2014年12月大学英语六级考试阅读理解(第1套)
陈列协议范本-浮力教案
2014年12月大学英语六级考试真题（第1套）
Section B
Directions: In this section, you are going to
read a passage with ten statements attached to it.
Each
statement contains information given in
one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from
which
the information is derived. You may
choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph
is
marked with a letter.
Meaning Is
Healthier Than Happiness
[A]For at least the
last decade, the happiness craze has been
building. In the last three months
alone, over
1,000 books on happiness were released on Amazon,
including Happy Money,
Happy-People-Pills For
All, and, for those just starting out, Happiness
for Beginners.
[B]One of the consistent claims
of books like these is that happiness is
associated with all sorts of
good life
outcomes, including - most promisingly - good
health. Many studies have noted the
connection
between a happy mind and a healthy body - the
happier you are, the better health
outcomes we
seem to have. In a meta-analysis (overview) of 150
studies on this topic, researchers
put it like
this: “Inductions of well-being lead to healthy
functioning, and inductions of ill-being
lead
to compromised health.”
[C]But a new study,
just published in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences
(PNAS) challenges the rosy
picture. Happiness may not be as good for the body
as researchers
thought. It might even be bad.
[D]Of course, it's important to first define
happiness. A few months ago, I wrote a piece
called
“There's More to Life Than Being Happy”
about a psychology study that dug into what
happiness really means to people. It
specifically explored the difference between a
meaningful life
and a happy life.
[E]It
seems strange that there would be a difference at
all. But the researchers, who looked at a
large sample of people over a month-long
period, found that happiness is associated with
selfish
“taking” behavior and that having a
sense of meaning in life is associated with
selfless “giving”
behavior.
[F]without
meaning characterizes a relatively shallow, self-
absorbed or even selfish
life, in which things
go well, needs and desire are easily satisfied,
and difficult or taxing
entanglements are
avoided,
to not helping others in need.” While
being happy is about feeling good, meaning is
derived from
contributing to others or to
society in a bigger way. As Roy Baumeister, one of
the researchers,
told me,
This makes life
meaningful but it does not necessarily make us
happy.”
[G]The new PNAS study also sheds light
on the difference between meaning and happiness,
but
on the biological level. Barbara
Fredrickson, a psychological researcher who
specializes in
positive emotions at the
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and
Steve Cole, a genetics and
psychiatric
researcher at UCLA, examined the self-reported
levels of happiness and meaning in 80
research
subjects.
[H]Happiness was defined, as in the
earlier study, by feeling good. The researchers
measured
happiness by asking subjects
questions like “How often did you feel happy?”
“How often did
you feel interested in life?”
and “How often did you feel satisfied?” The more
strongly people
endorsed these measures of
“hedonic well-being,” or pleasure, the higher they
scored on
happiness.
[I]Meaning was
defined as an orientation to something bigger than
the self. They measured
meaning by asking
questions like “How often did you feel that your
life has a sense of direction
or meaning to
it?”, “How often did you feel that you had
something to contribute to society?”,
and “How
often did you feel that you belonged to a
community social group?” The more people
endorsed these measures of “eudaimonic well-
being” - or, simply put, virtue - the more meaning
they felt in life.
[J]After noting the
sense of meaning and happiness that each subject
had, Fredrickson and Cole,
with their research
colleagues, looked at the ways certain genes
expressed themselves in each of
the
participants. Like neuroscientists who use fMRI
scanning to determine how regions in the
brain
respond to different stimuli, Cole and Fredrickson
are interested in how the body, at the
genetic
level, responds to feelings of happiness and
meaning.
[K] Cole's past work has linked
various kinds of chronic adversity to a particular
gene expression
pattern. When people feel
lonely, are grieving the loss of a loved one, or
are struggling to make
ends meet, their bodies
go into threat mode. This triggers the activation
of a stress-related gene
pattern that has two
features: an increase in the activity of pron-
inflammatory genes and a
decrease in the
activity of genes involved in anti-viral
responses.
[L]Cole and Fredrickson found that
people who are happy but have little to no sense
of meaning in
their lives - proverbially,
simply here for the party - have the same gene
expression patterns as
people who are
responding to and enduring chronic adversity. That
is, the bodies of these happy
people are
preparing them for bacterial threats by activating
the pro-inflammatory response.
Chronic
inflammation is, of course, associated with major
illnesses like heart disease and various
cancers.
[M]positive emotions- like the
kind people experience during manic episodes or
artificially induced euphoria from alcohol and
drugs -
says Fredrickson.
[N]It's
important to understand that for many people, a
sense of meaning and happiness in life
overlap; many people score jointly high (or
jointly low) on the happiness and meaning measures
in the study. But for many others, there is a
dissonance - they feel that they are low on
happiness
and high on meaning or that their
lives are very high in happiness, but low in
meaning. This last
group, which has the gene
expression pattern associated with adversity,
formed a whopping 75
percent of study
participants. Only one quarter of the study
participants had what the researchers
call
“eudaimonic predominance” - that is, their sense
of meaning outpaced their feelings of
happiness.
[O]This is too bad given the
more beneficial gene expression pattern associated
with
meaningfulness. People whose levels of
happiness and meaning line up, and people who have
a
strong sense of meaning but are not
necessarily happy, showed a deactivation of the
adversity
stress response. Their bodies were
not preparing them for the bacterial infections
that we get when
we are alone or in trouble,
but for the viral infections we get when
surrounded by a lot of other
people.
[P]Fredrickson's past research, described in
her two books, Positivity and Love 2.0, has mapped
the benefits of positive emotions in
individuals. She has found that positive emotions
broaden a
person's perspective and buffers
people against adversity. So it was surprising to
her that
hedonistic well-being, which is
associated with positive emotions and pleasure,
did so badly in
this study compared with
eudaimonic well-being.
[Q]“It's not the
amount of hedonic happiness that's a problem,”
Fredrickson tells me, “It's that
it's not
matched by eudaimonic well-being. It's great when
both are in step. But if you have more
hedonic
well-being than would be expected, that's when
this [gene] pattern that's akin to adversity
emerged.”
[R]The terms hedonism and
eudemonism bring to mind the great philosophical
debate, which has
shaped Western civilization
for over 2,000 years, about the nature of the good
life. Does happiness
lie in feeling good, as
hedonists think, or in doing and being good, as
Aristotle and his intellectual
descendants,
the virtue ethicists, think? From the evidence of
this study, it seems that feeling good
is not
enough. People need meaning to thrive. In the
words of Carl Jung, “The least of things with
a meaning is worth more in life than the
greatest of things without it.” Jung's wisdom
certainly
seems to apply to our bodies, if not
also to our hearts and our minds.
46 . The
author's recent article examined how a meaningful
life is different from a happy life.
47 . It
should be noted that many people feel their life
is both happy and meaningful.
48 . According
to one survey, there is a close relationship
between hedonic well-being measures
and high
scores on happiness.
49 . According to one of
the authors of a new study, what makes life
meaningful may not make
people happy.
50 .
Experiments were carried out to determine our
body's genetic expression of feelings of
happiness and meaning.
51 . A new study
claims happiness may not contribute to health.
52 . According to researchers, taking makes
for happiness while giving adds meaning to life.
53 . Evidence from research shows that it
takes meaning for people to thrive.
54 . With
regard to gene expression patterns, happy people
with little or no sense of meaning in
life are
found to be similar to those suffering from
chronic adversity.
55 . Most books on
happiness today assert that happiness is
beneficial to health.
Passage One
Questions 56 to 60 are based on the following
passage.
Nothing succeeds in business
books like the study of success. The current
business-book boom
was launched in 1982 by Tom
Peters and Robert Waterman with “In Search of
Excellence”. It has
been kept going ever since
by a succession of gurus and would-be gurus who
promise to distil the
essence of excellence
into three(or five or seven) simple rules.
The Three Rules is a self-conscious contribution
to this type; it even includes a bibliography of
“success studies”. Messrs Raynor and Mumtaz
Ahmed work for a consultancy, Deloitte, that is
determined to turn itself into more of a
thought-leader and less a corporate repairman.
They
employ all the tricks of the success
genre. They insist that their conclusions are
“measurable and
actionable”-guide to behavior
rather than analysis for its own sake. Success
authors usually serve
up vivid stories about
how exceptional business-people stamped their
personalities on a company
or rescued it from
a life-threatening crisis. Messrs Raynor and Ahmed
are happier chewing the
numbers: they provide
detailed appendices on “calculating the elements
of advantage” and
“detailed analysis”.
The authors spent five years studying the behavior
of their 344 “exceptional companies”, only
to
come up at first with nothing. Every hunch(直觉)led
to a blind alley and every hypothesis to a
dead end. It was only when they shifted their
attention from how companies behave to how they
think that they began to make sense of their
voluminous material.
Management is
all about making difficult tradeoffs in conditions
that are always uncertain and
ever-changing.
But exceptional companies' approach these trade-
offs with two simple rules in
mind, sometimes
consciously, sometimes unconsciously. First:
better before cheaper. Companies
are more
likely to succeed in the long run if they compete
on quality or performance than on price.
Second: revenue before cost. Companies have
more to gain in the long run from driving up
revenue than by driving down costs.
Most success studies suffer from two faults. There
is “the halo (光环) effect”, whereby good
performance leads commentators to attribute
all manner of virtues to anything and everything
the
company does. These virtues then suddenly
become vices when the company fails. Messrs Raynor
and Ahmed work hard to avoid these mistakes by
studying large bodies of data over several
decades. But they end up embracing a different
error: stating the obvious. Most businesspeople
will not be surprised to learn that it is
better to find a profitable niche (缝隙市场) and focus
on
boosting your revenues than to compete on
price and cut your way to success. The difficult
question is how to find that profitable niche
and protect it. There, The Three Rules is less
useful.
56 . What kind of business books are
most likely to sell well?
A Books on
excellence.
B Guides to management.
C
Books on business rules.
D Analyses of market
trends.
57 . What does the author imply about
books on success so far?
A They help
businessmen on way or another.
B They are
written by well-recognized experts.
C They
more or less fall into the same stereotype.
D
They are based on analyses of corporate leaders.
58 . How does The Three Rules different from
other success books according to the passage?
A It focuses on the behavior of exceptional
businessmen.
B It bases its detailed analysis
on large amount of data.
C It offers
practicable advice to businessmen.
D It draws
conclusion from vivid examples.
59 . What does
the passage say contributes to the success of
exceptional companies?
A Focus on quality and
revenue.
B Management and sales promotion.
C Lower production costs and competitive
prices.
D Emphasis on after-sale service and
maintenance.
60 . What is the author's comment
on The Three Rules?
A It can help to locate
profitable niches.
B It has little to offer
to businesspeople.
C It is noted for its
detailed data analysis.
D It fails to
identify the keys to success.
Passage Two
Questions 61 to 65 are based on the following
passage.
Until recently, the University of
Kent prided itself on its friendly image. Not any
more. Over the
past few months it has been
working hard. With the help of media consultants,
to play down its
cosy reputation in favour of
something more academic and serious.
Kent is not alone in considering an image revamp
(翻新). Changes to next year's
funding regime
are forcing universities to justify charging
students up to ￡9,000 in fees.
Nowadays
universities are putting much more of a focus on
their brands and what their value
propositions
are. While in the past universities have often
focused on student social life and
attractions
of the university town in recruitment campaigns,
they are now concentrating on more
tangible(实在的)attractions, such as employment
prospects, engagement with industry, and
lecturer contact hours, making clear exactly
what students are going to get for their money.
The problem for universities is that if
those benefits fail to materialize, students
notice. That
worries Rob Behrens, who deals
with student complaints. “Universities need to be
extremely
careful in describing what's going
to happen to students” he says. “As competition is
going to get
greater for attracting gifted
students, there is a danger that universities will
go the extra mile.”
One university told
prospective engineering students they would be
able to design a car and
race it at Brands
Hatch, which never happened, he says. Others have
promised use of sophisticated
equipment that
turned out to be broken or unavailable. “If
universities spent as much money on
handling
complaints and appeals appropriately as they spend
on marketing, they would do better
at keeping
students, and in the National Student Survey
returns,” he says.
Ongoing research
tracking prospective 2012 students suggests that
they are not only becoming
more time
researching evidence to back up institutional
claims.
Hence the growing importance of
the student survey. From next September. All
institutions will
also be expected to publish
on their websites key information sets, allowing
easier comparison
between institution, between
promises and reality, and the types of jobs and
salaries graduates go
on to.
As a
result, it is hardly surprising that universities
are beginning to change the way they market
themselves. While the best form of marketing
for institutions is to be good at what they do,
they
also need to be clear about how they are
different from others.
And it is vital
that once an institution claims to be particularly
good at something, it must live
up to it, the
moment you position yourself, you become exposed,
and if you fail in that you are in
trouble.
61 . What was the University of Kent famous
for?
A Its comfortable campus life.
B
Its up-to-date course offerings.
C Its
distinguished teaching staff.
DI ts diverse
academic programs.
62 . What are universities
trying to do to attract students?
A Improve
their learning environment.
B Upgrade their
campus facilities.
C Offer more scholarships
to the gifted.
D Present a better academic
image.
63 . What does Rob Behrens suggest
universities do in marketing themselves?
A
Publicize the achievements of their graduates.
B Go to extra lengths to cater to students'
needs.
C Refrain from making promises they
cannot honor.
D Survey the expectations of
their prospective students.
64 . What is
students' chief consideration in choosing a
university?
A Whether it promises the
best job prospects.
B Whether it is able to
deliver what they want.
C Whether it ranks
high among similar institutions.
D Whether it
offers opportunities for practical training.
65 . What must universities show to win
recruitment campaigns?
A They are positioned
to meet the future needs of society.
B They
are responsible to students for their growth.
C They are ever ready to improve themselves.
D They are unique one way or another.
46
. 正确答案是 D
统计： 全站统计：本题共被作答 538 次 ， 总正确率 8% ，
最容易被选错的选项为 C 解
析： D段第二句提到，几个月之前，作者写了一篇关于心理学研究的文
章，深入探讨了快
乐对于人们来说究竟意味着人们；接着最后一句提到作者在这篇文章中还专门探索了有
意义
的生活与快乐的生活之间的区别。题干中的recent对应原文中的a few month
ago; examined
how a meaningful life is
different from a happy life对应原文中的explored the
difference
between a meaningful life and a
happy life。笔记：
47 . 正确答案是 N
统计：
全站统计：本题共被作答 538 次 ， 总正确率 3% ， 最容易被选错的选项为 B 解
析：
N段第一句提到，对于很多人而言，人生的意义感和快乐感是相互重叠的；在衡量人
生快乐与意义的研究
当中，很多人同时得高分（或同时得低分）。其中overlap(重叠)这个词
表述出“同时拥有的”
意思，由此可知题干中many people feel their life is both
happy and
meaningful对应原文中的for many people，a
sense of meaning and happiness in life
overlap。笔
记：
48 . 正确答案是 H
统计：
全站统计：本题共被作答 538 次 ， 总正确率 5% ， 最容易被选错的选项为 B 解
析：
H段最后一句提到，人们对“享乐幸福”或“快乐”的这些衡量方法越赞同，他们的
快乐指数就越高。由
此可知，享乐幸福的衡量方法与快乐的高指数之间存在着紧密的联系。
题干中的hedonic
well-being measures对应原文中的these measures
of享乐主义
的)well-being对应原文中的the higher they scored
on happiness。笔
记：
49 . 正确答案是 F
统计：
全站统计：本题共被作答 538 次 ， 总正确率 5% ， 最容易被选错的选项为 O 解
析：
F段最后一句提到，正如其中的研究人员罗伊•鲍迈斯特告诉我的：“作为人类，我们
的一部分天性就是
要照顾他人并为他人做贡献。这虽然会令生活变得有意义，但并不一定会
使我们快乐。”罗伊•鲍迈斯特
从事的研究是该段第一句提到的研究，即C段第一句提到的
刚刚发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》（简称P
NAS）上的一项新研究，由此可知罗伊•鲍迈斯
也是新研究的作者之一。题干中what makes
life meaningful may not make people
happy对应
原文中的This makes life meaningful but it
does not necessarily make us happy。笔记：
50 .
正确答案是 J
统计： 全站统计：本题共被作答 538 次 ， 总正确率 4% ，
最容易被选错的选项为 G 解
析： J段最后一句提到，科尔和弗雷德里克松感兴趣的是身体如何在基
因的层面上对快乐
和意义的感受产生应反。题干中our body's genetic
expression of feelings of happiness and
meaning对应原文中的the body, at the genetic level,
responds to feelings of happiness and
meaning。笔记：
51 . 正确答案是 C
统计：
全站统计：本题共被作答 538 次 ， 总正确率 7% ， 最容易被选错的选项为 B 解
析：
C段第一句提到，刚刚发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》上的一项新研究对这一乐观描
述发起了挑战，及挑
战的是B段最后一句的观点“Inductions of well-being lead to
healthy
functioning, and inductions of ill-
being lead to compromised health.”紧接着C段最后两句详细
解
释了该研究的观点，快乐可能并不像研究人员所认为的那样有利于身体健康，它甚至可能
对身体健康有害
。笔记：
52 . 正确答案是 E
统计： 全站统计：本题共被作答 539 次 ，
总正确率 6% ， 最容易被选错的选项为 I 解
析： E段最后一句提到，研究人员在为期一个月
的时间里，调查了大量的试样人群，发现
快乐与自私的“索取”行为相关，而人生意义感则与无私的“给
予”行为相关。题干中的taking
measures for
happiness对应原文中的happiness is associated with
selfish behavior;
giving adds meaning to
life对应原文中的having a sense of meaning in life is
associated with
selfless 。笔记：
53 . 正确答案是 R
统计： 全站统计：本题共被作答 538 次 ， 总正确率 0% ， 最容易被选错的选项为 O
解
析： R段第三句提到，从该研究的证据来看，只有感觉良好似乎不够；紧接着该段第四句
表
明人们需要人生意义才能长寿。题干中的Evidence from research对应原文中的
From the
evidence of this study; it takes
meaning for people to thrive对应原文中的People need
meaning
to thrive。笔记：
54 .正确答案是 L
统计：
全站统计：本题共被作答 538 次 ， 总正确率 4% ， 最容易被选错的选项为 O 解
析：
L段第一句提到，科尔和弗雷德里克松发现，感到快乐但只有很少或根本没有人生意
义的人，与应对并忍
受长期逆境的人拥有相同的基因表达谱。题干中happy people with little
or no sense of meaning in life对应原文中people who
are happy but have little to no sense of
meaning in their lives；suffering
from对应原文中的enduring.笔记：
55 . 正确答案是 B
统计：
全站统计：本题共被作答 538 次 ， 总正确率 5% ， 最容易被选错的选项为 A 解
析：
B段第一句提到，此类书籍的一贯主张之一是，快乐和所有的良好生活状况相关，其
中包括良好的健康状
况，这也是最重要的一点。原文中的books就是指出A段第二句提到
的over 1,000
books on happiness,与题干中的books on
happiness相对应；题干中assert对应原
文中的claims; happiness
is beneficial to health 对应原文中的happiness is
associated with„
good health.答案为B。
56 .
正确答案是 A
统计： 全站统计：本题共被作答 569 次 ， 总正确率 10% ，
最容易被选错的选项为 C
解析： 文中提到商业书籍中最成功的当属对成功学研究方面的书籍。笔记：
57 .正确答案是 C
统计： 全站统计：本题共被作答 569 次 ， 总正确率
9% ， 最容易被选错的选项为 D
解析： 成功学研究的作者通常会讲述一些生动的故事，例如，成
功的商人是如何将自己的
个性烙印在公司上，或如何在公司生死存亡的时刻挽救了公司的命运。由此可知
，大多数研
究成功学的书籍都会讲述相同的内容，即或多或少陷入了同样的思维定势。笔记：
58 . 正确答案是 B
统计： 全站统计：本题共被作答 569 次 ， 总正确率
7% ， 最容易被选错的选项为 D
解析： 第二段倒数第二句提到，研究成功学的作者通常会讲述一
些生动的故事，接下来定
位句指出，雷纳和艾哈迈德则更喜欢琢磨数字：他们在“计算优
势元素”和“详细分析”两
章中给出了详细的附录。第三段首句又指出，该书作者花了五年的时间研究了
344家杰出公
司的运营状况。笔记：
59 . 正确答案是 A
统计：
全站统计：本题共被作答 569 次 ， 总正确率 11% ， 最容易被选错的选项为 B
解析：
杰出的公司总是在权衡利弊时考虑两个简单的原则。第一：打质量仗而不是价格仗；
第二：要优先考虑收
益而不是成本，故降低生产成本和具有竞争优势的价格不是杰出公司成
功的原因。笔记：
60
. 正确答案是 D
统计： 全站统计：本题共被作答 569 次 ， 总正确率 7% ，
最容易被选错的选项为 B
解析： 《三条规则》犯了另外一个错误，即叙述了一些显而易见的事情。对
于“与其靠价
格取胜，不如找到缝隙市场，集中精力提高利润”这样的结论，大多数的商人并不会感到惊
讶。难的是如何找到有利可图的缝隙市场并且保持领先位置。在这方面，《三条规则》的用
处并
不大。
61 . 正确答案是 A
统计： 全站统计：本题共被作答 548 次 ，
总正确率 6% ， 最容易被选错的选项为 D
解析： 不久之前，肯特大学还称道自己的亲民形象，
但现在却致力于淡化其舒适的形象。
由此可知，肯特大学曾以舒适的校园生活知名。笔记：
62 . 正确答案是 A
统计： 全站统计：本题共被作答 548 次 ， 总正确率
3% ， 最容易被选错的选项为 D
解析： 大学现在关注一些更切实的东西，如就业前景，专业相关
度和导师辅导的时长。由
此可知，大学为了吸引学生致力于提高学习环境。笔记：
63 .
正确答案是 C
统计： 全站统计：本题共被作答 548 次 ， 总正确率 5% ，
最容易被选错的选项为 B
解析：
罗布·贝伦斯建议大学在营销时要约束自己，不要做出无法履行的承诺。笔记：
64 . 正确答案是
B
统计： 全站统计：本题共被作答 548 次 ， 总正确率 6% ， 最容易被选错的选项为
D
解析： 调查表明，学生不仅更加成熟地思考自己想从大学得到什么，而且也会花更多的时
间
研究大学所宣称的内容是否属实。由此可知，学生在择校时考虑的最主要因素是大学是否
能履行其诺言。
笔记：
65 . 正确答案是 D
统计： 全站统计：本题共被作答 548 次 ，
总正确率 5% ， 最容易被选错的选项为 A
解析： 虽然对于大学而言，最好的招生营销方式是有
自己擅长的领域，但是也要清楚的表
述自己的独特之处。由此可知，展现自己的独到之处是在招生活动中
获胜的法宝。