历年英语六级阅读真题及翻译（2009.06-1999.01）2009年 6月英语六级阅读真题Passage One：For hundreds of millions of years, turtles (海龟 ) have struggled out of the sea to lay theireggs on sandy beaches, long before there were nature documentaries to celebrate them, orGPS satellites and marine biologists to track them, or volunteers to hand-carry the hatchlings(幼龟)down to the water’ s edge lest they become disoriented by headlights and crawl towards a motel parking lot instead. A formidable wall of bureaucracy has been erected toprotect their prime nesting on the Atlantic coastlines. With all that attention paid to them,you ’ d think these creatures would at least have the gratitude not to go extinct. But Natureis indifferent to human notions of fairness, and a report by the Fish and Wildlife Serviceshowed a worrisome drop in the populations of several species of North Atlantic turtles, notably loggerheads, which can grow to as much as 400 pounds. The South Florida nestingpopulation, the largest, has declined by 50% in the last decade, according to Elizabeth Griffin,a marine biologist with the environmental group Oceana. The figures prompted Oceana topetition the government to upgrade the level of protection for the North Atlantic loggerheadsfrom“ threatened” to“ endangered”—meaning they are in danger of disappearing withoutadditional help. Which raises the obvious question: what else do these turtles want from us,anyway? It turns out, according to Griffin, that while we have done a good job of protectingthe turtles for the weeks they spend on land(as egg-laying females,as eggs and as hatchlings), we have neglected the years spend in the ocean.“The threat is from commercial fishing, ” says Griffin. Trawlers (which drag large nets through the water and along the oceanfloor) and longline fishers (which can deploy thousands of hooks on lines that can stretch formiles) take a heavy toll on turtles. Of course, like every other environmental issue today, thisis playing out against the background of global warming and human interference with naturalecosystems.The narrow strips of beach on which the turtles lay their eggs are being squeezed on one side by development and on the other by the threat of rising sea levels asthe oceans warm. Ultimately we must get a handle on those issues as well, or a creature thatoutlived the dinosaurs(恐龙 )will meet its end at the hands of humans,leaving our descendants to wonder how creature so ugly could have won so much affection.在数亿年前的时间里，海龟一直在挣扎着离开大海道海滩上产卵，时间远远遭遇自然纪录片的赞扬，或全球定位通讯卫星和海洋生物学家的追踪，又或者志愿者们用手把幼龟放在海边以避免它们受到光线的影响迷失方向，爬向汽车旅馆的停车场。
由官方建造的大型围墙用于保护海龟在大西洋沿岸的主要筑巢地。
收到了各种各样的关注后，你可能会认为这些生物至少会心怀感激，不至于走向灭亡。
但是自然却无视人类的公平观念，由渔业和野生动物服务组织提供的用一份报告显示，北大西洋的数种海龟的种群数量出现了令人担忧的下降，特别是体重可达400磅的红海龟。
来自环保组织的Ocean的海洋生物学家伊丽莎白格里芬称，数量最多的佛罗里达州南部穴居种群在过去十年里减少了50% 。
该数据促使Oceana组织向政府情愿，要求将北大西洋红海龟的保护级别从“受威胁”提升至“濒危”-----这意味着如果没有外界的帮助，它们将会面临灭绝的危险。
这就提出了一个明显的问题：这些海龟究竟还要我们做什么？和幼龟），但是我们忽略了它们在海里的漫长时光。
“主要是来自商业捕捞的威胁”格里芬说。
拖网渔船（在水中和海床拖行大型的渔网）和延绳钓鱼船（在钓线上装备数以千记的鱼钩，可以延伸至数英里）给海龟造成了惨重的伤亡。
当然，就像所有当下的环保问题一样，这也是在全球变暖和人类干预自然生态系统的背景下发生的。
海龟产卵的狭窄沙滩一方面收到开发的压榨，另一方面收到海洋变暖导致的海平面上升的威胁。
最终我们还要解决这些问题，否则一种比恐龙活得更久的生物将会在人类手中灭绝，让我们的后代困惑于怎么这种丑陋的生物会赢得如此多的关爱。
Passage Two ：There are few more sobering online activities than entering data into college-tuition calculators and gasping as the Web spits back a six-figure sum. But economists say familiesabout to go into debt to fund four years of partying,as well as studying,can console themselves with the knowledge that college is an investment that, unlike many bank stocks,should yield huge dividends.A2008 study by two Harvard economists notes that the “ labor-market premium to skill”— or the amount college graduates earned that’ s greater than what high-school graduate earned— decreased for much of the 20th century, but hascome back with a vengeance( 报复性地 ) since the 1980s.In2005, The typical full-time year-round U.S. worker with a four-year college degree earned $50,900, 62% more than the$31,500 earned by a worker with only a high-school diploma. There’s no question that goingto college is a smart economic choice. But a look at the strange variations in tuition revealsthat the choice about which college to attend doesn’t come down merely to dollars and cents.Does going to Columbia University (tuition, room and board $49,260 in 2007-08) yield a40% greater return than attending the University of Colorado at Boulder as an out-of-statestudent ($35,542)? Probably not. Does being an out-of-state student at the University ofColorado at Boulder yield twice the amount of income as being an in-state student ($17,380)there? Not likely. No, in this consumerist age, most buyers aren’ t evaluating college as an investment, but rather as a consumer product— like a car or clothes or a house. And withsuch purchases, price is only one of many crucial factors to consider. As with automobiles,consumers in today’s college marketplace have vast choices, and people search for the onethat gives them the most comfort and satisfaction in line with their budgets. This accounts forthe willingness of people to pay more for different types of experiences (such as attending aprivate liberal-arts college or going to an out-of-state public school that has a great marine-biology program). And just as two auto purchasers might spend an equal amount ofmoney on very different cars, college students (or, more accurately, their parents) oftenshow a willingness to pay essentially the same price for vastly different products. So which isit? Is college an investment product like a stock or a consumer product like a car? In keepingwith the automotive world’ s hottest consumer trend, maybe it’s best to characterize it asa hybrid ( 混合动力汽车 );an expensive consumer product that,over time,will pay rich dividends.在大学学费计算器里输入数据，然后对着网络吐出来的六位数倒抽一口气，很少有其他在线活动比这种活动更让人清醒了。