此次六级考试的三篇长文章阅读，难度基本持平，可见中国英语考试在标准化程度上有所进步。

六级长篇阅读与四级相比，难度提升主要体现在同义改写上，即选项对原文的改写程度越来越高。针对以上趋势，我们在新东方的课堂上已经提出了解决方案：

查找关键词(key words)和同义复述(paraphrase)两种解题技巧，配合使用

<长篇阅读一 气候变化>

Climate change may be real, but it’s still not easy being green

　　How do we convince our inner caveman to be greener?We ask some outstanding social scientists.

　　A) The road to climate hell is paved with our good intentions. Politicians may tackle polluters while scientists do battle with carbon emissions. But the most pervasive problem is less obvious: our own behaviour. We get distracted before we can turn down the heating. We break our promise not to fly after hearing about a neighbor’s rip to India. Ultimately, we can’t be bothered to change our attitude. Fortunately for the planet, social science and behavioral economics may be able to do that for us.

　　B) Despite mournful polar bears and carts showing carbon emissions soaring, mot people find it hard to believe that global warming will affect them personally. Recent polls by the Pew Research Centre in Washington, DC, found that 75-80 per cent of participants regarded climate change as an important issue. But respondents ranked it last on a list of priorities.

　　C) This inconsistency largely stems from a feeling of powerlessness. “When we can’t actually remove the source of our fear, we tend to adapt psychologically by adopting a range of defense mechanisms,” says Tom Crompton, change strategist for the environmental organization World Wide Fund for Nature.

　　D) Part of the fault lies with our inner caveman. Evolution has programmed humans to pay most attention to issues that will have an immediate impact. “We worry most about now because if we don’t survive for the next minute, we’re not going to be around in ten years’ time,” says Professor Elke Weber of the Centre for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University in New York. If the Thames were lapping around Big Ben, Londoners would face up to the problem of emissions pretty quickly. But in practice, our brain discounts the risks—and benefits—associated with issues that lie some way ahead.

　　E) Matthew Rushworth, of the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, sees this in his lab every day. “One of the ways in which all agents seem to make decisions is that they assign a lower weighting to outcomes that are going to be further away in the future,” he says. “This is a very sensible way for an animal to make decisions in the wild and would have been very helpful for humans for thousands of years.”

　　F) Not any longer. By the time we wake up to the threat posed by climate change, it could well be too late. And if we’re not going to make national decisions about the future, others may have to help us to do so.

　　G) Few political libraries are without a copy of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. They argue that governments should persuade us into making better decisions—such as saving more in our pension plans—by changing the default options. Professor Weber believes that environmental policy can make use of similar tactics. If, for example, building codes included green construction guidelines, most developers would be too lazy to challenge them.

　　H) Defaults are certainly part of the solution. But social scientists are most concerned about crafting messages that exploit our group mentality(心态). ”We need to understand what motivates people, what it is that allows them to make change,” says Professor Neil Adger, of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Norwich. ”It is actually about what their peers think of them, what their social norms are, what is seen as desirable in society.” In other words, our inner caveman is continually looking over his shoulder to see what the rest of the tribe are up to.

　　I) The passive attitude we have to climate change as individuals can be altered by counting us in—and measuring us against—our peer group. “Social norms are primitive and elemental,” says Dr. Robert Cialdini, author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. “Birds flock together, fish school together, cattle herd together … just perceiving norms is enough to cause people to adjust their behavior in the direction of the crowd.”

　　J) These norms can take us beyond good intentions. Cialdini conducted a study in San Diego in which coat hangers bearing messages about saving energy were hung on people’s doors. Some of the messages mentioned the environment, some financial savings, others social responsibility. But it was the one that mentioned the actions of neighbours that drove down power use.

　　K) Other studies show that simply providing the facility for people to compare their energy use with the local average is enough to cause them to modify their behaviour. The Conservatives plan to adopt this strategy by making utility companies print the average local electricity and gas usage on people’s bills.

　　L) Social science can also teach politicians how to avoid our collective capacity for self-destructive behaviour. Environmental campaigns that tell us how many people drive SUVs unwittingly (不经意地) imply that this behaviour is widespread and thus permissible. Cialdini recommends some careful framing of the message. “Instead of normalising the undesirable behaviour, the message needs to marginalise it, for example, by stating that if even one person buys yet another SUV, it reduces our ability to be energy-independent.”

　　M) Tapping into how we already see ourselves is crucial. The most successful environmental strategy will marry the green message to our own sense of identity. Take your average trade union member, chances are they will be politically motivated and be used to collective action—much like Erica Gregory. A retired member of the Public and Commercial Services Union, she is setting up one of 1,100 action groups with the support of Climate Solidarity, a two-year environmental campaign aimed at trade unionists.

　　N) Erica is proof that a great-grandmother can help to lead the revolution if your get the psychology right—in this case, by matching her enthusiasm for the environment with a fondness for organising groups. “I think there must be something in it.” She is expecting up to 20 people at the first meeting she has called, at her local pub in the Cornish village of Polperro.

　　O) Nick Perks, project director for Climate Solidarity, believes this sort of activity is where the future of environmental action lies. “Using existing civil society structures or networks is a more effective way of creating change … and obviously trade unions are one of the biggest civil society networks in the UK,” he says. The “Love Food, Haste Waste” campaign entered into a collaboration last year with another such network—the Women’s Institute. Londoner Rachel Talor joined the campaign with the aim of making new friends. A year on, the meetings have made lasting changes to what she throws away in her kitchen. “It’s always more of an incentive if you’re doing it with other people,” she says. “It motivates you more if you know that you’ve got to provide feedback to a group.”

　　P) The power of such simple psychology in fighting climate change is attracting attention across the political establishment. In the US, the House of Representatives Science Committee has approved a bill allocating $10 million a year to studying energy-related behaviour. In the UK, new studies are in development and social scientists are regularly spotted in British government offices. With the help of psychologists, there is fresh hope that we might go green after all.

46. When people find they are powerless to change a situation, they tend to live with it.

答案【C】

47. To be effective, environmental messages should be carefully framed.

答案【L】

48. It is the government’s responsibility to persuade people into making environment-friendly decisions.

答案【G】

49. Politicians are beginning to realize the importance of enlisting psychologists’ help in fighting climate change.

答案【P】

50. To find effective solutions to climate change, it is necessary to understand what motivates people to make change.

答案【H】

51. In their evolution, humans have learned to pay attention to the most urgent issues instead of long-term concerns.

答案【D】

52. One study shows that our neighbors’ actions are influential unchanging our behavior.

答案【J】

53. Despite clear signs of global warming, it is not easy for most people to believe climate change will affect their own lives.

答案【B】

54.We would take our future into consideration in making decisions concerning climate change before it is too late.

答案【F】

55. Existing social networks can be more effective in creating change in people’s behaviour.

答案【O】

<长篇阅读二能源变更的困难性>

The impossibility of rapid energy transitions

本篇文章出自《世界观察》(World Watch)，主要解释了能源不可能快速变更的原因。文章首先介绍了能源以能量体系的形式存在，对大体概念进行介绍。接下来文章分别介绍了technological momentum(D段至H段)。Labor-pool momentum(I段)和economic momentum(J段)。最后两段作为总结，重申不能快速改变的原因和我们对这个话题应持有的态度。

46. Not only moving objects and people but all systems have momentum.

答案【C】

47. Changing the current energy system requires the systematic training of professionals and skilled labor.

答案【I】

48. Changing a light bulb is easier than changing the fixture housing it.

答案【E】

49. Efforts to accelerate the current energy transitions didn’t succeed as expected.

答案【K】

50. To change the light source is costly because you have to change the whole fixture.

答案【G】

51. Energy systems, like an aircraft carrier set in motion, have huge momentum.

答案【A】

52. The problem with lighting, if it arises, often doesn’t lie in light sources but in their applications.答案【G】

53. The biggest obstacle to energy transition is that the present energy system is too expensive to replace.

答案【J】

54. The application of a technology can impact areas beyond itself.

答案【D】

55. Physical characteristics of moving objects help explain the dynamics of energy systems.

答案【B】

<长篇阅读三First-Generation College-Goers: Unprepared and Behind>

46．Many first-generation college-goers have doubts about their abilities to get a college degree.

答案【H】

47．First-generation college students tend to have much heavier financial burdens than their peers.

答案【C】

48．The graduation rate of first-generation students at Nijay’s university was incredibly low.

答案【B】

49．Some top institutions like Yale seem to provide first-generation students with more support than they actually need.

答案【N】

50.  On entering college, Nijay Williams had no idea how challenging college education was.

答案【A】

51．Many universities simply refuse to release their exact graduation rates for first generation students.

答案【J】

52.  According to a marketing executive, many students from low-income families don’t know they could have a chance of going to an elite university.

答案【G】

53．Some elite universities attach great importance to building up the first-generation students’ self-confidence.

答案【O】

54.  I’m First distributes information to help first-generation college-goers find schools that are most suitable for them.

答案【D】

55.  Elite universities distributes information to help first-generation students at a higher rate.

答案【M】