2024 年 06 月大学英语六级考试真题（第 2 套）

The Sun Is Also a Star is a truly lovely story of love, romance, fate, and destiny. Natasha is a Jamaican-born immigrant living __26__ in America, not by choice exactly. Her parents brought her over and created the situation she __27__ to be out of. Daniel is an American born of Korean immigrants. He believes in true love, fate, and all that other nonsense that Natasha __28__ through scientific reasoning. Daniel and Natasha meet by __29__ on the streets of New York on the day that she is to be __30__. She doesn't tell him that but does allow him to keep her company while he tries to get her to fall in love with him over the course of the day. Natasha is me. I found her so similar to myself. She's scientifically-minded, practical, somewhat cynical, and always __31__. Her obsession with the universe through a scientific lens is infectious and I __32__ Daniel seeing that too. Daniel is charming and passionate and has a way with words that even __33__ Natasha's tough outer shell. By the end of the book I fell in love with both of them. I used to find romance stories to always be cheap or laughable. I think now I can see the value in escaping into a story of pure optimism. I got __34__ in The Sun Is Also a Star and finished it cover to cover in a weekend. I couldn't wait to get to what I hoped would be a happy ending. It's nice every once in a while to give in to magic. It doesn't have to be a hard fantasy novel with actual spells, it can be the magic found between two people who just have that special something. That __35__ that causes them to react and spark when they're near each other.

The "American Dream" promises that in the Land of Opportunity, any individual can climb the economic ladder and prosper through hard work and ambition alone. And yet, young Americans today are struggling to earn more than their parents did at the same age, and upward mobility in the US actually compares unfavourably to that of other industrialised nations. So why does the idea of the American Dream persist? A new study in the American Journal of Political Science identifies one factor that has been overlooked: the influence of reality TV. Reality shows have come to dominate US television over the past 20 years, notes Eunji Kim from Vanderbilt University. And the overwhelming majority of these have a "rags-to-riches" storyline: they feature ordinary Americans who work hard to achieve great economic success. And while these programmes are regularly among the most-watched shows, news broadcasts—which paint a more realistic view of the economic hardship faced by millions of Americans—get a much smaller proportion of the viewership. Rags-to-riches stories are ubiquitous on TV—but does watching these programmes actually convince people that economic mobility is easily attainable? To find out, Kim's team had participants watch a 5-minute clip from a reality show with a rags-to-riches storyline. Control participants watched a clip from a reality show that didn't have a rags-to-riches story. After watching the shows, participants rated how much they agreed with four statements relating to the American Dream. The results showed that those who'd watched a rags-to-riches clip did indeed have a significantly greater belief in the American Dream. Interestingly, when participants were separated by party affiliation, this effect was significant among Republicans but not Democrats, suggesting that the kind of messages implicit in these TV shows may play into people's existing socioeconomic beliefs. Kim also conducted a survey of 3,000 US residents. They also rated the extent to which they believed success in life is related to various internal factors (such as ambition) and external factors (such as family wealth). Finally, they read a list of TV programmes and indicated which they regularly watched. Participants who were heavy viewers of rags-to-riches programmes or frequent viewers had a stronger belief in the American Dream than those who never watched such shows. Kim concludes that "rags-to-riches entertainment media are an important cultural force that promotes and perpetuates beliefs in upward mobility". And here's the problem: if people mistakenly believe that hard work is all that is needed for individuals to make a better life for themselves, they may be less supportive of policies that could actually combat inequality. "In this era of choice, entertainment media are what captures hearts and minds," Kim writes. "Its political consequences are anything but trivial".

When someone asks us 'what do you do?' We nearly always reply with our occupation. Work, for many of us, is much more than a job. It is the defining aspect of our identity. For many of us it is through our job that we can define ourselves. "Without my job I don't know who I am," is a sentence that has been uttered on more than a handful of occasions from my office chair. Indeed, it can be one of the most challenging aspects I work on with clients who have lost or been forced into changing their jobs. This loss provokes an identity crisis much greater than the loss of the job itself. One of the things I have come to understand, however, is that our identity is much more complex than we recognise at first glance. If we take the time to reflect we might recognise that as well as our work we can also identify as a friend, a spouse, a son or daughter, a parent, a member of a sports team or religious community. We may recognise that we feel and act differently in these roles and relationships than we do at work. The passive daughter becomes an assertive leader at work. Furthermore, our identities at work are not static. They change over time. I myself have been a shop assistant, a waitress, a student, a graduate, and a clinical psychologist. At each stage my ability to adapt to and develop my career identity has been crucial to my wellbeing. Whilst we like to eliminate uncertainty in our lives at some level we have to manage uncertainty, especially in today's volatile and ever-shifting job market. How we see ourselves is central to the issue of our identity. When we tell ourselves "I'm good at starting projects but not so great at seeing them through" it can become part of our belief system. But if you have the unfortunate experience of an enforced job change you will need to examine those beliefs to see how grounded in reality they are. You will be required to ask yourself how helpful these beliefs are and consider personal change. We can change our beliefs, behaviours and emotional experience at any time through experimentation, practice and conscious self-discipline. In an age where career progression may lead us into new sectors it is ever more important to challenge our sense of self and explore whether you can create a new experience of your identity by changing the beliefs you hold about yourself in order to expand your career options. Ultimately it is you who define who you are. You are only your job if you let it be so.