【正文】 does the author attach so much importance to humanistic studies? [A] They promote the development of science and technology. [B] They help prepare students for their professional careers. [C] Humanistic thinking helps define our culture and values. [D] Humanistic thinking helps cultivate students‘ creativity. Passage Two Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage. Will there ever be another Einstein? This is the undercurrent of conversation at Einstein memorial meetings throughout the year. A new Einstein will emerge, scientists say. But it may take a long time. After all, more than 200 years separated Einstein from his nearest rival, Isaac Newton. Many physicists say the next Einstein hasn‘t been born yet, or is a baby now. That‘s because the quest for a unified theory that would account for all the forces of nature has pushed current mathematics to its limits. New math must be created before the problem can be solved. But researchers say there are many other factors working against another Einstein emerging anytime soon. For one thing, physics is a much different field today. In Einstein‘s day, there were only a few thousand physicists worldwide, and the theoreticians who could intellectually rival Einstein probably would fit into a streetcar with seats to spare. Education is different, too. One crucial aspect of Einstein‘s training that is overlooked is the years of philosophy he read as a teenager—Kant, Schopenhauer and Spinoza, among others. It taught him how to think independently and abstractly about space and time, and it wasn‘t long before he became a philosopher himself. ―The independence created by philosophical insight is—in my opinion—the mark of distinction between a mere artisan (工匠 ) or specialist and a real seeker after truth,‖ Einstein wrote in 1944. And he was an acplished musician. The interplay between music and math is well known. Einstein would furiously play his violin as a way to think through a knotty physics problem. Today, universities have produced millions of physicists. There aren‘t many jobs in science for them, so they go to Wall Street and Silicon Valley to apply their analytical skills to more practical—and rewarding—efforts. ―Maybe there is an Einstein out there today,‖ said Columbia University physicist Brian Greene, ―but it would be a lot harder for him to be heard.‖ Especially considering what Einstein was proposing. ―The actual fabric of space and time curving? My God, what an idea!‖ Greene said at a recent gathering at the Aspen Institute. ―It takes a certain type of person who will bang his head against the wall because you believe you‘ll find the solution.‖ Perhaps the best examples are the five scientific papers Einstein wrote in his ―miracle year‖ of 1905. These ―thought experiments‖ were pages of calculations signed and submitted to the prestigious journal Annalen der Physik by a virtual unknown. There were no footnotes or citations. What might happen to such a submission today? ―We all get papers like those in the mail,‖ Greene said. ―We put them in the junk file.‖ 注意： 此部分試題請(qǐng)?jiān)诖痤}卡 2 上作答。 2022 年 12 月大學(xué)英語六級(jí)考試真題及答案詳解 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 the questions on Answer Sheet 1. For questions 17, choose the best answer from the four choices marked [A], [B], [C] and [D]. For questions 810, plete the sentences with the information given in the passage. Into the Unknown The world has never seen population ageing before. Can it cope? Until the early 1990s nobody much thought about whole populations getting older. The UN had the foresight to convene a ―world assembly on ageing‖ back in 1982, but that came and went. By 1994 the World Bank had noticed that something big was happening. In a report entitled ―Averting the Old Age Crisis‖, it argued that pension arrangements in most countries were unsustainable. For the next ten years a succession of books, mainly by Americans, sounded the alarm. They had titles like Young vs Old, Gray Dawn and The Coming Generational Storm, and their message was blunt: healthcare systems were heading for the rocks, pensioners were taking young people to the cleaners, and soon there would be intergenerational warfare. Since then the debate has bee less emotional, not least because a lot more is known about the subject. Books, conferences and research papers have multiplied. International anisations such as the OECD and the EU issue regular reports. Population ageing is on every agenda, from G8 economic conferences to NATO summits. The World Economic Forum plans to consider the future of pensions and health care at its prestigious Davos conference early next year. The media, including this newspaper, are giving the subject extensive coverage. Whether all that attention has translated into sufficient action is another question. Governments in rich countries now accept that their pension and healthcare promises will soon bee unaffordable, and many of them have embarked on reforms, but so far only timidly. That is not surprising: politicians with an eye on the next election will hardly rush to introduce unpopular measures that may not bear fruit for years, perhaps decades. The outline of the changes needed is clear. To avoid fiscal (財(cái)政 ) meltdown, public pensions and healthcare provision will have to be reined back severely and taxes may have to go up. By far the most effective method to restrain pension spending is to give people the opportunity to work longer, because it increases tax revenues and reduces spending on pensions at the same time. It may even keep them alive longer. John Rother, the AARP‘s head of policy and strategy, points to studies showing that other things being eq