2024 年 12 月大学英语六级考试真题（第 1 套）

With the rapid progress in the economy, it is natural that people's ideology is bound for change. Being __26__ is no longer a virtue to some people, and they are not alone in holding this view. Each might have different viewpoints on how to lead one's lifestyle: some prefer simplicity, some love luxuries, some spend __27__, some accumulate as much as they can like a country mouse. As I was born poor and in the countryside, the simple rural life seldom loses its __28__ to me, but as my station changes, I have an opportunity to __29__ with the newly rich, an experience which has revolutionized my view of lifestyle.

It is evil or sinful to spend little and to save much, an idea only recently being revealed to me. Actually the whole world is in a __30__ to borrow and to spend, with the USA leading the trend. The USA is still the richest and most powerful country in the world, but the __31__ is that they borrow money from us. Though a __32__ of economics, at least I know that investing with borrowed money will turn the borrower into the __33__ rather than the decent and kind lender. An apparent case is real estate. Those who are __34__ and have got loans from the bank become relatively rich by selling their purchased home at a price several folds higher. Even education is not immune from this theory. Many of those poor parents who have the vision to send their children to college have benefited from this investment, even though they have to __35__ a living. It is reasonable to conclude that spending is praiseworthy, supposing it is not beyond your means.

Imagine you're an alien sent to Earth to document the behaviour of the mammals inhabiting the planet. You stumble into a movie theatre that's showing the latest Hollywood horror film.

Several dozen humans are gathered together in a dark, undecorated room. They're all staring at a rectangular area on which patterns of light change rapidly.

They are clearly in a state of high arousal. Their heart rate is elevated, they occasionally glance around nervously, and they sometimes jump collectively in their seats, and emit high-pitched warning calls.

Eventually, the lights come up and the rectangular screen goes black. The humans stand up and leave the room, chatting and laughing, and showing signs of pleasure.

Why do these humans voluntarily expose themselves to what appears to be a deeply unpleasant experience? And why do they react so strongly to those patterns of light on a screen?

I am fascinated with the paradox of horror—the strange fact that many people seek out scary entertainment.

I think the answer to the puzzle lies in human nature.

My research suggests that we humans evolved to find pleasure in situations that allow us to experience negative emotions in a safe context. You can see these elements of horror in children's games. Take hide-and-seek for example, which is a simulation of a predator-prey interaction. The kid hides and the adult pretends to be a predator, searching for the child while howling like a dangerous beast.

This simulation gives the child crucial information about how to avoid becoming prey, and children tend to find that kind of activity deeply satisfying, presumably because it gives them a safe experience of a potentially catastrophic scenario.

They find it pleasurable, and pleasure is evolution's way of motivating us toward adaptive behaviour.

Horror is pleasurable to many people because it lets us play with negative emotions and develop coping strategies. We learn what it feels like to be truly afraid, and we learn how to handle negative emotion.

How, then, does horror work? My research suggests that horror works by exploiting an ancient set of biological defence mechanisms—an evolved fear system, which we share with other animals. But humans are uniquely imaginative, and we use our evolved imagination to travel into virtual worlds that are full of danger.

There are good reasons for watching a horror film, even if you're not a loyal horror fan. If you make it through the film in one piece, you'll probably experience a strong sense of mastery, a sense that you were able to make it through an appalling experience. Anyway, watching a horror film makes you better at handling your own fear, and who knows when that will become critically relevant?

An awakening has been taking place in the physical world against the beauty model that has been dictated to us for years. But in the digital arena, social media determines what is considered beautiful.

The two opposing struggles are taking place in parallel. In the physical world, the struggle goes against the underlying pressure exerted on women to conform to an unrealistic beauty ideal. As part of the struggle, various media outlets have presented women whose bodies don't correspond to the so-called ideal. All those women who had previously been excluded from the covers of magazines, television series and the public agenda, have become "legitimate." At the same time, a group of influencers have begun to upload to social media photos of themselves without makeup, and even photos in which they highlight supposed flaws.

Technology has reshaped our beauty ideal and is doing a great job communicating that message to the masses. One of the bizarre legacies of the past decade is the popularity of the "cyborg look," which illustrates what Americans will look like in 2050. The cyborg look spread rapidly. Today, however, the Instagram face has become the new beauty ideal.

The internalization of accepted beauty norms is much more effective when there is active involvement in the learning process. The active involvement of users is reflected in the gamified (游戏化的) interaction offered by the social media platforms—the ability to like, write a comment, compare, share.

Once the desired beauty ideal has been internalized, users are given tools or features to change their appearance to suit the accepted beauty ideal such as editing the image, choosing the ideal filter, the right background.

A survey conducted in the United States revealed that more than 50% filter the images before posting them. And you will not be surprised to hear that the majority of them are women. One of the significant consequences of obsessive filtering is the emerging tendency to treat oneself as an object to be observed and valued, in the same way another person observes and judges from the side.

The effect of the filters is already far beyond amiable amusement. The filters and the entire game played on the networks affect the mental health of the users. According to a study, apps like Instagram, Snapchat and FaceTune allow users to achieve a level of perfection that was previously only observed in beauty magazines. Even though humanity has always cherished beauty, in the last decade our obsession with looks has reached an unprecedented peak. The time spent on social media creates an urge to achieve an impossible beauty ideal so powerful that the only thing that can fix it is not cosmetic intervention, but mental health care.