2024 年 12 月大学英语六级考试真题（第 2 套）

A)Blue moons, rose moons, supermoons. For some reason all the websites seem to think you really want to know all about these moons. "Catch This Weekend's AMAZING SUPERMOON," one headline will announce. "The Supermoon Isn't Actually A Big Deal And You're All Ruining Astronomy," another will complain.

B)The latest example is the super blood wolf moon eclipse which sounds like the name of an emotional song I would have performed a modern dance routine to in 9th grade, but is, in fact, an astronomical event set to occur on January 20. As we'll explain below, there is nothing truly mysterious or otherwise special about this moon, and it will not look like a bloody wolf head in the sky or anything wild like that. We get these super lunar events by smashing together all the qualifiers we've historically used to keep track of full moons throughout the year, and in the age of the internet we can get a little too enthusiastic.

C)Consider this your go-to resource for all moon-gazing news. Here's what you need to know about the latest lunar event.

D)Look, it's okay if you don't know. There are probably loads of folks who walk around pretending they totally know why that thing in the sky seems to get bigger and smaller at regular intervals but who totally do not.

E)The moon orbits Earth, and it's tidally locked—that means it always shows us the same face, instead of spinning around like our planet does. That's why you can always see the man on the moon (or the moon rabbit, depending on your cultural preferences) even as it spins around us. But while the moon is big and bright in the sky when it's full, that's only because it's reflecting light from the sun. But the moon is always moving, so it's getting hit with sunlight at different angles. It's invisible to us during the new moon, because our satellite is parked right between us and the sun; the so-called dark side of the moon is lit up like Las Vegas, but the side we can see is in shadow. A full moon happens when the earth is right between the sun and the moon, so sunlight hits the part we can see. And all the other phases are just the transition from one of those extremes to the other.

F)The moon isn't always exactly the same distance from Earth, because its orbit isn't perfectly circular. We call the closest point perigee (近地点), and the most distant point is apogee (远地点). 2018's closest perigee and most distant apogee both happened in January, and the difference was about 30,000 miles.

G)The reason you care about this ordinary change in distance is that it turns a moon super. When a full moon happens close to perigee, it's going to look a bit bigger. Honestly, the difference is not that profound, but if you're in a position to photograph the supermoon next to something that shows the slight increase in scale, it can look pretty cool. January's super blood wolf moon eclipse is super because the date lines up with the closest the moon will get to us during January, but the moon won't actually be at its closest for the year until February's supermoon, which you can expect plenty of undue excitement over.

H)Blood moons only occur during total lunar eclipses (which can happen a few times a year in any given location). When the moon slips through our shadow, we give it a reddish coloring. The moon can also look orange whenever it's rising or setting, or if it hangs low in the horizon all night—the light bouncing off of it has to travel through a thicker atmosphere there, which scatters more blue light away. But you'll probably only see that deep, sinister red during an eclipse.

I)A lot of headlines about moons are just ridiculous (you do not need to be particularly excited about a blue moon, it just looks like a regular full moon), but you should definitely roll out of bed to look at a blood moon if one is going to be visible in your region, even though they're just lunar eclipses and not evidence of bloody battles between the sky gods.

J)In March of 2018, we had our second "blue moon" of the year, to much acclaim. And while that's not necessarily special in an oh-gosh-get-out-and-look-at-it way, it's certainly special: a blue moon is a nickname for when two full moons fall in the same calendar month, and we hadn't previously had two in one year since 1999. We won't have it happen again until 2037. Astronomer David Chapman explained that this is merely a peculiarity of our calendar; once we stopped doing things based on the moon and started trying to follow the sun and the seasons, we stopped having one reliable full moon per month. The moon cycle is 29.53 days long on average, so in most months we still end up with a single new moon and a single full one. But every once in a while, one month steals a full moon from another. In 2018 (and in 1999, and again in 2037) both January and March stacked full moons on the first and last nights of the month, leaving February in the dark.

K)Getting two blue moons a year is rare, but we have individual blue moons every few years. Also, fun fact: not actually blue. A moon can indeed take on a moody blue color, but this only happens when particles of just the right size disperse through the sky—and it has nothing to do with the moon's status as "blue." Big clouds of ash from volcanic eruptions or fires can do the trick, but it doesn't happen often, and the stars would certainly have to align for two such rare instances to occur at once.

L)You may have heard that the super special second blue moon of 2018 was also a Paschal moon. This is true! That just means it was the first full moon of spring, which is often used to determine the date of Easter Sunday. All of this is just calendar nonsense and we refuse to go into it further.

M)Sometimes you'll see a headline that promises a moon with so many qualifiers it makes your head spin. A super blue blood worm moon, perhaps? Or a super blood wolf moon? Lots of websites will tell you that "wolf moon" is the traditional name of the first full moon of the year in "Native American" cultures, which is kind of a weird thing to claim given that there are 573 registered Tribal Nations in the U.S. alone today, not to mention historically. The idea that hungry, howling wolves were such a universal constant in January that all of North America with its different cultures, geographies, and languages spontaneously came up with the same nickname is illogical.

N)N) Many cultures have traditional names for the full moon in a given month or season, so there's quite a list to draw from if you're trying to really juice up a story on a slightly-bigger-than-average view of the moon. But these are all based on human calendars and activities and folklore; you will not go outside and see a pink moon in April, though I wish it were so.

With population increases and global urbanisation ever accelerating, much attention is focused on the sustainability of our cities and scarce attention is paid to the countryside. Rural life is associated with closely-knit communities, sense of belonging, and a simple, tranquil life. Yet whilst some or all of these elements exist in the countryside, so do conservatism and a lack of employment opportunities. And it is mostly due to the latter that rural communities are suffering. Attracted by the improved economics of urban areas, country dwellers across the world are moving out, contributing to the excessive crowdedness of densely populated cities, and leaving the countryside in desolation. So how can the countryside ensure its survival among these changes, or should it at all? Due to both the distance between residences and facilities and often intermittent public transport, those living in the countryside are heavier automobile users. Rural dwellers also use more energy maintaining their mostly detached buildings. We may be piled up like boxes in the city, but this brings energy efficiency that the countryside cannot match. Rural energy requirements result in higher carbon emissions per person than in the city, so it is actually irresponsible to endorse such a lifestyle choice. Protecting the countryside is a hot topic. Those who have made their fortunes in the city often buy second homes in the countryside, visiting intermittently for a sample of a supposedly simple life. The side-effect of this is that house prices are pushed up due to increased demand, leaving them unaffordable for local people. A solution has yet to be found for this challenge, for market forces are further forcing residents out of the countryside. For those who believe in rural preservation, this is deplorable. Whilst an idealised view of the countryside is common, the reality is that rural life has continuously evolved. Industrialisation brought an increase in divisions of labour, changing social links between rural people. The internet has introduced once foreign cultures into the countryside. Improved travel connections and affordability have made the world more accessible, creating a 'global village'. Considering these changes, surely an evolving countryside is inevitable. Perhaps the countryside should also prepare itself for massive population increases in the future. With cities across the world growing rapidly, how will the current urban generation respond to the inevitable social changes of mass urbanisation? Will the longing for a simpler life become stronger, fueling a rural renaissance? As the world continues to urbanise, the voices calling for rural preservation may well grow louder. But change is inevitable. We know that the world is going to see new cities emerging from the dust and current cities growing into megacities, but the future of the countryside is less clear.

Statements, like "beauty is in the eye of the beholder (观看者)," are rarely questioned. They've become so embedded in our consciousness that people think it's absurd to think otherwise. It might be useful, however, to at least push back on this assumption because people evaluate environment, situations, and people aesthetically. We may find that we still believe it is correct, but we may also find that there is a lot more to the situation than you suppose. A recent study exploring aesthetic taste was published in Cognition. The results from this study show that people agree very much in their aesthetic evaluation of natural objects, but they disagree more about artifacts, or human-made objects. The study found that shared taste was most common for faces and natural landscapes, but least common among works of architecture and art. The hypothesis is the commonly pleasing features, like proportion or symmetry, are at work. Preferences for natural scenes might be learned through life experiences. Factors like habitability, safety, and openness might be preferred as people develop. Some of the details of landscapes change, but the basics are more common, e.g., water, open spaces, and signs of care. Art and architecture, unlike natural spaces, do not have the same level of exposure. So, people do not have the same level of shared taste. It's possible that the lower amount of agreement in the shared taste of artifacts has to do more with elements of style, rather than 'behavioral consequences.' All of the consequences seem reasonable (or at least possible), but I think there might be an interesting philosophical conclusion that they did not draw. It seems that there is an objective ground to our aesthetic preferences or evaluations. I am not saying this would mean beauty is completely objective, just that there could possibly be general objective principles at work, i.e., beauty is not simply in the eye of the beholder. Nature exhibits some of the universal aesthetic features, such as radiance, in a common way throughout the world. It's not exactly the same everywhere, but it is common. For example, a sunset is similar enough in different places to warrant almost universal appeal. Possible universal principles of beauty—such as proportion, fittingness, radiance, and others—are general categories, which allow for a wide array of embodiments. When people get involved in making artifacts in architecture or art, they apply these very general concepts in unique ways. But the way they applied the principle may not have universal appeal. This is why it's important to experience diverse cultures and their artifacts because it opens us up to different ways of approaching or constructing beauty. And it is always good to question our assumptions.