2009年12月大学英语六级考试真题及答案,标签：英语六级考试真题,英语六级考试题型,http://www.dxs56.com
Since December, when the report came out, the mayor, neighborhood activists（活跃分子）and various parent-teacher associations have engaged in a fierce battle over its validity: over the guilt of the steel-casting factory on the western edge of town, over union jobs versus children’s health and over what, if anything, ought to be done. With all sides presenting their own experts armed with conflicting scientific studies, whom should parents believe? Is there truly a threat here, we asked one another as we dropped off our kids, and if so, how great is it? And how does it compare with the other, seemingly perpetual health scares we confront, like panic over lead in synthetic athletic fields? Rather than just another weird episode in the town that brought you protesting environmentalists, this latest drama is a trial for how today’s parents perceive risk, how we try to keep our kids safe—whether it’s possible to keep them safe—in what feels like an increasingly threatening world. It raises the question of what, in our time, “safe” could even mean.
“There’s no way around the uncertainty,” says Kimberly Thompson, president of Kid Risk, a nonprofit group that studies children’s health. “That means your choices can matter, but it also means you aren’t going to know if they do.” A 2004 report in the journal Pediatrics explained that nervous parents have more to fear from fire, car accidents and drowning than from toxic chemical exposure. To which I say: Well, obviously. But such concrete hazards are beside the point. It’s the dangers parents can’t—and may never—quantify that occur all of sudden. That’s why I’ve rid my cupboard of microwave food packed in bags coated with a potential cancer-causing substance, but although I’ve lived blocks from a major fault line(地质断层) for more than 12 years, I still haven’t bolted our bookcases to the living room wall.
52. What does a recent investigation by USA Today reveal?
A) Heavy metals in lab tests threaten children’s health in Berkeley.
B) Berkeley residents are quite contented with their surroundings.
C) The air quality around Berkeley’s school campuses is poor.
D) Parents in Berkeley are over-sensitive to cancer risks their kids face.
53. What response did USA Today’s report draw?
A) A heated debate.
B) Popular support.
C) Widespread panic.
D) Strong criticism.
54. How did parents feel in the face of the experts’ studies?
A) They felt very much relieved.
B) They were frightened by the evidence.
C) They didn’t know who to believe.
D) They weren’t convinced of the results.
55. What is the view of the 2004 report in the journal Pediatrics?
A) It is important to quantify various concrete hazards.
B) Daily accidents pose a more serious threat to children.
C) Parents should be aware of children’s health hazards.
D) Attention should be paid to toxic chemical exposure.
56. Of the dangers in everyday life, the author thinks that people have most to fear from __________.
A) the uncertain
B) the quantifiable
C) an earthquake
D) unhealthy food
Passage Two
Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage.
Crippling health care bills, long emergency-room waits and the inability to find a primary care physician just scratch the surface of the problems that patients face daily.
Primary care should be the backbone of any health care system. Countries with appropriate primary care resources score highly when it comes to health outcomes and cost. The U.S. takes the opposite approach by emphasizing the specialist rather than the primary care physician.
A recent study analyzed the providers who treat Medicare beneficiaries（老年医保受惠人）. The startling finding was that the average Medicare patient saw a total of seven doctors—two primary care physicians and five specialists—in a given year. Contrary to popular belief, the more physicians taking care of you don’t guarantee better care. Actually, increasing fragmentation of care results in a corresponding rise in cost and medical errors.
How did we let primary care slip so far? The key is how doctors are paid. Most physicians are paid whenever they perform a medical service. The more a physician does, regardless of quality or outcome, the better he’s reimbursed (返还费用). Moreover, the amount a physician receives leans heavily toward medical or surgical procedures. A specialist who performs a procedure in a 30-minute visit can be paid three times more than a primary care physician using that same 30 minutes to discuss a patient’s disease. Combine this fact with annual government threats to indiscriminately cut reimbursements, physicians are faced with no choice but to increase quantity to boost income.
Primary care physicians who refuse to compromise quality are either driven out of business or to cash-only practices, further contributing to the decline of primary care.

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