2026年大学英语六级考试预测试卷二

Questions 1 to 10 are based on the following passage.Depression is a serious condition that_____1___ around 16 million U.S.adults.The condition is more common in women, but new research suggests that older women who____2____go to bed early and wake up early may be____3____likely to develop the condition as they age.For the study, published online now in The Journal of Psychiatric Research, the team looked a the rate of depression and sleep patterns of 32,470 females who had taken part in the Nurses' Health Study Ⅱ.The women had an average age of 55, and____4____themselves as either early, intermediate or late sleepers and risers.They also updated their depression status using a questionnaire from 2011 to 2013.Results____5____that women who went to bed early and rose early had modestly lower risk of depression, compared to the other women.In addition, those who went to bed late and woke up late had a____6____increased risk of depression.According to the researchers, this suggests that natural sleeping pattern may influence the risk of depression in middle to older aged women.However, one major caveat of the study is that there searchers were unable to account for the role that the____7____and genetics played in these results. Late bedtimes and risings are not the only sleep patterns that have been associated with increased risk of depression.The National Sleep Foundation reported that people with insomnia are 10 times more likely to develop depression than____8____who sleep well.Those whose depression includes trouble falling asleep and trouble staying asleep are at the greatest risk for developing depression.The link between sleep and depression has been long noted by scientists.For example, The National Sleep Foundation wrote that lack of sleep and difficulty sleeping is a common side effect of depression.However, exactly where this relationship ties is difficult to____9____down.For example, the Foundation writes that both sleep problems and depression may share similar risk factors, which could____10____why they are often seen hand-in-hand.Better understanding of how sleep patterns may have an effect on depression risk could help doctors develop more effective prevention plans.

Sugar—Friend VS Enemy(A)Sugar is everywhere.It's in our drinks, it's in our foods, and it's hidden in places we never would think of.Many would call sugar their friend in time of need, but in fact their so-called “good friend” could turn out to be their worst enemy in disguise.Sugar for many is something they may have been battling with for a long time.Here's a simple three-step process to help you start to win back the battle for your health.(B)The first step is to be aware of what sugar really does to your body.Most people will say they “k now” that they shouldn't have sugar, but they really can't help it.To me that is a lack of true awareness of what sugar does to oneself.I don't think many people will say that they want to hurt their body on purpose, but unless they know it's really happening they will continue down that road.Sugar is slower to impact our health, and it's that slow destructive process that is the most dangerous.Unfortunately, most people don't know the damage until it has already been done.(C)Sugar increases fat storing.Possibly the most important hormone in the body is insulin (胰岛素),when it comes to weight loss and health.Insulin is the main hormone that we have full control over daily through our diet and lifestyle.When we eat sugar and it enters into our bloodstream too quickly, we have a spike in blood sugar levels.Now in times of high activity we are able to bum it off, but if we are sitting around this is not a good thing.So in response to that high level of blood sugar, the body will release more insulin into the bloodstream.Insulin will then take the excess glucose (葡萄糖)and try to find a place to store it.If your muscles are all full or have insulin resistance then the best place to put the excess glucose is fat cells.When insulin is high, the fat cells are told to shut down any process of releasing stored fat into the blood for burning.With chronic high insulin spikes comes a resistance to it by your cells, leading to more insulin production, leading to more fat storing, and more resistance, eventually going down a road of diabetes and ill health for the whole body.(D)Sugar also disrupts normal brain function.I think most people can relate to mood swings and energy highs / lows that come after a high sugar meal.Sugar can also be the source of many people's increased anxiety and depression.Let us not also forget the kids with ever-increasing attention “disorders” and behavioral issues.Sugar is not helping with that, either.In fact, there have been many studies that show when taking sugar out of a kid's diet and increasing fat intake,their attention ability increases, their behavior changes for the better.(E)Sugar decreases your overall health and makes you age quicker.Too much sugar will lower your overall immune system, increase destructive inflammation, lead to essential mineral deficiencies in the body, feed bad bacteria growth in your gut and other wonderful stuff.Aging is just a fancy word for the body breaking down quicker than it can repair itself, as that is what happens when we get older.Aging also is accelerated by the increasing risks of all degenerative diseases such as diabetes, osteoporosis, heart disease and cancers.We are all going to get older, but it doesn't mean that we have to “age” quicker.(F)The second step is to realize you are in 100% control of your actions.This could be the most underrated yet the most important step, as we are the only person who controls what we put into our body.Everything starts in what we choose to put in our mouths.Some people may say they can't control their sugar cravings, but that is already admitting defeat and giving up power to some “cosmic sugar influence” out there.We can pass on dessert, we don't need to buy a candy bar, we can drink water instead of soda, but the choice is ours to make.(G)Also many like to call it an “addiction”.This is just another way to give up your own personal power of choice.While sugar can have "addictive like" qualities, it's not something that you own or is a part of you.Fight the battle and you will get over the addictive feelings, they will go away.But if you call it an addiction and make it part of you, then it is yours to keep forever.Be free from it, let go.Take back control and anything is possible.(H)The third step is to just live the daily journey one choice at a time.Life is just a series of present moments, and the choices we make in those moments.So let's just focus on what we can do right now instead of worrying about what has happened in the past or may or may not happen in the future.“Now” is all we have and all we need to focus on.(I)Choose to eat more natural foods.Choose whole food proteins, healthy fats and natural sources of carbohydrates (碳水化合物).If it wasn't around a thousand years ago or is made by man (and not nature), chances are you don't need it.Note how it says “Choose” above, as it is your choice.Find the hidden sources of sugars and remove them.Sugar is hidden in places such as sauces, ketchup, soups, processed foods, drinks, so called health bars, and more.Become a label reader and see how much sugar you are consistently putting into your body.Don't fall for the marketing trick either of “low fat”, because that usually means “more sugar”.

Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following passage.Old stereotypes die hard.Picture a video-game player and you will likely imagine a teenage boy, by himself, compulsively hammering away at a game involving ray guns and aliens that splatter when blasted.Ten years ago that might have borne some relation to reality.But today a gamer is as likely to be a middle-aged commuter playing “Angry Birds” on her smartphone.In America, the biggest market, the average game-player is 37 years old.Two-fifths are female.Over the past ten years the video-game industry has grown from a small business to a huge,mainstream one.With global sales of $56 billion in 2010, it is more than twice the size of the recorded-music industry.Despite the downturn, it is growing by almost 9% a year.Is this success due to luck or skill? The answer matters, because the rest of the entertainment industry has tended to treat gaming as being a lucky beneficiary of broader technological changes.Video gaming, unlike music, film or television, had the luck to be born digital.In fact, there is plenty for old media to learn.Video games have certainly been swept along by two forces: demography and technology.The first gaming generation—the children of the 1970s and early 1980s—is now over 30.Many still love gaming,and can afford to spend far more on it now.Meanwhile rapid improvements in computing power have allowed game designers to offer experiences that are now often more cinematic than the cinema.But even granted this good fortune, the game-makers have been clever.They have reached out to new customers with new methods.They have branched out into education, corporate training and even warfare, and have embraced digital downloads and mobile devices with enthusiasm.Though big-budget games are still popular, much of the growth now comes from “casual” games that are simple, cheap and playable in short bursts on mobile phones or in web browsers.The industry has excelled in a particular area—pricing.In an era when people are disinclined to pay for content on the web, games publishers were quick to develop “freemium” models, where you rely on non-paying customers to build an audience and then extract cash only from a fanatical few.As gaming comes to be seen as just another medium, its [tech-savvy approach] could provide a welcome shot in the arm for existing media groups.

Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following passage.For expat parents, passing on their native languages can be a struggle.Not sharing your first language with loved ones is hard.Not passing it on to your own child can be especially tough.Many expat and immigrant parents feel a sense of failure; they wring their hands and share stories on par-enting forums and social media, hoping to find the secret to nurturing bilingual children successfully.Children are linguistic sponges, but this doesn't mean that cursory exposure is enough.They must hear a language quite a bit to understand it and use it of ten to be able to speak it comfortably.This is mental work, and a child who doesn't have a motive to speak a language—either a need or a strong desire—will often avoid it.Children's brains are already busy enough.So languages of tenwither and die when parents move abroad.That's because, typically, the first generation born in America is bilingual, and the second is monolingual—in English, the children often struggling to speak easily with their immigrant grandparents.In the past, governments discouraged immigrant families from keeping their languages.These days, offcials tend to be less interventionist, some even see a valuable resource in immigrants' lan-guage abilities.Yet many factors conspire to ensure that children still lose their parents' languages,or never learn them.A big one is institutional pressure.A child's time spent with a second language is time not spent on their first.So teachers often discourage parents from speaking their languages to their children.(This is especially true if the second language lacks prestige.)Parents oft en reluctantly comply, worried about their offspring's education.This is a shame; children really can master two languages or even more.Research does indeed suggest their vocabulary in each language may be somewhat smaller for a while.But other studies hint at cognitive advantages among bilinguals.They may be more adept at complex tasks, better at maintaining attention, and (at the other end of life)suffer the onset of dementia later.Even without those side-effects, though, a bilingual child's connection to relatives and another culture is a good thing in itself.How to bring it about? When both parents share the heritage lan-guage, the strategy is oft en to speak that at home, and the national language outside.But when they have different languages, perhaps the most common approach is “one parent, one language”.Fran-cois Grosjean, a linguist at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland, emphasises necessity.He re-commends reserving occasions on which the only language that may be spoken is the one that needs support.Sabine Little, a German linguist at the University of Sheffield, puts the emphasis elsewhere.Making the heritage language yet another task imposed by parents can lead to rejection, she argues.She recommends letting the child forge their own emotional connection to the language.Ms Little suggests learning through apps and entertainment made for native speakers; the educational type smack of homework, she thinks.