2026年大学英语六级考试考前点题卷一

Questions 1 to 10 are based on the following passage.Although interior design has existed since the beginning of architecture, its development into a____1____field is really quite recent.Interior designers have become important partly because of the many functions that might be____2____in a single large building.The importance of interior design becomes____3____when we realize how much time we spend surrounded by four walls.Whenever we need to be indoors, we want our surroundings to be as attractive and comfortable as possible.We also____4____ each place to be appropriate to its use.You would be shocked if the inside of your bedroom were_____5___changed to look like the inside of a restaurant.And you wouldn't feel right in a business office that has the appearance of a school.It soon becomes clear that the interior designer's most important basic____6____is the function of the particular space.For example, a theatre with poor sight lines, poor sound-shaping qualities, and too few entries and exits will not work for its purpose, no matter how beautifully it might be____7____ .Nevertheless, for any kind of space, the designer has to make many of the same kind of____8____.He or she must____9____the shapes, lighting and decoration of everything from ceiling to floor.In addition, the designer must usually select furniture or design built-in furniture according to the functions that need to be____10____.

Growing Price Tag for College Shutdowns(A)A string ofrecent for-profit college closures has led to tens ofmillions of dollars in student loan cancellation, creating new costs for the federal govemment on top of disruptions caused for thousands of former students.According to numbers recently provided by the U.S.Department of Education to Senate lawmakers, the federal government as of May had discharged more than $43 million in student loans for borrowers who attended programs operated by Education Corporation of America, Dream Center Education Holdings, Vatterott College and Charlotte School of Law.(B)Students who attended ECA campuses, including Virginia College and Brightwood College,have so far received more than $22.6 million in debt cancellation.About 3,300 students at those campuses were approved for loan discharge as of May.Students at campuses operated by Dream Center have received more than $10 million in debt relief.And more than $5 million in student loans have been discharged for former students of Vatterott College and Charlotte School of Law.(C)Those numbers likely will continue to rise as more students learn about their eligibility for loan relief and submit applications for what's known as a closed-school discharge.Student borrowers can apply for a full discharge of their federal loans if they were enrolled when their college closed or withdrew within 120 days of the official closure date and didn't transfer to another in-stitution.(D)The federal government wiped out nearly $200 million in student debt for borrowers enrolled in Corinthian Colleges programs after the for-profit chain's shutdown in 2015.And it's forgiven another quarter billion in loans for former students of the ITT Tech chain, which shut down the following year.(E)The latest data provided to Senate lawmakers show that for-profit closures have continued to cre-ate big costs under the Trump administration.Clare McCann, deputy director of New America's higher education program and a former Obama administration official, said those closures create big liabilities for the federal government because the colleges involved are large-most institu-tions that close have fairly nominal enrollments by the time they shut down; not so with for-prof-it college chains.The costs are also bigger because students may not be opting to take their cred-its elsewhere, she said.(F)Outside of Corinthian and ITT, the last college to create comparable liabilities for the federal government was Dade Medical College, which closed in 2015.That institution's owner, Ernesto Perez, was put on trial last year for violating state law with the closure.The Education Depart-ment wiped out roughly $10 million for borrowers who attended Dade Medical.(G)Debbie Cochrane, vice president of the Institute for College Access and Success, said the loan discharge costs show the need for better policing of problematic colleges on the front end.“Reg-ulations by the prior administration were designed to provide incentives for schools to leave their students better off and to give colleges a financial stake to do so,”she said.(H)The costs involving student loan discharge are dictated in part by whether a college facing clo-sure has secured opportunities for students to complete their degree through a process known as a teach-out.Students are supposed to either have the opportunity to finish their credential or transfer to a comparable college.(I)Teach-out agreements weren't in place last December, when Education Corporation of America,the parent company of the Virginia College and Brightwood College chains, made a surprise an-nouncement that it was closing 70 campuses across the country.Quality issues identified at ECA campuses also meant transferring credits likely would be a difficult proposition for many stu-dents, although a number of programmatic teach-out agreements were agreed to after the compa-ny's closure.(J)At the time of the chain's closure, the Education Department hadn't secured a letter of credit—akind of financial collateral that colleges may be required to set aside when they show signs of fi-nancial instability.Diane Auer Jones, the department's deputy under secretary, said at a Biparti-san Policy Center event in April that the department did not have the authority to request a letter of credit after the company received a passing financial responsibility score in its most recent au-dit.The lag time for those audits, however, means the financial information about colleges is al-ready two years old by the time the federal government receives it, so the department doesn'thave the most up-to-date picture of an institution ' s financial health.(K)“We're always going to be in this place where some people think we can look into our magic ball and at any moment see what the financials are at an institution at any given moment in time” she said.“It doesn't work that way.” Jones said deciding when to request a letter of credit can be tricky for the department-if officials don't seek enough collateral, for example, it won't cover liabilities like closed-school discharge claims.“On the other hand, if the letter is too large, you'll probably end up forcing a precipitous closure,” she said.(L)The department sought another letter of credit and imposed new cash restrictions after ECA sought to enter a court-appointed receivership.Company executives blamed the December shut-down on those measures and a looming suspension ofrecognition from their accreditor.(M)By the time Dream Center began closing campuses earlier this year, the department had cashed out the proceeds of a letter of credit secured from Education Management Corporation, which previously owned the Argosy and Art Institute campuses.Those funds supported teach-out ef-forts at about 30 campuses, according to an agreement outlined by federal officials last yea r.Af-ter the chain's closure, the department held about $24.5 million from the letter of credit, wluch will cover closed-school discharges as well as liabilities like borrower-defense applications.(N)Liabilities for closed~school discharge claims will still be assessed against the institution itself.The Education Department, however, is just one of several entities with potential claims against Dream Center.The company's creditors include landlords who say they are owed hundreds of thousands in rent that was never paid.(O)Shafroth said the department is in a better position to assume liability for that debt than students and should do so because it approved the colleges' access to federal financial aid.

Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following passage.Once it was possible to define male and female roles easily by the division of labour.Men worked outside the home and earned the income to support their families, while women cooked the meals and took care of the home and the children.These roles were firmly fixed for most people,and there was not much opportunity for women to exchange their roles.But by the middle of this century, men's and women' s roles were becoming less firmly fixed.In the 1950s, economic and social success was the goal of the typical American.But in the 1960s a new force developed called the counterculture.The people involved in this movement did not value the middle-class goals.The counterculture presented men and women with new role choices.Taking more interest in childcare, men began to share child-raising tasks with their wives.In fact, some young men and women moved to communal homes or farms where the economic and childcare responsibilities were shared equally by both sexes.In addition, many Americans did not value the traditional male role of soldier.Some young men refused to be drafted as soldiers to fight in the war in Vietnam.In terms of numbers, the counterculture was not a very large group of people.But its influence spread to many parts of American society.Working men of all classes began to change their eco-nomic and social patterns.Industrial workers and business executives alike cut down on “overtime”work so that they could spend more leisure time with their families.Some doctors, lawyers, and teachers turned away from high paying situations to practice their professions in poorer neighbour-hoods.In the 1970s, the feminist movement, or women's liberation, produced additional economic and social changes.Women of all ages and at all levels of society were entering the work force in greater numbers.Most of them still took traditional women's jobs as public school teaching, nurs-ing, and secretarial work.But some women began to enter traditionally male occupations: police work, banking, dentistry, and construction work.Women were asking for equal work, and equal op-portunities for promotion.Today the experts generally agree that important changes are taking place in the roles of men and women.Naturally, there are difficulties in adjusting to these transformations.Many people ap-peal for the equality between men and women with the hope oftransforming the traditional roles of men and women.Actually, the gender role in many countries is much better than before.

Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following passage.Scientists have found that eating dark chocolate appears to lower the risk of depression by four fold.While 7.6 percent of the 13,000 people surveyed reported depressive symptoms, just 1.5 per-cent of the chocolate eaters did.The study by University College London (UCL), the University of Calgary and Alberta Health Services Canada, also found that the people who consumed the most of any chocolate were also 57 percent less likely to report depressive symptoms.Lead author Dr.Sarah Jackson, of UCL's Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care, said: “This study provides some evidence that consumption of chocolate, particularly dark chocolate, may be as-sociated with reduced odds of clinically relevant depressive symptoms.”“Should a causal relation-ship demonstrating a protective effect of chocolate consumption on depressive symptoms be estab-lished, the biological mechanism needs to be understood to determine the type and amount ofchoco-late consumption for optimal depression prevention and management,” said Jackson.The study is the first to examine the association with depression according to the type of choco-late consumed.The team assessed data from 13,626 adults from the US National Health and Nutri-tion Examination Survey.A range of other factors including height, weight, marital status, ethnicity,education, household income, physical activity, smoking and chronic health problems were also tak-en into account to ensure the study only measured chocolate's effect on depressive symptoms.After adjusting for these factors, it was found that individuals who reported eating any dark chocolate in tw0 24-hour periods had 70 percent lower odds of reporting clinically relevant depres-sive symptoms in the previous two weeks than those who reported not eating chocolate at all.Most recent figures show that around 19.7 percent of people in Britain aged 16 and over showed symptoms of anxiety or depression.Chocolate contains a number of psychoactive ingredi-ents which produce a feeling of euphoria similar to that of cannabinoid, found in cannabis.It also contains phenylethylamine, a neuromodulator which is believed to be important for regulating peo-ple's moods.Dark chocolate also has a higher concentration of flavonoids, antioxidant chemicals which lower inflammation and can prevent the onset of depression.However British scientists urged caution about the findings, suggesting that the decision to eat dark chocolate could be linked to other health factors.For example people who choose dark choco-late may be more health conscious in general, which is known to protect against depression.Depressed people are also more likely to crave more sugary fatty foods and so could be less likely to pick a dark altemative when choosing chocolate.