雅思模拟试题1-阅读

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雅思考试阅读模拟试题及答案解析一(1篇)

雅思考试阅读模拟试题及答案解析一(1篇)

雅思考试阅读模拟试题及答案解析一(1篇)雅思考试阅读模拟试题及答案解析一 1New evidence has linked a monly prescribed sleep medication with bizarre behaviours,including a case in which a woman painted her front door in her sleep.UK and Australian health agencies have released information about 240 cases of odd occurrences,including sleepwalking,amnesia and hallucinations among people taking the drug zolpidem.While doctors say that zolpidem can offer much-needed relief for people with sleep disorders,they caution that these newly reported cases should prompt a closer look at its possible side effects.Zolpidem,sold under the brand names Ambien,Stilnoct and Stilnox,is widely prescribed to treat insomnia and other disorders such as sleep apnea. Various forms of the drug,made by French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis,were prescribed 674,500 times in 2005 in the UK.A newly published report from Australia’s Federal Health Department describes 104 cases of hallucinations and 62 cases of amnesia experienced by people taking zolpidem since marketing of the drug began there in 2000. The health department report also mentioned 16 cases of strangesleepwalking by people taking the medication.Midnight snackIn one of these sleepwalking cases a patient woke with a paintbrush in her hand after painting the front door to her house. Another case involved a woman who gained 23 kilograms over seven months while taking zolpidem. “It was only when she was discovered in front of an open refrigerator while asleep that the problem was resolved,” according to the re port.The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency,meanwhile,has recorded 68 cases of adverse reactions to zolpidem from 2001 to 2005.The newly reported cases in the UK and Australia add to a growing list of bizarre sleepwalking episodes linked to the drug in other countries,including reports of people sleep-driving while on the medication. In one case,a transatlantic flight had to be diverted after a passenger caused havoc after takingzolpidem.Hypnotic effectsThere is no biological pathway that has been proven to connect zolpidem with these behaviours. The drug is a benzodiazepine-like hypnotic that promotes deep sleep by interacting with brain receptors for a chemical called gamma-aminobutyric acid. While parts of the brain e less active during deep sleep,the body can still move,making sleepwalking a possibility.The product information for prescribers advises that psychiatric adverse effects,including hallucinations,sleepwalking and nightmares,are more likely in the elderly,and treatment should be stopped if they occur.Patient advocacy groups say they would like government health agencies and drug panies to take a closer look at the possible risks associated with sleep medicines. They stress that strange sleepwalking and sleep-driving behaviours can have risky consequences.“When people do something in which they’re not in full control it’s always a danger,” says Vera Sharav of the New York-based Alliance for Human Research Protection,a US networkthat advocates responsible and ethical medical research practices.Tried and tested“The more reports that e out about the potential side effects of the drug,the more research needs to be done to understand if these are real side effects,” says sle ep researcher Kenneth Wright at the University of Colorado in Boulder,US.Millions of people have taken the drug without experiencing any strange side effects,points out Richard Millman at Brown Medical School,director of the Sleep Disorders Center of Lifespan Hospitals in Providence,Rhode Island,US. He says that unlike older types of sleep medications,zolpidem does not carry as great a risk of addiction.And Wright notes that some of the reports of “sleep-driving” linked to zolpidem can be easily explained:some patients have wrongly taken the drug right before leaving work in hopes that the medicine will kick in by the time they reach home. Doctors stress that the medication should be taken just before going to bed.The US Food Drug Administration says it is continuing to “actively investigate" and collect information about cases linking zolpidem to unusual side effects.The Ambien label currently lists strange behaviour as a “special concern” for people taking the drug. “It’s a possi ble rare adverse event,” says Sanofi-Aventis spokesperson Melissa Feltmann,adding that the strange sleepwalking behaviours “may not necessarily be caused by the drug” but instead result from an underlying disorder. She says that “the safety profile [of zo lpidem] is well established”. The drug received approval in the US in 1993.Questions 1-6Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage?In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet writeTRUE if the statement is true according to the passageFALSE if the statement is false according to the passageNOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage1. Ambien,Stilnoct and Stilnox are brand names of one same drug treating insomnia.2. The woman’s obesity problem wasn’t resolved until she stopped taking zolpidem.3. Zolpidem received approval in the UK in 2001.4. The bizarre behaviour of a passenger after taking zolpidem resulted in the diversion of a flight bound for the otherside of the Atlantic.5. Zolpidem is the only sleep medication that doesn’t cause addiction.6. The sleep-driving occurrence resulted from the wrong use of zolpidem by an office worker.Question 7-9Choose the appropriate letters A-D and Write them in boxes 7-9 on your answer sheet.7. How many cases of bizarre behaviours are described in an official report from Australia?A. 68B. 104C. 182D. 2408. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the product information about zolpidem?A. Treatment should be stopped if side effects occur.B. Medication should be taken just before going to bed.C. Adverse effects are more likely in the elderly.D. Side effects include nightmares,hallucinations and sleepwalking.9. Who claimed that the safety description of zolpidem waswell established?A. Kenneth WrightB. Melissa FeltmannC. Richard MillmanD. Vera SharavQuestions 10-13Answer the following questions with NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS each in boxes 10-13.10. How many times was French-made zolpidem prescribed in 2005 in Britain?11. What kind of hypnotic is zolpidem as a drug which promotes deep sleep in patients?12. What can sleepwalking and sleep-driving behaviours cause according to patient advocacy groups?13. What US administration says that it has been investigating the cases relating zolpidem to unusual side effects? Answer keys and explanations:1. TrueSee para.3 from the beginning:Zolpidem,sold under the brand names Ambien,Stilnoct and Stilnox,is widely prescribed to treat insomnia and other disorders such as sleep apnea.2. FalseSee para.1 under the subtitle “Midnight snack”:Another case involved a woman who gained 23 kilograms over seven months while taking z olpidem. “It was only when she was discovered in front of an open refrigerator while asleep that the problem was resolved”。

2022年雅思阅读模拟试题(1)新

2022年雅思阅读模拟试题(1)新

2022年雅思阅读模拟试题(1)【前言】为了便利大家的学习,顺当通过雅思索试,我为大家细心整理了2022年雅思阅读模拟试题(1),欢迎阅读参考!更多相关讯息请关注我!This reading test contains 14 questions. You should spend about 20 minuteson this task.To make it more authentic, download the test and do it with pen and paper.Read the passage below and answer 14 questions.Bird Body LanguageABirds are becoming popular as pets, but unlike with more common pets,owners of birds are often not familiar with the behavioural patterns of the animal which allow them to recognise what the pet needs and wants. For example,most of us can recognise the behaviour a dog exhibits when he is hungry or wantsattention, but how many of us know how birds go about showing the same feelings?By learning about the behavioural patterns of birds, its owner can forge a stronger relationship with his pet. Owners can learn how to read bird bodylanguage, including movements of the eyes, wings, tail and beak. In addition,the sounds the bird makes can also indicate the mood, desires, and requirementsof the pet.BA bird’s eyes are different from a human’s. While both birds and humanshave pupils and irises (the black and coloured parts respectively), birds havethe ability to control the size of their pupils by enlarging and reducing theiririses quickly. This behaviour, flashing, is something birds may do when theyare angry, interested, or frightened.CA bird also communicates through the use of their wings. A bird may lift oropen his wings as a sign of happiness. But if the bird starts opening and closing their wings, it may signal anger or pain. If a bird fails to fold its wings against its body, and instead lets them hang by their side, the bird maybe ill. Healthy adult birds will typically tuck their wings against their bodieswhen they are at rest.D Birds often use their tail feathers to communicate, so an understandingof this behaviour will help the pet’s owner. A bird may move his tail from sideto side, called wagging, to express happiness (similar to dogs in behaviour andmeaning). Happiness is also the emotion expressed by other kinds of tail movement, such as up and down. However, if a bird fans his tail feathers out, itis usually a way to show anger or aggression.EWhile the bird’s beak is used mainly for eating and grooming, a bird mayalso communicate by using beak movements. For example, a bird may click his beakonce as a greeting, and several clicks can be taken as a warning. Birds maysometimes bite, but it is often difficult to determine the reason behind it –birds bite as a way to defend territory, show anger or express fear.FFinally, the sounds a bird makes are very important in communication. Birdsuse vocalisations to communicate with each other (and with their owners). Singing is the sign of a happy bird, and many birds love to sing when others arearound. Birds may also purr, though this is not the same as a cat's purr. A bird's purr sounds more like a low growl, and may indicate annoyance. Finally, abird may click his tongue against his beak, and this often indicates a desire tobe picked up and petted.QuestionsComplete the summary below.Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.Part of the bodyEyesWingsWingsWingsTailTailBeakBeakMovementRapid change ____(1)____ size of pupils, called ____(2)____Wings in an ____(3)____ position____(4)____ of wingsWings ____(5)________(7)____ in any directionFanning outOne clickSeveral clicks ReasonAnger, interestContentmentAnger or pain____(6)____HappinessAggression____(8)____WarningThe Reading Passage has six paragraphs, A-F.Which paragraph contains the following information?Write the correct letter A-F in boxes 9-14 on your answer sheet.NB You mayuse any letter more than once.9) Mentions behaviour connected to a bird’s state of health10) Describes how birds say hello11) Compares the behaviour of two different pets12) Compares humans and birds13) Discusses the importance of learning about bird behaviour14) Describes how birds indicate they want physical contact 参考答案Answers1) in2) flashing3) open4) movement5) hanging down / at side6) illness7) wagging / movement8) greeting9) C10) E11) D/F12) B13) A14) F文档内容到此结束,欢迎大家下载、修改、丰富并分享给更多有需要的人。

雅思模拟试题1-阅读(学术类)

雅思模拟试题1-阅读(学术类)

Academic ReadingALL ANSWERS MUST BE WRITTEN ON THE ANSWER SHEET.The test is divided as follows:Reading Passage 1 Questions 1 to 13Reading Passage 2 Questions 14 to 27Reading Passage 3 Questions 28 to 40Start at the beginning of the test and work through it. You should answer all the questions. If you cannot do a particular question leave it and go on to the next one. You can return to it later.TLME ALLOWED: 60 MINUTESNUMBER OF QUESTIONS: 40Read ing Passage 1You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-14, which are based on Reading Questio ns 1-5Read ing Passage 1 has seve n paragraphs A-G.Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B-E and G from the list of headings below. Write the correct nu mber (i-x) in boxes 1-5 on your an swer sheet.Example Paragraph A An swer iv1 Paragraph B2 Paragraph C3 Paragraph D4 Paragraph EExample Paragraph F An swer ii5 Paragraph GSpace travel AND healthASpace biomedicine is a relatively new area of research both in the USA and in Europe. Its main objectives are to study the effects of space travel on the human body, identifying the most critical medical problems and finding solutions to those problems. Space biomedicine centres are receiving increasing direct support from NASA and/or the European Space Agency (ESA).BThis involvement of NASA and the ESA reflects growing concern that the feasibility of travel to other planets, and beyond, is no longer limited by engineering constraints but by what the human body can actually withstand. The discovery of ice on Mars, for instance, means that there is now no necessity to design and develop a spacecraft large and powerful enough to transport the vast amounts of water needed to sustain the crew throughout journeys that may last many years. Without the necessary protection and medical treatment, however, their bodies would be devastated by the unremittingly hostile environment of space.CThe most obvious physical changes undergone by people in zero gravity are essentially harmless; in some cases they are even amusing. The blood and other fluids are no longer dragged down towards the feet by the gravity of Earth, so they accumulate higher up in the body, creating what is sometimes called ‘ faftace ,' together with the contrasting‘ chickelnegs 'syndrome as the lower limbs become thinner.Much more serious are the unseen consequencesafter months or years in space. With no gravity, there is less need for a sturdy skeleton to support the body, with the result that the bones weaken, releasing calcium into the bloodstream. This extra calcium can overload the kidneys, leading ultimately to renal failure. Muscles too lose strength through lack of use. The heart becomes smaller, losing the power to pump oxygenated blood to all parts of the body, while the lungs lose the capacity to breathe fully. The digestive system becomes less efficient, a weakened immune system is increasingly unable to prevent diseasesand the high levels of solar and cosmic radiation can cause various forms of cancer.ETo make matters worse, a wide range of medical difficulties can arise in the case of an accident or serious illness when the patient is millions of kilometres from Earth. There is simply not enough room available inside a space vehicle to include all the equipment from a hospital 's casualty unit, some of which would not work properly in space anyway. Even basic things such as a drip depend on gravity to function, while standard resuscitation techniques become ineffective if sufficient weight cannot be applied. The only solution seems to be to create extremely small medical tools and ‘ smartd'evices that can, for example, diagnose and treat internal injuries using ultrasound. The cost of designing and producing this kind of equipment is bound to be, well, astronomical.FSuch considerations have led some to question the ethics of investing huge sums of money to help a handful of people who, after all, are willingly risking their own health in outer space, when so much needs to be done a lot closer to home. It is now clear, however, that every problem of space travel has a parallel problem on Earth that will benefit from the knowledge gained and the skills developed from space biomedical research. For instance, the very difficulty of treating astronauts in space has led to rapid progress in the field of telemedicine, which in turn has brought about developments that enable surgeons to communicate with patients in inaccessible parts of the world. To take another example, systems invented to sterilize waste water on board spacecraft could be used by emergency teams to filter contaminated water at the scene of natural disasters such as floods andearthquakes. In the same way, miniature monitoring equipment, developed to save weight in space capsules, will eventually become tiny monitors that patients on Earth can wear without discomfort wherever they go.GNevertheless, there is still one major obstacle to carrying out studies into the effects of space travel: how to do so without going to the enormous expense of actually working in space. To simulate conditions in zero gravity, one tried and tested method is to work under water, but the space biomedicine centres are also looking at other ideas. In one experiment, researchers study the weakening of bones that results from prolonged inactivity. This would involve volunteers staying in bed for three months, but the centre concerned is confident there should be no great difficulty in finding people willing to spend twelve weeks lying down. All in the name of science, of course.Questi ons 6 and 7An swer the question below usin gNO MORE THAN THREE WORDS each an swer.6 Where, apart from Earth, can space travellers find water? ......................7 What happe ns to huma n legs duri ng space travel? ....................Questio ns 8-12Do the followi ng stateme nts agree with the writerIn boxes 8-12 on your an swer sheet writeYES if the stateme nt agrees with tile views of the writerNO if the statement does not agree with the views of the writerNOT GIVEN if there is no information about this in the passage8 The obstacles to going far into space are now medical, not tech no logical.9 Astr on auts cannot survive more tha n two years in space.10 It is morally wrong to spend so much money on space biomedicine.11 Some kinds of surgery are more successful whe n performed in space.12 Space biomedical research can only be done in space.Questi ons 13 and 14Complete the table belowChooseNO MORE THAN THREE WORDSm the passage for each an swer.Write your an swers in boxes 13 and 14 on your an swer sheet.Telemedic ine treat ing astr on auts 13 .......................... i n remote areasSterilizati on steriliz ing waste water 14 .......................... i n disaster zoness views in Readi ng Passage 1? Telemedic ine treat ing astr on auts 13 .......................... in remote areasMin iaturizatio n sav ingweightweari ng small mon itorscomfortablyRead ing Passage 2You should spe nd about 20 minu tes on Questi on S15-27, which are based on Read ing Passage 2.Cann es. Monte Carlo. St Tropez. Magic n ames all. And much of the en cha ntme nt comes from the deep blue water that laps their shores. But what if somebody pulled the plug? Suppose the Mediterranean Sea were to vanish, leaving behind an expanse of salt desert the size of India. Hard to imagine? It happened.‘ iwould have looked like Death Valley, says Bill Ryan, from the Lam on t-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, one of the leaders of the team that discovered the Mediterranean had once dried up, then refilled in a deluge of Biblical proportions. Between five and six million years ago, the great desiccation touched off what scientists call me Messinian Salinity Crisis-a global chemical imbalance that triggered a wrenching series of exti nctions and plun ged the Earth into an ice age.The first indications of some extraordinary past events came in the 1960s, when geologists 20 discovered that major rivers flowing into the Mediterranean had eroded deep canyons in the rock at the bottom of the sea. River erosi on of bedrock cannot occur below sea level, yet somehow the River Rhone in the South of France had man aged to create a cha nnel 1000 metres deep in the sea floor, while the Nile had cut nearly 1500 metres into the rock off the North African coast. There was more: despite the fact that the formation of caves can only take place above water, scie ntists 30 discovered a whole n etwork ben eath the isla nd of Malta that reached an ast oni shi ng depth of 2000 metres below sea level.Further evidence came to light in 1970, when an international team chugged across the Mediterranean in a drilling ship to study the sea floor near the Spanish island of Majorca. Strange things started turning up in core samples: layers of microscopic plants and soil sandwiched betweenbeds of salt more than two kilometres below today 's sea level. The plants had grown in sunlight. Also discovered inside the rock were fossilized shallow-water shellfish, together with salt and silt: particles of sand and mud that had once been carried by river water. Could the sea floor once have been near a shoreline?That question led Ryan and his fellow team leader, Kenneth Hs u , to piece together a staggering chain of events. About 5.8 million years ago, they concluded, the Mediterranean was gradually cut off from the Atlantic Ocean when continental drift pinned Morocco against Spain. As the opening became both narrower and shallower, the deep outward flow from sea to ocean was progressively cut off, leaving only the shallow inward flow of ocean water into the Mediterranean. As this water evaporated, the sea became more saline and creatures that couldn 'htandle the rising salt content perished. ‘Thesea'insterior was dead as a door nail, except for bacteria, ' says Ryan. When the shallow opening raatltGairbfinally closed completely, the Mediterranean, with only rivers to feed it, dried up and died.Meanwhile, the evaporated water was falling back to Earth as rain. When the fresh water reached the oceans, it made them less saline. With less salt in it to act as an antifreeze, parts of the ocean that would not normally freeze began to turn to ice.‘The ice reflects sunlight into space, ' says Ryan. 'The planet cools. You drive yourself into an ice age. 'Eventually, a small breach in the Gibraltar dam sent the process into reverse. Ocean water cut a tiny channel to the Mediterranean. As the gap enlarged, the water flowed faster and faster, until the torrent ripped through the emerging Straits of Gibraltar at more than 100 knots. ‘The Gibraltar Fallswe0retim10es bigger than Victoria Falls and a thousand times grander than Niagara, 'Hs u wrote in his book The Mediterranean was a Desert (Princeton University Press, 1983).In the end the rising waters of the vast inland sea drowned the falls and warm waterbegan to escape to the Atlantic, reheating the oceans and the planet. The salinity crisis ended about 5.4 million years ago. It had lasted roughly 400,000 years.Subsequent drilling expeditions have added a few wrinkies to Ryan and Hs u' s scenario. For example, researchers have found salt deposits more than two kilometres thick - so thick, some believe, that the Mediterranean must have dried up and refilled many times. But those are just geological details. Fortourists the crucial question is, could it happen again? Should Malaga start stockpiling dynamite? Not yet, says Ryan. If continental drift does reseal the Mediterranean, it won several million years.‘Some future creatures may face the issue of how to respond to nature ' s closure. It ' s not something our species has to worry about. 'Questions 15-19Complete the summary below.Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.Write your answers in boxes 15-19 on your answer sheet.The 1960s discovery of 15 ......................... in the bedrock of the Mediterranean, aswell as deep caves beneath Malta, suggested something strange had happened in the region, as these features must have been formed 16 ................................................ sea level. Subsequent examination of the 17 ........................ off Majorca provided more proof.Rock samples from 2000 metres down contained both vegetation and18 ....................... that could not have lived in deep water, as well as19 ....................... o ri g i n a l l y transported by river.Questions 20-22Complete each of the following statements with the best ending from the box below. Write the appropriate letters A-G in boxes 20-22 on your answer sheet.20 The extra ice did not absorb the heat from the sun, so...21 The speed of the water from the Atlantic increased as...22 The Earth and its oceans became warmer when...Questions 23-27Choose the appropriate letters A, B, C or D and write them in boxes 23-27 on your answer sheet.23 What, according to Ryan and Hs u , happened about 5.8 million years ago? A Movement of the continents suddenly closed the Straits of Gibraltar.B The water level of the Atlantic Ocean gradually fell.C The flow of water into the Mediterranean was immediately cut off.D Water stopped flowing from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.24 Why did most of the animal and plant life in the Mediterranean die?A The water became too salty.B There was such a lot of bacteria in the water.C The rivers did not provide salt water.D The sea became a desert.25 According to the text, the events at Gibraltar led toA a permanent cooling of the Earth.B the beginning and the end of an ice age.C the formation of waterfalls elsewhere in the world.D a lack of salt in the oceans that continues to this day.26 More recent studies show thatA Ryan and Hs u's theory was correct in every detail.B the Mediterranean was never cut off from the Atlantic.C it may have been cut off more than once.D it might once have been a freshwater lake.27 At the end of the article, Ryan suggests thatA the Mediterranean will never dry up again.B humans will have the technology to prevent it drying up again.C the Mediterranean is certain to dry up again one day.D humans will never see the Mediterranean dry up.Read ing Passage 3You should spe nd about 20 minu tes on Questi ons 28-40, which are based on Read ingPassage 3.Dogs: a love storyAGen etic studies show that dogs evolved from wolves and rema in as similar to the creatures from which they came as huma ns with differe nt physical characteristics are to each other, which is. to say not much different at all, ‘ Even in the most changemitochondrial DNA markers - DNA handed down on the mother' s ide- dogs and wolves differ by not ' much more than one per cent ' says Robert Wayne, a geneticist at the University of California at Los Angeles.BWolf-like species go back one to two milli on years, says Wayne, whose gen etic work suggests dogs of some sort bega n break ing away about 100,000 years ago. Wolf and early huma n fossils have bee n found close together from as far back as 400,000 years ago, but dog and huma n fossils date back only about 14,000 years, all of which puts wolves and/or dogs in the company of man or his progenitor 'before the development of farming and permanent human settlements, at a time when both species survived on what they could scratch out hunting or scave nging.CWhy would these competitors cooperate? The answer probably lies in the similar social structure and size of wolf packs and early human clans, the compatibility of their hunting objectives and range, and the willingness of humans to accept into camp the most supplia nt wolves, the young or less threate ning on es.DCertai n wolves or protodogs may have worked their way close to the fire ring after smelli ng somethi ng good to eat, the n into early huma n gatheri ngs by proving helpfulor unthreatening. As wandering packs of twenty- five or thirty wolves and clans of like- numbered nomadic humans roamed the landscape in tandem, hunting big game, the animals hung around campsites scavenging leftovers, and the humans might have used the wolves ' superior scenting ability and speed to locate and track prospective kills. At night, wolves with their keen senses could warn humans of danger approaching.ETimes might not have been as hard back then as is commonly thought, in many instances food would have been plentiful, predators few, and the boundaries between humans and wildlife porous. Through those pores slipped smaller or less threatening wolves, which from living in packs where alpha bosses reigned would know the tricks of subservience and could adapt to humans in charge. Puppies in particular would be hard to resist, as they are today. Thus was a union born and a process of domestication begun.FOver the millennia, admission of certain wolves and protodogs into human camps and exclusion of larger, more threatening ones led to the development of people-friendly breeds distinguishable from wolves by size, shape, coat, cars and markings. Dogs were generally smaller than wolves, their snouts proportionally reduced. They would assist in the hunt clean up camp by eating garbage, warn of danger, keep humans warm, and serve as food. Native Americans among others ate puppies, and in some societies it remains accepted practice.GBy the fourth millennium BC Egyptian rock and pottery drawings show dogs being put to work by men. Then, as now, the relationship was not without drawbacks. Feral dogs roamed city streets, stealing food from people returning from market. Despite their penchant for misbehaviour, and sometimes because of it, dogs keep turning up at all the important junctures in human history.HIn ancient Greece, 350 years before Christ, Aristotle described three types of domesticated dogs, including speedy Laconians used by the rich to chase and kill rabbits and deer. Three hundred years later, Roman warriors trained large dogs for battle. The brutes could knock an armed man from his horse and dismember him.IIn seventeenth-century England, dogs still worked, pulling carts, sleds, and ploughs, herding livestock, or working as turn-spits, powering wheels that turned beef and venison over open fires. But Working dogs were not much loved and were usually hanged or drowned when they got old. ‘ Unnecessary ' dogs meanwhile gained statusamong English royalty. King James I was said to love his dogs more than his subjects.Charles n was famous for playing with his dog at Council table, and his brother James had dogs at sea in 1682 when his ship was caught in a storm. As sailors drowned, he allegedly cried out, ‘Save the dogs and Colonel Churchill! 'JBy the late nineteenth century the passion for breeding led to the creation of private registries to protect prized bloodlines. The Kennel Club was formed in England in 1873, and eleven years later the American Kennel Club (AKC) was formed across the Atlantic. Today the AKC registers 150 breeds, the Kennel Club lists 196, and the Europe-based F e d e ratioC yno logique Intern ati on ale recog ni zes many more. Dog shows sprouted in the mid- 1800s when unnecessary dogs began vastly to outnumber working ones, as they do to this day. Unless, that is, you count companionship as a job.Questions 28-31Reading Passage 3 has ten paragraphs labelled A-J.Write the correct letters A-J in boxes 28-31 on your answer sheet.28 Which paragraph explains how dogs became different in appearance from wolves?29 Which paragraph describes the classification of dogs into many different types?30 Which paragraph states the basic similarity betwee n wolves and dogs?31 Which paragraph gives examples of greater huma n concern for ani mals tha n for people? Questio ns 32-35Which FOUR of the follow ing stateme nts are made in the text?Choose FOUR letters from A-H and write them in boxes 32-35 on your answer sheet.A In a typical camp there were many more wolves tha n huma ns.B Neither the wolves nor the huma ns lived in one place for long.C Some wolves learned to obey human leaders.D Huma ns chose the most dan gerous wolves to help them hunt.E There was very little for early humans to eat.F Wolves got food from early huma ns.G Wolves started livi ng with huma ns whe n agriculture bega n.H Early huma ns especially liked very young wolves.Questio ns 36-40Write the correct letters A-F in boxes 36-40 on your an swer sheet.36 in war37 as a source of energy38 as food39 to hunt other animals40 to work with farm animals。

雅思阅读考试模拟试练习题及答案解析新

雅思阅读考试模拟试练习题及答案解析新

雅思阅读考试模拟试练习题及答案解析盼望以下内容能够对大家的雅思备考有所关心!更多雅思报名的最新消息,最专业的雅思备考资料,我将为大家发布。

Time to cool itFrom The Economist print edition1 REFRIGERATORS are the epitome of clunky technology: solid, reliable and just a little bit dull. They have not changed much over the past century, but then they have not needed to. They are based on a robust and effective idea--draw heat from the thing you want to cool by evaporating a liquid next to it, and then dump that heat by pumping the vapour elsewhere and condensing it. This method of pumping heat from one place to another served mankind well when refrigerators' main jobs were preserving food and, as air conditioners, cooling buildings. Today's high-tech world, however, demands high-tech refrigeration. Heat pumps are no longer up to the job. The search is on for something to replace them.2 One set of candidates are known as paraelectric materials. These act like batteries when they undergo a temperature change: attach electrodes to them and they generate a current. This effect is used in infra-red cameras. An array of tiny pieces of paraelectric material can sense the heat radiated by, for example, a person, and the pattern of the array's electrical outputs can then be used to construct an image. But until recently no one had bothered much with the inverse of this process. That inverse exists, however. Apply an appropriate current to a paraelectric material and it will cool down.3 Someone who is looking at this inverse effect is Alex Mischenko, of Cambridge University. Using commercially available paraelectric film,he and his colleagues have generated temperature drops five times bigger than any previously recorded. That may be enough to change the phenomenon from a laboratory curiosity to something with commercial applications.4 As to what those applications might be, Dr Mischenko is still a little hazy. He has, nevertheless, set up a company to pursue them. He foresees putting his discovery to use in more efficient domestic fridges and air conditioners. The real money, though, may be in cooling computers.5 Gadgets containing microprocessors have been getting hotter for a long time. One consequence of Moore's Law, which describes the doubling of the number of transistors on a chip every 18 months, is that the amount of heat produced doubles as well. In fact, it more than doubles, because besides increasing in number, the components are getting faster. Heat is released every time a logical operation is performed inside a microprocessor, so the faster the processor is, the more heat it generates. Doubling the frequency quadruples the heat output. And the frequency has doubled a lot. The first Pentium chips sold by Dr Moore's company, Intel, in 1993, ran at 60m cycles a second. The Pentium 4--the last "single-core" desktop processor--clocked up 3.2 billion cycles a second.6 Disposing of this heat is a big obstruction to further miniaturisation and higher speeds. The innards of a desktop computer commonly hit 80℃. At 85℃, they stop working. Tweaking the processor's heat sinks (copper or aluminium boxes designed to radiate heat away) has reached its limit. So has tweaking the fans that circulate air over those heat sinks. And the idea of shifting from single-core processors to systems that divided processing power between first two, and then four, subunits, in order to spread the thermal load, also seems to have the endof the road in sight.7 One way out of this may be a second curious physicalphenomenon, the thermoelectric effect. Like paraelectric materials, this generates electricity from a heat source and produces cooling from an electrical source. Unlike paraelectrics, a significant body of researchers is already working on it.8 The trick to a good thermoelectric material is a crystal structure in which electrons can flow freely, but the path of phonons--heat-carrying vibrations that are larger than electrons--is constantly interrupted. In practice, this trick is hard to pull off, and thermoelectric materials are thus less efficient than paraelectric ones (or, at least, than those examined by Dr Mischenko). Nevertheless, Rama Venkatasubramanian, of Nextreme Thermal Solutions in North Carolina, claims to have made thermoelectric refrigerators that can sit on the back of computer chips and cool hotspots by 10℃. Ali Shakouri, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, says his are even smaller--so small that they can go inside the chip.9 The last word in computer cooling, though, may go to a system even less techy than a heat pump--a miniature version of a car radiator. Last year Apple launched a personal computer that is cooled by liquid that is pumped through little channels in the processor, and thence to a radiator, where it gives up its heat to the atmosphere. To improve on this, IBM's research laboratory in Zurich is experimenting with tiny jets that stir the liquid up and thus make sure all of it eventually touches the outside of the channel--the part where the heat exchange takes place. In the future, therefore, a combination of microchannels and either thermoelectrics or paraelectrics might cool computers. The old, as it were, hand in hand with the new.(830 words)Questions 1-5Complete each of the following statements with the scientist or company name from the box below.Write the appropriate letters A-F in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.A. AppleB. IBMC. IntelD. Alex MischenkoE. Ali ShakouriF. Rama Venkatasubramanian1. ...and his research group use paraelectric film available from the market to produce cooling.2. ...sold microprocessors running at 60m cycles a second in 1993.3. ...says that he has made refrigerators which can cool the hotspots of computer chips by 10℃.4. ...claims to have made a refrigerator small enough to be built intoa computer chip.5. ...attempts to produce better cooling in personal computers by stirring up liquid with tiny jets to make sure maximum heat exchange.Questions 6-9Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage?In boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet writeTRUE if the statement is true according to the passageFALSE if the statement is false according to the passageNOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage6. Paraelectric materials can generate a current when electrodes are attached to them.7. Dr. Mischenko has successfully applied his laboratory discovery to manufacturing more efficient referigerators.8. Doubling the frequency of logical operations inside a microprocessor doubles the heat output.9. IBM will achieve better computer cooling by combining microchannels with paraelectrics.Question 10Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in box 10 on your answer sheet.10. Which method of disposing heat in computers may have a bright prospect?A. Tweaking the processors?heat sinks.B. Tweaking the fans that circulate air over the processor抯heat sinks.C. Shifting from single-core processors to systems of subunits.D. None of the above.Questions 11-14Complete the notes below.Choose one suitable word from the Reading Passage above for each answer.Write your answers in boxes 11-14 on your answer sheet.Traditional refrigerators use...11...pumps to drop temperature. At present, scientists are searching for other methods to produce refrigeration, especially in computer microprocessors....12...materials have been tried to generate temperature drops five times bigger than any previously recorded. ...13...effect has also been adopted by many researchers to cool hotspots in computers. A miniature version of acar ...14... may also be a system to realize ideal computer cooling in the future.Key and Explanations:1. DSee Paragraph 3: ...Alex Mischenko, of Cambridge University. Using commercially available paraelectric film, he and his colleagues have generated temperature drops...2. CSee Paragraph 5: The first Pentium chips sold by Dr Moore's company, Intel, in 1993, ran at 60m cycles a second.3. FSee Paragraph 8: ...Rama Venkatasubramanian, of Nextreme Thermal Solutions in North Carolina, claims to have made thermoelectric refrigerators that can sit on the back of computer chips and cool hotspots by 10℃.4. ESee Paragraph 8: Ali Shakouri, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, says his are even smaller梥o small that they can go inside the chip.5. BSee Paragraph 9: To improve on this, IBM's research laboratory in Zurich is experimenting with tiny jets that stir the liquid up and thus make sure all of it eventually touches the outside of the channel--the part where the heat exchange takes place.6. TRUESee Paragraph 2: ...paraelectric materials. These act like batteries when they undergo a temperature change: attach electrodes to them and they generate a current.7. FALSESee Paragraph 3 (That may be enough to change the phenomenon from a laboratory curiosity to something with commercial applications. ) and Paragraph 4 (As to what those applications might be, Dr Mischenko is still a little hazy. He has, nevertheless, set up a company to pursue them. He foresees putting his discovery to use in more efficient domestic fridges?8. FALSESee Paragraph 5: Heat is released every time a logical operation is performed inside a microprocessor, so the faster the processor is, the more heat it generates. Doubling the frequency quadruples the heat output.9. NOT GIVENSee Paragraph 9: In the future, therefore, a combination of microchannels and either thermoelectrics or paraelectrics might cool computers.10. DSee Paragraph 6: Tweaking the processor's heat sinks ?has reached its limit. So has tweaking the fans that circulate air over those heat sinks. And the idea of shifting from single-core processors to systems?also seems to have the end of the road in sight.11. heatSee Paragraph 1: Today's high-tech world, however, demandshigh-tech refrigeration. Heat pumps are no longer up to the job. The search is on for something to replace them.12. paraelectricSee Paragraph 3: Using commercially available paraelectric film, he and his colleagues have generated temperature drops five times bigger than any previously recorded.13. thermoelectricSee Paragraph 7: ...the thermoelectric effect. Like paraelectricmaterials, this generates electricity from a heat source and produces cooling from an electrical source. Unlike paraelectrics, a significant body of researchers is already working on it.14. radiatorSee Paragraph 9: The last word in computer cooling, though, may go to a system even less techy than a heat pump--a miniature version of a car radiator.文档内容到此结束,欢迎大家下载、修改、丰富并分享给更多有需要的人。

雅思考试模拟试题及答案(阅读部分

雅思考试模拟试题及答案(阅读部分

雅思考试模拟试题及答案(阅读部分雅思考试模拟试题及答案(阅读部分)以下是应届毕业生网店铺为同学们收集雅思考试模拟试题及答案(阅读部分),供大家参考!1.Everyone in a particular society recognizes social roles: father, mother, child, teacher, student, police officer, store clerk, doctor, judge, political leader, and so on. Every culture expects certain types of behavior from people who play certain social roles. Anyone occupying a given position is expected to adopt a specific attitude. A store clerk is expected to take care of customers patiently and politely, and a judge is expected to make wise and fair decisions about laws.Informal social roles are not always easy to recognize, but can be identified with careful research. They are key indicators of a group's health and happiness. Within the family, one informal role is the family hero, the person who defines integrity and upholds family morality. Others are the family arbitrator, the person who keeps the peace, and the family historian, often a grandparent, who relays valuable cultural information that maintains both the family and the larger society. And finally, there is the family friend, the person who provides comfort and companionship to the family members with emotional needs.1.Why does the author mention a store clerk and a judge in paragraph 1?A. To give examples of people who hold positions of respects.B. To explain why social roles are important to a society.C. To illustrate the behavior required of certain social roles.D. To compare the responsibilities of two different occupations.2.Why does the author use the term key indicators in discussing informal social roles?A.To identify the most important type of social roles.B.To explain how to identify informal social rolesC.To point out that informal roles are unique to familiesD.To emphasize the value of informal roles to a group答案:1.C2.D2.The many part of the earth’s atmosphere are linked with the various parts of the earth’s surface to produce a whole---the climate system. Different par ts of the earth’s surface react to the energy of the sun in different ways. For example, ice and snow reflect much of it. Land surfaces absorb solar energy and heat up rapidly. Oceans store the energy without experiencing a significant temperature rise. Thus, the different types of surfaces transfer heat into the atmosphere at different rates.We can view climate as existing in three domains: space, time, and human perception. In the domain of space, we can study local, regional, and global climates. In time, we can look at the climate for a year, a decade, a millennium, and so forth. Finally, we depend on our perceptions of the data, so we must include our own human perception into our model. Human perception must be included if our understanding of climatic processes is to be translated into societal actions. As a society, we make informed choices about how to use the beneficial effects of climate, such as deciding when and where to plant crops. We also make choices about how to minimize the harmful effects of climate---storms, blizzards, and droughts.1.Why does the author discuss different parts of the earth’s surface in paragraph 1?A.To explain why humans live in some parts but not in othersB.To show that the entire earth is made of the same materialsC.To compare how various surfaces transfer heat into the atmosphereD.To describe changes in the earth’s appearance throughout the year.2.According to the author, why must we include human perception in our study of climate?A.We must interpret data and take actions related to climateB.We must create an interesting model of the climate systemC.We must develop an understanding of our environmentD.We must change our traditional ways of studying climate.(思考)3. Read the sentence below and write an essay which will have a minimum of 100 words.Our understanding of climatic processes is to be translated into societal actions.答案:1.C2.A3. veral men have been responsible for promoting forestry asa profession. Foremost was Gifford Pinchot, the father of the professional forestry in America. He was chief of the Forest Service from 1898 until 1910, working with President Theodore Roosevelt to instigate sound conservation practices in forests. Later he was professor of forestry and founder of the Pinchot School of Forestry at Yale University. Another great forester was Dr. Bernard E. Fernow, the first head of the U.S. Forest Service. He organized the first American school of professional forestry at Cornell University.The foresters of today, like Pinchot and Fernow in the past, plan and supervise the growth, protection, and utilization of trees.They make maps of forest areas, estimate the amount of standing timber and future growth, and manage timber sales. They also protect the trees from fire, harmful insects, and disease. Some foresters may be responsible for other duties, ranging from wildlife protection and watershed management to the development and supervision of camps, parks, and grazing lands. Others do research, provide information to forest owners and to the general public, and teach in colleges and universities.1.Why does the author compare Pinchot and Fernow to the foresters of today?A.To describe different philosophies of forestry managementB.To show how the field of forestry has changed in 100 yearsC.To argue for the expansion of university forestry programsD.To introduce the type of work done by professional foresters2.All of the following are mentioned in the passage EXCEPTA.what foresters do besides protecting treesB.how to select a good school of forestryC.people who promoted forestry as a careerD.management of timber and timber sales3. Think about how professors can contribute their wisdom to the public affairs. Write down your contemplations in a essay which have a minimum of 100 words.答案 :1.D2.B4. clothing to declare their membership in a particular social group; however, the rules for what is acceptable dress for that group may change. In affluent societies, this changing of the rules is the driving force behind fashions. By keeping up with fashions, that is, by changing their clothing style frequently butsimultaneously, members of a group both satisfy their desire for novelty and obey the rules, thus demonstrating their membership in the group.There are some interesting variations regarding individual status. Some people, particularly in the West, consider themselves of such high status that they do not need to display it with their clothing. For example, many wealthy people in the entertainment industry appear in very casual clothes, such as the worn jeans and work boots of a manual laborer. However, it is likely that a subtle but important signal, such as an expensive wristwatch, will prevail over the message of the casual dress. Such an inverted status display is most likely to occur where the person’s high status is conveyed in ways other than with clothing, such as having a famous face.1.According to the author, fashions serve all the following purposes EXCEPTA.satisfying an interest in noveltyB.signaling a change in personal beliefsC.displaying membership in a social groupD.following traditional rules2.Why does the author discuss individual status in paragraph 2?A.To state that individuals status is not important in the WestB.To argue that individuals need not obey every fashion ruleC.To contrast the status of entertainers with that of manual laborersD.To explain how high status may involve an inverted status display3. with the booming economy and rising status, Chinese people are beginning to remember the clothing belonging to ourown nation which is called “han fu”(汉服),and some youth have worn them in some traditional festivals. Please write an essay to express your own thinking.答案:1.B2.DThe war for independence from Britain was a long and economically costly conflict. The New England fishing industry was temporarily destroyed, and the tobacco colonies in the South were also hard hit. The trade in imports was severely affected, since the war was fought against the country that had previously monopolized the colonies’ supply of manufactured goods. The most serious consequences were felt in the cities, whose existence depended on commercial activity. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston were all occupied for a time by British troops. Even when the troops had left, British ships lurked in the harbors and continued to disrupt trade.American income from shipbuilding and commerce declined abruptly, undermining the entire economy of the urban areas. The decline in trade brought a fall in the American standard of living. Unemployed shipwrights, dock laborers, and coopers drifted off to find work on farms and in small villages. Some of them joined the Continental army, or if they were loyal to Britain, they departed with the British forces. The population of the New York City declined from 21,000 in 1774 to less than half that number only nine years later in 1783.The disruptions produced by the fighting of the war, by the loss of established markets for manufactured goods, by the loss of sources of credit, and by the lack of new investment all created a period of economic stagnation that lasted for the next twenty years.1.Why does the author mention the fishing industry and the tobacoo colonies?A. to show how the war for independence affected the economyB. to compare the economic power of two different regionsC. to identify the two largest commercial enterprises in AmericaD. to give examples of industries controlled by British forces2. Why does the author mention the population of New York City in paragraph 2?A. to show that half of New York remained loyal to BritainB. to compare New York with other cities occupied during the warC. to emphasize the great short-term cost of the war for New YorkD. to illustrate the percentage of homeless people in New York3. Chinese people had fought for independence from foreign countries for more than 100 years; we had lost lands, powers, resources and lives during that period. Today, China faces a new challenge that how the development can maintain, in other words, how China doesn’t lag behind. Please write an essay to express your ideas.答案:1.A2.CThe discovery of freezing has changed our eating habits more than any other related invention. Because many foods contain large amounts of water, they freeze solidly at or just below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. When we lower the temperature to well below the freezing point and prevent air from penetratingthe food, we retard the natural process of decay that causes food to spoil. Freezing preserves the flavor and nutrients of food better than any other preservation method. When properly prepared and packed, foods and vegetables can be stored in the freezer for one year.Most vegetables and some fruits need blanching before they are frozen, and to avoid this step would be an expensive mistake. The result would be a product largely devoid of vitamins and minerals. Proper blanching curtails the enzyme action, which vegetables require during their growth and ripening but which continues after maturation and will lead to decay unless it is almost entirely stopped by blanching. This process is done in two ways, either by plunging vegetables in a large amount of rapidly boiling water for a few minutes or by steaming them. For steam blanching, it is important that timing begin when the water at the bottom of the pot is boiling. Different vegetables require different blanching times, and specified times for each vegetable must be observed. Under-blanching is like no blanching at all, and over-blanching, while stopping the enzyme action, will produce soggy, discolored vegetables.1.Why does the author mention 32 degrees Fahrenheit?A.To suggest the storage temperature for most foodsB.To identify the freezing point of waterC.To state the correct setting for a freezerD.To give the temperature for blanching2.Why does the author use the term expensive mistake in discussing blanching?A.To state that blanching is expensive but very effectiveB.To warn that not blanching will harm the food’s nutritional valueC.To emphasize the importance of blanching only a few items at a timeD.To show that many people waste food by blanching improperly3. In our daily life, there are a lot of traditional and scientific methods to maintain the foods’ nutrients, please write an essay to introduce the process of one way.答案:1.B2.BThe house style that dominated American housing during the 1880s and 1890s was known as Queen Anne, a curious name for an American style. The name was, in fact, a historical accident, originating with fashionable architects in Victorian England who coined it with apparently no reason other than its pleasing sound. The Queen Anne style was loosely based on medieval structures built long before 1702, the beginning year of Queen Anne’s reign.A distinctive characteristic found in most Queen Anne houses is the unusual roof shape --- a steeply pitched, hipped central portion with protruding lower front and side extensions that end in gables. It is often possible to spot these distinctive roof forms from several blocks away. Another feature of this style is the detailing, shown in the wood shingle siding cut into fanciful decorative patterns of scallops, curves, diamonds, or triangles. Queen Anne houses are almost always asymmetrical. If you draw an imaginary line down the middle of one, you will see how drastically different the right and left sides are, all the way from ground level to roof peak. A final characteristic is the inviting wraparound porch that includes the front door area and then extends around to either the right or left side of the house.Queen Anne houses faded from fashion early in the twentieth century as the public’s taste shifted toward the more modern Prairie and Craftsman style houses. Today, however, Queen Anne houses are favorite symbols of the past, painstakingly and lovingly restored by old-house buffs and reproduced by builders who give faithful attention to the distinctive shapes and detailing that were first popularized more than one hundred years ago.1. Why does the author use the word curious in describing the name of an American style?A.The style was invented before Queen Anne’s reign.B.The name was accidentally misspelled.C.The style was more popular in Victorian England.D.The name did not originate in American.2. The word it in paragraph 1 refers toA. styleB. nameC. accidentD. England3. Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a characteristic feature of Queen Anne houses?A. decorative windowsB. wood shingle exterior wallsC. large porchD. steeply pitched roof4. Which of the following can be inferred from paragraph 2 about the Queen Anne style?A. the Queen Anne style combined several other styles.B. the Queen Anne style had to be built in the city.C. the Queen Anne style was elaborate and ornate.D. the Queen Anne style was not very popular.5. The word buffs in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning toA. expertsB. sellersC. criticsD. painters6. Can you predict the main element which the architects will concern for next generation of house style? Write an essay to give your opinions.答案:1.D2.B3.A4.C5.AOne of the most interesting and distinctive of all uses of language is commentary. An oral reporting of ongoing activity, commentary is used in such public arenas as political ceremonies, parades, funerals, fashion shows and cooking demonstrations. The most frequently occurring type of commentary may be that connected with sports and games. In sports there are two kinds of commentary, and both are often used for the same sporting event. “play-by-play” commentary narrates the sports event, while “color –adding” or “color” commentary provides the audience with pre-event background, during-event interpretation, and post-event evaluation. Color commentary is usually conversational in style and can be a dialogue with two or more commentators.Play-by-play commentary is of interest to linguists because it is unlike other kinds of narrative, which are typically reported in past tense. Play-by-play commentary is reported in present tense. Some examples are “he takes the lead by four” and “she’s in position.” One linguist characterizes radio play-by-play commentary as “a monologue directed at an unknown,unseen mass audience who voluntarily choose to listen…and provide no feedback to the speaker.” It is these characteristics that make this kind of commentary unlike any other type of speech situation.The chief feature of play-by-play commentary is a highly formulaic style of presentation. There is distinctive grammar not only in the use of the present tense but also in the omission of certain element s of sentence structure. For example “Smith in close” eliminates the verb, as some newspaper headlines do. Another example is inverted word order, as in “over at third is Johnson.” Play-by-play commentary is very fluent, keeping up with the pace of the action. The rate is steady and there is little silence. The structure of the commentary is cyclical, reflecting the way most games consist of recurring sequences of short activities---as in tennis and baseball---or a limited number of activity options---as in the various kinds of football. In racing, the structure is even simpler, with the commentator informing the listener of the varying order of the competitors in a “state of play” summary, which is crucial for listeners or viewers who have just tuned in.1.Which of the following statements is true of color commentary?A.It narrates the action of the event in real time, using the present tense.B.It is a monologue given to an audience that does not respond to the speaker.C.It is steady and fluent because it must keep up with the action of the event.D.It gives background on the event, and interprets and evaluates the event.2.Why does the author quote a linguist in paragraph 2?A.To describe the uniqueness of radio play-by-playB.To show how technical sports commentary isC.To give examples of play-by-play commentaryD.To criticize past trends in sports commentary3.It can be inferred from the passage that the author most likely agrees with which of the following statements about sports commentary?A.Color commentary is more important than play-by-play commentaryB.Sports commentators do not need special knowledge of the sport.mentary enhances the excitement and enjoyment of sports.D.Sports commentators should work hard to improve their grammar.答案:1. D2. A3.C。

雅思托福阅读(一)

雅思托福阅读(一)

The Triumph of UnreasonA.Neoclassical economics is built on the assumption that humans are rational beings who have a clear idea of their best interests and strive to extract maximum benefit (or “utility”, in economist-speak) from any situation. Neoclassical economics assumes that the process of decision-making is rational. But that contradicts growing evidence that decision-making draws on the emotions—even when reason is clearly involved.B.The role of emotions in decisions makes perfect sense. For situations met frequently in the past, such as obtaining food and mates, and confronting or fleeing from threats, the neural mechanisms required to weigh up the pros and cons will have been honed by evolution to produce an optimal outcome. Since emotion is the mechanism by which animals are prodded towards such outcomes, evolutionary and economic theory predict the same practical consequences for utility in these cases. But does this still apply when the ancestral machinery has to respond to the stimuli of urban modernity?C.One of the people who thinks that it does not is George Loewenstein, an economist at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh. In particular, he suspects that modern shopping has subverted the decision-making machinery in a way that encourages people to run up debt. To prove the point he has teamed up with two psychologists, Brian Knutson of Stanford University and Drazen Prelec of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to look at what happens in the brain when it is deciding what to buy.D.In a study, the three researchers asked 26 volunteers to decide whether to buy a series of products such as a box of chocolates or a DVD of the television show that were flashed on a computer screen one after another. In each round of the task, the researchers first presented the product and then its price, with each step lasting four seconds. In the final stage, which also lasted four seconds, they asked the volunteers to make up their minds. While the volunteers were taking part in the experiment, the researchers scanned their brains using a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This measures blood flow and oxygen consumption in the brain, as an indication of its activity.E.The researchers found that different parts of the brain were involved at different stages of the test. The nucleus accumbens was the most active part when a product was being displayed. Moreover, the level of its activity correlated with the reported desirability of the product in question.F.When the price appeared, however, fMRI reported more activityin other parts of the brain. Excessively high prices increased activity in the insular cortex, a brain region linked to expectations of pain, monetary loss and the viewing of upsetting pictures. The researchers also found greater activity in this region of the brain when the subject decided not to purchase an item.G.Price information activated the medial prefrontal cortex, too. This part of the brain is involved in rational calculation. In the experiment its activity seemed to correlate with a volunteer's reaction to both product and price, rather than to price alone. Thus, the sense of a good bargain evoked higher activity levels in the medial prefrontal cortex, and this often preceded a decision to buy.H.People's shopping behaviour therefore seems to have piggy-backed on old neural circuits evolved for anticipation of reward and the avoidance of hazards. What Dr Loewenstein found interesting was the separation of the assessment of the product (which seems to be associated with the nucleus accumbens) from the assessment of its price (associated with the insular cortex), even though the two are then synthesised in the prefrontal cortex. His hypothesis is that rather than weighing the present good against future alternatives, as orthodox economics suggests happens, people actually balance the immediate pleasure of the prospective possession of a product with the immediate pain of paying for it.I.That makes perfect sense as an evolved mechanism for trading. If one useful object is being traded for another (hard cash in modern time), the future utility of what is being given up is embedded in the object being traded. Emotion is as capable of assigning such a value as reason. Buying on credit, though, may be different. The abstract nature of credit cards, coupled with the deferment of payment that they promise, may modulate the “con”side of the calculation in favour of the “pro”.J.Whether it actually does so will be the subject of further experiments that the three researchers are now designing. These will test whether people with distinctly different spending behaviour, such as miserliness and extravagance, experience different amounts of pain in response to prices. They will also assess whether, in the same individuals, buying with credit cards eases the pain compared with paying by cash. If they find that it does, then credit cards may have to join the list of things such as fatty and sugary foods, and recreational drugs, that subvert human instincts in ways that seem pleasurable at the time but can have a long and malign aftertaste.Questions 1-6Do the following statemets reflect the claims of the writer inReading Passage 1?Write your answer in Boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.TRUE if the statement reflets the claims of the writer FALSE if the statement contradicts the claims of the writerNOT GIVEN if it is possbile to say what the writer thinks about this1. The belief of neoclassical economics does not accord with the increasing evidence that humans make use of the emotions to make decisions.2. Animals are urged by emotion to strive for an optimal outcomes or extract maximum utility from any situation.3. George Loewenstein thinks that modern ways of shopping tend to allow people to accumulate their debts.4. The more active the nucleus accumens was, the stronger the desire of people for the product in question became.5. The prefrontal cortex of the human brain is linked to monetary loss and the viewing of upsetting pictures.6. When the activity in nucleus accumbens was increased by the sense of a good bargain, people tended to purchase coffee. Questions 7-9Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in boxes 7-9 on your answe sheet.7. Which of the following statements about orthodox economics is true?A. The process which people make their decisions is rational.B. People have a clear idea of their best interests in any situation.C. Humans make judgement on the basis of reason rather then emotion.D. People weigh the present good against future alternatives in shopping.8. The word “miserliness”in line 3 of Paragraph J means__________.A. people's behavior of buying luxurious goodsB. people's behavior of buying very special itemsC. people's behavior of being very mean in shoppingD. people's behavior of being very generous in shopping9. The three researchers are now designing the future experiments, which testA. whether people with very different spending behaviour experience different amounts of pain in response to products.B. whether buying an item with credit cards eases the pain of the same individuals compared with paying for it by cash.C. whether the abstract nature of credit cards may modulate the “con” side of the calculation in favour of the “pro”.D. whether the credit cards may subvert human instincts in waysthat seem pleasurable but with a terrible effect.Questions 10-13Complete the notes below.Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from Reading Passage 1 for each answer.Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.To find what happens in the brain of humans when it is decidingthings to buy, George Loewenstein and his co-researchers did an experiment by using the technique of fMRI. They found that differentparts of the brain were invloved in the process. The activity in 10 was greatly increased with the displaying of certain product. Thegreat activity was found in the insular cortex when 11 and the subject decided not to buy a product. The activity of the medial prefrontal cortex seemed to associate with both 12 informaiton. What interested Dr Loewenstein was the 13 of the assessment of the product and its price in different parts of the brain.Don't wash those fossils!Standard museum practice can wash away DNA.1. Washing, brushing and varnishing fossils-all standard conservation treatments used by many fossil hunters and museum curators alike-vastly reduces the chances of recovering ancient DNA.2. Instead, excavators should be handling at least some of their bounty with gloves, and freezing samples as they are found, dirt andall, concludes a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academyof Sciences today.3. Although many palaeontologists know anecdotally that this isthe best way to up the odds of extracting good DNA, Eva-Maria Geiglof the Jacques Monod Institute in Paris, France, and her colleagueshave now shown just how important conservation practices can be. This information, they say, needs to be hammered home among the peoplewho are actually out in the field digging up bones.4. Geigl and her colleagues looked at 3,200-year-old fossil bones belonging to a single individual of an extinct cattle species, calledan aurochs. The fossils were dug up at a site in France at two different times — either in 1947, and stored in a museum collection,or in 2004, and conserved in sterile conditions at -20 oC.5. The team's attempts to extract DNA from the 1947 bones allfailed. The newly excavated fossils, however, all yielded DNA.6. Because the bones had been buried for the same amount of time, and in the same conditions, the conservation method had to be to blame says Geigl. "As much DNA was degraded in these 57 years as in the 3,200 years before," she says.7. Because many palaeontologists base their work on the shape of fossils alone, their methods of conservation are not designed to preserve DNA, Geigl explains.8. The biggest problem is how they are cleaned. Fossils are often washed together on-site in a large bath, which can allow water and contaminants in the form of contemporary DNA — to permeate into the porous bones. "Not only is the authentic DNA getting washed out, but contamination is getting washed in," says Geigl.9. Most ancient DNA specialists know this already, says Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. But that doesn't mean that best practice has become widespread among those who actually find the fossils.10. Getting hold of fossils that have been preserved with their DNA in mind relies on close relationships between lab-based geneticists and the excavators, says palaeogeneticist Svante P bo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. And that only occurs in exceptional cases, he says.11. P bo's team, which has been sequencing Neanderthal DNA, continually faces these problems. "When you want to study ancient human and Neanderthal remains, there's a big issue of contamination with contemporary human DNA," he says.12. This doesn't mean that all museum specimens are fatally flawed, notes P bo. The Neanderthal fossils that were recently sequenced in his own lab, for example, had been part of a museum collection treated in the traditional way. But P bo is keen to see samples of fossils from every major find preserved in line with Geigl's recommendations — just in case.13. Geigl herself believes that, with cooperation between bench and field researchers, preserving fossils properly could open up avenues of discovery that have long been assumed closed.14. Much human cultural development took place in temperate regions. DNA does not survive well in warm environments in the first place, and can vanish when fossils are washed and treated. For this reason, Geigl says, most ancient DNA studies have been done on permafrost samples, such as the woolly mammoth, or on remains sheltered from the elements in cold caves — including cave bear and Neanderthal fossils.15. Better conservation methods, and a focus on fresh fossils, could boost DNA extraction from more delicate specimens, says Geigl.And that could shed more light on the story of human evolution.GlossaryPalaeontologists古生物学家Aurochs欧洲野牛Neanderthal(人类学)尼安德特人,旧石器时代的古人类Permafrost(地理)永冻层Questions 1-6Answer the following questions by using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.1. How did people traditionally treat fossils?2. What suggestions do Geigl and her colleagues give on what should be done when fossils are found?3. What problems may be posed if fossil bones are washed on-site? Name ONE.4. What characteristic do fossil bones have to make them susceptible to be contaminated with contemporary DNA when they are washed?5. What could be better understood when conservation treatments are improved?6. The passage mentioned several animal species studied by researchers. How many of them are mentioned?Questions 7-11Do the following statements agree with the information given in the passage? Please writeTRUE if the statement agrees with the writer FALSE if the statement does not agree with the writerNOT GIVEN if there is no information about this in the passage7. In their paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , Geigl and her colleagues have shown what conservation practices should be followed to preserve ancient DNA.8. The fossil bones that Geigl and her colleagues studied are all from the same aurochs.9. Geneticists don't have to work on site.10. Only newly excavated fossil bones using new conservation methods suggested by Geigl and her colleagues contain ancient DNA.11. Paabo is still worried about the potential problems caused by treatments of fossils in traditional way.Questions 12-13Complete the following the statements by choosing letter A-D for each answer.12. “This information” in paragraph 3 indicates:[A] It is critical to follow proper practices in preservingancient DNA.[B] The best way of getting good DNA is to handle fossils with gloves.[C] Fossil hunters should wear home-made hammers while digging up bones.[D] Many palaeontologists know how one should do in treating fossils.13. The study conducted by Geigl and her colleagues suggests:[A] the fact that ancient DNA can not be recovered from fossil bones excavated in the past.[B] the correlation between the amount of burying time and that of the recovered DNA.[C] the pace at which DNA degrades. the correlation between conservation practices and degradation of DNA.Why did a promising heart drug fail?Doomed drug highlights complications of meddling with cholesterol.1. The failure of a high-profile cholesterol drug has thrown a spotlight on the complicated machinery that regulates cholesterol levels. But many researchers remain confident that drugs to boost levels of ‘good' cholesterol are still one of the most promising means to combat spiralling heart disease.2. Drug company Pfizer announced on 2 December that it was cancelling all clinical trials of torcetrapib, a drug designed to raise heart-protective high-density lipoproteins (HDLs). In a trial of 15000 patients, a safety board found that more people died or suffered cardiovascular problems after taking the drug plus a cholesterol-lowering statin than those in a control group who took the statin alone.3. The news came as a kick in the teeth to many cardiologists because earlier tests in animals and people suggested it would lower rates of cardiovascular disease. "There have been no red flags to my knowledge," says John Chapman, a specialist in lipoproteins and atherosclerosis at the National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM) in Paris who has also studied torcetrapib. "This cancellation came as a complete shock."4. Torcetrapib is one of the most advanced of a new breed of drugs designed to raise levels of HDLs, which ferry cholesterol out of artery-clogging plaques to the liver for removal from the body. Specifically, torcetrapib blocks a protein called cholesterol ester transfer protein (CETP), which normally transfers the cholesterol from high-density lipoproteins to low density, plaque-promoting ones.Statins, in contrast, mainly work by lowering the ‘bad' low-density lipoproteins.5. Researchers are now trying to work out why and how the drug backfired, something that will not become clear until the clinical details are released by Pfizer. One hint lies in evidence from earlier trials that it slightly raises blood pressure in some patients. It was thought that this mild problem would be offset by the heart benefits of the drug. But it is possible that it actually proved fatal in some patients who already suffered high blood pressure. If blood pressure is the explanation, it would actually be good news for drug developers because it suggests that the problems are specific to this compound. Other prototype drugs that are being developed to block CETP work in a slightly different way and might not suffer the same downfall.6. But it is also possible that the whole idea of blocking CETP is flawed, says Moti Kashyap, who directs atherosclerosis research at the VA Medical Center in Long Beach, California. When HDLs excrete cholesterol in the liver, they actually rely on LDLs for part of this process. So inhibiting CETP, which prevents the transfer of cholesterol from HDL to LDL, might actually cause an abnormal and irreversible accumulation of cholesterol in the body. "You're blocking a physiologic mechanism to eliminate cholesterol and effectively constipating the pathway," says Kashyap.7. Most researchers remain confident that elevating high density lipoproteins levels by one means or another is one of the best routes for helping heart disease patients. But HDLs are complex and not entirely understood. One approved drug, called niacin, is known to both raise HDL and reduce cardiovascular risk but also causes an unpleasant sensation of heat and tingling. Researchers are exploring whether they can bypass this side effect and whether niacin can lower disease risk more than statins alone. Scientists are also working on several other means to bump up high-density lipoproteins by, for example, introducing synthetic HDLs. "The only thing we know is dead in the water is torcetrapib, not the whole idea of raising HDL," says Michael Miller, director of preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center, Baltimore.Questions 1-7This passage has 7 paragraphs 1-7.Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.Write the correct number i-ix in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.List of Headingsi. How does torcetrapib work?ii. Contradictory result prior to the current trialiii. One failure may possibly bring about future successiv. The failure doesn't lead to total loss of confidencev. It is the right route to followvi. Why it's stoppedvii. They may combine and theoretically produce ideal result viii. What's wrong with the drugix. It might be wrong at the first placeExample answerParagraph 1 iv1. Paragraph 22. Paragraph 33. Paragraph 44. Paragraph 55. Paragraph 66. Paragraph 7Questions 8-14Match torcetrapib,HDLs,statin and CETP with their functions (Questions 8-14)..Write the correct letter A, B, C or D in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.NB You may use any letter more than once.8.It has been administered to over 10,000 subjects in a clinical trial.9.It could help rid human body of cholesterol.10.Researchers are yet to find more about it.11. It was used to reduce the level of cholesterol.12. According to Kashyap, it might lead to unwanted result if it's blocked.13. It produced contradictory results in different trials.14. It could inhibit LDLs.List of choicesA. TorcetrapicB. HDLSC. StatinD. CETP。

雅思(阅读)模拟试卷1(题后含答案及解析)

雅思(阅读)模拟试卷1(题后含答案及解析)

雅思(阅读)模拟试卷1(题后含答案及解析)题型有:1. Reading ModuleReading Module (60 minutes)READING PASSAGE 1 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below. In Praise of Amateurs Despite the specialisation of scientific research, amateurs still have an important role to play During the scientific revolution of the 17th century, scientists were largely men of private means who pursued their interest in natural philosophy for their own edification. Only in the past century or two has it become possible to make a living from investigating the workings of nature.Modem science was, in other words, built on the work of amateurs. Today, science is an increasingly specialised and compartmentalised subject, the domain of experts who know more and more about less and less. Perhaps surprisingly, however, amateurs - even those without private means - are still important. A recent poll carried out at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science by astronomer Dr Richard Fienberg found that, in addition to his field of astronomy, amateurs are actively involved in such fields as acoustics, horticulture, ornithology, meteorology, hydrology and palaeontology. Far from being crackpots, amateur scientists are often in close touch with professionals, some of whom rely heavily on their co-operation. Admittedly, some fields are more open to amateurs than others. Anything that requires expensive equipment is clearly a no-go area. And some kinds of research can be dangerous; most amateur chemists, jokes Dr Fienberg, are either locked up or have blown themselves to bits. But amateurs can make valuable contributions in fields from rocketry to palaeontology and the rise of the Internet has made it easier than ever before to collect data and distribute results. Exactly which field of study has benefited most from the contributions of amateurs is a matter of some dispute. Dr Fienberg makes a strong case for astronomy. There is, he points out, a long tradition of collaboration between amateur and professional sky watchers. Numerous comets, asteroids and even the planet Uranus were discovered by amateurs. Today, in addition to comet and asteroid spotting, amateurs continue to do valuable work observing the brightness of variable stars and detecting novae - ‘new’stars in the Milky Way and supernovae in other galaxies. Amateur observers are helpful, says Dr Fienberg, because there are so many of them (they far outnumber professionals) and because they are distributed all over the world. This makes special kinds of observations possible: if several observers around the world accurately record the time when a star is eclipsed by an asteroid, for example, it is possible to derive useful information about the asteroid’s shape. Another field in which amateurs have traditionally played an important role is palaeontology. Adrian Hunt, a palaeontologist at Mesa Technical College in New Mexico, insists that his is the field in which amateurs have made the biggest contribution. Despite the development of high-tech equipment, he says, the bestsensors for finding fossils are human eyes - lots of them.Finding volunteers to look for fossils is not difficult, he says, because of the near-universal interest in anything to do with dinosaurs. As well as helping with this research, volunteers learn about science, a process he calls ‘recreational education’. Rick Bonney of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York, contends that amateurs have contributed the most in his field. There are, he notes, thought to be as many as 60 million birdwatchers in America alone. Given their huge numbers and the wide geographical coverage they provide, Mr Bonney has enlisted thousands of amateurs in a number of research projects. Over the past few years their observations have uncovered previously unknown trends and cycles in birdmigrations and revealed declines in the breeding populations of several species of migratory birds, prompting a habitat conservation programme. Despite the successes and whatever the field of study, collaboration between amateurs and professionals is not without its difficulties. Not everyone, for example is happy with the term ‘amateur’. Mr Bonney has coined the term ‘citizen scientist’because he felt that other words, such as ‘volunteer’sounded disparaging. A more serious problem is the question of how professionals can best acknowledge the contributions made by amateurs. Dr Fienberg says that some amateur astronomers are happy to provide their observations but grumble about not being reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses. Others feel let down when their observations are used in scientific papers, but they are not listed as co-authors. Dr Hunt says some amateur palaeontologists are disappointed when told that they cannot take finds home with them. These are legitimate concerns but none seems insurmountable. Provided amateurs and professionals agree the terms on which they will work together beforehand, there is no reason why co-operation between the two groups should not flourish. Last year Dr S. Carlson, founder of the Society for Amateur Scientists won an award worth $290,000 for his work in promoting such co-operation. He says that one of the main benefits of the prize is the endorsement it has given to the contributions of amateur scientists, which has done much to silence critics among those professionals who believe science should remain their exclusive preserve. At the moment, says Dr Carlson, the society is involved in several schemes including an innovative rocket-design project and the setting up of a network of observers who will search for evidence of a link between low-frequency radiation and earthquakes. The amateurs, he says, provide enthusiasm and talent, while the professionals provide guidance ‘so that anything they do discover will be taken seriously’. Having laid the foundations of science, amateurs will have much to contribute to its ever-expanding edifice.Questions 1-8Complete the summary below. Choose ONE or TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.Write your answers in boxes 1-8 on your answer sheet.Summary Prior to the 19th century, professional 【1】______did not exist and scientific research was largely carried out by amateurs. However, while 【2】______today is mostly the domain of professionals, a recent US survey highlighted the fact that amateurs play an important role in at least seven 【3】______and indeed many professionals are reliant on their 【4】______ In areas such as astronomy, amateurs can be invaluable when makingspecific 【5】______on a global basis. Similarly in the area of palaeontology their involvement is invaluable and helpers are easy to recruit because of the popularity of 【6】______ Amateur birdwatchers also play an active role and their work has led to the establishment of a 【7】______Occasionally the term ‘amateur’has been the source of disagreement and alternative names have been suggested but generally speaking, as long as the professional scientists 【8】______the work of the non-professionals, the two groups can work productively together.1.【1】正确答案:scientists解析:Para 1: ... scientists were largely men of private means who pursued theft interest in natural philosophy for their own edification. Only in the past century or two has it become possible to make a living from investigating the workings of nature.*2.【2】正确答案:science解析:Para 1: Today, science is an increasingly specialised and compartmentalised subject, the domain of experts...*3.【3】正确答案:fields解析:Para 2: ... amateurs are actively involved in such fields as acoustics ...*4.【4】正确答案:co-operation/ collaboration解析:Para 2: ... some of whom rely heavily on their co-operation.Para 4: ... a long tradition of collaboration between amateur and professional sky watchers.*5.【5】正确答案:observations解析:Para 4: This makes special kinds of observations possible. The paragraph also refers to valuable work observing and amateur observers.*6.【6】正确答案:dinosaurs解析:Para 5: ... because of the near- universal interest in anything to do with dinosaurs.*7.【7】正确答案:conservation programme解析:Para 6: Over the past few years their observations have uncovered previously unknown trends and cycles ... prompting a habitat conservation programme.*8.【8】正确答案:acknowledge解析:Para 7: A more serious problem is the question of how professionals can best acknowledge ...Questions 9-13Reading Passage 1 contains a number of opinions provided by four different scientists.Match each opinion (Questions 9-13) with the scientists A-D.NB You may use any of the scientists A-D more than once.9.Amateur involvement can also be an instructive pastime.A.Dr FienbergB.Adrian HuntC.Rick BonneyD.Dr Carlson正确答案:B解析:迅速浏览文章,找出第一个科学家的姓名。

雅思阅读题库(完整版)

雅思阅读题库(完整版)

雅思阅读题库(完整版)第一部分:选择题(Multiple Choice)1. “……” 这句话的意思是什么?a. 选项Ab. 选项Bc. 选项Cd. 选项D2. 下列哪个选项与文章主题无关?a. 选项Ab. 选项Bc. 选项Cd. 选项D3. 作者在第二段中提到了哪个事实?a. 选项Ab. 选项Bc. 选项Cd. 选项D第二部分:填空题(Fill in the Blanks)请将以下空格处填上合适的单词。

1. 根据研究显示,____增加了人们患心脏病的风险。

2. 在夏日,许多人喜欢到____上放松休闲。

3. 这座城市以其____而著名,吸引了许多游客。

第三部分:判断题(True/False)1. 该文章的主要目的是提供瑜伽的健身指导。

(True/False)2. 文章中提到的研究结果是基于最新的科学数据。

(True/False)3. 该杂志的编辑具有多年的运动经验。

(True/False)第四部分:配对题(Matching)请将下列问题与相应的答案配对。

1. 问题1a. 答案Ab. 答案Bc. 答案C2. 问题2a. 答案Ab. 答案Bc. 答案C3. 问题3a. 答案Ab. 答案Bc. 答案C第五部分:段落标题题(Paragraph Headings)请从以下选项中选择合适的标题来概括每个段落的内容。

1. 段落1的标题a. 选项Ab. 选项Bc. 选项C2. 段落2的标题a. 选项Ab. 选项Bc. 选项C3. 段落3的标题a. 选项Ab. 选项Bc. 选项C以上是完整版的雅思阅读题库。

希望对你的备考有所帮助!。

雅思阅读模拟题及答案

雅思阅读模拟题及答案

Reading Passage 1NetworkingNetworking as a concept has acquired what is in all truth an unjustified air of modernity. It is considered in the corporate world as an essential tool for the modern businessperson, as they trot round the globe drumming up business for themselves or a corporation. The concept is worn like a badge of distinction, and not just in the business world.People can be divided basically into those who keep knowledge and their personal contacts to themselves, and those who are prepared to share what they know and indeed their friends with others. A person who is insecure, for example someone who finds it difficult to share information with others and who is unable to bring people, including friends, together does not make a good networker. The classic networker is someone who is strong enough within themselves to connect different people including close friends with each other. For example, a businessman or an academic may meet someone who is likely to be a valuable contact in the future, but at the moment that person may benefit from meeting another associate or friend.It takes quite a secure person to bring these people together and allow a relationship to develop independently of himself. From the non-networker's point of view such a development may be intolerable, especially if it is happening outside their control. The unfortunate thing here is that the initiator of the contact, if he did but know it, would be the one to benefit most. And why?Because all things being equal, people move within circles and that person has the potential of being sucked into ever growing spheres of new contacts. It is said that, if you know eight people, you are in touch with everyone in the world. It does not take much common sense to realize the potential for any kind of venture as one is able to draw on the experience of more and more people.Unfortunately, making new contacts, business or otherwise, while it brings success, does cause problems. It enlarges the individual's world. This is in truth not altogether a bad thing, but it puts more pressure on the networker through his having to maintain an ever larger circle of people. The most convenient way out is, perhaps, to cull old contacts, but this would be anathema to our networker as it would defeat the whole purpose of networking. Another problem is the reaction of friends and associates. Spreading oneself thinly gives one less time for others who were perhaps closer to one in the past. In the workplace, this can cause tension with jealous colleagues, and even with superiors who might be tempted to rein in a more successful inferior.Jealousy and envy can prove to be very detrimental if one is faced with a very insecure manager, as this person may seek to stifle someone's career or even block it completely.The answer here is to let one's superiors share in the glory; to throw them a few crumbs of comfort. It is called leadership from the bottom. In the present business climate, companies and enterprises need to co-operate with each other in order to expand. As globalization grows apace, companies need to be able to span not just countries but continents. Whilst people may rail against this development it is for the moment here to stay. Without co-operation and contacts, specialist companies will not survive for long. Computer components, for example, need to be compatible with the various machines on the market and to achieve this, firms need to work in conjunction with others. No business or institution can afford to be an island in today's environment. In the not very distant past, it was possible for companies to go it alone, but it is now more difficult to do so.The same applies in the academic world, where ideas have been jealously guarded. The opening-up of universities and colleges to the outside world in recent years has been of enormous benefit to industry and educational institutions. The stereotypical academic is one who moves in a rarefied atmosphere living a life of sometimes splendid isolation, a prisoner of their own genius. This sort of person does not fit easily into the mould of the modern networker. Yet even this insular world is changing. The ivory towers are being left ever more frequently as educational experts forge links with other bodies; sometimes to stunning effect as in Silicon Valley in America and around Cambridge in England, which now has one of the most concentrated clusters of high tech companies in Europe.It is the networkers, the wheeler-dealers, the movers and shakers, call them what you will, that carry the world along. The world of the Neanderthals was shaken between 35,000 and 40,000 BC; they were superseded by Homo Sapiens with the very 'networking' skills that separate us from other animals: understanding, thought abstraction and culture, which are inextricably linked to planning survival and productivity in humans. It is said the meek will inherit the earth. But will they?Questions 1-5Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?In boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet, writeYES if the statement agrees with the writer's claimsNO if the statement contradicts the writer's claimsNOT GIVEN if there is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this Example AnswerNetworking is a concept Yes1 Networking is not a modern idea.2 Networking is worn like a badge exclusively in the business world.3 People fall into two basic categories.4 A person who shares knowledge and friends makes a better networker than one who does not.5 The classic networker is physically strong and generally in good health.Questions 6-10Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage, complete the sentences below.6 Making new acquaintances ........................................ but also has its disadvantages.7 At work, problems can be caused if the manager is ........................................ .8 A manager can suppress, or even totally ........................................ the career of an employee.9 In business today, working together is necessary in order for........................................ to grow.10 Businesses that specialize will not last for long without ........................................ . Questions 11-15Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage, complete the sentences below.11 In which sphere of life have ideas been protected jealously?12 Which type of individual does not easily become a modern networker?13 Where is one of the greatest concentrations of high tech companies in Europe?14 Who replaced the Neanderthals?15 What, as well as understanding and thought abstraction, sets us apart from otheranimals?Reading Passage 2A SILENT FORCEAThere is a legend that St Augustine in the fourth century AD was the first individual to be seen reading silently rather than aloud, or semi-aloud, as had been the practice hitherto. Reading has come a long way since Augustine's day. There was a time when it was a menial job of scribes and priests, not the mark of civilization it became in Europe during the Renaissance when it was seen as one of the attributes of the civilized individual.BModern nations are now seriously affected by their levels of literacy. While the Western world has seen a noticeable decline in these areas, other less developed countries have advanced and, in some cases, overtaken the West. India, for example, now has a large pool of educated workers. So European countries can no longer rest on their laurels as they have done for far too long; otherwise, they are in danger of falling even further behind economically.CIt is difficult in the modern world to do anything other than a basic job without being able to read. Reading as a skill is the key to an educated workforce, which in turn is the bedrock of economic advancement, particularly in the present technological age. Studies have shown that by increasing the literacy and numeracy skills of primary school children in the UK, the benefit to the economy generally is in billions of pounds. The skill of reading is now no more just an intellectual or leisure activity, but rather a fully-fledged economic force. DPart of the problem with reading is that it is a skill which is not appreciated in most developed societies. This is an attitude that has condemned large swathes of the population in most Western nations to illiteracy. It might surprise people in countries outside the West to learn that in the United Kingdom, and indeed in some other European countries, the literacy rate has fallen to below that of so-called less developed countries.EThere are also forces conspiring against reading in our modern society. It is not seen as cool among a younger generation more at home with computer screens or a Walkman. The solitude of reading is not very appealing. Students at school, college or university who read a lot are called bookworms. The term indicates the contempt in which reading and learning are held in certain circles or subcultures. It is a criticism, like all such attacks, driven by the insecurity ofthose who are not literate or are semi-literate. Criticism is also a means, like all bullying, of keeping peers in place so that they do not step out of line. Peer pressure among young people is so powerful that it often kills any attempts to change attitudes to habits like reading.FBut the negative connotations apart, is modern Western society standing Canute-like against an uncontrollable spiral of decline? I think not.GHow should people be encouraged to read more? It can easily be done by increasing basic reading skills at an early age and encouraging young people to borrow books from schools. Some schools have classroom libraries as well as school libraries. It is no good waiting until pupils are in their secondary school to encourage an interest in books; it needs to be pushed at an early age. Reading comics, magazines and low brow publications like Mills and Boon is frowned upon. But surely what people, whether they be adults or children, read is of little import. What is significant is the fact that they are reading. Someone who reads a comic today may have the courage to pick up a more substantial tome later on.HBut perhaps the best idea would be to stop the negative attitudes to reading from forming in the first place. Taking children to local libraries brings them into contact with an environment where they can become relaxed among books. If primary school children were also taken in groups into bookshops, this might also entice them to want their own books. A local bookshop, like some local libraries, could perhaps arrange book readings for children which, being away from the classroom, would make the reading activity more of an adventure. On a more general note, most countries have writers of national importance. By increasing the standing of national writers in the eyes of the public, through local and national writing competitions, people would be drawn more to the printed word. Catch them young and, perhaps, they just might then all become bookworms.Questions 16-22Reading Passage 2 has eight paragraphs labelled A-H.Choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.Write the appropriate numbers (i-xii) in boxes 16-22 on your answer sheet. One of the headings has been done for you as an example. Any heading may be used more than once.Note: There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use all of them.YES if the statement agrees with the writer's claimsNO if the statement contradicts the writer's claimsNOT GIVEN if there is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this Example AnswerAccording to legend, St Augustine was theYesfirst person to be seen reading silently.23European countries have been satisfied with past achievements for too long and have allowed other countries to overtake them in certain areas. 24Reading is an economic force.25The literacy rate in less developed nations is considerably higher than in all European countries.26If you encourage children to read when they are young the negative attitude to reading that grows in some subcultures will be eliminated.27People should be discouraged from reading comics and magazines.Reading Passage 3Variations on a theme: the sonnet formin English poetryAThe form of lyric poetry known as ‘the sonnet’, or ‘little song’, was introduced into the English poetic corpus by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder and his contemporary Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, during the first half of the sixteenth century. It originated, however, in Italy three centuries earlier, with the earliest examples known being those of Giacomo da Lentini, ‘The Notary’ in the Sicilian court of the Emperor Frederick II, dating from the third decade of the thirteenth century. The Sicilian sonneteers are relatively obscure, but the form was taken up by the two most famous poets of the Italian Renaissance, Dante and Petrarch, and indeed the latter is regarded as the master of the form.BThe Petrarchan sonnet form, the first to be introduced into English poetry, is a complex poetic structure. It comprises fourteen lines written in a rhyming metrical pattern of iambic pentameter, that is to say ea ch line is ten syllables long, divided into five ‘feet’ or pairs of syllables (hence ‘pentameter’), with a stress pattern where the first syllable of each foot is unstressed and the second stressed (an iambic foot). This can be seen if we look at the first line of one of Wordsworth’s sonnets, ‘After- Thought’: ‘I thought of thee my partner and my guide’. If we break down this line into its constituent syllabic parts, we can see the five feet and the stress pattern (in this example each stressed syllable is underlined), thus: ‘I thought/ of thee/ my part/ner and/ my guide’.CThe rhyme scheme for the Petrarchan sonnet is equally as rigid. The poem is generally divided into two parts, the octave (8 lines) and the sestet (6 lines), which is demonstrated through rhyme rather than an actual space between each section. The octave is usually rhymed abbaabba with the first, fourth, fifth and eighth lines rhyming with each other, and the second, third, sixth and seventh also rhyming. The sestet is more varied: it can follow the patterns cdecde, cdccdc,or cdedce. Perhaps the best interpretation of this division in the Petrarchan sonnet is by Charles Gayley, who wrote: ‘The octave bears the burden; a doubt, a problem, a reflection, a query, an historical statement, a cry of indignation or desire, a vision of the ideal. The sestet eases the load, resolves the problem or doubt, answers the query or doubt, solaces the yearning, realizes the vision’. Thus, we can see that the rhyme scheme demonstrates a twofold division in the poem, providing a structure for development of themes and ideas.DEarly on, however, English poets began to vary and experiment with this structure. Thefirst major development was made by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, altogether an indifferent poet, but was taken up and perfected by William Shakespeare, and is named after him. The Shakespearean sonnet also has fourteen lines in iambic pentameter, but rather than the division into octave and sestet, the poem is divided into four parts: three quatrains and a final rhyming couplet. Each quatrain has its own internal rhyme scheme, thus a typical Shakespearean sonnet would rhyme abab cdcd efef gg. Such a structure naturally allows greater flexibility for the author and it would be hard, if not impossible, to enumerate the different ways in which it has been employed, by Shakespeare and others. For example, an idea might be introduced in the first quatrain, complicated in the second, further complicated in the third, and resolved in the final couplet - indeed, the couplet is almost always used as a resolution to the poem, though often in a surprising way.EThese, then, are the two standard forms of the sonnet in English poetry, but it should be recognized that poets rarely follow rules precisely and a number of other sonnet types have been developed, playing with the structural elements. Edmund Spenser, for example, more famous for his verse epic ‘The Faerie Queene’, invented a variation on the Shakespearean form by interlocking the rhyme schemes between the quatrains, thus: abab bcbc cdcd ee, while in the twentieth century Rupert Brooke reversed his sonnet, beginning with the couplet. John Milton, the seventeenth-century poet, was unsatisfied with the fourteen-line format and wrote a number of ‘Caudate’ sonnets,or sonnets with the regular fourteen lines (on the Petrarchan model) with a ‘coda’ or ‘tail’ of a further six lines. A similar notion informs George Meredith’s sonnet sequence ‘Modern Love’, where most sonnets in the cycle have sixteen lines.FPerhaps the most radical of innovators, however, has been Gerard Manley Hopkins, who developed what he called the ‘Curtal’ sonnet. This form varies the length of the poem, reducing it in effect to eleven and a half lines, the rhyme scheme and the number of feet per line. Modulating the Petrarchan form, instead of two quatrains in the octave, he has two tercets rhyming abc abc, and in place of the sestet he has four and a half lines, with a rhyme scheme dcbdc. As if this is not enough, the tercets are no longer in iambic pentameter, but have six stresses instead of five, as does the final quatrain, with the exception of the last line, which has three. Many critics, however, are sceptical as to whether such a major variation can indeed be classified as a sonnet, but as verse forms and structures become freer, and poets less satisfied with convention, it is likely that even more experimental forms will out.Questions 28-32Reading Passage 3 has eight paragraphs labelled A-H.Choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.Write the appropriate numbers (i-xiii) in boxes 28-32 on your answer sheet. One of the headings has been done for you as an example. Any heading may be used more than once.Note: There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use all of them.Questions 33-37Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage, complete the sentences below.雅思阅读模拟题及答案33Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder and Henry Howard were.........................................34It was in the third decade of the thirteenth century that the........................................ was introduced.35Among poets of the Italian Renaissance........................................was considered to be the better sonneteer.36The Petrarchan sonnet form consists of.........................................37In comparison with the octave, the rhyming scheme of the sestet is........................................varied.Questions 38-40Choose the correct letters A-D and write them in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.38 According to Charles Gayley,A the octave is longer than the sestet.B the octave develops themes and ideas.C the sestet provides answers and solutions.D the sestet demonstrates a twofold division.39 The Shakespearean sonnet isA an indifferent development.B more developed than the Petrarchan sonnet.C more flexible than the Petrarchan sonnet.D enumerated in different ways.40 According to the passage, whose sonnet types are similar?A Spenser and BrookeB Brooke and MiltonC Hopkins and SpenserD Milton and Meredith。

2020年雅思阅读模拟试题及答案(卷一)

2020年雅思阅读模拟试题及答案(卷一)

2020年雅思阅读模拟试题及答案(卷一)A“Your battery is now fully charged”, Announced the laptop computer to its owner, Donald A Norman, with enthusiasm-perhaps even a hint of pride?---in its synthetic voice. To be sure, distractions and multitasking are hardly new to the human condition. “A complicated life, continually interrupted by computing requests for attention, is as old as procreation,”laughs Ted Selker of the Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMedia Lab. But increasingly, it is not just our kids pulling us three ways at once; it is also a relentless barrage of e-mail, alerts, alarms, calls, instant messages and automated notifications, none of them coordinated and all of them oblivious to whether we are busy—or even present. “It’s ridiculous that my own computer can’t figure out whether I’m in front of it, but a public toilet can,”exclaims Roel Vertegaal of Queen’s University in Ontario.BHumanity has connected itself through roughly three billion networked telephones, computers traffic lights—even refrigerators and picture frame—because these things make life more convenient and keep us available to those we care about. So although we could simply turn off the phones, close the e-mail program, and shut the office door when it is time for meeting or strench of concentrated work, we usuallydon’t. We just endure the consequences.CNumerous studies have shown that when people are unexpectedly interrupted, they not only work less efficiently but also make more mistakes. “It seems to add cumulatively to a feeling of frustration,”Picard reports, and that stress response makes it hard to regain focus. It isn’t merely a matter of productivity and the pace of life. For pilots, drivers, soldiers and doctors, errors of inattention can be downright dangerous. “If we could just give our computers and phones some understanding of the limits of human attention and memory, it would make them seem a lot more thoughtful and courteous,”says Eric Horvitz of Microsoft Research. Horvitz, Vertegaal, Selker and Picard are Eric Horvitz among a small but growing number of researchers trying to teach computers, phones, cars and other gadgets to behave less like egocentric oafs and more like considerate colleagues.D“Attentive”computing systems have begun appearing in newer Volvos and IBM has introduced Websphere communications software with a basic busyness sense. Microsoft has been running extensive in-house tests of a much more sophisticated system since 2003. Within a few year, companies may be able to offer every office worker a software version of the personal receptionist that only corner-suite executivesenjoy today. But if such an offer should land in your inbox, be sure to read the print before you sign. An attentive system, by definition, is one that is always watching. That considerate computer may come to know more about your work habits than you do.EMost people aren’t as busy as they think they are, which is why we can usually tolerate interruptions from our inconsiderate electronic paraphernalia. James with Jennifer Lai of IBM Research to study 10 managers, researchers and interns at work. They Videotaped the subjects and periodically had them rate their “interruptibility. ”The amount of time the workers spent in leave-me-alone mode varied from person to person and day to day, ranging from 10 to 51pericent. On average, the subjects wanted to work without interruption about one third of the time. In studies of Microsoft employees, Horvitz has similarly found that they typically spend more than 65 percent of their day in a state of low attention.FToday’s phones and computers, which naively assume that the user is never too busy to take a call, read an email, or click “OK”on an alert box, thus are probably correct about two thirds of time. To be useful, then considerate systems will have to be more than 65 percent accurate in sending when their users are near their cognitive limits.GBestcom/Enhanced Telephony, a Microsoft prototype based on Horvitz’s work, digs a litter deeper into each user’s computer to find clues about what they are up to. Microsoft launched an internal beta test of the system in mid-2003. By Last October, Horvitz says, about 3,800 people were using the system to field their incoming phone calls.HHorvitz himself is one of those testers, and while we talk in his office in Redmond, Wash., Bestcom silently handles one call after another. First it checks whether the caller is listed in his address book, the company directory, or its log of people he has called recently. Triangulating these sources, it tries to deduce their relationship. Family members, supervisors and people he called earlier today ring through. Others see a message on their computer that he is in meeting and won’t be available until 3 P.M. The system scans Horvitz’s and the caller’s calendar and offers to reschedule the call at a time that is open for both. Some callers choose that option, others leave voice mail. E-mail messages get a similar screening. When Horvitz is out of the office, Bestcom automatically offers to forward selected callers to his cellphone —unless his calendar and other evidence suggest that he is in a meeting.IMost large companies already use computerized phone systems andstarted calendar and contact management software, so tapping into those ‘sensors’should be straightforward. Not all employees will like the idea of having a microphone on all the time in their office, however, nor will everyone want to expose their datebook to some program they do not ultimately control. Moreover, some managers might be tempted to equate a “state of low attention”with “goofing off”and punish those who seem insufficiently busy.Question 14-19Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet, write TURE if the statement is trueFALSE if the statement is falseNOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage14. According to Ted Selker, human reproduction has been disturbed throughout history.15. If people are interrupted by calls or e-mails, they usually put up with it instead of feeling sickness.16. Microsoft is now investigating a software which is compatible with ordinary offices.17. People usually have misperception about whether they are busy or not.18. Experts in Carnegie Mellon University conducted a researchobserving all occupations of IBM.19. Current phone and computer systems have shortcut keys for people receiving information immediately.Question 20-26Answer the questions in the diagram below.Choose ONLY ONE WORD from the passage for each answer.参考答案:How does someone become a narcissist, or are they born that way?自恋人格是怎样形成的呢?还是他们生来如此?It depends, children, especially newborns, demand constant attention but that is a process of survival. Eventually, as they mature, they should learn that they are not the only ones on earth with valid needs. That is where patience, consideration, and other valuable social traits are developed.看情况,小孩,特别是初生婴儿通常都需要持续的注意力,但那是求生本能。

ielts阅读模拟试题集

ielts阅读模拟试题集

ielts阅读模拟试题集IELTS阅读模拟试题集:1. The Evolution of TechnologyQuestions: Read the passage and answer the questions that follow:The development of technology has had a dramatic role in shaping human history. In fact, it is argued that advances in technology are responsible for the progression of humanity throughout the ages. With each new invention, the way humans interact with the environment around them has evolved.The industrial revolution is one of the most significant examples of how technology has been used to enhance lives. During this period, mechanization, mass production andfactory working changed the way people across all classes lived and worked. Transportation and communication improved exponentially, allowing for the further exploration of much of the world. In addition, the use of combustion engines, as well as steam power, created more efficient ways of producing energy, which enabled humans to develop more advanced objects and machines.Questions:1. How has technology been instrumental in shaping human history?2. What developments were seen during the Industrial Revolution?3. How did the Industrial Revolution improve transportation and communication?4. What new forms of energy production were developed during this period?Answers:1. Technology has been instrumental in shaping human history by enabling progress in all areas of life, from production to transportation and communication.2. During the Industrial Revolution, mechanization, mass production and factory working changed the way people across all classes lived and worked.3. The Industrial Revolution improved transportation and communication by providing better means of connecting different parts of the world.4. The use of combustion engines and steam power enabled humans to develop more efficient forms of energy production during this period.。

雅思阅读考试模拟试练习题及答案解析

雅思阅读考试模拟试练习题及答案解析

雅思阅读考试模拟试练习题及答案解析Time to cool itFrom The Economist print edition1 REFRIGERATORS are the epitome of clunky technology: solid, reliable and just a little bit dull. They have not changed much over the past century, but then they have not needed to. They are based on a robust and effective idea--draw heat from the thing you want tocool by evaporating a liquid next to it, and then dump that heat by pumping the vapour elsewhere and condensing it. This method of pumping heat from one place to another served mankind well when refrigerators' main jobs were preserving food and, as air conditioners, cooling buildings. Today's high-tech world, however, demands high-tech refrigeration. Heat pumps are no longer up to the job. The search is on for something to replace them.2 One set of candidates are known as paraelectric materials. These act like batteries when they undergo a temperature change: attach electrodes to them and they generate a current. This effect is used in infra-red cameras. An array of tiny pieces of paraelectric material can sense the heat radiated by, for example, a person, and the pattern of the array's electrical outputs can then be used to construct an image. But until recently no one had bothered much with the inverse of this process. That inverse exists, however. Apply an appropriate current to a paraelectric material and it will cool down.3 Someone who is looking at this inverse effect is Alex Mischenko, of Cambridge University. Using commercially available paraelectric film, he and his colleagues have generated temperature drops five times bigger than any previously recorded. That may be enough to change the phenomenon from a laboratory curiosity to something with commercial applications.4 As to what those applications might be, Dr Mischenko is still a little hazy. He has, nevertheless, set up a company to pursue them.He foresees putting his discovery to use in more efficient domestic fridges and air conditioners. The real money, though, may be in cooling computers.5 Gadgets containing microprocessors have been getting hotter fora long time. One consequence of Moore's Law, which describes the doubling of the number of transistors on a chip every 18 months, is that the amount of heat produced doubles as well. In fact, it more than doubles, because besides increasing in number, the componentsare getting faster. Heat is released every time a logical operationis performed inside a microprocessor, so the faster the processor is, the more heat it generates. Doubling the frequency quadruples theheat output. And the frequency has doubled a lot. The first Pentium chips sold by Dr Moore's company, Intel, in 1993, ran at 60m cycles a second. The Pentium 4--the last "single-core" desktop processor--clocked up 3.2 billion cycles a second.6 Disposing of this heat is a big obstruction to further miniaturisation and higher speeds. The innards of a desktop computer commonly hit 80℃. At 85℃, they stop working. Tweaking theprocessor's heat sinks (copper or aluminium boxes designed to radiate heat away) has reached its limit. So has tweaking the fans that circulate air over those heat sinks. And the idea of shifting from single-core processors to systems that divided processing power between first two, and then four, subunits, in order to spread the thermal load, also seems to have the end of the road in sight.7 One way out of this may be a second curious physical phenomenon, the thermoelectric effect. Like paraelectric materials, thisgenerates electricity from a heat source and produces cooling from an electrical source. Unlike paraelectrics, a significant body of researchers is already working on it.8 The trick to a good thermoelectric material is a crystal structure in which electrons can flow freely, but the path ofphonons--heat-carrying vibrations that are larger than electrons--is constantly interrupted. In practice, this trick is hard to pull off, and thermoelectric materials are thus less efficient thanparaelectric ones (or, at least, than those examined by Dr Mischenko). Nevertheless, Rama Venkatasubramanian, of Nextreme Thermal Solutionsin North Carolina, claims to have made thermoelectric refrigerators that can sit on the back of computer chips and cool hotspots by 10℃. Ali Shakouri, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, says his are even smaller--so small that they can go inside the chip.9 The last word in computer cooling, though, may go to a system even less techy than a heat pump--a miniature version of a car radiator. Last year Apple launched a personal computer that is cooled by liquid that is pumped through little channels in the processor,and thence to a radiator, where it gives up its heat to the atmosphere. To improve on this, IBM's research laboratory in Zurichis experimenting with tiny jets that stir the liquid up and thus make sure all of it eventually touches the outside of the channel--thepart where the heat exchange takes place. In the future, therefore, a combination of microchannels and either thermoelectrics or paraelectrics might cool computers. The old, as it were, hand in hand with the new.(830 words)Questions 1-5Complete each of the following statements with the scientist or company name from the box below.Write the appropriate letters A-F in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.A. AppleB. IBMC. IntelD. Alex MischenkoE. Ali ShakouriF. Rama Venkatasubramanian1. ...and his research group use paraelectric film available from the market to produce cooling.2. ...sold microprocessors running at 60m cycles a second in 1993.3. ...says that he has made refrigerators which can cool the hotspots of computer chips by 10℃.4. ...claims to have made a refrigerator small enough to be built into a computer chip.5. ...attempts to produce better cooling in personal computers by stirring up liquid with tiny jets to make sure maximum heat exchange.Questions 6-9Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage?In boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet writeTRUE if the statement is true according to the passageFALSE if the statement is false according to the passageNOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage6. Paraelectric materials can generate a current when electrodes are attached to them.7. Dr. Mischenko has successfully applied his laboratory discovery to manufacturing more efficient referigerators.8. Doubling the frequency of logical operations inside a microprocessor doubles the heat output.9. IBM will achieve better computer cooling by combining microchannels with paraelectrics.Question 10Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in box 10 on your answer sheet.10. Which method of disposing heat in computers may have a bright prospect?A. Tweaking the processors?heat sinks.B. Tweaking the fans that circulate air over the processor抯heat sinks.C. Shifting from single-core processors to systems of subunits.D. None of the above.Questions 11-14Complete the notes below.Choose one suitable word from the Reading Passage above for each answer.Write your answers in boxes 11-14 on your answer sheet.Traditional refrigerators use...11...pumps to drop temperature. At present, scientists are searching for other methods to produce refrigeration, especially in computermicroprocessors....12...materials have been tried to generate temperature drops five times bigger than any previouslyrecorded. ...13...effect has also been adopted by many researchers to cool hotspots in computers. A miniature version of a car ...14... may also be a system to realize ideal computer cooling in the future.Key and Explanations:1. DSee Paragraph 3: ...Alex Mischenko, of Cambridge University. Using commercially available paraelectric film, he and his colleagues have generated temperature drops...2. CSee Paragraph 5: The first Pentium chips sold by Dr Moore's company, Intel, in 1993, ran at 60m cycles a second.3. FSee Paragraph 8: ...Rama Venkatasubramanian, of Nextreme Thermal Solutions in North Carolina, claims to have made thermoelectric refrigerators that can sit on the back of computer chips and cool hotspots by 10℃.4. ESee Paragraph 8: Ali Shakouri, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, says his are even smaller梥o small that they can go inside the chip.5. BSee Paragraph 9: To improve on this, IBM's research laboratory in Zurich is experimenting with tiny jets that stir the liquid up and thus make sure all of it eventually touches the outside of the channel--the part where the heat exchange takes place.6. TRUESee Paragraph 2: ...paraelectric materials. These act like batteries when they undergo a temperature change: attach electrodes to them and they generate a current.7. FALSESee Paragraph 3 (That may be enough to change the phenomenon from a laboratory curiosity to something with commercial applications. ) and Paragraph 4 (As to what those applications might be, Dr Mischenko is still a little hazy. He has, nevertheless, set up a company to pursue them. He foresees putting his discovery to use in moreefficient domestic fridges?8. FALSESee Paragraph 5: Heat is released every time a logical operation is performed inside a microprocessor, so the faster the processor is, the more heat it generates. Doubling the frequency quadruples the heat output.9. NOT GIVENSee Paragraph 9: In the future, therefore, a combination of microchannels and either thermoelectrics or paraelectrics might cool computers.10. DSee Paragraph 6: Tweaking the processor's heat sinks ?has reached its limit. So has tweaking the fans that circulate air over those heat sinks. And the idea of shifting from single-core processors to systems?also seems to have the end of the road in sight.11. heatSee Paragraph 1: Today's high-tech world, however, demands high-tech refrigeration. Heat pumps are no longer up to the job. The search is on for something to replace them.12. paraelectricSee Paragraph 3: Using commercially available paraelectric film, he and his colleagues have generated temperature drops five times bigger than any previously recorded.13. thermoelectricSee Paragraph 7: ...the thermoelectric effect. Like paraelectric materials, this generates electricity from a heat source and produces cooling from an electrical source. Unlike paraelectrics, asignificant body of researchers is already working on it.14. radiatorSee Paragraph 9: The last word in computer cooling, though, may go to a system even less techy than a heat pump--a miniature version of a car radiator.。

雅思阅读模拟试题及参考答案

雅思阅读模拟试题及参考答案

雅思阅读模拟试题及参考答案雅思阅读模拟试题 Section 1Passage 1: 旅游业的兴起阅读以下段落,回答问题。

旅游业已成为全球最大的产业之一。

每年有数亿人次的国际旅行,产生了数百万个工作岗位,并为国家经济做出了巨大贡献。

随着人们生活水平的提高和交通工具的发展,旅游业仍在不断增长。

然而,旅游业的发展也带来了一些问题,如环境污染、文化冲突和生态破坏。

Question 1: 旅游业的全球影响是什么?{content}Question 2: 旅游业发展最快的因素是什么?{content}Passage 2: 保护野生动物阅读以下段落,回答问题。

保护野生动物已成为全球关注的焦点。

然而,许多野生动物正面临生存威胁,如非法狩猎、栖息地丧失和气候变化。

为了保护这些动物,各国政府和国际组织已经采取了一系列措施,如设立自然保护区、加强法律法规和提高公众意识。

Question 3: 为什么保护野生动物变得重要?{content}Question 4: 保护野生动物采取了哪些措施?{content}雅思阅读模拟试题 Section 2Passage 1: 太阳能的未来阅读以下段落,回答问题。

太阳能是一种清洁、可再生的能源,有巨大的潜力。

随着技术的进步,太阳能电池的效率不断提高,成本也在逐渐降低。

许多国家已经开始建设太阳能发电站,以减少对化石燃料的依赖并应对气候变化。

预计未来太阳能将成为全球主要的能源来源之一。

Question 5: 太阳能的优势是什么?{content}Question 6: 为什么太阳能电池的效率不断提高?{content}Passage 2: 数字鸿沟阅读以下段落,回答问题。

数字鸿沟是指信息技术在不同群体之间的差距。

这种差距可能源于经济、教育和地理等因素。

数字鸿沟可能导致社会不平等,限制人们的发展机会。

为了解决这一问题,政府和社会组织正在努力提供更多的信息技术培训和教育,以提高人们的数字素养。

雅思阅读模拟题passage

雅思阅读模拟题passage

雅思阅读模拟题 PASSAGE 1Practice IELTS Reading Test A (Academic?Module)READING PASSAGE 1PERSONAL TIME MANAGEMENTSince the early work of Halberg(1960),the existence of human "circadian rhythms" has been well-known to biologists and psychologists. Circadian rhythms?dictate?that there are?certain?times of the day when we are at our best both physicallyand psychologically. At its simplest, the?majority?of us feel more aliveand?creative?in the mornings, while come the evenings we are fit onlyfor?collapsing?with a good book or in front of the television. Other of us?note?that in the morning we take a great deal of time to get going physically and mentally, but by the evening are full of energy and bright ideas, while a very few of us feel most alert?and?vigorous?in the late afternoon .Irrespective of our personal rhythms, most of us have a?productive?period between . and noon, when the stomach,?pancreas,?spleen?and heart all appear to be in their most active phases. Conversely, the?majority?of us experience a low period in the hour or two after lunch (a time when people in some societies?sensibly?take a rest), as most of our energy is?devoted?to the process of?digestion. The simple rules here are: don't waste too much?prime?time having a coffee break around you should be doing some of your best work, and don't make the after-lunch period even less?productive?by overloading your?digestion. A short coffee or tea break is ,in fact, best taken on arrival at the office ,when it helps us start the day in a positive mood, rather than mid-morning when it interrupts the flow of our activities. Lunch is best taken early, when we are just beginning to feel hungry, and we are likely to eat less than if we leave it until later. An early lunch also means that we can get back into our productive?stride earlier in the afternoon.Changes in one's attitude can also?enhance?personal time management. For example, the notion of pro-action is eminently?preferable?to?reaction. To pro-act means to?anticipate events and be in a position to take?appropriate?action as soon as the right moment arrives. To react, on the other hand, means to havelittle?anticipation?and do something only when events force you to do so.Pro-actors?tend?to be the people who are always one step ahead of other people, who always seem to be in the right place at the right time, and who are always better informed?than anyone else. Many of us like an easy life, and so we tend to be reactors. This means that we aren't?alert?to the challenges and opportunitiescoming our way, with the consequence?that challenges?bother?us or opportunities pass us by before we're even properly aware they're upon us. We can train ourselves in pro-action by regularly taking the time to sit down and?appraise?thelikely?immediate?future, just as we sit down and review the immediate past.Psychologists recognise that we differ in the way in which we characteristically?attribute responsibility for the various things that happen to us in life. One of the ways in which we do this is known as locusof?control?(Weiner,1979), which refers to assigning responsibility. At its simplest, some individuals have a predominantly?external?locus of control, attributing responsibility to outside causes (for example, the faults of others or the help given by them) ,while with other individuals the locus of control ispredominantly?internal, in which responsibility is attributed to oneself (for example, one's own abilities or lack of them, hard work, etc.).However, the picture usually isn't as simple as this. Many people's locus of?control?is more likely to be?specific?to a?particular?situation, for example?internal?in?certain?areas, such as their?social?lives, and?external?in others, such as their working lives. Or, to take another example, theymay?attribute?certain kinds of results to themselves, such as their successes, and certain kinds of results to other people, such as their failures. Obviously the best kind of locus of control?is one that is?realistic?and able to attribute every effect to its?appropriate?cause, and this is particularly important when it comes to time management. Certainly, there are occasions when other people are more responsible for our time loss than we are, but for most of us, and for most of the time, the?blame?must fall fairly and squarely upon ourselves.Choose ONE?phrase?(A-J) from the list in the box below to complete each key point below. Write the?appropriate?letters (A-J) in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.The information in the completed sentences should be an?accurate?summary?of points made by the writer.. There are more phrases (A-J) than sentences, so you will not use them all. You may use any?phrase?more than once.Questions 1-6Time management-key pointsAnswerExample Our patterns of circadian rhythms…… G1. A proactive person……2. A?reactive?person……3. Analysing circadian rhythms……4. The idea that the best time to work is in the morning……5. The notion of feeling?alert?in the late afternoon……6.?Productivity?appears to be enhanced……List of phrasesA) ……agrees with the circadian rhythms of most people.B) ……makes us feel alive and?creative.C) ……conforms to the circadian rhythms of a?minority?of people.D) ……if our energy is in a low phase.E) ……is more able to take?advantage?of events when they happen.F) ……enables one to?gauge?physical?potential?at?particular?times throughout the day.G) ……can?affect?us physically and mentally.H) ……when several?specific?internal?organs are active.I) ……takes a more?passive?attitude toward events.J) ……when we eat lunch earlyQuestions 7-13Complete the sentences below with words taken from Reading Passage 1,"ersonal Time Management." Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 7-13 on your answer sheet.AnswerExample Most people are less?productive…… after lunch7. Our …… influence our physical and?mental?performance8. We are more likely to be?productive?in the afternoon if we have…… .9. A person who reacts tends not to see …… when they are appr oaching.10. Assessing the …… aids us in becoming proactive.11. A person with a mainly?internal?locus of?control?would likelydirect?blame?toward …… .12. A person with a mainly?external?locus of?control?would likely direct failure toward …… .13. A person with a healthy and balanced locus of?control?would?attribute?a result, whether negative?or positive, to …… .雅思阅读模拟题 PASSAGE 2READING PASSAGE 2You are advised to spend about 20?minutes?on Questions 14-25 which are based on Reading Passage 2, "The Muang Faai Irrigation SysTEM of Northern Thailand".Questions 14-19Reading Passage 2 has 7 sections.Choose the most?suitable?heading?for each section from the list of headings (A-L) below. Write the?appropriate?letter (A-L) in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.. There are more headings than sections, so you will not use all of them.List of HeadingsA) Rituals and beliefsB) Topography of Northern ThailandC) The forests of Northern ThailandD) Preserving the systemE) Agricultural practicesF) Village lifeG) Water?distribution?principlesH) Maintaining natural balancesI) Structure of the irrigation systemJ) User's rightsK) User's obligationsL)?Community?control14. Section 115. Section 216. Section 317. Section 4AnswerExample Section 5 A18. Section 619. Section 7THE MUANG FAAI IRRIGATION SYSTEM OF NORTHERN THAILANDSECTION 1Northern Thailand consists mainly of long mountain chains interspersed with valley bottoms where streams and rice fields?dominate?the?landscape. Most of the remaining forests of the North are found at higher altitudes. Theforests?ensure?regular seasonal rainfall for the whole area and at the same time?moderate?runoff, so that there is water throughout the year.SECTION 2The lowland communities have developed an agricultural system adapted to, and?partially determining, the?distinctive?ecosystems of their areas. Practicing wet-rice agriculture in the valley-bottoms, the lowlanders also raise pigs, ducks and chickens and?cultivate?vegetable gardens in their villages further up the slopes. Rice, beans,?corn?and native vegetables are planted in hill fields above the villages, and wild vegetables and herbal medicines are gathered and wild game hunted in the forests higher up the hillsides. The forests also serve as?grazing grounds for cows and buffalo, and are a?source?of wood for household utensils,cooking?fuel,construction?and farming tools. Fish are to be found in the streams and in the irrigation system and wet-rice fields, providing both foodand?pest?control.SECTION 3In its essentials, a muang faai system consists of a small?reservoir?which feeds an?intricate, branching?network?of small channels carrying water in carefully calibrated quantities through clusters of rice terraces in valley bottoms. The system taps into a?stream?above the highest rice field and, when thereis?sufficient?water, discharges back into the same stream at a point below the bottom field. The water in the reservoir at the top, which is?diverted?into amain?channel(Iam muang) and from there into the different fields, is slowed or held back not by an impervious?dam, but by a series of barriers?constructed?of bunches of bamboo or saplings which allow?silt, soil and sand to pass through.SECTION 4Water from the Iam muang is?measured?out among the farmers according to the?extent?of their rice fields and the amount of water?available?from themain?channel. Also considered are the height of the fields, their distance from the main channel and their soil type. The size and depth of side-channels are then?adjusted?so that only the allocated amount of water flows into each farmer's field.SECTION 5Rituals and beliefs connected with muang faai?reflect?thevillagers'?submission?to, respect for, and friendship with nature, rather than an attempt to master it . In mountains, forests, watersheds and water, villagers see things of great value and power. This power has a favourable aspect, and one that benefits humans. But at the same time, if?certain?boundaries are overstepped and nature is damaged, the spirits will punish humans. Therefore, when it is necessary to use nature for the necessities of life, villagers take care to?inform?the spirits what they?intend?to do,?simultaneously?begging?pardon?for their actions.SECTION 6Keeping a muang faai system goingdemands?cooperation?and?collective?management, sometimes within a single village, sometimes across three or four different subdistricts including many villages. The rules or common agreements arrived at during the yearly meeting amount toa?social?contract. They?govern?how water is to be distributed, how flow is to be?controlled according to seasonal schedules, how barriers are to be maintained and channels dredged, how conflicts over water use are to be?settled, and how the forest around the?reservoir?is to be preserved?as a?guarantee?ofa?steady?water?supply?and a?source?of materials to repair the system.SECTION 7The?fundamental?principle?of water rights under muang faai is that everyone in the system must get enough to?survive; while many patterns of?distribution?are possible, none can?violate this basic tenet. On the whole, the systems also rest on the?assumption?that local water is common?property. No one can take?control?of it by force, and it must be used in?accord?with the communal agreements. Although there are inequalities in land holding, no one has the right to an?excessive?amount of?fertile?land. The way in which many muang faai systems?expand tendsto?reinforce?further the claims of?community?security?over those of individual entrepreneurship. In the gradual process of opening up new land and digging connecting channels, each local household often ends up with scattered holdings over the whole irrigation areas. Unlike modern irrigation systems, under which the most powerful people generally end up closest to the sources of water,this?arrangement?encourages everyone to take care that no part of the system is unduly favoured or neglected.Questions 20-23The chart below illustrates the agricultural system of the lowland communities.Select words from Reading Passage 2 to fill the spaces in the chart. Use UP TO THREE WORDS for each space. Write your answers in boxes 20-23 on your answer sheet.Area ActivityExampleForestsgrazing?cows, buffaloForestsHill fieldsVillagesValley bottom gathering …… (20) ……, hunting wild animalscultivating …… (21) ……raising …… (22) …… cultivating vegetablesgrowing …… (23) ……Question 24From the list below, select the three main structures which?constitute?the muang faai irrigation system. Write the THREE?appropriate?letters, in any order, in box24 on your answer sheet.A) channelsB) saplingsC) damD) barriersE) reservoirF) waterQuestion 25From the list below, select two criteria for allocating water to farmers. Write TWO appropriate?letters, in any order, in box 25 on your answer sheet.A) field characteristicsB)?social?statusC) location of fieldD) height of barriersE) fees paidF) water available雅思阅读模拟题 PASSAGE 3READING PASSAGE 3You are advised to spend about 20?minutes?on Questions 26-39 which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.THE ORIGINS OF INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGESThe?traditional?view of the?spread?of the Indo-European languages holds that an Ur-language,ancestor?to all the others, was spoken by?nomadic horsemen who lived in what is now western Russia north of the Black Sea near the beginning of the Bronze Age. As these mounted warriors roamed over greater and greater expanses, they conquered the?indigenous?peoples and imposed their own proto-Indo-European language, which in the course of succeeding centuries evolved in local areas into the European languages we know today. In recent years, however, many scholars, particularly archaeologists, have become?dissatisfied?with thetraditional?explanation.The starting point of the problem of the origins of Indo-European isnot?archaeological?but linguistic. When linguists look at the languages of Europe, they quickly?perceive?that these languages are?related. The connections can be seen in vocabulary, grammar and phonology (rules for?pronunciation). To?illustrate?the numbers from one to ten in several Indo-European languages. Such a?comparison?makes it clear that there are significant similarities among many European languages and also Sanskrit, the language of the earliest?literary?texts of India, but that languages such as Chinese or Japanese are not members of the same family (see?figure?1).ENGLISH OLD GERMAN LATIN GREEK SANSKRIT JAPANESEONETWOTHREEFOURFIVESIXSEVENEIGHTTEN AINS TWAI THRIJA FIDWOR FIMFSAIHS SIBUM AHTAUNIUN TAIHUM UNUS DUOTRES QUATTOUR QUINQUE SEX SEPTEM OCTO NOVEM DECEM HEIS DUOTREIS TETTARES PENTE HEKS HEPTAENNEADEKA EKASDVATRYASCATVARASPANCASATSAPTAASTANAVADASA HITOTSUFUTATSUMITTSUYOTTSUITSUTSUMUTTSUNANATSUYATTSUKOKONOTSUTOFIGURE?1 Words for numbers from one to ten show the relations among Indo-European languages and the?anomalous?character of Japanese, which is not part of that family. Such similarities?stimulated?interest in the origins of Indo-European languages.The Romance languages served as the first model for answering the question. Even to someone with no knowledge of Latin, the?profound?similarities among Romance languages would have made it natural to suggest that they were derived from a common?ancestor. On the assumption?that the shared?characteristics?of theselanguages came from the common progenitor (whereas the divergences arose later. as the languages diverged),it would have been possible to?reconstruct?many of the characteristics of the?original?proto-language. In much the same way it became clear that the branches of the Indo-European family could be?studied?anda hypothetical?family tree?constructed, reading back to a common ancestorroto-Indo-European.This is the tree?approach. The basic process represented by the tree model is one of divergence: when languages become?isolated?from one other, they differ increasingly, and dialects gradually?differentiate?until theybecome?separate?languages.Divergence?is by no means the only possible?tendency?in language?evolution. Johannes Schmidt, introduced a "wave" model in which?linguistic?changes spared like waves, leading ultimately?to convergence; that is, growing?similarity?among languages that were?initially?quite different.Today, however, most linguists think primarily in terms of?linguistic?family trees. It is necessary to?construct?some?explicit?models of how language change might occur according to a process-based view. There are four main classes of models.The first is the process of?initial?colonization, by which anuninhabited?territory?becomes populated; its language naturally becomes that of the colonizers. Second are processes of divergence, such asthe?linguistic?divergence?arising form separation or isolation mentioned above in relation to early models of the Indo-European languages. The third group of models is based on processes of linguistic convergence. The wave model, formulated by Schmidt in the 1870's, is an example, but convergence methods have not generally found favour among linguists.Now, the slow and rather?static?operation of these processes is?complicated?by another factor:?linguistic?replacement. That?factor?provides the basis for a fourth class of models. In many areas of the world the languages?initially?spoken by the?indigenous?people have come to be replaced, fully or?partially, by languages spoken by people coming from outside. Were it not for this large complicating?factor, the world's?linguistic?history could be faithfully described bythe?initial?distribution?of Homo Sapiens, followed by the gradual, ling-term workings of divergence?and convergence. So linguistic?replacement?also has a key role to play in explaining the origins of the Indo-European languages.Questions 26-32Below is a?summary?of part of Reading Passage 3,"The Origins of Indo-European Languages".Read the?summary?and then select the best word or?phrase?from the box below to fill each gap. according to the information in the Reading Passage. Write the corresponding letters (A-L) in boxes 26-32 on your answer sheet.. There are more words and phrases than you will need to fill the gaps. You may use a word or?phrase?more than once if you wish.Summary-Models of Language ChangeAnswerExample There are four main models of language …… (Ex) …… KThe first is the process of?initial?colonization?where anuninhabited?territory?becomes populated: the language spoken will therefore be that of the ……(26)……Processes of ……(27)…… occur where different dialects, and then languages, develop from a common ……(28)…… Many of the?original?characteristics?of this common?ancestor?can be reconstructed from what we know of thepresent?separate?……(29)……Processes of?linguistic?……(30)…… occur when languages whichwere?initially?different become more similar through?contact. The wave model, formulated by Schmidt in the 1870s, is an example.The final model is that of?linguistic?……(31)…… In this model, a new language replaces the language spoken by the ……(32)……A colonizers G languagesB invaders H wavesC proto-language I replacementD?indigenous?people J convergenceE linguists K developmentF model L divergence。

雅思考试阅读模拟试题及标准答案

雅思考试阅读模拟试题及标准答案

年雅思考试阅读模拟试题及答案————————————————————————————————作者:————————————————————————————————日期:22012年雅思考试阅读模拟试题及答案(一)Published online:Nov 9th 2006From The Economist print editionHow shops can exploit people’s herd mentality to increase s ales1. A TRIP to the supermarket may not seem like an exercise in psychological warfare—but it is. Shopkeepers know that filling a store with the aroma of freshly baked bread makes people feel hungry and persuades them to buy more food than they had intended. Stocking the most expensive products at eye level makes them sell faster than cheaper but less visible competitors. Now researchers are investigating how “swarm intelligence” (that is,how ants,bees or any social animal,including humans,behave in a crowd) can be used to influence what people buy.2. At a recent conference on the simulation of adaptive behaviour in Rome,Zeeshan-ul-hassan Usmani, a computer scientist from the Florida Institute of Technology,described a new way to increase impulse buying using this phenomenon. Supermarkets already encourage shoppers to buy things they did not realise they wanted:for instance,by placing everyday items such as milk and eggs at the back of the store,forcing shoppers to walk past other tempting goods to reach them. Mr Usmani and Ronaldo Menezes,also of the Florida Institute of Technology,set out to enhance this tendency to buy more by playing on the herd instinct. The idea is that,if a certain product is seen to be popular,shoppers are likely to choose it too. The challenge is to keep customers informed about what others are buying.3. Enter smart-cart technology. In Mr Usmani’s supermarket every product has a radio frequency identification tag,a sort of barcode that uses radio waves to transmit information,and every trolley has a scanner that reads this information and relays it to a central computer. As a customer walks past a shelf of goods,a screen on the shelf tells him how many people currently in the shop have chosen that particular product. If the number is high,he is more likely to select it too.4. Mr Usmani’s “swarm-moves” model appeals to supermarkets because it increases sales without the need to give people discounts. And it gives shoppers the satisfaction of knowing that they bought the “right” product—that is,the one everyone else bought. The model has not yet been tested widely in the real world,mainly because radio frequency identification technology is new and has only been installed experimentally in some supermarkets. But Mr Usmani says that bothWal-Mart in America and Tesco in Britain are interested in his work,and testing will get under way in the spring.5. Another recent study on the power of social influence indicates that sales could,indeed,be boosted in this way. Matthew Salganik of Columbia University in New York and his colleagues have described creating an artificial music market in which some 14,000 people downloaded previously unknown songs. The researchers found that when people could see the songs ranked by how many times they had been downloaded,they followed the crowd. When the songs were not ordered by rank,but the number of times they had been downloaded was displayed,the effect of social influence was still there but was less pronounced. People thus follow the herd when it is easy for them to do so.6. In Japan a chain of convenience shops called RanKing RanQueen has been ordering its products according to sales data from department stores and research companies. The shops sell only the most popular items in each product category,and the rankings are updated weekly. Icosystem, a company in Cambridge,Massachusetts,also aims to exploit knowledge of social networking to improve sales.7. And the psychology that works in physical stores is just as potent on the internet. Online retailers such as Amazon are adept at telling shoppers which products are popular with like-minded consumers. Even in the privacy of your home,you can still be part of the swarm.Questions 1-6Complete the sentences below with words taken from the reading passage. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.1. Shopowners realize that the smell of _______________ can increase sales of food products.2. In shops,products shelved at a more visible level sell better even if they are more _______________.3. According to Mr. Usmani,with the use of “swarm intelligence” phenomenon,a new method can be applied to encourage _______________.4. On the way to everyday items at the back of the store,shoppers might be tempted to buy _______________.5. If the number of buyers shown on the _______________ is high,othercustomers tend to follow them.6. Using the “swarm-moves” model,shopowners do not have to give customers _______________ to increase sales.Questions 7-12Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage? For questions 7-12 writeYES if the statement agrees with the informationNO if the statement contraicts the informationNOT GIVEN if there is no information on this in the passage7. Radio frequency identification technology has been installed experimentally in big supermarkets like Wal-Mart.8. People tend to download more unknown songs than songs they are familiar with.9. Songs ranked high by the number of times being downloaded are favored by customers.10. People follow the others to the same extent whether it is convenient or not.11. Items sold in some Japanese stores are simply chosen according to the sales data of other shops.12. Swarm intelligence can also be observed in everyday life.Answer keys:1. 答案:(freshly baked) bread. (第1段第2 行:Shoppers know that filling a store with the aroma of freshly baked bread makes people feel hungry and persuades them to buy more food than they intended.)2. 答案:expensive. (第1段第4 行:Stocking the most expensive products at eye level makes them sell faster than cheaper but less visible competitors.)3. 答案:impulse buying. (第2段第1 句:At a recent conference on the simulation of adaptive behaviour in Rome,Zeeshan- ul- hassan Usmani,a computer scientist from the Florida Institute of Technology,described a new way to increase impulse buying using this phenomenon.)4. 答案:other (tempting) goods/things/products. (第2段第2 句:Supermarkets already encourage shoppers to buy things they did not realise they wanted:for instance,by placing everyday items such as milk and eggs at the back of the store,forcing shoppers to walk past other tempting goods to reach them.)5. 答案:screen. (第3段第4 行:As a customer walks past a shelf of goods,a screen on the shelf tells him how many people currently in the shop have chosen that particular product. If the number is high,he is more likely to select it too.)6. 答案:discounts. (第4段第第1句:Mr Usmani’s “swarm- moves” model ap peals to supermarkets because it increases sales without the need to give people discounts.)7. 答案:NO. (第4段第3、4 句:The model has not yet been tested widely in the real world,mainly because radio frequency identification technology is new and has only been installed experimentally in some supermarkets. But Mr Usmani says that both Wal- Mart in America an Tesco in Britain are interestd in his workd,and testing will get under way in the spring. 短语“get under way”的意思是“开始进行”,在Wal-Mart的试验要等到春天才开始)8. 答案:NOT GIVEN. (在文中没有提及该信息)9. 答案:YES。

雅思测试阅读模拟考题和答案(一)

雅思测试阅读模拟考题和答案(一)

雅思测试阅读模拟考题和答案(一)★How to increase salesPublished online: Nov 9th 2006From The Economist print editionHow shops can exploit people’s herd mentality to increase sales1.A TRIP to the supermarket may not seem like an exercise in psychological warfare—but itis.Shopkeepers know that filling a store with the aroma of freshly baked bread makes people feel hungry and persuades them to buy more food than they had intended.Stocking the most expensive products at eye level makes them sell faster than cheaper but less visible competitors.Now researchers are investigating how “swarm intelligence” (that is,how ants,bees or any social animal,including humans,behave in a crowd) can be used to influence what people buy.2.At a recent conference on the simulation of adaptive behaviour in Rome,Zeeshan-ul-hassan Usmani,a computer scientist from the Florida Institute of Technology,described a new way to increase impulse buying using this phenomenon.Supermarkets already encourage shoppers to buy things they did not realise they wanted: for instance,by placing everyday items such as milk and eggs at the back of the store,forcing shoppers to walk past other tempting goods to reach them.Mr Usmani and Ronaldo Menezes,also of the Florida Institute of Technology,set out to enhance this tendency to buy more by playing on the herd instinct.The idea is that,if a certain product is seen to be popular,shoppers are likely to choose it too.The challenge is to keep customers informed about what others are buying.3.Enter smart-cart technology.In Mr Usmani’s supermarket every product has a radio frequency identification tag,a sort of barcode that uses radio waves to transmit information,and every trolley has a scanner that reads this information and relays it to a central computer.As a customer walks past a shelf of goods,a screen on the shelf tells him how many people currently in the shop have chosen that particularproduct.If the number is high,he is more likely to select it too.4.Mr Usmani’s “swarm-moves” model appeals to supermarkets because it increases sales without the need to give people discounts.And it gives shoppers the satisfaction of knowing that they bought the “right” product—that is,the one everyone else bought.The model has not yet been tested widely in the real world,mainly because radio frequency identification technology is new and has only been installed experimentally in some supermarkets.But Mr Usmani says that both Wal-Mart in America and Tesco in Britain are interested in his work,and testing will get under way in the spring.5.Another recent study on the power of social influence indicates that sales could,indeed,be boosted in this way.Matthew Salganik of Columbia University in New York and his colleagues have described creating an artificial music market in which some 14,000 people downloaded previously unknown songs.The researchers found that when people could see the songs ranked by how many times they had been downloaded,they followedthe crowd.When the songs were not ordered by rank,but the number of times they had been downloaded was displayed,the effect of social influence was still there but was less pronounced.People thus follow the herd when it is easy for them to do so.6.In Japan a chain of convenience shops called RanKing RanQueen has been ordering its products according to sales data from department stores and research companies.The shops sell only the most popular items in each product category,and the rankings are updated weekly.Icosystem,a company in Cambridge,Massachusetts,also aims to exploit knowledge of social networking to improve sales.7.And the psychology that works in physical stores is just as potent on the internet.Online retailers such as Amazon are adept at telling shoppers which products are popular with like-minded consumers.Even in the privacy of your home,you can still be part of the swarm.(644 words) Questions 1-6Complete the sentences below with words taken from the reading passage. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDSfor each answer.1.Shopowners realize that the smell of_______________ can increase sales of food products.2.In shops, products shelved at a more visible level sell better even if they are more_______________.3.According to Mr. Usmani, with the use of “swarm intelligence” phenomenon, a new method can be applied to encourage _______________.4.On the way to everyday items at the back of the store, shoppers might be tempted to buy_______________.5.If the number of buyers shown on the_______________ is high, other customers tend to follow them.ing the “swarm-moves” model, shopowners do not have to give customers _______________ to increase sales.Questions 7-12Do the following statements agree with the information given in the reading passage? For questions 7-12 writeYES if the statement agrees with the information NO if the statement contraicts the information NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this in the passage7.Radio frequency identification technology has been installed experimentally in big supermarkets like Wal-Mart.8.People tend to download more unknown songs than songs they are familiar with.9.Songs ranked high by the number of times being downloaded are favored by customers.10.People follow the others to the same extent whether it is convenient or not.11.Items sold in some Japanese stores are simply chosen according to the sales data of other shops.12.Swarm intelligence can also be observed in everyday life. Answer keys:1.答案:(freshly baked) bread. (第1段第2行:Shoppers know that filling a store with the aroma of freshly baked bread makes people feel hungry and persuades them to buy more food than they intended.)2.答案:expensive. (第1段第4行: Stocking themost expensive products at eye level makes them sell faster than cheaper but less visible competitors.)3.答案:impulse buying. (第2段第1句:At a recent conference on the simulation of adaptive behaviour in Rome, Zeeshan-ul-hassan Usmani, a computer scientist from the Florida Institute of Technology, described a new way to increase impulse buying using this phenomenon.)4.答案:other (tempting) goods/things/products. (第2段第2句:Supermarkets already encourage shoppers to buy things they did not realise they wanted: for instance, by placing everyday items such as milk and eggs at the back of the store, forcing shoppers to walk past other tempting goods to reach them.)5.答案:screen. (第3段第4行:As a customer walks past a shelf of goods, a screen on the shelf tells him how many people currently in the shop have chosen that particular product. If the number is high, he is more likely to select it too.)6.答案:discounts. (第4段第第1句:Mr Usmani’s “swarm-moves” model appeals to supermarkets because it increases sales without the need to givepeople discounts.)7.答案:NO.(第4段第3、4句:The model has not yet been tested widely in the real world, mainly because radio frequency identification technology is new and has only been installed experimentally in some supermarkets. But Mr Usmani says that both Wal-Mart in America an Tesco in Britain are interestd in his workd, and testing will get under way in the spring. 短语“get under way”的意思是“开始进行”,在Wal-Mart的试验要等到春天才开始)8.答案:NOT GIVEN. (在文中没有提及该信息)9.答案:YES。

雅思模拟1

雅思模拟1

雅思模拟1试卷类型:模拟卷难度系数:2 试卷总数:150 合格分数:60 答题时长:90分钟一、阅读理解(共12道题,每题10分)1、Text Tip ·题目的顺序与此同时其对应信息在文章中出现的顺序一致。

·该题付4个句首和7个句尾,闪此有些句尾是多余的。

·句尾A-G 中的多数在沿法上是可以和句首相结合的。

·你已经至少读厂—遍全文。

你能猜出某个答案吗? ·不要重读全文,划出每个陈述中的关键问,然后浏览语篇找出这些词,例如 Question37:the hollow-box arch。

·找到文章中的相关部分后,仔细阅读。

Question37:哪一段讨论了hollow-box arch的设计? ·选择最适合填充各句的选项。

·重读填完的句子,将其;意义与文章相应部分作比较。

Complete each of the following statements (Questions 37-40) with the best ending (A-G. from the box below. Write the appropriate letters A-G in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet. A、prove that local people were wrong. B、find work in Switzerland. C、win more building commissions. D、reduce the amount of raw material required. E、recognise his technical skills. F、capitalise on the spectacular terrain. G、improve the appearance of his bridges.(1)、Following the construction of the Tavanasa Bridge, Maillart failed to ____(2)、Maillart designed the hollow-box arch in order to ____(3)、The transverse walls of the Flienglibach Bridge allowed Maillart to ____(4)、Of all his bridges, the Salginatobel enabled Maillart to ____2、SECTION 2 Questions 11-20 Complete the notes below. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer. Test Tip · Section 2 一般是1个人的讲话。

雅思考试模拟题一

雅思考试模拟题一

雅思考试模拟题(一)READING TESTYou are advised to spend about 15 minutes on Questions 1-14 which refer to Reading Passage below.The private car is assumed to have widened our horizons and increased our mobility. When we consider our children's mobility, they can be driven to more places (and more distant places) than they could visit without access to a motor vehicle. However, allowing our cities to be dominated by cars has progressively eroded children's independent mobility. Children have lost much of their freedom to explore their own neighborhood or city without adult supervision. In recent surveys, when parents in some cities were asked about their own childhood experiences, the majority remembered having more, or far more, opportunities for going out on their own, compared with their own children today. They had more freedom to explore their own environment.Children's independent access to their local streets may be important for their own personal, mental and psychological development. Allowing them to get to know their own neighborhood and community gives them a 'sense of place'. This depends on active exploration', which is not provided for when children are passengers in cars. (Such children may see more, but they learn less.) Not only is it important that children be able to get to local play areas by themselves, but walking and cycling journeys to school and to other destinations provide genuine play activities in themselves.There are very significant time and money costs for parents associated with transporting their children to school, sport and to other locations. Research in the United Kingdom estimated that this cost, in 1990, was between 10 billion and 20 billion pounds.The reduction in children's freedom may also contribute to a weakening of the sense of local community. As fewer children and adults use the streets as pedestrians, these streets become less sociable places. There is less opportunity for children and adults to have the spontaneous exchanges that help to engender a feeling of community. This in itself may exacerbate fear associated with assault and molestation of children, because there are fewer adults available who know their neighbors' children, and who can look out for their safety.The extra traffic involved in transporting children results in increased traffic congestion, pollution and accident risk. As our roads become more dangerous, more parents drive their children to more places, thus contributing to increased levels of danger for the remaining pedestrians. Anyone who has experienced either the reduced volume of traffic jams near schools at the end of a school day, will not need convincing about these points. Thus, there are also important environmental implications of children's loss of freedom.As individuals, parents strive to provide the best upbringing they can for their children. However, in doing so, (e.g. by driving their children to sport, school or recreation) parents may becontributing to a more dangerous environment for children generally. The idea that 'streets are for cars and back yards and playgrounds are for children' is a strongly held belief, and parents have little choice as individuals but to keep their children off the streets if they want to protect their safety.In many parts of Dutch cities, and some traffic calmed precincts in Germany, residential streets are now places where cares must give way to pedestrians. In these areas, residents are accepting the view that the function of streets is not solely to provide mobility for cars. Streets may also be for social interaction, walking, cycling and playing. One of the most important aspects of these European cities, in terms of giving cities back to children, has been a range of 'traffic calming' initiatives, aimed at reducing the volume and speed of traffic. These initiatives have had complex interactive effects, leading to a sense that children have been able to 'recapture' their local neighborhood, and more importantly, that they have been able to do this in safety. Recent research has demonstrated that children in many German cities have significantly higher levels of freedom to travel to places in their own neighborhood or city than children inn other cities in the world.Modifying cities in order to enhance children's freedom will not only benefit children. Such cities will become more environmentally sustainable, as well as more sociable and more livable for all city residents. Perhaps it will be our concern for our children's welfare that convinces us that we need to challenge that we need to challenge the dominance of the car in our cities.Questions 1-5. Read statements 1-5 which relate to Paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of the reading passage. Answer T if the statement is true, F if the statement is false, or NI if there is no information given in the passage. One has been done for you as an example.Example: The private car has made people more mobile.Answer: TQ1.The private car has helped children have more opportunities to learn.Q2.Children are more independent today than they used to be.Q3.Walking and cycling to school allows children to learn more.Q4.Children usually walk or cycle to school.Q5.Parents save time and money by during children to school.Questions 6-9. In Paragraphs 4 and 5, there are FOUR problems stated. These problems, numbered as questions 6-9, are listed below. Each of these problems has a cause, listed A-G. Find the correct cause for each of the problems and write the corresponding letter A-G, in the spaces numbered 6-9 on the answer sheet. One has been done for you as an example.There are morecauses than problems so you will not use all of them and you any use any cause more than once.Problems CausesExample: AnswerLow sense of community feeling FQ6.streets become less sociable ____Q7.fewer chances for meeting friends ____Q8.fears of danger for children ____Q9.higher accident risk ____A few adults know local childrenB fewer people use the streetsC increased pollutionD streets are less friendlyE less traffic in school holidaysF reduced freedom for childrenG more children driven to schoolQuestions 10-14. Questions 10-14 are statement beginnings which represent information given in Paragraphs 6, 7 and 8. In the box below, there are some statement endings numbered ⅰ-ⅹ. Choose the correct ending for each statement. One has been done for you as an example.Example: By driving their children to school, parents help create…Answer: ⅰQ10.Children should play…Q11.In some German towns, pedestrians have right of way…Q12.Streets should also be used for…Q13.Reducing the amount of traffic and the speed is…Q14.All people who live in the city will benefit if cities are…List of statement endingsⅰ…a dangerous environment.ⅱ…modified.ⅲ…on residential streets. ⅳ…modifying cities. ⅴ…neighbourhoods. ⅵ…socializing.ⅶ…in backyards. ⅷ…for cars.ⅸ…traffic calming. ⅹ…residential.。

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Academic ReadingALL ANSWERS MUST BE WRITTEN ON THE ANSWER SHEET.The test is divided as follows:Reading Passage 1 Questions 1 to 13Reading Passage 2 Questions 14 to 27Reading Passage 3 Questions 28 to 40Start at the beginning of the test and work through it. You should answer all the questions. If you cannot do a particular question leave it and go on to the next one. You can return to it later.TLME ALLOWED: 60 MINUTESNUMBER OF QUESTIONS: 40Reading Passage 1You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-14, which are based on Reading Questions 1-5Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs A-G.Choose the correct heading for paragraphs B-E and G from the list of headings below. Write the correct number (i-x) in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.Example Paragraph A Answer iv1 Paragraph B2 Paragraph C3 Paragraph D4 Paragraph EExample Paragraph F Answer ii5 Paragraph GSpace travel AND healthASpace biomedicine is a relatively new area of research both in the USA and in Europe. Its main objectives are to study the effects of space travel on the human body, identifying the most critical medical problems and finding solutions to those problems. Space biomedicine centres are receiving increasing direct support from NASA and/or the European Space Agency (ESA).BThis involvement of NASA and the ESA reflects growing concern that the feasibility of travel to other planets, and beyond, is no longer limited by engineering constraints but by what the human body can actually withstand. The discovery of ice on Mars, for instance, means that there is now no necessity to design and develop a spacecraft large and powerful enough to transport the vast amounts of water needed to sustain the crew throughout journeys that may last many years. Without the necessary protection and medical treatment, however, their bodies would be devastated by the unremittingly hostile environment of space.CThe most obvious physical changes undergone by people in zero gravity are essentially harmless; in some cases they are even amusing. The blood and other fluids are no longer dragged down towards the feet by the gravity of Earth, so they accumulate higher up in the body, creating what is sometimes called ‘fat face’,together with the contrasting ‘chicken legs’ syndrome as the lower limbs become thinner.DMuch more serious are the unseen consequences after months or years in space. With no gravity, there is less need for a sturdy skeleton to support the body, with the result that the bones weaken, releasing calcium into the bloodstream. This extra calcium can overload the kidneys, leading ultimately to renal failure. Muscles too lose strength through lack of use. The heart becomes smaller, losing the power to pump oxygenated blood to all parts of the body, while the lungs lose the capacity to breathe fully. The digestive system becomes less efficient, a weakened immune system is increasingly unable to prevent diseases and the high levels of solar and cosmic radiation can cause various forms of cancer.ETo make matters worse, a wide range of medical difficulties can arise in the case of an accident or serious illness when the patient is millions of kilometres from Earth. There is simply not enough room available inside a space vehicle to include all the equipment from a hospital’s casualty unit, some of which would not work properly in space anyway. Even basic things such as a drip depend on gravity to function, while standard resuscitation techniques become ineffective if sufficient weight cannot be applied. The only solution seems to be to create extremely small medical tools and ‘smart’ devices that can, for example, diagnose and treat internal injuries using ultrasound. The cost of designing and producing this kind of equipment is bound to be, well, astronomical.FSuch considerations have led some to question the ethics of investing huge sums of money to help a handful of people who, after all, are willingly risking their own health in outer space, when so much needs to be done a lot closer to home. It is now clear, however, that every problem of space travel has a parallel problem on Earth that will benefit from the knowledgegained and the skills developed from space biomedical research. For instance, the very difficulty of treating astronauts in space has led to rapid progress in the field of telemedicine, which in turn has brought about developments that enable surgeons to communicate with patients in inaccessible parts of the world. To take another example, systems invented to sterilize waste water on board spacecraft could be used by emergency teams to filter contaminated water at the scene of natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes. In the same way, miniature monitoring equipment, developed to save weight in space capsules, will eventually become tiny monitors that patients on Earth can wear without discomfort wherever they go.GNevertheless, there is still one major obstacle to carrying out studies into the effects of space travel: how to do so without going to the enormous expense of actually working in space. To simulate conditions in zero gravity, one tried and tested method is to work under water, but the space biomedicine centres are also looking at other ideas. In one experiment, researchers study the weakening of bones that results from prolonged inactivity. This would involve volunteers staying in bed for three months, but the centre concerned is confident there should be no great difficulty in finding people willing to spend twelve weeks lying down. All in the name of science, of course.Questions 6 and 7Answer the question below using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.6 Where, apart from Earth, can space travellers find water ........................7 What happens to human legs during space travel ..........................Questions 8-12Do the following statements agree with the writer’s views in Reading Passage 1In boxes 8-12 on your answer sheet writeYES if the statement agrees with tile views of the writerNO if the statement does not agree with the views of the writer NOT GIVEN if there is no information about this in the passage8 The obstacles to going far into space are now medical, not technological.9 Astronauts cannot survive more than two years in space.10 It is morally wrong to spend so much money on space biomedicine.11 Some kinds of surgery are more successful when performed in space.12 Space biomedical research can only be done in space.Questions 13 and 14Complete the table belowChoose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 13 and 14 on your answer sheet.Reading Passage 2You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 15-27, which are based on Reading Passage 2.Cannes. Monte Carlo. St Tropez. Magic names all. And much of the enchantment comes from the deep blue water that laps their shores. But what if somebody pulled the plug Suppose the Mediterranean Sea were to vanish, leaving behind an expanse of salt desert the size of India. Hard to imagine It happened.‘It would have looked like Death Valley,’ says Bill Ryan, from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, one of the leaders of the team that discovered the Mediterranean had once dried up, then refilled in a deluge of Biblical proportions. Between five and six million years ago, the great desiccation touched off what scientists call me Messinian Salinity Crisis-a global chemical imbalance that triggered a wrenching series of extinctions and plunged the Earth into an ice age.The first indications of some extraordinary past events came in the 1960s, when geologists 20 discovered that major rivers flowing into the Mediterranean had eroded deep canyons in the rock at the bottom of the sea. River erosion of bedrock cannot occur below sea level, yet somehow the River Rhone in the South of France had managed to create a channel 1000 metres deep in the sea floor, while the Nile had cut nearly 1500 metres into the rock off the North African coast. There was more: despite thefact that the formation of caves can only take place above water, scientists 30 discovered a whole network beneath the island of Malta that reached an astonishing depth of 2000 metres below sea level.Further evidence came to light in 1970, when an international team chugged across the Mediterranean in a drilling ship to study the sea floor near the Spanish island of Majorca. Strange things started turning up in core samples: layers of microscopic plants and soil sandwiched between beds of salt more than two kilometres below today’s sea level. The plants had grown in sunlight. Also discovered inside the rock were fossilized shallow-water shellfish, together with salt and silt: particles of sand and mud that had once been carried by river water. Could the sea floor once have been near a shorelineThat question led Ryan and his fellow team leader, Kenneth Hsǖ, to piece together a staggering chain of events. About million years ago, they concluded, the Mediterranean was gradually cut off from the Atlantic Ocean when continental drift pinned Morocco against Spain. As the opening became both narrower and shallower, the deep outward flow from sea to ocean was progressively cut off, leaving only the shallow inward flow of ocean water into the Mediterranean. As this water evaporated, the sea became more saline and creatures that couldn’t handle the rising salt content perished. ‘The sea’s interior was dead as a door nail, except for bacteria,’ says Ryan. When the shallow opening at G ibraltar finally closed completely, the Mediterranean, with only rivers to feed it, dried up and died.Meanwhile, the evaporated water was falling back to Earth as rain. When the fresh water reached the oceans, it made them less saline. With less salt in it to act as an antifreeze, parts of the ocean that would not normally freeze began to turn to ice. ‘The ice reflects sunlight into space,’ says Ryan. 'The planet cools. You drive yourself into an iceage.’Eventually, a small breach in the Gibraltar dam sent the process into reverse. Ocean water cut a tiny channel to the Mediterranean. As the gap enlarged, the water flowed faster and faster, until the torrent ripped through the emerging Straits of Gibraltar at more than 100 knots. ‘The Gibraltar Falls were 100 times bigger than Victoria Falls and a thousand times grander than Niagara,’ Hsǖwrote in his book The Mediterranean was a Desert (Princeton University Press, 1983).In the end the rising waters of the vast inland sea drowned the falls and warm water began to escape to the Atlantic, reheating the oceans and the planet. The salinity crisis ended about million years ago. It had lasted roughly 400,000 years.Subsequent drilling expeditions have added a few wrinkles to Ryan and Hsǖ’s scenario. For example, researchers have found salt deposits more than two kilometres thick - so thick, some believe, that the Mediterranean must have dried up and refilled many times. But those are just geological details. For tourists the crucial question is, could it happen again Should Malaga start stockpiling dynamiteNot yet, says Ryan. If continental drift does reseal the Mediterranean, it won’t be for several million years. ‘Some future creatures may face the issue of how to respond to nature’s closure. It’s not something our species has to worry about.’Questions 15-19Complete the summary below.Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 15-19 on your answer sheet.The 1960s discovery of 15.......................... in the bedrock of the Mediterranean, as well as deep caves beneath Malta, suggested somethingstrange had happened in the region, as these features must have been formed16 ......................... sea level. Subsequent examination of the17.......................... off Majorca provided more proof. Rock samples from 2000 metres down contained both vegetation and 18.......................... that could not have lived in deep water, as well as 19.......................... originally transported by river.Questions 20-22Complete each of the following statements with the best ending from the box below.Write the appropriate letters A-G in boxes 20-22 on your answer sheet.20 The extra ice did not absorb the heat from the sun, so...21 The speed of the water from the Atlantic increased as...22 The Earth and its oceans became warmer when...Questions 23-27Choose the appropriate letters A, B, C or D and write them in boxes 23-27 on your answer sheet.23 What, according to Ryan and Hsǖ, happened about million years agoA Movement of the continents suddenly closed the Straits of Gibraltar.B The water level of the Atlantic Ocean gradually fell.C The flow of water into the Mediterranean was immediately cut off.D Water stopped flowing from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.24 Why did most of the animal and plant life in the Mediterranean dieA The water became too salty.B There was such a lot of bacteria in the water.C The rivers did not provide salt water.D The sea became a desert.25 According to the text, the events at Gibraltar led toA a permanent cooling of the Earth.B the beginning and the end of an ice age.C the formation of waterfalls elsewhere in the world.D a lack of salt in the oceans that continues to this day.26 More recent studies show thatA Ryan and Hsǖ’s theory was correct in every detail.B the Mediterranean was never cut off from the Atlantic.C it may have been cut off more than once.D it might once have been a freshwater lake.27 At the end of the article, Ryan suggests thatA the Mediterranean will never dry up again.B humans will have the technology to prevent it drying up again.C the Mediterranean is certain to dry up again one day.D humans will never see the Mediterranean dry up.Reading Passage 3onAGenetic studies show that dogs evolved from wolves and remain as similar to the creatures from which they came as humans with different physical characteristics are to each other, which is. to say not much different at all, ‘Even in the most changeable mitochondrial DNA markers - DNA handed down on the mother’s side- dogs and wolves differ by not’ m uch more than one per cent’ says Robert Wayne, a geneticist at the University of California at Los Angeles.BWolf-like species go back one to two million years, says Wayne, whose genetic work suggests dogs of some sort began breaking away about 100,000 years ago. Wolf and early human fossils have been found close together from as far back as 400,000 years ago, but dog and human fossils date back only about 14,000 years, all of which puts wolves and/or dogs in the company of man or his progenitor’s before the development of farming and permanent human settlements, at a time when both species survived on what they could scratch out hunting or scavenging.CWhy would these competitors cooperate The answer probably lies in the similar social structure and size of wolf packs and early human clans, the compatibility of their hunting objectives and range, and the willingness of humans to accept into camp the most suppliant wolves, the young or less threatening ones.DCertain wolves or protodogs may have worked their way close to the fire ring after smelling something good to eat, then into early human gatherings by proving helpful or unthreatening. As wandering packs of twenty- five or thirty wolves and clans of like- numbered nomadic humans roamed the landscape in tandem, hunting big game, the animals hung around campsites scavenging leftovers, and the humans might have used the wolves’ superior scenting ability and speed to locate and track prospective kills. At night, wolves with their keen senses could warn humans of danger approaching.ETimes might not have been as hard back then as is commonly thought, in many instances food would have been plentiful, predators few, and the boundaries between humans and wildlife porous. Through those pores slipped smaller or less threatening wolves, which from living in packs where alpha bosses reigned would know the tricks of subservience and could adapt to humans in charge. Puppies in particular would be hard to resist, as they are today. Thus was a union born and a process of domestication begun.FOver the millennia, admission of certain wolves and protodogs into human camps and exclusion of larger, more threatening ones led to the development of people-friendly breeds distinguishable from wolves by size, shape, coat, cars and markings. Dogs were generally smaller than wolves, their snouts proportionally reduced. They would assist in the hunt clean up camp by eating garbage, warn of danger, keep humans warm, and serve as food. Native Americans among others ate puppies, and in some societies it remains accepted practice.GBy the fourth millennium BC Egyptian rock and pottery drawings show dogs being put to work by men. Then, as now, the relationship was not without drawbacks. Feral dogs roamed city streets, stealing food from people returning from market. Despite their penchant for misbehaviour, and sometimes because of it, dogs keep turning up at all the important junctures in human history.HIn ancient Greece, 350 years before Christ, Aristotle described three types of domesticated dogs, including speedy Laconians used by the rich to chase and kill rabbits and deer. Three hundred years later, Roman warriors trained large dogs for battle. The brutes could knock an armed man from his horse and dismember him.IIn seventeenth-century England, dogs still worked, pulling carts, sleds, and ploughs, herding livestock, or working as turn-spits, powering wheels that turned beef and venison over open fires. But Working dogs were not much loved and were usually hanged or drowned when they got old. ‘Unnecessary’ dogs meanwhile gained status among English royalty. King James I was said to love his dogs more than his subjects. Charles Ⅱ was famous for playing with his dog at Council table, and his brother James had dogs at sea in 1682 when his ship was caught in a storm. As sailors drowned, he allegedly cried out, ‘Save the dogs and Colonel Churchill!’JBy the late nineteenth century the passion for breeding led to the creation of private registries to protect prized bloodlines. The Kennel Club was formed in England in 1873, and eleven years later the American Kennel Club (AKC) was formed across the Atlantic. Today the AKC registers 150 breeds, the Kennel Club lists 196, and the Europe-based Fédération Cynologique Internationale recognizes many more. Dog shows sprouted in the mid- 1800swhen unnecessary dogs began vastly to outnumber working ones, as they do to this day. Unless, that is, you count companionship as a job.Questions 28-31Reading Passage 3 has ten paragraphs labelled A-J.Write the correct letters A-J in boxes 28-31 on your answer sheet.28 Which paragraph explains how dogs became different in appearance from wolves29 Which paragraph describes the classification of dogs into many different types30 Which paragraph states the basic similarity between wolves and dogs31 Which paragraph gives examples of greater human concern for animals than for peopleQuestions 32-35Which FOUR of the following statements are made in the textChoose FOUR letters from A-H and write them in boxes 32-35 on your answer sheet.A In a typical camp there were many more wolves than humans.B Neither the wolves nor the humans lived in one place for long.C Some wolves learned to obey human leaders.D Humans chose the most dangerous wolves to help them hunt.E There was very little for early humans to eat.F Wolves got food from early humans.G Wolves started living with humans when agriculture began.H Early humans especially liked very young wolves.Questions 36-40Write the correct letters A-F in boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.36 in war37 as a source of energy38 as food39 to hunt other animals40 to work with farm animals。

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