2021年6月英语六级真题 第1套

Section C
Directions: In this section, you will hear three recordings of lectures or talks followed by three or four questions. The recordings will be played only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A）, B）, C）and D）. Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1 with a single line through the centre.

Most people dislike their jobs. It’s an astonishing but statistical fact. [16] A primary cause of employee dissatisfaction, according to fresh research, is that many believe they have terrible managers. Few describe their managers as malicious or manipulative, though. While those types certainly exist, they are a minority. The majority of managers seemingly just don’t know any better. They’re often emulating bad managers they’ve had in the past. It’s likely they’ve never read a management book or attended a management course. They might not have even reflected on what good management looks like and how it would influence their own management style.
The researchers interviewed employees about their managers, beginning with a question about the worst manager they had ever had. From this, the researchers came up with four main causes of why some managers are perceived as being simply awful at their jobs. [17] The first cause was company culture, which was seen by employees as enabling poor management practices. It was specifically stressful work environments, minimal training, and a lack of accountability that were found to be the most blameworthy. Often a manager’s superiors can effectively encourage a manager’s distasteful behavior when they fail to discipline the person’s wrong doings. Such workplaces are sometimes described as toxic. The second cause was attributed to the managers’ characteristics. Those deemed to be most destructive were odd people, those without drive, those who allow personal problems into the workplace, and those with an unpleasant temperament or personality in general. The third cause of poor management was associated with a deficiency of qualifications, not so much the formal variety one obtains from a university, but the informal variety that comes from credible work experience and professional accomplishments. The fourth cause concerned managers who’d been promoted for reasons other than potential. One reason in particular why these people had been promoted was that they had been around the longest. It wasn’t their skill set, or other merits that got them the job. It was their tenure.
[18] A point worth making is that the study was based only on the perspective of the employees. The researchers didn’t ask senior leaders what they thought of their frontline managers. It’s quite possible they are content with how the individuals they promoted are now performing, merrily ignorant of the damage they’re actually causing, which might explain why, as the researchers conclude, those same middle managers are usually unaware that they are a bad manager.

大多数人不喜欢他们的工作。一项最新研究显示，导致职场不满的主要原因是很多人认为自己的上司很糟糕，这是一个令人震惊的统计事实。很少有人把自己的经理描述为恶毒的或操纵性的，尽管这种类型的经理确实存在，他们占少数。大多数管理者似乎并不知道怎么做得更好。他们经常模仿过去那些遇到的那些糟糕的管理者，很可能他们从未读过管理书籍或参加过管理课程。他们甚至可能没有考虑过好的管理是什么样子的，以及它将如何影响自己的管理风格。
研究人员采访了员工关于他们的经理的情况。第一个问题是他们遇到过的最糟糕的经理。据此，研究人员归纳出了一些管理者在工作中被认为很糟糕的四个主要原因。第一个原因是公司文化，员工认为这使糟糕的管理成为可能。压力大的工作环境、极少的培训以及缺乏责任感被认为是最值得指责的。通常情况下，当一个管理者的上级不能惩罚他的错误行为时，他们就有效地助长管理者令人厌恶的行为。这样的工作环境有时被描述为有毒的。第二个原因与经理的性格有关：古怪的人、没有动力的人、将个人问题带入工作场合的人，以及那些总的来说性情或性格不佳的人被认为是最具有破坏性的。管理糟糕的第三个原因与他们缺乏资格有关。不是指从大学中取得的那种正式资格。而是从可信的工作经验和专业成就中获得的非正式的能力。第四个原因是，有些经理不是因为潜力出众而被提拔的。这些人获得晋升的一个特别原因是他们工作的时间最长。不是他们的技能或其他优点让他们得到了这份工作，而是他们的任期。
值得指出的一点是，这项研究只基于员工的观点。研究人员并没有询问高层领导对一线管理者的看法。很有可能他们对自己提拔的人的现在的表现很满意。他们对自己造成的伤害忽略不在意。这或许可以解释为什么，正如研究人员得出的结论，这些中层管理者通常没有意识到自己是一个糟糕的管理者。

Questions 16 to 18 are based on the recording you have just heard.

[19] With the use of driverless vehicles seemingly inevitable, mining companies in the vast Australian desert state of Western Australia are definitely taking the lead. Iron ore is a key ingredient in steel-making. The mining companies here produce almost 300 million tons of iron ore a year. The 240 giant autonomous trucks in use, in the Western Australian mines, can weigh 400 tons, fully loaded, and travel at speeds of up to sixty kilometers per hour.They are a technological leap, transporting iron ore along routes which run for hundreds of kilometers from mines to their destinations. Here when the truck arrives at its destination, staf in the operation center direct it precisely where to unload. Vast quantities of iron ore are then transported by autonomous trains to ocean ports. [19] Advocates argue these automated vehicles will change mining forever. It may only be five years before the use of automation technology leads to a fully robotic mine.
A range of factors has pushed Western Australia’s desert region to the lead of this automation revolution. These include the huge size of the mines, the scale of equipment and the repetitive nature of some of the work. Then there’s the area’s remoteness. At 502,000 square kilometers, it can sometimes make recruiting staff a challenge. Another consideration is the risks when humans interact with large machinery. There are also the financial imperatives. The ongoing push by the mining corporations to be more productive and more efficient is another powerful driver in embracing automation technology.
The concept of a fully autonomous mine is a bit of a misleading term, however. This is because the more technology is put into the field, the more people are needed to deploy, maintain and improve it. [20] The automation and digitization of the industry is creating a need for different jobs. These include data scientists and engineers in automation and artificial intelligence. The mining companies claim automation and robotics present opportunities to make mining more sustainable and safer. Employees will be of ered a career that is even more fulfilling and more rewarding. [21] Workers’ unions have accepted the inevitability of the introduction of new technology. But they still have reservations about the rise of automation technology. Their main concern is the potential impact on remote communities. As automation spreads further, the question is how these remote communities will survive when the old jobs are eliminated. And this may well prove to be the most significant impact of robotic technology at many places around the world.

随着无人驾驶汽车的使用似乎变得不可避免，位于澳大利亚西部的广阔沙漠州的矿业公司无疑走在了前面。铁矿石是炼钢的关键原料。这里的矿业公司每年生产近3亿吨铁矿石。在西澳大利亚的采矿中使用的240辆巨型自动驾驶卡车，满载时可重达400吨。并且时速可达60公里。这是一项技术飞跃，将铁矿石从矿山运送到目的地的路程长达数百公里。在这里，当卡车到达目的地后，操作中心的工作人员会精确地指示它在哪里卸货。就这样，大量铁矿石通过自动列车运输到海港。支持者认为，这些自动化车辆将从此改变采矿业。可能只需要5年的时间就能从自动化技术的应用走向全机器人采矿。
一系列因素将西澳大利亚沙漠地区推向了自动化革命的前沿。这些因素包括巨大的矿石体量、设备的规模以及某些工作的重复性。此外，该地区地处偏远，面积为50.2万平方公里。这有时会使招聘员工变得很困难。另一个需要考虑的问题是人类与大型机器交互时的风险。此外，还有财务上的必要性。矿业公司为提高生产效率而持续推动是自动化技术发展的另一个强大驱动力。然而，全自动的概念有点误导性。这是因为投入到该领域的技术越多，就需要越多的人来部署、维护和改进它。行业的自动化和数字化创造了对不同工作岗位的需求。包括自动化和人工智能领域的数据科学家和工程师。矿业公司声称自动化和机器人技术为矿业的可持续发展和安全提供了机会。员工将获得一份更有成就感、回报更高的职业。工会已经接受引进新技术是必然的。但他们对自动化技术的崛起仍持保留态度。他们主要担心的是对偏远社区的潜在影响。问题在于，随着自动化的进一步普及，旧的工作岗位消失，这些偏远的社区将如何生存？这很可能被证明是机器人技术在世界许多地方产生的最重要的影响。

Questions 19 to 21 are based on the recording you have just heard.

[22] According to o ficial statistics, Thailand’s annual road death rate is almost double the global average. Thai people know that their roads are dangerous, but they don’t know this could easily be changed. Globally, road accidents kill more people every year than any infectious disease. Researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in America put the death toll in 2017 at 1.24 million. [23] According to the institute, the overall number of deaths has been more or less static since the turn of the century. But that disguises a lot of changes in individual countries.
In many poor countries, road accidents are killing more people than ever before. Those countries have swelling,young populations, a fast-growing fleet of cars and motorbikes, and a limited supply of surgeons. It is impossible to know for sure, because o ficial statistics are so inadequate. But deaths are thought to have risen by 40% since 1990 in many low-income countries.
In many rich countries, by contrast, roads are becoming even safer. In Estonia and Ireland, for example, the number of deaths has fallen by about two thirds since the late 1990s. [24] But the most important and intriguing changes are taking place in middle-income countries, which contain most of the world’s people and have some of the most dangerous roads. According to researchers in China and South Africa, tra fic deaths have been falling since 2000 and in India since 2012, and the Philippines reached its peak four years ago.
The question is whether Thailand can soon follow suit. Rob McInerney, head of the International Road Assessment Program, says that all countries tend to go through three phases. They begin with poor, slow roads. In the second phase,as they grow wealthier, they pave the roads, allowing tra fic to move faster and pushing up the death rate. Lastly, in the third phase, countries act to make their roads safer.
The trick, then, is to reach the third stage sooner, by focusing earlier and more closely on fatal accidents. How to do that? [25] The solution lies not just in better infrastructure, but in better social incentives. Safe driving habits are practices which people know they should follow but often don’t. Dangerous driving is not a fixed cultural trait, as some imagine. People respond to incentives such as tra fic laws that are actually enforced.

据官方统计，泰国的年道路死亡率几乎是全球平均水平的两倍。泰国人知道他们的道路很危险，但他们不知道这是很容易改变的。在全球范围内，交通事故每年造成的死亡人数超过任何传染病。美国健康指标和评估研究所的研究人员称，2017年的死亡人数为124万人。据该研究所称，自本世纪以来，死亡总人数或多或少保持不变。但这掩盖了个别国家的许多变化。
在许多贫穷的国家，交通事故造成的死亡人数比以往任何时候都多。那些年轻人口迅速增加的国家有着快速增长的汽车和摩托车数量，而外科医生的供给却很有限。由于官方统计数据非常不充分，所以无法确切了解。但自1990年以来，许多低收入国家的死亡率被认为上升了40%。相比之下，在许多富裕国家，道路正变得更加安全。例如，在爱沙尼亚和爱尔兰，自1990年代末以来，死亡人数下降了约三分之二。但最重要也最引人注意的变化正发生在中等收入国家，这些国家拥有世界上最多的人口。也拥有一些最危险的道路。据研究人员称，自2000年以来，中国和南非的交通事故死亡人数一直在下降。印度自2012年开始下降，菲律宾四年前开始下降。
问题是泰国是否能很快地效仿。国际道路评估项目负责人罗布·麦金尼说，所有国家往往要经历三个阶段。他们从糟糕的、缓慢的道路开始。到第二个阶段，随着他们变得富裕，他们铺路使交通速度更快，从而推高了死亡率。最后，在第三阶段，各国采取行动使道路更加安全。
因此，关键在于通过更早、更密切地关注致命事故，尽早达到第三阶段。怎么做到呢？解决方法不仅在于改善基础设施，还在于改善社会激励机制。人们知道应该遵循安全驾驶习惯，却往往不去遵循。正如人们想的那样，危险驾驶并不是一种固定的文化特征。人们会对实际执行的交通法规等激励措施做出反应。

Questions 22 to 25 are based on the recording you have just heard.