army's Military Intelligence Division were created. Around World War I, the Bureau of Investigation(the forerunner of the FBI)took over intelligence-gathering duties. The intelligence structure continued through several repetitions. For example, the Office of Strategic Services, known as the OSS, was established in 1942 and abolished in 1945.
[D]After World War II, U.S. leaders struggled with how to improve national intelligence. The Pearl Harbor bombing, which brought the United States into World War II, was considered a major intelligence failure.
[E]In 1947, President Harry Truman signed the National Security Act, which created the CIA. The act also created a director of central intelligence, who had three different roles: the president's principal adviser on security issues, the head of the entire U.S. **munity and the head of the CIA, one of the agencies within that **munity. This structure was revised in 2004, with the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which created the position of director of national
intelligence to oversee the **munity. Now, the director of the CIA reports to the director of national intelligence.
[F]Two years later, Congress passed the Central Intelligence Agency Act, which allows the agency to keep its budget and staffing secret. For many years, the agency's primary mission was to protect the United States **munism and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. These days, the agency has an even **plex job—to protect the United States from terrorist threats from all over the globe.
CIA Structure
[G]The CIA is broken down into four different teams, each with its own responsibilities. National Clandestine Service is where the so-called "spies" work. NCS employees go undercover abroad to collect foreign intelligence. They recruit agents to collect what is called "human intelligence." What kinds of people work for the NCS? NCS employees are generally well-educated, know other languages, like to work with people from all over the world and can adapt to any situation, including dangerous ones. Most people, including their friends and family members, will never know exactly what NCS employees do. Later we'll take a look at how the spies stay undercover and check out some of their cool gadgets.
[H]The people on Directorate of Science and Technology team collect overt, or open source, intelligence. Overt intelligence consists of information that appears on TV, on the radio, in magazines or in newspapers. They also use electronic and satellite photography. This team usually recruits people who enjoy science and engineering.
[I]All of the information gathered by the first two teams is turned over to the Directorate of Intelligence. Members of this team interpret the information and write reports about it. A DI employee must have excellent writing and analytical skills, be comfortable presenting information in front of groups and be able to handle deadline pressure.
[J]Directorate of Support team provides support for the rest of the organization and handles things like hiring and training. "The Directorate of Support attracts the person who may be a specialist in a field such as an artist or a finance officer, or a generalist with many different talents," according to the CIA Web site.
Spy Stuff
[K]About a third of the agency's estimated 20, 000 employees are undercover or have been at some point in their CIA careers, according to a Los Angeles Times story, which explored just how they keep those covers.
[L]Most of the agency's overseas officers are under official cover, meaning they pose as employees of another government agency, such as the state department. A much smaller number are under nonofficial cover or NOC(pronounced "knock"). This means they usually pose as employees of real international corporations, employees of **panies or as students. Valerie Plame worked as a NOC, posing as the employee of a **pany in Boston called Brewster-Jennings. NOC is more dangerous than having an official cover, because if NOCs are caught by a foreign intelligence service, they have no diplomatic immunity to protect them from prosecution in that country.
[M]In a newspaper interview, an anonymous source said that he posed as a mid-level executive at multinational corporations while collecting intelligence overseas for more than a decade. He worked several years as a business consultant before joining the agency, giving him a great resume for the NOC program. Senior executives at his covert employer's were aware of his
real job, but his coworkers day-to-day were not. He carried out the normal duties that someone in his cover job would do, once even working on a $2 million deal. However, he also often spent three or four nights a week holding secret meetings.
[N]There is plenty of lore(传说)about the cloak-and-dagger lives that spies lead. Some of it is just that-lore. On the other hand, spies through the years really have used a variety of gadgets and technology to do their jobs. Some are now treasured up at the CIA Museum. Highlights of the museum include:(1)The dead drop spike, a concealment device that has been used since the late 1960s to hide money, maps, documents, microfilm and other items. The spike is waterproof and can be shoved into the ground or placed in a shallow stream to be retrieved later.(2)The Mark IV microdot camera was used to pass documents between agents in East and West Berlin during the 1950s and '60s. Agents took photographs that were the size of a pinhead and glued them to typed letters. The agent who received the letter could then view the image under a microscope.(3)The silver dollar hollow container is still being used today. It looks like a silver dollar and can be used to hide messages or film.
[O]Though the agency has had its share of failures and scandals, the government still depends heavily on the CIA to provide intelligence and assist with maintaining national security.
1. Some of the CIA employees are required to be very good at writing and analyzing.
2. The security act signed by the US president in the 1940s led to the establishment of the CIA
3. According to an anonymous source, several years of working experience as a business consultant gave him great advantage to join the CIA.
4. The CIA also recruits those who are interested in science and engineering.
5. The CIA was granted the permission to keep its budget and staffing secret by an act.
6. Even friends and families of those spies will never know what they actually do.
7. One of the new tasks of the CIA is to protect the United States from terrorist threats.
8. Engaging in secret action at the president's request is among the CIA's responsibility.
9. At the CIA museum, one can see the silver dollar hollow container, a gadget which is still in use nowadays.
10. An overseas officer without an official cover often faces more danger to life because he is not provided with diplomatic immunity.
Smother Love
[A]Every morning, Leanne Brickland and her sister would bicycle to school with the same words ringing in their ears: "Watch out crossing the road. Don't speak to strangers". "Mum would stand at the top of the steps and call that out," says Brickland, now a primary-school teacher and mother of four from Rotorua, New Zealand. Substitute boxers and thongs for undies(内衣), and the nagging fears that haunt parents haven't really changed. What has altered, dramatically, is the confidence we once had in our children's ability to fling themselves at life without a grown-up holding their hands.
[B]By today's standards, the childhood freedoms Brickland took for granted practically verge on parental neglect. Her mother worked, so she and her sister had a key to let themselves in after school and were expected to do their homework and put on the potatoes for dinner. At the family's beach house near Wellington, the two girls, from the age of five or six, would disappear for hours to play in the lakes and sands.
[C]A generation later, Brickland's children are growing up in a world more indulged yet more accustomed to peril. The techno-minded generation of PlayStation kids who can conquer entire
armies and rocket through space can't even be trusted to cross the street alone. "I walked or biked to school for years, but my children don't," Brickland admits. "I worry about the road. I worry about strangers. In some ways I think they're missing out, but I like to be able to see them, to know where they are and what they're doing."
[D]Call it smother love, indulged-kid syndrome, parental neurosis(神经症). Even though today's chil- dren have the universe at their fingertips thanks to the Internet, their physical boundaries are shrinking at a rapid pace. According to British social scientist Mayer Hillman, a child's play zone has contracted so radically that we're producing the human equivalent of henhouse chickens—plump from lack of exercise and without the flexibility and initiative of free-range kids of the past. The spirit of our times is no longer the resourceful adventurer Tom Sawyer but rather the worry-ridden dad and his stifled only child in Finding Nemo.
[E]In short, child rearing has become an exercise in risk minimization, represented by stories such as the father who refused to allow his daughter on a school picnic to the beach for fear she might drown. While it's natural for a parent to want to protect their children from danger, you have to wonder Have we gone too far?
[F]A study conducted by Paul Tranter, a lecturer in geography at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra, showed that while Australian and New Zealand children had similar amounts of unsupervised freedom, it was far less than German or English kids. For example, only a third of ten-year-olds in Australia and New Zealand were allowed to visit places other than school alone, compared to 80 percent in Germany.
[G]Girls were even more restricted than boys, with parents fearing assault or molestation(骚扰), while traffic dangers were seen as the greatest threat to boys. Bike ownership has doubled in a generation, but"independent mobility"—the ability to roam and explore unsupervised—has radically declined. In Auckland, for example, many primary schools have done away with bicycle racks because the streets are considered too unsafe. And in Christchurch, New Zealand's most bike-friendly city, the number of pupils cycling to school has fallen from more than 90 percent in the late 1970s to less than 20 percent. Safely strapped into the family 4x4, children are instead driven from home to the school gate, then off to ballet, soccer or swimming lessons—rarely straying from watchful adult eyes.
[H]In the U.S. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, New Jersey assistant principal and hockey coach Bobbie Schultz writes that playing in the street after school with neighborhood kids—creating their own rules, making their own decisions and settling disputes—was where the real learning took place. "The street was one of the greatest sources of my life skills," she says. "I don't see ' on-the-street play' anymore. I see adult-organized activities. Parents don't realize what an integral part of character development their children are missing."
[I]Armored with bicycle helmets, car seats, "safe" playgrounds and sunscreen, children are getting the message loud and clear that the world is full of peril—and that they're ill-equipped to handle it alone. Yet research consistently shows young people are much more capable than we think, says professor Anne Smith, director of New Zealand's Children's Issues Centre. "The thing that many adults have difficulty with is that children can't learn to be grown-up if they're excluded and protected all the time." [J]Educational psychologist Paul Prangley reckons it's about time the kid gloves came off. He believes parenting has taken on a paranoid(患妄想狂的)edge that's creating a generation of naive, insecure youngsters who are subconsciously being taught they're incapable of handling things by themselves. "Flexibility and the ability to resist pressure and
temptation are learned skills," Prangley explains. "If you wrap kids up in cotton wool and don't give them the opportunity to take risks, they're less equipped to make responsible decisions later in life."
[K]Sadly, high-profile cases of children being kidnapped and murdered—such as ten-year-old Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in the United Kingdom; five-year-old Chloe Hoson in Australia, whose body was found just 200 metres from where she lived; and six-year-old Teresa Cormack in New Zealand, who was snatched off the street on her way to school—only serve to reinforce parents' fears. Teresa Cormack's death, for example, was one of the rare New Zealand cases of random child kidnap. In Australia, the odds of someone under the age of 15 being murdered by a stranger have been estimated at one in four million.
[L]However, parental fear is contagious. In one British study, far more children feared an attack by a stranger than being hit by a car. "We are losing our sense of perspective," write Jan Parker and Jan Stimpson in their parenting book, Raising Happy Children. "Every parent has to negotiate their own route between equipping children with the skills they need to stay safe and not restricting or terrifying them unnecessarily in the process."
[M]Dr. Claire Freeman, a planning expert at the University of Otago, points to the erosion of community responsibility as another casualty of that mutual distrust. Not so long ago, adults knew all the local kids and were the informal guardians of the neighbourhood. "Now, particularly if you are a man, you may hesitate to offer help to a lost child for fear your motives might be questioned."
[N]As a planner in the mid-1990s, Freeman became concerned about the loss of green space to development and the erosion of informal places to play. In a study that looked at how children in the British city of Leeds spent their summer holidays, compared with their parents' childhood experiences, she found the freedom to explore had been severely contracted—in some cases, down to the front yard. Freeman says she cannot remember being inside the house as a child, or being alone. Growing up was about being part of a group. Now a mother of four, Freeman believes the "domestication of play" is robbing kids of their sense of belonging within a society.
[O]Nevertheless, Freeman says children's needs are starting to get more emphasis. In the Netherlands, child-friendly "home zones" have been created where priority is given to pedestrians, rather than cars. And ponds are being incorporated back into housing estates on the principle that children should learn to be safe around water, rather than be surrounded by a barren landscape. After all, as one of the smarter fish says in Finding Nemo, there's one problem with promising your kids that nothing will ever happen to them—because then nothing ever will.
11. To protect children from traffic dangers, parents drive their children to school and other extracurricular activities.
12. A study found that fearing an attack Outnumbers fearing being hit by a car among children.
13. A social scientist indicates that nowadays children's play zones have shrunk sharply, resulting in their lack of flexibility and initiative which free-range kids had.
14. According to a primary-school teacher and mother of four, parents nowadays have changed their confidence in the children's ability.
15. A hockey coach points out that real learning takes place in on-the-street play.
16. Parents' concern about the safety of children is greatly reinforced by cases of child kidnap and murder.
17. Parents almost pay no attention to childhood freedom by today's standards.
18. Equipped with bicycle helmets, car seats etc. children are taught that the world is dangerous and they can't cope with it.
19. Children's needs get increasing concern and Netherlands has taken some measures accordingly.
20. A planning expert thinks that lack of mutual trust results in the erosion of community responsibility.
The Frontier Heritage
The Impact of the American Frontier
[A]Although American civilization took over and replaced the frontier more than a century ago, the heritage of the frontier is still very much alive in the United States today. The idea of the frontier still stirs the emotions and imaginations of the American people. Americans continue to be fascinated by the frontier because it has been a particularly important force in shaping their national value.
[B]The frontier experience began when the first colonists settled on the east coast of the continent in the 1600s. It ended in about 1890 when the last western lands were settled.
[C]The American, frontier consisted of the relatively unsettled regions of the United States, usually found in the western part of the country. Here, both land and life were more rugged and primitive than in the more settled eastern part As one frontier area was settled, people began moving farther west into the next unsettled area. By settling one frontier area after another, Americans moved across an entire continent, 2,700 miles wide. How did this movement, which lasted more than two centuries, help to shape American values?
[D]Americans have tended to see the frontier, its life, and its people as the purest examples of their basic values. This has been the impact of the frontier on the American mind. For example, the frontier provided many inspiring examples of hard work as forests were turned into towns, and towns into large cities. The race **petitive success was rarely more colorful or adventurous than on the western frontier. The rush for gold in California, for silver in Montana, and for fertile land in all the western territories provided endless stories of high adventure, When it was announced that almost two million acres of good land in Oklahoma would be opened for settlement in April 1889, thousands of settlers gathered on the border waiting for the exact time to be announced. When it was, they literally raced into the territory in wagons and on horseback to claim the best land they could find for themselves.
[E]Individualism, self-reliance, and equality of opportunity have perhaps been the values most closely associated with the frontier heritage of America Throughout their history, Americans have tended to view the frontiersman as the model of the free individual. This is probably because there was less control over the individual on the frontier than anywhere else in the United States. There were few laws and few established social or political institutions to confine people living on the frontiers. In the United States, where freedom from outside social controls is so highly valued, the frontier has been idealized, and it still serves as a basis for a nostalgic(怀旧的)view of the purity of the early United States, which was lost when the country became urbanized and **plex. Self-Reliance and the Rugged Individualist
[F]Closely associated with the frontier ideal of the free individual is the ideal of self-reliance. If the people living on the frontier were free of many of society's rules, they were also denied many of society's comforts and conveniences. They had to be self-reliant. They often constructed their own houses, hunted, tended their own gardens, and made their own clothing and household
items.
[G]The self-reliant frontiersman has been idealized by Americans who have made him the model of the classic American hero with "rugged individualism". This hero is a man who has been made physically tough and rugged by the conditions of frontier life. He is skilled with guns and other weapons. He needs no help from others. He usually has no strong tie or obligations to women and children. He is kind and polite to them, but he prefers "to go his own way" and not be tied down by them. Standing alone, he can meet all the dangers which life on the frontier brings. He is strong enough to extend his protection beyond himself to others.
[H]There are two types of this heroic rugged individualist drawn from two different stages of life on the frontier. In the early frontier, which existed before the Civil War of the 1860s, the main struggle was one of man against the wilderness. Daniel Boone is probably the best-known hero of this era. Boone explored the wilderness country of Kentucky in the 1760s and 1770s. On one trip he stayed in the wilderness for two years, successfully matching his strength and skills against the dangers of untamed nature and hostile Indians. In 1778 Boone was captured by Indians, who were so impressed with his physical strength and skills that they made him a member of their tribe. Later he succeeded in making a daring escape. Boone's heroic strength is seen primarily in his ability to master the harsh challenges of the wilderness. Although he had to fight against Indians from time to time, he is admired mainly as a survivor and conqueror of the wilderness, not as a fighter.
[I]The second type of heroic rugged individualist is drawn from the last phase of the western frontier, which lasted from the 1860s until the 1890s. By this time the wilderness was largely conquered. The struggle now was no longer man against nature, but man against man. Cattlemen and cowboys fought against farmers, outlaws, Indians, and each other for control of the remaining western lands. The traditions of law and order were not yet well established, and physical violence was frequent. The frontier became known as "the Wild West".
Equality of Opportunity
[J]In addition to viewing the frontier as an expression of individual freedom and self-reliance in their purest forms, Americans have also seen the frontier as a pure expression of the ideal of equality of opportunity. On the western frontier there was more of a tendency for people to treat each other as social equals than in the more settled eastern regions of the country. On the frontier, the highest importance was placed on what a person could do in the present, and hardly any notice was taken of who his dead ancestors were. Frontiersmen were fond of saying, "what's above the ground is more important than what's beneath the ground."
[K]Because so little attention was paid to a person's family background, the frontier offered the chance of a new beginning for many Americans who were seeking new opportunities to advance themselves. One English visitor to the United States in the early 1800s observed that if Americans experienced disappointment or failure in business, in politics, or even in love, they moved west to the frontier to make a new beginning. The frontier offered millions of Americans a source of hope for a fresh start in **petitive race for success and for a better life. On the frontier there was a continuing need for new farmers, new skilled laborers, new merchants, new lawyers, and new political leaders.
[L]The differences in wealth between rich and poor on the frontier were generally smaller than those found in the more settled regions of the nation. People lived, dressed, and acted more alike on the frontier than in other parts of the United States. The feeling of equality was shared by
hired helpers who refused to be called "servants" or to be treated as such. One European visitor observed: "The clumsy gait(步态)and bent body of our peasant is hardly ever seen here... Everyone walks erect and easy." Wealthy travelers to the frontier were warned not to show off their wealth or to act superior to others if they wished to be treated politely.
[M]The American frontier may not be "the key" to American development, as Frederick Jackson Turner said, but it is certainly one major factor. The frontier provided the space and conditions which helped to strengthen the American ideals of individual freedom, self-reliance, and equality of opportunity. On the frontier, these ideals were enlarged and made workable. Frontier ideas and customs were continuously passed along to the more settled parts of the United States as newer frontier regions took the place of older ones during a westward march of settlers which lasted more than two centuries. In this way, many of the frontier values became national values.
21. The Americans explored the last western lands in about 1890.
22. The frontier was once called the Wild West for law and order were not set up then and there were frequent breakout of violence.
23. Hired helpers' refusal to be called "servants" embodies their feeling of equality.
24. The frontiersmen had to be self-reliant because their life was isolated and inconvenient.
25. Rugged individualism is the typical characteristic of the idealized self-reliant frontiersman.
26. The purity of the early America was lost with the urbanization of the country.
27. Before the 1860s, the main challenge confronted with frontiersmen was the wilderness.
28. Americans are inclined to regard the frontier, its life, and its people as examples of their basic values.
29. In the last phase of the western frontier, people fought against each other in order to control the remaining western lands.
30. During the westward march of settlers, frontier ideas were spread from the newer frontier regions to the more settled parts of the U.S.。