根據(jù)全國大學英語六級考試大綱可知，閱讀理解部分由詞匯理解（1篇）、長篇閱讀（1篇）和仔細閱讀（2篇）構成。詞匯理解的篇章長度為250-300詞；長篇閱讀的篇章長度約1200詞；仔細閱讀的每篇長度為400-450詞。閱讀理解部分的分值比例為35% ，其中詞匯理解占5%，長篇閱讀占10%，仔細閱讀占20%。考試時間40分鐘。以下是希賽網英語四六級頻道為大家搜集整理的2020年12月英語六級閱讀理解真題及參考答案。

Part Ⅲ Reading Comprehension (40 minutes)

Section A

Directions：In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carngfully before making your choices.Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Ansuer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.

Overall, men are more likely than women to make excuses. Several studies suggest that men feel the need to appear competent in all 26______，while women worry only about the skills in which they"ve invested 27______ . Ask a man and a woman to go diving for the first time, and the woman is likely to jump in, while the man is likely to say he"s not feeling too well.

Ironically, it is often success that leads people to flirt with failure. Praise won for 28______ a skill suddenly puts one in the position of having everything to lose. Rather than putting their reputation on the line again, many successful people develop a handicap

drinking,29______,depression- -that allows them to keep their status no matter what the future brings. An advertising executive 30______ for depression shortly after winning an award put it this way:“ Without my depression, I"d be a failure now;with it, I"m a success‘on hold’”

In fact, the people most likely to become chronic excuse makers are those 31______ with success.Such people are so afraid of being 32______ a failure at anything that they constantly develop one handicap or another in order to explain away failure.

Though self-handicapping can be an effective way of coping with performance anxiety now and then, in the end, researchers say, it will lead to 33______. In the long run, excuse makers fail to live up to their true 34______ and lose the status they care so much about. And despite their protests to the 35______ they have only themselves to blame.