雅思泛读及精读材料
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雅思阅读之精读泛读结合法雅思考试的阅读是一门对于考生词汇量、背景知识、阅读技巧以及阅读速度等要素综合考察的科目。
考生在备考过程中经常会因为材料选择或者训练方法等出现问题而导致不能在考试中取得满意的成绩。
针对这些疑问,笔者在此建议考生采用精读泛读相结合的策略来备战雅思阅读。
下面是小编为您收集整理的雅思阅读之精读泛读结合法,供大家参考!雅思阅读之精读泛读结合法一、精读泛读材料的选择在雅思考试备考过程中,几乎所有考生都会完成剑桥真题系列或者是其中比较新的剑5剑6。
剑桥作为雅思考试官方资料,其本身的权威性及参考价值是毋庸置疑的。
但是,大家会发现,如果只是泛泛的为了测试分数而应付式的完成这些套题,很多考生是很难得到自己满意的分数的。
在此,笔者建议考生把剑桥真题系列当作精读的材料而非单纯为了检测分数而做的套题来对待。
在完成这个精读任务的同时,考生想要确实提高英语阅读水平取得满意的成绩,还必需辅以大量的泛读训练。
当然,这些泛读材料以国内出版的一些和雅思有关的训练题为佳,因为毕竟这样的一些材料会总结雅思考试的一些常考话题,可以更加有针对性的加强考生的应试水平。
如果有一部分考生基本功不扎实,快速阅读此类材料有困难的话,也可以选择一些比较好懂的故事,小说,杂志等进行泛读训练,而分级别的英语读物在书店都可以轻松找到,考生可以自由选择自己级别的读物,这也在一定程度上激发考生的阅读信心和阅读兴趣,使得考生更加主动地去进行泛读训练。
二、精读泛读相结合的益处精读和泛读相结合可以从词汇、背景知识,以及阅读能力三方面给予考生帮助。
1)词汇词汇是阻碍很多考生取得高分的障碍。
很多考生会采取背字典的方式来试图补充词汇量。
但是,其效果往往不能尽如人意。
其实,如果考生能在上下文中记忆词汇不失为一个好方法。
所以精读的过程可以很好的帮助考生去扩大绝对词汇量。
另外,雅思考试的词汇中有很多考察的并不是它的常用意。
考生在精读的过程中去翻查字典,可以了解一个生词的多种含义。
N种雅思阅读精泛读重要性及方法推荐上海环球雅思对于大多数中国学生来说,雅思阅读似乎是听说读写四门课中最为容易且最易被忽略的。
这种广泛却不完整的认识间接导致很多考生忽略精心备考雅思阅读的重要性从而拿不到理想的阅读分数,继而造成与自己的理想整体分数失之交臂的惨痛后果。
在备考雅思阅读过程中,每日保质保量的精泛读练习是尤为重要的。
下面,环球雅思老师刘东晓为此问题,而向大家介绍了以下N种雅思阅读精泛读重要性及方法推荐,希望能对广大考生有所帮助。
环球雅思愿与你分享每一篇好文章!一. 雅思阅读精泛读材料首先,从雅思阅读材料说起,考生们可以关注相关外文网站,例如,或可以关注BBC官方网站的相关科研板块。
二. 雅思阅读泛读重要性以方法推荐接着是要进行一定量的泛读,我们来说说雅思阅读泛读的方法,比如说每天泛读不同类型的文章30分钟,泛读的时候有效结合SKIMMING 和SCANNING 这两大方法。
这里,雅思阅读泛读重要性在于提高对同样篇幅,同样类型的文章熟悉度,通过这样持久地反复地一个积累练习可以有效避免拿到阅读文章的恐惧心理,同时可以使考生迅速地进入全身心投入的阅读状态,这样做是取得好分数的必要前提。
三. 雅思阅读精读重要性以方法推荐日常练习雅思阅读精读的重要性有两个,一个是可以扩充学生词汇量(尤其是同义词的重复记忆)和对复杂句的分析(句子分析多了语感也会变强),一个是可以有助于考生的写作备考。
殊不知许多剑桥雅思阅读真题里的好句子都是可以运用于雅思写作的好材料。
所以针对雅思阅读精读练习方法这块,建议考生以剑桥真题为标本,每天至少仔细分析一篇真题文章,整理整理生词背背好句子,一段时间练习后会明显感觉到自己体内知识储存量的大爆发,且会有备考的充实感继而增加考试的自信心。
四. 雅思阅读泛读资料下面,环球雅思老师刘东晓再给考生推荐几个有用的泛读资料网站:以上,即是本次环球雅思老师刘东晓为大家的雅思阅读备考的N种雅思阅读精泛读重要性及方法推荐,希望大家开始重视雅思阅读精读泛读的重要性,因为它很可能决定着雅思考试整体水平,最后,希望大家多多浏览我们雅思官方网站,以学得更多的教研推荐备考方法。
如何学雅思阅读一、多采纳Top-down阅读法自上而下(Top-down)阅读是从语篇整体出发,把注意力集中在通过文字符号获取信息上,即按文章所给的标题先对文章的内容与含义作出推断,理解所要表达的意思。
运用自上而下的阅读法的关键是培养同学猜测、推断文章内容和含义的能力,从而提升阅读理解能力。
二、正确处理好精读与泛读间的关系。
精读和泛读是阅读时两种主要方法,两者相辅相存,不可偏废也无法代替。
注重阅读材料的选择。
选择合适的精泛阅读材料是提升〔英语〕阅读的重要手段。
选择字数为200左右,后面配有习题的阅读材料为宜。
阅读材料体裁要多样化叙事类、科普类、议论或说明类、广告类等。
要注重文章的有用性。
所选材料的难易程度以理解正确率达60%~70%,生词量不超过4%为恰当。
2阅读技巧题型多变,宏观战略要取巧:上个月没有出现的题型这个月有可能出现,同时难度实在加大的,尤其是Headings等题型的出现也体现了难度的上升。
所以,不要急于做题,因为题型多变,整体做题的战略也要改变。
要首先做三件事:(1)题型:三篇文章发下来后,一定花点时间看一下这些文章的题型,再决定先做哪篇。
因为我们每个人擅长的题型是不一样的,不擅长的题型出现比较多的文章可以放在后面去做,而且本身就是客观题,对我们来讲可以有一些猜的成分在里面。
(2)标题:首先要看标题,包括:主标题、副标题、引言、图,他们都能在段时间内帮助我们知道文章的整体题材是什么,以及自己的知识结构是否合适整篇文章的。
(3)结构:要花时间看文章的结构,例如:剑4 P65,文章主要讲都给街头小型企业贷款。
这篇文章的结构有很大的特点:机构可分为:引言、introduction、background,还有后面的一个合作关系、得到的经验教训、结论。
这些对我们的大体定位很有帮助,因为结构清楚、明确,对我们解题很有帮助3阅读学习方法1. 确定的意图一旦你理解了文章的结构,你会更清楚的理解的意图。
英语专业阅读材料的精读与泛读技巧学习英语的过程中,阅读是一个重要的技能。
在英语专业学习中,无论是精读还是泛读,都是必不可少的。
本文将介绍一些英语专业阅读材料的精读与泛读技巧,帮助读者更好地理解和掌握英语专业材料。
一、精读技巧1. 阅读目的明确:在开始精读之前,先确定阅读的目的是什么。
是为了获取信息、学习专业知识还是提高阅读能力?明确目的有助于读者在阅读过程中更加集中注意力。
2. 合理利用工具书:精读的过程中,遇到生词或其他难懂的词汇,可以查阅词典或使用在线翻译工具,确保理解每个词的含义。
同时,专业词汇的理解也可以通过查阅相关的专业词典或参考书籍。
3. 理解文章结构:在阅读过程中,要注意文章的结构和逻辑关系。
通常,文章会按照问题提出、论证和总结的方式进行组织。
了解文章的结构有助于更好地理解文章的意义和观点。
4. 注意关键信息:在精读过程中,要注意抓住文章中的关键信息。
这些信息往往是作者要表达的重点,包括中心思想、主题句和论据等。
通过关注这些关键信息,有助于更好地理解文章的主旨。
5. 反复阅读与总结:精读的目的是深入理解文章的意义。
为了确保完全理解,在阅读一遍之后,可以进行反复阅读,并总结文章的要点、观点和论证。
这有助于加深对文章的理解和记忆。
二、泛读技巧1.阅读速度控制:泛读的目的是获得整体理解,因此读者可以适当加快阅读速度,不必对每个细节过于深入。
掌握适当的阅读速度可以提高泛读的效率。
2.注意文章结构与段落标志:在泛读过程中,注意文章的整体结构,以及各段落之间的逻辑关系。
通常,每个段落都有自己的主题和主旨,注意段落开始的关键词可以帮助理解整体的组织结构。
3.有效运用排除法:泛读过程中,遇到难以理解的句子或词组可以尝试通过排除法进行推测。
通过理解上下文,排除一些明显错误的选项,有助于更好地理解整体内容。
4.关注文章中的关键词和关联词:在泛读过程中,要注意抓住文章中的关键词和关联词。
这些词汇可以帮助读者理解文章的主题、主旨和论证。
适合精读的英语材料English Answer:The Origins of Language.Language is one of the most fundamental aspects of human existence. It allows us to communicate our thoughts and ideas, to build relationships, and to learn from the experiences of others. But where did language come from?There are many different theories about the origins of language, but there is no single definitive answer. Some researchers believe that language evolved from animal communication systems, while others believe that it is a uniquely human ability.Whatever its origins, language has played a vital role in the development of human civilization. It has allowed us to share our knowledge and ideas, to create great works of art and literature, and to build complex societies.The Structure of Language.Language is a system of communication that uses symbols to represent meaning. These symbols can be words, gestures, or pictures. The way that these symbols are combined to create meaning is called grammar.There are many different languages in the world, each with its own unique grammar and vocabulary. However, all languages share some basic structural features. These features include:Phonology: The study of the sounds of language.Morphology: The study of the structure of words.Syntax: The study of the way that words are combined to form sentences.Semantics: The study of the meaning of words and sentences.The Functions of Language.Language has many different functions, including:Communication: Language allows us to share our thoughts and ideas with others.Expression: Language allows us to express our emotions and feelings.Control: Language allows us to control the behavior of others.Information: Language allows us to learn from the experiences of others.Social interaction: Language allows us to build relationships with others.The Importance of Language.Language is essential for human communication and interaction. It is a tool that allows us to share our thoughts and ideas, to learn from the experiences of others, and to build relationships. Without language, we would be unable to function as a society.中文回答:语言的起源。
雅思阅读精读与泛读技巧雅思考试中的阅读部分是许多考生最为头疼的一个环节,因此掌握一些有效的阅读技巧尤为重要。
本文将从精读和泛读两个角度,为大家介绍一些提高雅思阅读能力的技巧。
一、精读技巧精读是指对阅读材料进行深入细致的理解和分析,以获取最准确的信息。
下面是一些提高精读能力的技巧:1. 预览材料:在阅读开始之前,先快速预览一下文章的标题、题纲和段落标题等,了解文章的主要内容和结构,对阅读过程有一个整体的把握。
2. 关注首句和尾句:首句通常是该段落的总起或主题句,尾句则起到总结或转折作用。
通过读懂首句和尾句,能够更好地理解整个段落的重点。
3. 注意关键词:关键词是文章中起到连接和衔接的作用的重要词汇。
一旦出现这些关键词,就说明这些信息在文中是重要的,需要重点关注。
4. 划线或做笔记:在阅读过程中,可以用笔在文章上划线标注或做简洁的笔记,可以帮助加深对文章的理解和记忆。
5. 搞清楚文章的逻辑关系:了解文章中不同段落之间的逻辑关系,可以帮助理清文章的思路和结构,更好地抓住重点。
二、泛读技巧泛读是指对阅读材料进行整体理解,快速获取大致意思和主要信息,以便更好地处理阅读任务。
以下是一些提高泛读能力的技巧:1. 快速浏览全文:在阅读开始之前,可以快速翻阅全文,了解文章的大致内容、段落分布和主题,对全文有一个整体的了解。
2. 标题预测:通过阅读标题、题目或题纲,可以预测出文章的主要内容和结构,帮助理解文章。
3. 理解段落大意:每个段落都有一个主题,快速抓住每个段落的大意,可以更好地理解整个文章的主旨。
4. 标记关键信息:在阅读过程中,标记出文章中的关键信息,例如数字、特殊词汇、名词等,以便于回答相关问题。
5. 多读多练:通过大量的泛读练习,提高阅读速度和理解能力,熟悉常见的阅读题型,提升答题的准确性和效率。
综上所述,雅思阅读精读和泛读技巧对于提高阅读能力和应对考试非常重要。
精读强调对文章的深入理解和分析,泛读则注重对文章的整体把握和意思理解。
04泛读0401102 P23An examination of the functioning of the senses in cetaceans, the group of mammals comprising whales, dolphins and porpoisesSome of the senses that we and other terrestrial mammals take for granted are either reduced or absent in cetaceans or fail to function well in water. For example, it appears from their brain structure that toothed species are unable to smell. Baleen species, on the other hand, appear to have some related brain structures but it is not known whether these are functional. It has been speculated that, as the blowholes evolved and migrated to the top of the head, the neural pathways serving sense of smell may have been nearly all sacrificed. Similarly, although at least some cetaceans have taste buds, the nerves serving these have degenerated or are rudimentary.The sense of touch has sometimes been described as weak too, but this view is probably mistaken. Trainers of captive dolphins and small whales often remark on their animals' responsivenessto being touched or rubbed, and both captive and free-ranging cetacean individuals of all species (particularly adults and calves, or members of the same subgroup) appear to make frequent contact. This contact may help to maintain order within a group, and stroking or touching are part of the courtship ritual in most species. The area around the blowhole is also particularly sensitive and captive animals often object strongly to being touched there.The sense of vision is developed to different degrees in different species. Baleen species studied at close quarters underwater - specifically a grey whale calf in captivity for a year, and free-ranging right whales and humpback whales studied and filmed off Argentina and Hawaii - have obviously tracked objects with vision underwater, and they can apparently see moderately well both in water and in air. However, the position of the eyes so restricts the field of vision in baleen whales that they probably do not have stereoscopic vision.On the other hand, the position of the eyes in most dolphins and porpoises suggests that they have stereoscopic vision forward and downward. Eye position in freshwater dolphins, which often swim on their side or upside down while feeding,suggests that what vision they have is stereoscopic forward and upward. By comparison, the bottlenose dolphin has extremely keen vision in water. Judging from the way it watches and tracks airborne flying fish, it can apparently see fairly well through the air-water interface as well. And although preliminary experimental evidence suggests that their in-air vision is poor, the accuracy with which dolphins leap high to take small fish out of a trainer's hand provides anecdotal evidence to the contrary.Such variation can no doubt be explained with reference to the habitats in which individual species have developed. For example, vision is obviously more useful to species inhabiting clear open waters than to those living in turbid rivers and flooded plains. The South American boutu and Chinese beiji, for instance, appear to have very limited vision, and the Indian susus are blind, their eyes reduced to slits that probably allow them to sense only the direction and Intensity of light.Although the senses of taste and smell appear to have deteriorated, and vision in water appears to be uncertain, such weaknesses are more than compensated for by cetaceans'well-developed acoustic sense. Most species are highly vocal, although they vary in the range of sounds they produce, and many forage for food using echolo-cation1. Large baleen whales primarily use the lower frequencies and are often limited in their repertoire. Notable exceptions are the nearly song-like choruses of bowhead whales in summer and the complex, haunting utterances of the humpback whales. Toothed species in general employ more of the frequency spectrum, and produce a wider variety of sounds, than baleen species (though the sperm whale apparently produces a monotonous series of high-energy clicks and little else). Some of the more complicated sounds are clearly communicative, although what role they may play in the social life and 'culture* of cetaceans has been more the subject of wild speculation than of solid science.040103 P27Visual Symbols and the BlindPart 1From a number of recent studies, it has become clear that blind people can appreciate the use of outlines and perspectives todescribe the arrangement of objects and other surfaces in space. But pictures are more than literal representations.This fact was drawn to my attention dramatically when a blind woman in one of my investigations decided on her own initiative to draw a wheel as it was spinning. To show this motion, she traced a curve inside the circle {Fig. 1). I was taken aback. Lines of motion, such as the one she used, are a very recent invention in the history of illustration. Indeed, as art scholar David Kunzle notes, Wilhelm Busch, a trend-setting nineteenth-century cartoonist, used virtually no motion lines in his popular figures until about 1877. Fig. 1When I asked several other blind study subjects to draw a spinning wheel, one particularly clever rendition appeared repeatedly: several subjects showed the wheel's spokes as curved lines. When asked about these curves, they all described them as metaphorical ways of suggesting motion. Majority rule would argue that this device somehow indicated motion very well. But was it a better indicator than, say, broken or wavy lines - or any other kind of line, for that matter? The answer was not clear. So I decided to test whether various lines ofmotion were apt ways of showing movement or if they were merely idiosyncratic marks. Moreover, I wanted to discover whether there were differences in how the blind and the sighted interpreted lines of motion.To search out these answers, I created raised-line drawings of five different wheels, depicting spokes with lines that curved, bent, waved, dashed and extended beyond the perimeter of the wheel. I then asked eighteen blind volunteers to feel the wheels and assign one of the following motions to each wheel: wobbling, spinning fast, spinning steadily, jerking or braking. My control group consisted of eighteen sighted undergraduates from the University of Toronto.All but one of the blind subjects assigned distinctive motions to each wheel. Most guessed that the curved spokes indicated that the wheel was spinning steadily; the wavy spokes, they thought, suggested that the wheel was wobbling; and the bent spokes were taken as a sign that the wheel was jerking. Subjects assumed that spokes extending beyond the wheel's perimeter signified that the wheel had its brakes on and that dashed spokes indicated the wheel was spinning quickly.In addition, the favoured description for the sighted was the favoured description for the blind in every instance. What is more, the consensus among the sighted was barely higher than that among the blind. Because motion devices are unfamiliar to the blind, the task I gave them involved some problem solving. Evidently, however, the blind not only figured out meanings for each line of motion, but as a group they generally came up with the same meaning at least as frequently as did sighted subjects.Part 2We have found that the blind understand other kinds of visual metaphors as well. One blind woman drew a picture of a child inside a heart - choosing that symbol, she said, to show that love surrounded the child. With Chang Hong Liu, a doctoral student from China, I have begun exploring how well blind people understand the symbolism behind shapes such as hearts that do not directly represent their meaning.We gave a list of twenty pairs of words to sighted subjects and asked them to pick from each pair the term that best related tjacircle and the term that best related to a square. For example, we asked: What goes with soft? A circle or a square? Which shape goes with hard?All our subjects deemed the circle soft and the square hard. A full 94% ascribed happy to the circle, instead of sad. But other pairs revealed less agreement: 79% matched fast to slow and weak to strong, respectively. And only 51% linked deep to circle and shallow to square.(See Fig. 2.) When we tested four totally blind volunteers using the same list, we found that their choices closely resembled those made by the sighted subjects. One man, who had been blind since birth, scored extremely well. He made only one match differing from the consensus, assigning ‘far’to square and ‘near’to circle. In fact, only a small majority of sighted subjects - 53% - had paired far and near to the opposite partners. Thus, we concluded that the blind interpret abstract shapes as sighted people do.Fig. 2 Subjects were asked which word In each pair fits best with a circle and which with a square. These percentagesshowthe level of consensus among sighted subjects.040202 P46ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE IN AUSTRALIAThefirst students to study alternative medicine at university level in Australia began theirfour-year, Jull-time course at the University of Technology Sydney m early 1994. Their course covered, among other therapies, acupuncture. The theory they learnt is based on the traditional Chinese explanation of this ancient healing art that it can regulate the flow of ‘Qi’ or energy through pathways in the body. This course reflects how far some alternative therapies have come in their struggle for acceptance by the medical establishment.Australia has been unusual in the Western world in having a very conservative attitude to natural or alternative therapies, according to Dr Paul Laver, a lecturer in Public Health at the University of Sydney. 'We've had a tradition of doctors being fairly powerful and I guess they are pretty loath to allow any pretenders to their position to come into if In many other industrialised countries, orthodox and alternative medicinehave wor ked 'hand in .glove’ for years. In Europe, only orthodox doctors can prescribe herbal medicine. In Germany, plant remedies account for 10% of the national turnover of pharmaceuticals. Americans made more visits to alternative therapists than to orthodox doctors in 1990,and each year they spend about $USi2 billion on therapies that have not been scientifically tested.Disenchantment with orthodox medicine has seen the popularity of alternative therapies in Australia climb steadily during the past 20 years. In a 1983 national health survey, 1.9% of people said they had contacted a chiropractor, naturopath, osteopath, acupuncturist or herbalist in the two weeks prior to the survey. By 1990, this figure had risen to 2.6% of the population. The 550,000 consultations with alternative therapists reported in the 1990 survey represented about an eighth of the total number of consultations with medically qualified personnel covered by the survey, according to Dr Laver and colleagues writing in the Australian Journal of Public Health in 1993. 'A better educated and less accepting public has becomedisillusioned with the experts in general, and increasingly sceptical about science and empirically based knowledge,’ they said. 'The high standing of professionals, including doctors, has been eroded as a consequence.'Rather than resisting or criticising this trend, increasing numbers of Australian doctors, particularly younger ones, are forming group practices with alternative therapists or taking courses themselves, particularly in acupuncture and herbalism. Part of the incentive was financial, Dr Laver said. ‘The bottom line is that most general practitioners are business people. If they see potential clientele going elsewhere, they might want to be able to offer a similar service.’In 1993, Dr Laver and his colleagues published a survey of 289 Sydney people who attended eight alternative therapists' practices in Sydney. These practices offered a wide range of alternative therapies from 25 therapists. Those surveyed had experienced chronic illnesses, for which orthodox medicine had been able to provide little relief. They commented that they liked the holistic approach of their alternative therapists and the friendly, concerned and detailed attention they hadreceived. The cold, impersonal manner of orthodox doctors featured in the survey. An increasing exodus from their clinics, coupled with this and a number of other relevant surveys carried out in Australia, all pointing to orthodox doctors’ inadequacies, have led mainstream doctors themselves to begin to admit they could learn from the personal style of alternative therapists. Dr Patrick Store, President of the Royal College of General Practitioners, concurs that orthodox doctors could learn a lot about bedside manner and advising patients on preventative health from alternative therapists.According to the Australian Journal of Public Health, 18% of patients visiting alternative therapists do so because they suffer from musculo-skeletal complaints; 12% suffer from digestive problems, which is only 1% more than those suffering from emotional problems. Those suffering from respiratory complaints represent 7% of their patients, and Candida sufferers represent an equal percentage. Headache sufferers and those complaining of general ill health represent 6% and 5% of patients respectively, and a further 4% see therapists for general health maintenance.The survey suggested that complementary medicine is probably a better term than alternative medicine. Alternative medicine appears to be an adjunct, sought in times of disenchantment when conventional medicine seems not to offer the answer.040203 P50PLAY IS A SERIOUSBUSINESSDoes play help develop bigger,better brains? Bryant Furlow investigatesA Playing is a serious business. Children engrossed in a make-believe world, fox cubs play-fighting or kittens teasing a ball of string aren’t just having fun. Play may look like a carefree and exuberant way to pass the time before the hard work of adulthood comes along, but there’s i more to it than that. F or a start, play can even cost animals their lives. Eighty per cent of deaths among juvenile fur seals occur because playing pups fail to spot predators approaching. It is also extremely expensive in terms of energy. Playful young animals use around two or three per cent of their energy cavorting, and in children that figure can be closer to fifteen per cent. ‘Even two or three per cent is huge,’says John Byers of Idaho University. ‘You just don’t findanimals wasting energy like that’he adds. There must be a reason.B But if play is not simply a developmental hiccup, as biologists once thought, why did it evolve? The latest idea suggests that play has evolved to build big brains. In other words, playing makes you intelligent. Playfulness, it seems, is common only among mammals, although a few of the larger-brained birds also indulge. Animals at play often use unique signs - tail-wagging in dogs, for example - to indicate that activity superficially resembling adult behaviour is not really in earnest.A popular explanation of play has been that it helps juveniles develop the skills they will need to hunt, mate and socialise as adults. Another has been that it allows young animals to get in shape for adult life by improving their respiratory endurance. Both these ideas have been questioned in recent years.C Take the exercise theory. If play evolved to build muscle or as a kind of endurance training, then you would expect to see permanent benefits. But Byers points out that the benefits of increased exercise disappear rapidly after training stops, so any improvement in endurance resulting from juvenile play wouldbe lost by adulthood. ‘If the function of play was to get into shape,’says Byers,’the optimum time for playing would depend on when it was most advantageous for the young of a particular species to do so. But it doesn’t work like that.’ Across species,play tends to peak about halfway through the suckling stage and then decline.D Then there’s the skills-training hypothesis. At first glance, playing animals do appear to be practising the complex manoeuvres they will need in adulthood. But a closer inspection reveals this interpretation as too simplistic. In one study,behavioural ecologist Tim Caro, from the University of California, looked at the predatory play of kittens and their predatorybehaviour when they reached adulthood. He found that the way the cats played had no significant effect on their hunting prowess in later life.E Earlier this year, Sergio Pellis of Lethbridge University, Canada,reported that there is a strong positive link between brain size and playfulness among mammals in general. Comparing measurements for fifteen orders of mammal, he and his team found larger brains (for a given body size) are linked to greaterplayfulness. The converse was also found to be true. Robert Barton of Durham University believes that, because large brains are more sensitive to developmental stimuli than smaller brains,they require m ore play to help mould them for adulthood. ‘I concluded it’s to do with learning, and with the importance of environmental data to the brain during development’ he says.F According to Byers, the timing of the playful stage in young animals provides an important clue to what's going on. If you plot the amount of time a juvenile devotes to play each day over the course of its development,you discover a pattern typically asso ciated with a 'sensitive period’- a brief development window during which the brain can actually be modified in ways that are not possible earlier or later in life. Think of the relative ease with which young children - but not infants or adults - absorb language. Other researchers have found that play in cats, rats and mice is at its most intense just as this ‘window of opportunity’ reaches its peak.G ‘Pe ople have not paid enough attention to the amount of the brain activated by play,* says Marc Bekoff from Colorado University. Bekoflf studied coyote pups at play and found thatthe kind of behaviour involved was markedly more variable and unpredictable than that of adults. Such behaviour activates many different parts of the brain, he reasons. Bekoff likens I it to a behavioural kaleidoscope, with animals at play jumping rapidly between activities.‘They use behaviour from a lot of different contexts - predation,aggression, reproduction,’he says. ‘Their developing brain is getting all sorts of stimulation.’H Not only is more of the brain involved in play than was suspected, but it also seems to activate higher cognitive processes. ‘There’s enormous cognitive involvement in play,’says Bekoff. He points out that play often involves complex assessments of playmates, ideas of reciprocity and the use of specialised signals and rules. He believes that play creates a brain that has greater behavioural flexibility and improved potential for learning later in life. The idea is backed up by the work of Stephen Siviy of Gettysburg College. Siviy studied how bouts of play affected the brain’s levels of a particular chemical associated with the stimulation and growth of nerve cells. He was surprised by the extent of the activation. ‘Play just lights every-j thing up,’he says. By allowing link-ups between brain areas that might not normally communicate with each other,play may enhance creativity.I What might further experimentation suggest about the way children are raised in many societies today? We already know that rat pups denied the chance to play grow smaller brain components and fail to develop the ability to apply social rules when they interact with their peers. With schooling beginning earlier and becoming increasingly exam-orientated, play is likely to get even less of a look-in. Who knows what the result of that will be?040302 P71Volcanoes-earth-shattering newsWhen Mount Pinatubo suddenly erupted on 9 June 1991, the power of volcanoes past and present again hit the headlinesA Volcanoes are the ultimate earth-moving machinery. A violent eruption can blow the top few kilometres off a mountain, scatter fine ash practically all over the globe and hurl rock fragments into the stratosphere to darken the skies a continent away.But the classic eruption - cone-shaped mountain, big bang, mushroom cloud and surges of molten lava - is only a tiny part of a global story. Vulcanism, the name given to volcanic processes, really has shaped the world. Eruptions have rifted continents, raised mountain chains, constructed islands and shaped the topography of the earth. The entire ocean floor has a basement of volcanic basalt.Volcanoes have not only made the continents, they are also thought to have made the world's first stable atmosphere and provided all the water for the oceans, rivers and ice-caps. There are now about 600 active volcanoes. Every year they add two or three cubic kilometres of rock to the continents. Imagine a similar number of volcanoes smoking away for the last 3,500 million years. That is enough rock to explain the continental crust.What comes out of volcanic craters is mostly gas. More than 90% of this gas is water vapour from the deep earth: enough to explain, over 3,500 million years, the water in the oceans. The rest of the gas is nitrogen, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide,methane, ammonia and hydrogen. The quantity of these gases, again multiplied over 3,500 million years, is enough to explain the mass of the world’s atmosphere. We are alive because volcanoes provided the soil, air and water we need.B Geologists consider the earth as having a molten core, surrounded by a semi-molten mantle and a brittle, outer skin. It helps to think of a soft-boiled egg with a runny yolk, a firm but squishy white and a hard shell. If the shell is even slightly cracked during boiling, the white material bubbles out and sets like a tiny mountain chain over the crack - like an archipelago of volcanic islands such as the Hawaiian islands. But the earth is so much bigger and the mantle below is so much hotter.Even though the mantle rocks are kept solid by overlying pressure, they can still slowly 'flow' like thick treacle. The flow, thought to be in the form of convection currents, is powerful enough to fracture the 'eggshell' of the crust into plates, and keep them bumping and grinding against each other, or even overlapping, at the rate of a few centimetres a year. These fracture zones, where the collisions occur, are where earthquakes happen. And, very often, volcanoes.C These zones are lines of weakness, or hot spots. Every eruption is different, but put at its simplest, where there are weaknesses, rocks deep in the mantle, heated to 1,350℃, will start to expand and rise. As they do so, the pressure drops, and they expand and become liquid and rise more swiftly.Sometimes it is slow: vast bubbles of magma - molten rock from the mantle -inch towards the surface, cooling slowly, to snow through as granite extrusions (as on Skye, or the Great Whin Sill, the lava dyke squeezed out like toothpaste that carries part of Hadrian’s Wall in northern England). Sometimes - as in Northern Ireland, Wales and the Karoo in South Africa - the magma rose faster, and then flowed out horizontally on to the surface in vast thick sheets. In the Deccan plateau in western India, there are more than two million cubic kilometres of lava, some of it 2,400 metres thick, formed over 500,000 years of slurping eruption.Sometimes the magma moves very swiftly indeed. It does not have time to cool as it surges upwards. The gases trapped inside the boiling rock expand suddenly, the lava glows with heat, itbegins to froth, and it explodes with tremendous force. Then the slightly cooler lava following it begins to flow over the lip of the crater. It happens on Mars, it happened on the moon, it even happens on some of the moons of Jupiter and Uranus. By studying the evidence, vulcanologists can read the force of the great blasts of the past. Is the pumice light and full of holes? The explosion was tremendous. Are the rocks heavy, with huge crystalline basalt shapes, like the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland? It was a slow, gentle eruption.The biggest eruptions are deep on the mid-ocean floor, where new lava is forcing the continents apart and widening the Atlantic by perhaps five centimetres a year. Look at maps or volcanoes, earthquakes and island chains like the Philippines and Japan, and you can see the rough outlines of what are called tectonic plates - the plates which make up the earth's crust and mantle. The most dramatic of these is the Pacific 'ring of fire' where there have been the most violent explosions - Mount Pinatubo near Manila, Mount St Helen's in the Rockies and El Chichon in Mexico about a decade ago, not to mention world-shaking blasts like Krakafoa in the Sunda Straits in 1883.D But volcanoes are not very predictable. That is because geological time is not like human time. During quiet periods, volcanoes cap themselves with their own lava by forming a powerful cone from the molten rocks slopping over the rim of the crater; later the lava cools slowly into a huge, hard, stable plug which blocks any further eruption until the pressure below becomes irresistible. In the case of Mount Pinatubo, this took 600 years.Then, sometimes, with only a small warning, the mountain blows its top. It did this at Mont Pelee in Martinique at 7.49 a.m. on 8 May, 1902. Of a town of 28,000, only two people survived. In 1815, a sudden blast removed the top 1,280 metres of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. The eruption was so fierce that dust thrown into the stratosphere darkened the skies, cancelling the following summer in Europe and North America. Thousands starved as the harvests failed, after snow in June and frosts in August. Volcanoes are potentially world news, especially the quiet ones.040303 P74ObtainingLinguistic DataA Many procedures are available for obtaining data about a language. They range from a carefully planned, intensive field investigation in a foreign country to a casual introspection about one’s mother tongue carried out in an armchair at home.B In all cases, someone has to act as a source of language data - an informant. Informants are (ideally) native speakers of a language, who provide utterances for analysis and other kinds of information about the language (e.g. translations, comments about correctness, or judgements on usage). Often, when studying their mother tongue, linguists act as their own informants, judging the ambiguity, acceptability, or other properties of utterances against their own intuitions. The convenience of this approach makes it widely used, and it is considered the norm in the generative approach to linguistics. But a linguist's personal judgements are often uncertain, or disagree with the judgements of other linguists, at which point recourse is needed to more objective methods of enquiry, using non-linguists as informants.The latter procedure is unavoidable when working on foreign languages, or child speech.C Many factors must be considered when selecting informants - whether one is working with single speakers (a common situation when languages have not been described before), two people interacting, small groups or large-scale samples. Age, sex, social background and other aspects of identity are important, as these factors are known to influence the kind of language used. The topic of conversation and the characteristics of the social setting (e.g. the level of formality) are also highly relevant, as are the personal qualities of the informants (e.g. their fluency and consistency). For larger studies, scrupulous attention has been paid to the sampling theory employed, and in all cases, decisions have to be made about the best investigative techniques to use.D Today, researchers often tape-record informants. This enables the linguist's claims about the language to be checked, and provides away of making those claims more accurate ('difficult’pieces of speech can be listened to repeatedly). But obtaining naturalistic, good-quality data is never easy. People talk abnormally when they know they are being recorded, and sound quality can be poor. A variety of tape-recording procedures have thus been devised to minimise the ‘observer’s。
When it comes to learning English,reading plays a crucial role in enhancing language skills.Two common methods of reading are intensive reading also known as close reading or careful reading and extensive reading.Both methods have their unique benefits and are essential for a wellrounded language learning experience.Intensive Reading精读Intensive reading involves a detailed study of a text.It requires the reader to focus on every aspect of the material,including vocabulary,grammar,and the overall message. Here are some key points about intensive reading:1.Vocabulary Acquisition:It helps in learning new words and understanding their usage in context.By looking up unfamiliar words and noting down their meanings and synonyms,a learner can expand their vocabulary.2.Grammar Understanding:Through intensive reading,learners can identify and analyze sentence structures,tenses,and grammatical rules,which is vital for writing and speaking accurately.prehension:It improves the readers ability to understand complex ideas and arguments presented in the text.This is particularly useful for academic and professional settings where precise understanding is required.4.Critical Thinking:By questioning and analyzing the text,readers can develop critical thinking skills,which are essential for evaluating the credibility and relevance of information.5.Application in Writing:The close study of wellwritten texts can provide models for ones own writing,helping to improve style,coherence,and argumentation.Extensive Reading泛读Extensive reading,on the other hand,is the practice of reading large amounts of text quickly to gain general understanding and pleasure.Heres what makes extensive reading important:1.Reading Speed:It helps to increase reading speed as learners become more comfortable with the language and can skim and scan texts more efficiently.2.General Knowledge:By reading a wide range of materials,learners can expand their general knowledge and understanding of various topics,cultures,and perspectives.nguage Exposure:It provides exposure to different writing styles,vocabulary,and idiomatic expressions,which can improve overall language proficiency.4.Enjoyment:Reading for pleasure can motivate learners to continue practicing the language,as they engage with stories,articles,and essays that interest them.5.Cultural Insight:Through extensive reading,learners can gain insights into the culture and society of Englishspeaking countries,which can be beneficial for language acquisition and cultural understanding.Balancing Both MethodsTo maximize the benefits of reading in English language learning,its important to strike a balance between intensive and extensive reading.Intensive reading should be used for texts that require deep understanding,such as academic papers or complex literary works. Extensive reading can be applied to a broader range of materials,including novels, newspapers,and magazines,to improve fluency and general comprehension.In conclusion,both intensive and extensive reading are integral to developing a strong command of the English language.By incorporating both methods into your study routine,you can enhance your reading skills,broaden your knowledge,and enjoy the process of learning English.。
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剑桥雅思阅读5原文(test4)READING PASSAGE 1You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 on the following pages.Questions 1-3Reading Passage 1 has three sections, A-C.Choose the correct heading for each section from the list of headings below.Write the correct number i-vi in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet.List of HeadingsI The expansion of international tourism in recent yearsIi How local communities can balance their own needs with the demands of wilderness tourismIii Fragile regions and the reasons for the expansion of tourism thereIv Traditional methods of food-supply in fragile regionsV Some of the disruptive effects of wilderness tourismVi The economic benefits of mass tourism1 Section A2 Section B3 Section CThe Impact of Wilderness TourismAThe market for tourism in remote areas is booming as neverbefore. Countries all across the world are actively promoting their ‘wilderness’ regions —such as mountains, Arctic lands, deserts, small islands and wetland — to high-spending tourists. The attraction of these areas is obvious: by definition, wilderness tourism requires little or no initial investment. But that does not mean that there is no cost. As the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development recognized, these regions are fragile (i.e. highly vulnerable to abnormal pressures) not just in terms of their ecology, but also in terms of the culture of their inhabitants. The three most significant types of fragile environment in these respects, and also in terms of the proportion o f the Earth’s surface they cover, are deserts, mountains and Arctic areas. An important characteristic is their marked seasonality, with harsh conditions prevailing for many months each year. Consequently, most human activities, including tourism, are limited to quite clearly defined parts of the year.Tourists are drawn to these regions by their natural landscape beauty and the unique cultures of their indigenous people. And poor governments in these isolated areas have welcomed the new breed of ‘adventure tourist’, grateful for the hard currency they bring. For several years now, tourism has been the prime source of foreign exchange in Nepal and Bhutan. Tourism is also a key element in the economies of Arctic zones such as Lapland and Alaska and in desert areas such as Ayers Rock in Australia and Arizona’s Monument Valley.BOnce a location is established as a main tourist destination, the effects on the local community are profound. When hill-farmers, for example, can make more money in a few weeksworking as porters for foreign trekkers than they can in a year working in their fields, it is not surprising that many of them give up their farm-work, which is thus left to other members of the family. In some hill-regions, this has led to a serious decline in farm output and a change in the local diet, because there is insufficient labour to maintain terraces and irrigation systems and tend to crops. The result has been that many people in these regions have turned to outside supplies of rice and other foods.In Arctic and desert societies, year-round survival has traditionally depended on hunting animals and fish and collecting fruit over a relatively short season. However, as some inhabitants become involved in tourism, they no longer have time to collect wild food; this has led to increasing dependence on bought food and stores. Tourism is not always the culprit behind such changes. All kinds of wage labour, or government handouts, tend to undermine traditional survival systems. Whatever the cause, the dilemma is always the same: what happens if these new, external sources of income dry up?The physical impact of visitors is another serious problem associated with the growth in adventure tourism. Much attention has focused on erosion along major trails, but perhaps more important are the deforestation and impacts on water supplies arising from the need to provide tourists with cooked food and hot showers. In both mountains and deserts, slow-growing trees are often the main sources of fuel and water supplies may be limited or vulnerable to degradation through heavy use.CStories about the problems of tourism have become legion in the last few years. Yet it does not have to be a problem. Although tourism inevitably affects the region in which it takesplace, the costs to these fragile environments and their local cultures can be minimized. Indeed, it can even be a vehicle for reinvigorating local cultures, as has happened with the Sherpas of Nepal’s Khumbu Valley and in some Alpine villages. And a growing number of adventure tourism operators are trying to ensure that their activities benefit the local population and environment over the long term.In the Swiss Alps, communities have decided that their future depends on integrating tourism more effectively with the local economy. Local concern about the rising number of second home developments in the Swiss Pays d’Enhaut resulted in limits being imposed on their growth. There has also been a renaissance in communal cheese production in the area, providing the locals with a reliable source of income that does not depend on outside visitors.Many of the Arctic tourist destinations have been exploited by outside companies, who employ transient workers and repatriate most of the profits to their home base. But some Arctic communities are now operating tour businesses themselves, thereby ensuring that the benefits accrue locally. For instance, a native corporation in Alaska, employing local people, is running an air tour from Anchorage to Kotzebue, where tourists eat Arctic food, walk on the tundra and watch local musicians and dancers.Native people in the desert regions of the American Southwest have followed similar strategies, encouraging tourists to visit their pueblos and reservations to purchase high-quality handicrafts and artwork. The Acoma and San lldefonso pueblos have established highly profitable pottery businesses, while the Navajo and Hopi groups have been similarly successful with jewellery.Too many people living in fragile environments have lost control over their economies, their culture and their environment when tourism has penetrated their homelands. Merely restricting tourism cannot be the solution to the imbalance, because people’s desire to see new places will not just disappear. Instead, communities in fragile environments must achieve greater control over tourism ventures in their regions, in order to balance their needs and aspirations with the demands of tourism. A growing number of communities are demonstrating that, with firm communal decision-making, this is possible. The critical question now is whether this can become the norm, rather than the exception.Questions 4-9Do the following statements reflect the opinion of the writer of Reading Passage 1?In boxes 4-9 on your answer sheet, writeYES if the statement reflects the opinion of the writerNO if the statement contradicts the opinion of the writerNOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this4 The low financial cost of setting up wilderness tourism makes it attractive to many countries.5 Deserts, mountains and Arctic regions are examples of environments that are both ecologically and culturally fragile.6 Wilderness tourism operates throughout the year in fragile areas.7 The spread of tourism in certain hill-regions has resulted ina fall in the amount of food produced locally.8 Traditional food-gathering in desert societies was distributed evenly over the year.9 Government handouts do more damage than tourism does to traditional patterns of food-gathering.Questions 10-13Complete the table below.Choose ONE WORD from Reading Passage 1 for each answer.Write your answers in boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet.The positive ways in which some local communities haveresponded to tourismPeople/Location ActivityS wiss Pays d’EnhautArctic communitiesAcoma and San lldefonsoNavajo and Hopi Revived production of 10……………Operate 11……………businessesProduce and sell 12……………Produce and sell 13……………READING PASSAGE 2You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.Flawed Beauty: the problem with toughened glassOn 2nd August 1999, a particularly hot day in the town of Cirencester in the UK, a large pane of toughened glass in the roof of a shopping centre at Bishops Walk shattered without warning and fell from its frame. When fragments were analysed by experts at the giant glass manufacturer Pilkington, which had made the pane, they found that minute crystals of nickel sulphide trapped inside the glass had almost certainly caused the failure.‘The glass industry is aware of the issue,’ says Brian Waldron, chairman of the standards committee at the Glass and Glazing Federation, a British trade association, and standardsdevelopment officer at Pilkington. But he insists that cases are few and far between. ‘It’s a very rare phenomenon,’ he says.Others disagree. ‘On average I see about one or two buildings a month suffering from nickel sulphide related failures,’ says Barrie Josie, a consultant engineer involved in the Bishops Walk investigation. Other experts tell of similar experiences. Tony Wilmott of London-based consulting engineers Sandberg, and Simon Armstrong at CladTech Associates in Hampshire both say they know of hundreds of cases. ‘What you hear is only the tip of the iceberg,’ says Trevor Ford, a glass expert at Resolve Engineering in Brisbane, Queensland. He believes the reason is simple: ‘No-one wants bad press.’Toughened glass is found everywhere, from cars and bus shelters to the windows, walls and roofs of thousands of buildings around the world. It’s easy to see why. This glass has five times the strength of standard glass, and when it does break it shatters into tiny cubes rather than large, razor-sharp shards. Architects love it because large panels can be bolted together to make transparent walls, and turning it into ceilings and floors is almost as easy.It is made by heating a sheet of ordinary glass to about 620°C to soften it slightly, allowing its structure to expand, and then cooling it rapidly with jets of cold air. This causes the outer layer of the pane to contract and solidify before the interior. When the interior finally solidifies and shrinks, it exerts a pull on the outer layer that leaves it in permanent compression and produces a tensile force inside the glass. As cracks propagate best in materials under tension, the compressive force on the surface must be overcome before the pane will break, making it more resistant to cracking.The problem starts when glass contains nickel sulphide impurities. Trace amounts of nickel and sulphur are usually present in the raw materials used to make glass, and nickel can also be introduced by fragments of nickel alloys falling into the molten glass. As the glass is heated, these atoms react to form tiny crystals of nickel sulphide. Just a tenth of a gram of nickel in the furnace can create up to 50,000 crystals.These crystals can exist in two forms: a dense form called the alpha phase, which is stable at high temperatures, and a less dense form called the beta phase, which is stable at room temperatures. The high temperatures used in the toughening process convert all the crystals to the dense, compact alpha form. But the subsequent cooling is so rapid that the crystals don’t have time to change back to the beta phase. This leaves unstable alpha crystals in the glass, primed like a coiled spring, ready to revert to the beta phase without warning.When this happens, the crystals expand by up to 4%. And if they are within the central, tensile region of the pane, the stresses this unleashes can shatter the whole sheet. The time that elapses before failure occurs is unpredictable. It could happen just months after manufacture, or decades later, although if the glass is heated — by sunlight, for example — the process is speeded up. Ironically, says Graham Dodd, of consulting engineers Arup in London, the oldest pane of toughened glass known to have failed due to nickel sulphide inclusions was in Pilkington’s glass research building in Lathom, Lancashire. The pane was 27 years old.Data showing the scale of the nickel sulphide problem is almost impossible to find. The picture is made more complicated by the fact that these crystals occur in batches. So even if, onaverage, there is only one inclusion in 7 tonnes of glass, if you experience one nickel sulphide failure in your building, that probably means you’ve got a problem in more than one pane. Josie says that in the last decade he has worked on over 15 buildings with the number of failures into double figures.One of the worst examples of this is Waterfront Place, which was completed in 1990. Over the following decade the 40-storey Brisbane block suffered a rash of failures. Eighty panes of its toughened glass shattered due to inclusions before experts were finally called in. John Barry, an expert in nickel sulphide contamination at the University of Queensland, analysed every glass pane in the building. Using a studio camera, a photographer went up in a cradle to take photos of every pane. These were scanned under a modified microfiche reader for signs of nickel sulphide crystals. ‘We discovered at least another 120 panes with potentially dangerous inclusions which were then replaced,’ says Barry. ‘It was a very expensive and time-consuming process that took arou nd six months to complete.’ Though the project cost A$1.6 million (nearly £700,000), the alternative — re-cladding the entire building — would have cost ten times as much.Questions 14-17Look at the following people and the list of statements below.Match each person with the correct statement.Write the correct letter A-H in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.14 Brain Waldron15 Trevor Ford16 Graham Dodd17 John BarryList of StatementsA suggests that publicity about nickel sulphide failure has been suppressedB regularly sees cases of nickel sulphide failureC closely examined all the glass in one buildingD was involved with the construction of Bishops WalkE recommended the rebuilding of Waterfront PlaceF thinks the benefits of toughened glass are exaggeratedG claims that nickel sulphide failure is very unusualH refers to the most extreme case of delayed failureQuestions 18-23Complete the summary with the list of words A-P below.Write your answers in boxes 18-23 on your answer sheet.Toughened GlassToughened glass in favoured by architects because it is much stronger than ordinary glass, and the fragments are not as 18…………… when it breaks. However, it has one disadvantage: it can shatter 19…………… . This fault is a result of the manufacturing process. Ordinary glass is first heated, then cooled very 20…………… . The outer layer 21…………… before the inner layer, and the tension between the two layers which is created because of this makes the glass stronger However, if the glass contains nickel sulphide impurities, crystals of nickel sulphide are formed. These are unstable, and can expand suddenly, particularly if the weather is 22…………… . If this happens, the pane of glass may break. The frequency with which such problems occur is 23…………… by glass experts. Furthermore, the crystals cannot be detected without sophisticated equipment.A numerousB detectedC quicklyD agreedE warmF sharpG expands H slowly I unexpectedlyJ removed K contracts L disputedM cold N moved O smallP calculatedQuestions 24-26Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?In boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet, writeTRUE if the statement agrees with the informationFALSE if the statement contradicts the informationNOT GIVEN if there is no information on this24 Little doubt was expressed about the reason for the Bishops Walk accident.25 Toughened glass has the same appearance as ordinary glass.26 There is plenty of documented evidence available about the incidence of nickel sulphide failure.READING PASSAGE 3You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.The effects of light on plant and animal speciesLight is important to organisms for two different reasons. Firstly it is used as a cue for the timing, of daily and seasonal rhythms in both plants and animals, and secondly it is used to assist growth in plants.Breeding in most organisms occurs during a part of the year only, and so a reliable cue is needed to trigger breeding behaviour. Day length is an excellent cue, because it provides a perfectly predictable pattern of change within the year. In the temperate zone in spring, temperatures fluctuate greatly fromday to day, but day length increases steadily by a predictable amount. The seasonal impact of day length on physiological responses is called photoperiodism, and the amount of experimental evidence for this phenomenon is considerable. For example, some species of birds’ breeding can be induced even in midwinter simply by increasing day length artificially (Wolfson 1964). Other examples of photoperiodism occur in plants. A short-day plant flowers when the day is less than a certain critical length. A long-day plant flowers after a certain critical day length is exceeded. In both cases the critical day length differs from species to species. Plants which flower after a period of vegetative growth, regardless of photoperiod, are known as day-neutral plants.Breeding seasons in animals such as birds have evolved to occupy the part of the year in which offspring have the greatest chances of survival. Before the breeding season begins, food reserves must be built up to support the energy cost of reproduction, and to provide for young birds both when they are in the nest and after fledging. Thus many temperate-zone birds use the increasing day lengths in spring as a cue to begin the nesting cycle, because this is a point when adequate food resources will be assured.The adaptive significance at photoperiodism in plants is also clear. Short-day plants that flower in spring in the temperate zone are adapted to maximizing seedling growth during the growing season. Long-day plants are adapted for situations that require fertilization by insects, or a long period of seed ripening. Short-day plants that flower in the autumn in the temperate zone are able to build up food reserves over the growing season and over winter as seeds. Day-neutral plants have an evolutionaryadvantage when the connection between the favourable period for reproduction and day length is much less certain. For example, desert annuals germinate, flower and seed whenever suitable rainfall occurs, regardless of the day length.The breeding season of some plants can be delayed to extraordinary lengths. Bamboos are perennial grasses that remain in a vegetative state for many years and then suddenly flower, fruit and die (Evans 1976). Every bamboo of the species Chusquea abietifolio on the island of Jamaica flowered, set seed and died during 1884. The next generation of bamboo flowered and died between 1916 and 1918, which suggests a vegetative cycle of about 31 years. The climatic trigger for this flowering cycle is not yet known, but the adaptive significance is clear. The simultaneous production of masses of bamboo seeds (in some cases lying 12 to 15 centimetres deep on the ground) is more than all the seed-eating animals can cope with at the time, so that some seeds escape being eaten and grow up to form the next generation (Evans 1976).The second reason light is important to organisms is that it is essential for photosynthesis. This is the process by which plants use energy from the sun to convert carbon from soil or water into organic material for growth. The rate of photosynthesis in a plant can be measured by calculating the rate of its uptake of carbon. There is a wide range of photosynthetic responses of plants to variations in light intensity. Some plants reach maximal photosynthesis at one-quarter full sunlight, and others, like sugarcane, never reach a maximum, but continue to increase photosynthesis rate as light intensity rises.Plants in general can be divided into two groups: shade-tolerant species and shade-intolerant species. This classificationis commonly used in forestry and horticulture. Shade-tolerant plants have lower photosynthetic rates and hence have lower growth rates than those of shade-intolerant species. Plant species become adapted to living in a certain kind of habitat, and in the process evolve a series of characteristics that prevent them from occupying other habitats. Grime (1966) suggests that light may be one of the major components directing these adaptations. For example, eastern hemlock seedlings are shade-tolerant. They can survive in the forest understory under very low light levels because they have a low photosynthetic rate.Questions 27-33Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?In boxes 27-33 on your answer sheet, writeTRUE if the statement agrees with the informationFALSE if the statement contradicts the informationNOT GIVEN if there is no information on this27 There is plenty of scientific evidence to support photoperiodism.28 Some types of bird can be encouraged to breed out of season.29 Photoperiodism is restricted to certain geographic areas.30 Desert annuals are examples of long-day plants.31 Bamboos flower several times during their life cycle.32 Scientists have yet to determine the cue for Chusquea abitifolia’s seasonal rhythm.33 Eastern hemlock is a fast-growing plant.Questions 34-40Complete the sentences.Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passagefor each answer.Write your answers in boxes 34-40 on your answer sheet.34 Day length is a useful cue for breeding in areas where …………… are unpredictable.35 Plants which do not respond to light levels are referred to as…………… .36 Birds in temperate climates associate longer days with nesting and the availability of …………….37 Plants that flower when days are long often depend on …………… to help them reproduce.38 Desert annuals respond to …………… as a signal for reproduction.39 There is no limit to the photosynthetic rate in plants such as …………… .40 Tolerance to shade is one criterion for the …………… of plants in forestry and horticulture.剑桥雅思阅读5原文参考译文(test4)TEST 4 PASSAGE 1 参考译文:The Impact of Wilderness Tourism荒野旅游的影响AThe market for tourism in remote areas is booming as never before. Countries all across the world are actively promoting their ‘wilderness’ regions —such as mountains, Arctic lands, deserts, small islands and wetland — to high-spending tourists. The attraction of these areas is obvious: by definition, wilderness tourism requires little or no initial investment. But that does not mean that there is no cost. As the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development recognized, these regions are fragile (i.e. highly vulnerable to abnormal pressures)not just in terms of their ecology, but also in terms of the culture of their inhabitants. The three most significant types of fragile environment in these respects, and also in terms of the proportion of the Earth’s surface they cover, are deserts, mountains and Arctic areas. An important characteristic is their marked seasonality, with harsh conditions prevailing for many months each year. Consequently, most human activities, including tourism, are limited to quite clearly defined parts of the year.A偏远地区的旅游市场从未曾像现在这么火爆。
前言雅思阅读考试题型变化多端,文章包罗万象,按照话题划分,主要包括自然科学类:National Geographic (C1T4P3; C3T2P1; C4T1P2; C7T1P1; C7T3P1; C7GAS3);经济类:Economist (C7T2P1; C6T2P1; C5T2P1);各类新的科学发现:New Scientist (C9T1P3; C8T2P1; C5T3P3);经济技术类:/science/tq (C6T1P2);工业、农业发展类(C5T2P1; C5T4P2; C8T4P2);发明类(C1T1P1; C5T2P1; C8T1P1);语言文化类(C4T1P2; C4T3P3; C5T2P3)建筑类(C7T2P1);人物传记类(C5T1P1; C9T1P1; C9T4P1);人类发展(C4P1P3; C4T2P2; C5T2P2; C5T3P1; C6T2P2; C7T3P2; C8T1P3 );环境保护类(C3T4P1; C4T1P1; C7T3P3; C7T4P2)。
如此浩瀚的文章数量,仍有考生在备考过程中,感到可用资料的不足,市面的诸多书籍无从选择。
在此,笔者为考生分忧解难,教你如何最有效地利用剑桥官方最可信的资料,以达到学习知识量的最大化。
一、阅读分类解题中的阅读方法,主要划分为精读(intensive reading)和泛读(extensive reading)两种。
略读旨在了解文章的框架结构和大致内容,而精读则有助于在回文定位时找到一些小的细节,比如解题时所需要的显性定位词汇(如数词、专有名词、首字母缩略词、专业词汇、特殊标点词汇等)和隐性定位词汇(具体名词、实义动词、形容词/副词、逻辑词汇如because,since,if,when,where等)。
解题中,这两种方法相互依赖、互相补充,它们或是同时使用、或是交替使用。
本文所述的精读是指在备考过程中,针对某一篇特定的文章,采用中学时英文老师针对课文的讲解方式,从文章的词汇、短语、句子、段落、篇章五个语言层次进行细致的分析和理解,层层推进式的把握。
Climate and Country WealthA. Why are some countries stupendously rich and others horrendously poor? Social theorists have been captivated by this question since the late 18th century, when Scottish economist Adam Smith argued in his magisterial work The Wealth of Nations that the best prescription for prosperity is a free-market economy in which the government allows businesses substantial freedom to pursue profits. Smith, however, made a second notable hypothesi s: that the physical geography of a region can influence its economic performance. He contended that the economies of coastal regions, with their easy access to sea trade, usually outperform the economies of inland areas.B. Coastal regions and those near navigable waterways are indeed far richer and more densely settled than interior regions, just as Smith predicted. Moreover, an area’s climate can also affect its economic development. Nations in tropical climate zones generally face higher rates of infectious disease and lower agricultural productivity (especially for staple foods) than do nations in temperate zones. Similar burdens apply to the desert zones. The very poorest regions in the world are those saddled with both handicaps: distance from sea trade and a tropical or desert ecology, The basic lessons of geography are worth repeating, because most economists have ignored them. In the past decade the vast majority of papers on economic development have neglected even the most obvious geographical realities.C. The best single indicator of prosperity is gross national product (GNP) per capita-- the total value of a country’s economic output, divided by its population. A map showing the world distribution of GNP per capita immediately reveals the vast gap between rich and poor nations. The great majority of the poorest countries lie in the geographical tropics. In contrast, most of the richest countries lie in the temperate zones. Among the 28 economies categorized as high income by the World Bank, only Hong Kong, Singapore and part of Taiwan are in the tropical zone, representing a mere 2 percent of the combined population of the high-income regions. Almost all the temperate-zone countries have either high-income, economies (as in the cases of North America, Western Europe, Korea and Japan) or middle-income economies (as in the cases of Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and China). In addition, there is a strong temperate-tropical divide within countries that straddle both types of climates. Most of Brazil for example lies within the tropical zone, but the richest part of the nation--the southernmost states--is in the temperate zone.D. There are two major ways in which a region’s climate affects economic development. First, it affects the prevalence of disease. Many kinds of infectious diseases are endemic to the tropical and subtropical zones. This tends to be true of diseases in which the pathogen spends part of its life cycle outside the human host: for instance, malaria (carried by mosquitoes) and helminthic infections (caused by parasitic worms). Although epidemics of malaria have occurred sporadically as far north as Boston in the past century, the disease has never gained a lasting foothold in the temperate zones, because the cold winters naturally control the mosquito-based transmission of the disease. Winter could thus be considered the world’s most effective public health intervention,It is much more difficult to control malaria in tropical reasons, where transmission takes place year-round and affects a large part of the population.E. According to the World Health Organization, 300 million to 500 million new cases of malaria occur every year, almost entirety concentrated in the tropics. Widespread illness and early deaths obviously hold back a nation’s economic performance by significantly reducing worker productivity. But there are also long-term effects that may be amplified over time through various social feedbacks. A high incidence of disease can alter the age structure of a country’s population. Societies with high levels of child mortality tend to have high levels of fertility: mothers bear many children to guarantee that at least some will survive to adulthood. Young children will therefore constitute a large proportion of that country’s population. With so many children, poor families cannot invest much in each child’s education. High fertility also constrains the role of women in society, because child reading takes up so much of their adult lives.F. Moreover temperature affects agricultural productivity. Of the major food grains-wheat, maize and rice-wheat grows only in temperate climates, and maize and rice crops are generally more productive in temperate and subtropical climates than in tropical zones. On average, a hectare of land in the tropics yields 2.3 metric tons of maize, whereas a hectare in the temperate zone yields 6. 4 tons. Farming in tropical rainforest environments is hampered by the fragility of the soil: high temperatures mineralize the organic materials, and the intense rainfall leaches them out of the soil. In tropical environments that have wet and dry seasons-such as the African savanna-farmers must contend with the rapid loss of soil moisture resulting from high temperatures, the great variability of precipitation, and the ever present risk of drought. Moreover, tropical environments are plagued with diverse infestations of pests and parasites that can devastate both crops and livestock.G. Moderate advantages or disadvantages in geography can lead to big differences in long-term economic performance. Favorable agricultural of health conditions may boost per capita income in temperate-zone nations and hence increase the size of their economies. The resulting inventions further raise economic output, spurring yet more inventive activity. The moderate geographical advantage is thus amplified through innovation. In contrast, the low food output per farm worker in tropical regions tends to diminish the size of cities. With a smaller proportion of the population in urban areas, the rate of technological advance is usually slower. The tropical regions therefore remain more rural than the temperate regions, with most of their economic activity concentrated in low-technology agriculture rather than in high-technology manufacturing and services.H. Geographical factors, however, are only part of the story. Social, land economic institutions are critical to long-term economic performance. It is particularly instructive to compare the post World War II performance of socialist and free-market economies in neighboring countries that share the same geographical characteristics: North and South Korea, East and West Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria, and Estonia and Finland. In each case we find that free-market institutions vastly outperformed their counterparts.I. If these findings are true, the policy implications are significant. Aid programs for developingcountries will have to be revamped to specifically address the problems imposed by climate and geography. In particular, new strategies have to be formulated that would help nations in tropical zones raise their agricultural productivity and reduce the prevalence of diseases such as malaria.Medieval Toys and ChildhoodA. This toy knight comes from a rich harvest of archaeological finds, made in the mudbanks of the River Thames in London during the Jest 30 years. It was manufactured in about 1300, and illustrates several facets of medieval childhood. Then as now, children liked playing with toys. Then as now, they had a culture of their own, encompassing slang, toys, and games. Then as now, adults cored for children and encouraged their play. An adult made this toy and another adult bought it t for a child, or gave a child money to buy it. The toy knight was made from a mould, and produced in large numbers. It probably circulated among the families of merchants, shopkeepers, and craft workers, as well as those of the nobility and gentry, The finds also include toys that girls might have liked: little cups, plates, and jugs, some sturdy enough to heat up water by a fireside, There is even a self-assembly kit: a cupboard cut out of a sheet of soft metal, instead of the plastic that would be used today. Toys give us a positive view of medieval childhood.B. Medieval toys might be home-made by adults with time on their hands, fashioned by the children themselves, or bought from wandering peddlers or merchants at fairs –even ordered specially from the most children once their usefulness as fashion models was past. Naturally, the types and magnificence of the toys varied with the status of the recipient.C. Many of the dolls sold in England came from abroad, chiefly from Germany and Holland, although very fancy dolls were sold in the Palais du Justice, alongside other expensive luxuries. However, the industry was slow to develop into a guild, hampered partly by its own rules- toys had to be finished by the appropriate masters, and thus could not be made all in one workshop, for instance. There was also the hindrance that toy making was for a long time considered an addition to a ‘real’trade, and to a great extent left to the local craftsmen in their spare time, rather than quickly becoming an industry of its own, as was the case in many other fields. However, dolls among other toys appear to have been traded on a small but constant and gradually increasing level throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Dockenmacher (‘doll-makers’) are recorded in Nuremberg from 1413, and their very existence indicates the rising importance of the toy trade on both the local and the international scene.D. Written sources for the existence of toys, and to some extent of their type and manufacture, are fairly plentiful, from legal records, to poetry describing the age of innocence, and sermons on the immature behavior of the socialites of the day. Most pictorial sources are generally later, but one drawing survives from around 1200, which shows two youths playing with a pair of foot soldiers. The warriors appear to be on strings, enabling them to be pulled back and forth in semblance of battle. Boys are often shown in illustrations playing with such warrior dolls, and various jousting figures survive which show the perfection of articulated armour and fine horse-trappings which could be achieved in a boy’s plaything. In portraiture of the sixteenth century, noble girls are often pictured holding exquisitely dressed dolls. Possibly bought new for the sitting as them seem fresh from the box and neither grubby nor worn down with use. These dolls are likely to be accurately painted rather than idealized, as the sitters themselves often were, so it must be assumed that suchdolls were indeed artistically finished, beautifully attired and painted with the most delicate of features. In contrast, the seventeenth-century painting of a peasant family, by Adriane van Ostade, offers proof that children of more humble origins also played with dolls.E. Archaeological evidence is more widely available than might at first be thought. Naturally, more survives, the closer we get to modern times, and the material of which dolls were made doubtless influences our picture of their history. From Viking settlements in the far north a few dolls have been separated from the multitude of figures identified by the experts as idols and funerary figures. Some heads and limbs have been found, which may once have had cloth bodies, although it is uncertain whether these were designed as toys or votive offerings. Although no surviving pieces have thus far been uncovered, wealthy Anglo-Saxon children in England may have entertained themselves with carved alabaster dolls, a substance which had been used for doll-making since the Roman occupation, while poorer children of this age would have owned wooden or cloth dolls.F. Dating from as early as the 13th century, items unearthed from the mudbanks of the River Thames include tiny cannons and guns, metal figurines, and miniaturized household objects such as stools, jugs, cauldrons, and even frying pans complete with little fish. Made mainly from pewter (a tin-lead alloy). These medieval toys are exceptionally rare and have helped transform perceptions of childhood during the Middle Ages, says Hazel Forsyth, curator of post-medieval collections at the Museum of London. “In the 1960s French historian Philippe Aries claimed that there wasn’t really such a thing as childhood in the Middle Ages and that parents didn’t from emotional attachments with their offspring, regarding them as economic providers or producers for the household.”Forsyth said. Aries pioneered ways of looking beyond tings, politics, and war to everyday medieval life. He argued that parents invested little emotional capital in their children because they had lots of offspring, many of them died in infancy, and that surviving children were sent to work at the ages of six or seven.G. Aries’s views had a lot of currency. And for very many years, people took it for granted. It has only been recently, with discovery of ancient childhood items by contemporary treasure hunters, that we’ve challenged this received wisdom. “Surprise, surprise, human nature doesn’t change.” Forsyth said: Some parents from the Middle Ages were very devoted to their children and gave them every luxury and pleasure they could afford.”Brain Gymnasticsa. Hundreds of fans heard Prof. Greenfield speak at a public lecture. Britain’s most famous neuroscientist whose Mind Gym training programmes have worked with over 100 well-known companies including Microsoft, Barclays Bank, Guinness and Proctor and Gamble, Prof. Susan Greenfield dismissed the idea tossed around by scientists for decades that we use less than one quarter of our brains. In fact, she said our brains could be exercised like our muscles and could grow and perform at maximum capacity--we just had to go to the metaphorical gym. ‘We all know what it feels like to fall on the couch in a heap, well, your brain falls on a couch as well if you don’t exercise it,’she said yesterday. ‘Memory is not lost, your brain just remembers what is important to you at the time-and what’s not important is pushed into the background.’b. Our understanding of the brain has developed enormously over the past 20 years. Since we can now ‘see’brain activity through MRI scans and other medical technology, we can now begin to see what happens when we think and when we think different kinds of thought. As neurologists tell us more about the brain we can apply that knowledge to construct optimum situations for learning. Each human brain has 100 billion brain cells and each cell has 100,000 potential connections to any other... ‘it would take you 32 million years at one per second to count the connections even in the outer layer of your brain’. Greenfield tells us. She adds the good news, ‘Your brain is configured exactly for you...it is the only part of your body that can get better and better-if used’.c. There are three traditional views toward creativity. The first view is that there is nothing you can do about it. New ideas will come about by chance or by inspiration. On this basis Newton may never have come to his ideas on gravity if an apple had not fallen on his head. The second traditional view is that creativity is a special talent which some people have and others can only envy. It is perfectly true that some people are more motivated to be creative and also have more confidence in their creative ability. Over time such people do develop quite a creative skill. The second view is that if you do not have this special talent there is not much you can do about it. The third traditional view is that being free and liberated will make a person more creative. From this belief come methods like brain-storming. You sit around feeling free and generate ideas. It can work but is a very weak method. A person whose hands are tied to his side cannot play the violin. But cutting the rope does not make that person a violinist. If you are inhibited it is indeed difficult to be creative. But making you uninhibited does not itself make you creative.d. The brain is specifically designed to be non-creative--and we should be grateful for this. With eleven pieces of clothing there are 39,916,800 ways of getting dressed. Trying out one method every minute would take seventy six years of life. The purpose of the brain is to make stable patterns for dealing with a stable universe. That is why you can get dressed in the morning, cross the road, get to work, read or write. All this depends on the standard patterns formed in your brain. In The Mechanism of the Mind, EDW ARD DE BONO described how the nerve networks in the brain organize these patterns from incoming information. The brain is a self-organizinginformation system which creates patterns. These patterns are not symmetric, so the route from A to B is not necessarily the same as the route from B to A. From this arises the phenomenon of humour which is by far the most significant behavior of the human brain--in terms of indicating the underlying system.e. So for the first time in history we can understand creativity. We can understand the logical basis of creativity in how the brain works. From such an understanding we can derive the deliberate tools of thinking. These tools can be learned and used. As with any skill (cooking or skiing for instance) some people will become more skilful than others. But everyone can learn to be creative. It is not a mystical gift,f. Nothing can hide the sense of new frontiers of learning on the creative potential of our brains. There are a number of provisos however. Susan Greenfield reminds us that this is a new science and we must not rush too quickly from these early observations to general conclusions. Ference Marton in Sweden and more recently Peter Honey, have reminded us that there are different types of learning. There is surface learning, passive, often incomplete, motivated by assessment requirements, dependent upon memorizing facts and procedures; and there is deep learning, the kind where the learner intends to understand the material, link it to other learning, integrate and organize it, learning which can be transferred to other contexts and placed within a wider frame which might include culture, critical thinking and values. Deep learning in other words is reliant upon deep and creative thinking. Even more recent work by Steven Pinker has introduced the concept of the ‘unique environment’in support of his notion that 50% of the difference between each of us is the result of the unique interaction between our brain and what happens to us as individual organisms from conception onwards.g. These and the works of many other researchers have opened the field of intelligence itself to forensic examination and arrive at theories which make education, and particularly creative education, greatly more inclusive than old definitions. The educational implications of this are obvious--many teachers, school systems and parents have struggled with the challenge of motivating and teaching children reading, writing and arithmetic. Learning is often not perceived as enjoyable and challenging but as frustrating and drudgery.h. Combining these different findings regarding creativity we might list the following conditions most likely to generate creativity in our pupils:●Early opportunities to excel in at least one pursuit;●Early exposure to people who take risks;●Enough [subject] discipline to allow early mastery;● A stretching environment;●Supportive peers;●Acceptance of difference.OttersNorse mythology tells of the dwarf otr habitually taking the form of an otter. In some Native American cultures, otters are considered totem animals. The time of year associated with this is also associated with the Aquarius zodiac house, which is traditionally observed January 20-February 18. Indeed, inhabiting five of the continents of the world, otters are truly amazing mammals. Offers are unique in many ways. For instance, offers are the only marine mammals to have fur instead of blubber. ‘mere are thirteen species of offers alive today. There used to be fourteen, but the fourteenth otter, Maxwell’s otter, is presumed extinct due to draining of their waters to perform genocide in Iraq. Otters are very smart; they are one of only a handful of fool using mammals. Sea Offers use rocks to pry abalone off rocks and to break open shells.Otters have e dense layer 11,000 hairs/mm2, 650,000 hairs per square inch of very soft under fur which, protected by their outer layer of long guard hairs, keeps them dry under water and traps a layer of air to keep them warm. All otters have long, slim, streamlined bodies extraordinary grace and flexibility, and short limbs; in most cases they have webbed paws. Most have sharp claws to grasp prey, but the short-clawed otter of southern Asia has only vestigial claws, and two closely-related species of African otter have no claws at alt: the: species live in the often muddy rivers of Africa and Asia and locate their prey by touch.Offers have a preference for rivers and lakes with clean transparent water, a high flow rate and well-vegetated steep banks. Typical vegetation includes mature trees and woodland, particularly deciduous species, willow and alder carr; scrub and tall bank side vegetation such as hawthorn, blackthorn, bramble, and dog rose; willow herb and reed and sedge bed The roots of mature trees, particularly ash, oak and sycamore, provide potential holt sites and read/sedge beds are used to make ‘couches’. Important feeding grounds are associated with gravel bottoms and narrow streams or tributaries since these features are optimal for fish. Permanent, well-vegetated mid-channel islands provide secure lying-up and breeding sites . Additionally, ditches and ponds provide alternative food supplies such as amphibians, especially during the winter months and when rivers are in flood.Most otters have fish as the primary item in their diet, supplemented by flogs, crayfish and crabs; some have become expert at opening shellfish, and others will take any available small mammals or birds. The faeces of an otter is referred to as scat. To survive in the cold waters where many otters live, they do not depend on their specialized fur alone: they have very high metabolic rates and burn up energy at a profligate pace: Eurasian otters, for example, must eat 15% of their body-weight a day; sea otters, 20% to 25%, depending on the temperature. This prey-dependence leaves otters very vulnerable to prey depletion. In water as warm as 10℃on otter needs to catch 100g of fish per hour: less than that and it cannot survive. Most species hunt for 3 to 5 hours a day, nursing mothers up to 8 hours a day.The northern river otter became one of the major animals hunted and trapped for fur in NorthAmerica after European contact. As one of the most playful, curious, and active species of otter, they have become a popular exhibit in zoos and aquaria, but unwelcome on agricultural land because they alter river banks for access, sliding, and defense. River otters eat a variety of fish and shellfish, as well as small land mammals and birds. They grow to 3 to 4 feet in length and weigh from 10 to 30 pounds. Once found all over North America, they have become rare or extinct in most places, although flourishing in some locations. Some jurisdictions have made otters a protected species in some areas, and some places have otter sanctuaries, These sanctuaries help ill and injured otters to recover.Sea otters live along the Pack coast of North America. Their historic range included shallow waters of the Bering Strait and Kamchatka, and as for south as Japan. Unlike most marine mammals {soars, for example, or whales}, sea otters do not have a layer of insulating blubber. Sea otters have some 200,000 hairs per square cm of skin, a rich fur for which humans hunted them almost to extinction. By the time the 1911 Fur Seal Treaty gave them protection, so few sea otters remained that the fur trade had become unprofitable. Sea otters eat shellfish and other invertebrates (especially dams, abalone, and sea urchins I, and one can frequently observe them using rocks as crude teals le smash open shells. They grow to 2. 5 to 6 feat in length and weigh 25 to 60 pounds. Although once near extinction, they have begun to spread again, starting from the California coast.Otters also inhabit Europe. In the United Kingdom they occurred commonly as recently as the 1950s, but have suffered a dramatic decline since then. Populations in Hertfordshire became extinct in the late 1970’s, with the River Mirnram reputed to have supported the last breeding female offer in Hertfordshire, at Tewinbury in 1978. The cause of this national decline was dried persecution, the accelerated loss and fragmentation of suitable riparian habitats, due to agricultural intensification and heavy urbanization, and the contamination of wetland systems with organochlorine pesticides.The European otter has received full legal protection in England and Wales since 1978. It is included in the wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, making it an offence to kill, injure or take a wild otter without a license; to intentionally damage, destroy or obstruct a holt; or to disturb an otter in its resting place. With the aid of a number of initiatives, by 1999 estimated numbers indicated a recovery to under 1,000 animals. The UK Biodiversity Action Plan envisages the re- introduction of otters by 2010 to all the UK rivers and coastal areas that they inhabited in 1960. In 1991, two groups of captive bred otters were released into Hertfordshire by The Offer Trust. Both release groups consisted of two sisters and a male otter, it was hoped that they would eventually re-colonize other rivers in Hertfordshire. But road kill deaths have become one of the significant threats to the success of their re-introduction.The Rise and Fall of the Unique Cultureon Easter IslandA. One of the world’s most famous yet least visited archaeological sites, Easter Island is a small,hilly, now treeless island of volcanic origin. Located in the Pacific Ocean at 27 degrees south of the equator and some 2200 miles (3600 kilometers) off the coast of Chile, it is considered to be the world’s most remote inhabited island. The island is, technically speaking, a single massive volcano rising over ten thousand feet from the Pacific Ocean floor. The island received its most well-known current name, Easter Island, from the Dutch sea captain Jacob Roggeveen who became the first European to visit Easter Sunday, April 5, 1722.B. In the early 1950s, the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl popularized the idea that theisland had been originally settled by advanced societies of Indians from the coast of South America. Extensive archaeological, ethnographic and linguistic research has conclusively shown this hypothesis to be inaccurate. It is now recognized that the original inhabitants of Easter Island are of Polynesian stock (DNA extracts from skeletons have confirmed this), that they most probably came from the Marquesas or Society islands, and that they arrived as early as 318 AD (carbon dating of reeds from a grave confirms this). At the time of their arrival, much of the island was forested, was teeming with land birds, and was perhaps the most productive breeding site for seabirds in the Polynesia region. Because of the plentiful bird, fish and plant food sources, the human population grew and gave rise to a rich religious and artistic culture.C. That culture’s most famous features are its enormous stone statues called moai, at least 288 ofwhich once stood upon massive stone platforms called ahu. There are some 250 of these ahu platforms spaced approximately one half mile apart and creating an almost unbroken line around the perimeter of the island. Another 600 moai statues, in various stages of completion, are scattered around the island, either in quarries or along ancient roads between the quarries and the coastal areas where the statues were most often erected. Nearly all the moai are carved from the tough stone of the Rano Raraku volcano. The average statue is 14 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs 14 tons. Some moai were as large as 33 feet and weighed more than 80 tons. Depending upon the size of the statues, it has been estimated that between 50 and 150 people were needed to drag them across the countryside on sleds and rolllers made from the island’s trees.D. Scholars are unable to definitively explain the function and use of the moai statues. It isassumed that their carving and erection derived from an idea rooted in similar practices found elsewhere in Polynesia but which evolved in a unique way on Easter Island. Archaeological and iconographic analysis indicates that the statue cult was based on an ideology of male, lineage-based authority incorporating anthropomorphic symbolism. The statues were thus symbols of authority and power, both religious and political. But they were not only symbols.。