2011年12月大学英语六级真题及答案

Part I                                 Writing                              (30 minutes)

Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled The Way to Success by commenting on Abraham Lincoln's famous remark, "Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend, the first four sharpening the axe." You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.

The Way to Success

注意：此部分试题请在答题卡1上作答。

Part II           Reading Comprehension (Skimming and Scanning)             (15 minutes)

Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer thequestions on Answer Sheet 1. For questions 1-7, choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.

Google's Plan for World's Biggest Online Library: Philanthropy Or Act of Piracy?

In recent years, teams of workers dispatched by Google have been working hard to make digital copies of books. So far, Google has scanned more than 10 million titles from libraries in America and Europe - including half a million volumes held by the Bodleian in Oxford. The exact method it uses is unclear; the company does not allow outsiders to observe the process.

Why is Google undertaking such a venture? Why is it even interested in all those out-of-printlibrary books, most of which have been gathering dust on forgotten shelves for decades? Thecompany claims its motives are essentially public-spirited. Its overall mission, after all, is to "organise the world's information", so it would be odd if that information did not include books.

The company likes to present itself as having lofty aspirations. "This really isn't about making money. We are doing this for the good of society." As Santiago de la Mora, head of Google Books for Europe, puts it: "By making it possible to search the millions of books that exist today, we hope to expand the frontiers of human knowledge."

Dan Clancy, the chief architect of Google Books, does seem genuine in his conviction that thisis primarily a philanthropic (慈善的) exercise. "Google's core business is search and find, soobviously what helps improve Google's search engine is good for Google," he says. "But we havenever built a spreadsheet (电子数据表) outlining the financial benefits of this, and I have neverhad to justify the amount I am spending to the company's founders."

It is easy, talking to Clancy and his colleagues, to be swept along by their missionary passion. But Google's book-scanning project is proving controversial. Several opponents have recently emerged, ranging from rival tech giants such as Microsoft and Amazon to small bodies representing authors and publishers across the world. In broad terms, these opponents have levelled two sets of criticisms at Google.

First, they have questioned whether the primary responsibility for digitally archiving the world's books should be allowed to fall to a commercial company. In a recent essay in the New YorkReview of Books, Robert Darnton, the head of Harvard University's library, argued that because such books are a common resource – the possession of us all – only public, not-for-profit bodiesshould be given the power to control them.

The second related criticism is that Google's scanning of books is actually illegal. This allegation has led to Google becoming mired in (陷入) a legal battle whose scope and complexity makes the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case in Charles Dickens' Bleak House look straightforward.

At its centre, however, is one simple issue: that of copyright. The inconvenient fact about most books, to which Google has arguably paid insufficient attention, is that they are protected by copyright. Copyright laws differ from country to country, but in general protection extends for the duration of an author's life and for a substantial period afterwards, thus allowing the author's heirs to benefit. (In Britain and America, this post-death period is 70 years.) This means, of course, that almost all of the books published in the 20th century are still under copyright – and the last century saw more books published than in all previous centuries combined. Of the roughly 40 million books in US libraries, for example, an estimated 32 million are in copyright. Of these, some 27 million are out of print.

Outside the US, Google has made sure only to scan books that are out of copyright and thus in the "public domain" (works such as the Bodleian's first edition of Middlemarch, which anyone canread for free on Google Books Search).

But, within the US, the company has scanned both in-copyright and out-of-copyright works. Inits defence, Google points out that it displays only small segments of books that are in copyright– arguing that such displays are "fair use". But critics allege that by making electronic copies of these books without first seeking the permission of copyright holders, Google has committed piracy.

"The key principle of copyright law has always been th