Passage 2

Passage 246.题干：What is the most striking feature of the University of Phoenix?题干翻译：UP 最显著的特征是什么？抄写定位句：It grants degrees entirely on the basis of online instruction.翻译定位句：它(UP)完全基于在线教育授予学位。

抄写正选：All its courses are offered online.翻译正选：它(UP)所有课程均在线提供。

正选解析：A。

由题干定位词UP 和最高级most，定位第1 段第4、5 句。

注意：第4 句的entirely(完全)也是最高级，对应题干的most。

同义替换：entirely=all；online instruction=online courses错选排除：C 项定位第5 句，存在2 处错误：1）原文是“最大的私立学校”，而C 项是“最多的人数”，忽略了“私立”这个限制；2）UP 是网校，没有在校生，所以C 项“on campus”错误。

B 项best quality、D 项sure to get a degree 在定位处未提及。

47.题干：According to the passage, distance learning is basically characterized by.题干翻译：远程学习的主要特点是？抄写定位句：Generally speaking, face-to-face communication with an instructor is minimized or eliminated altogether.翻译定位句：总的来说，面对面授课最小化或完全消失。

抄写正选：a minimum or total absence of face-to-face instruction.翻译正选：面对面授课最小化或完全消失。

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The Pace of Evolutionary Change A heated debate has enlivened recent studiesof evolution.Darwin's original thesis,and theviewpoint supported by evolutionary gradualists,isthat species change continuously but slowly and insmall increments.Such changes are all but invisible over the short time scale of modernobservations,and,it is argued,they are usually obscured by innumerable gaps in theimperfect fossil record.Gradualism,with its stress on the slow pace of change,is a comfortingposition,repeated over and over again in generations of textbooks.By the early twentiethcentury,the question about the rate of evolution had been answered in favor of gradualism tomost biologists'satisfaction. 最近的一个关于进化的研究引发了激烈的争论。

达尔文的原始论点和进化渐进主义者支持的观点是物种会持续地改变，但非常缓慢，增量也很小。

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The Plow and the Horse in Medieval Europe 1One of the most important factors driving Europe slow emergence from the economic stagnation of the Early Middle Ages(circa 500000 BC)was the improvement of agricultural technology.One innovation was a new plow,with a curved attachment(moldboard)to turn over wet,heavy soils,and a knife(or coulter)in front of the blade to allow a deeper and easier cut.(A)This more complex plow replaced the simpler cratch plow that merely made a shallow,straight furrow in the ground.(B)In the lands around the Mediterranean,with light rains and mild winters,this had been fine,but in the wetter terrain north and west of the Danube and the Alps,such a plow left much to be desired,and it is to be wondered if it was used at all.Cleared lands would more likely have been worked by hand tilling,with little direct help from animals,and the vast forests natural to Northern Europe remained either untouched,or perhaps cleared in small sections by fire,and the land probably used only so long as the ash-enriched soil yielded good crops and then abandoned for some other similarly cleared field.(C)Such a pattern of agriculture and settlement was no basis for sustained cultural or economic life.(D) 2With the new heavy plow,however,fields could be cleared,sowed,and maintained with little more difficulty than in the long-settled lands of Southern Europe,while the richness of the new soils,the reliability of the rains,and the variety of crops now possibly made for an extremely productive agriculture.The new tool,however,imposed new demands,technical,economic,and social.The heavy plow was a substantial piece of capital,unlike a simple hand hoe,and this had the same sorts of implications that capitalization always hasn’t favored the concentration of wealth and control.Moreover,making full use of it required more animal power,and this had a host of implications of its own.The full importance of this was even more apparent in the centuries after 1000,when oxen began to give way in certain parts of Western Europe to horses. 3The powerful,rugged farm horse was itself a product of improvement during the Middle Ages,and it was part of a complex set of technical changes and capabilities.The introduction of new forms of equipment for horses transformed this animal into the single most important assist to human labor and travel.Instead of the old harness used by the ancient Greeks and Romans,there appeared from Central Asia the rigid,padded horse collar.Now,when the horse pulled against a load,no longer did the load pull back against its neck and windpipe but rather rode on the sturdy shoulders.When this innovation was combined with the iron horseshoe,the greater speed and stamina of the horse displaced oxen wherever it could be afforded.The larger importance of this lay not only in more efficient farmwork,but in swifter and surer transportation between town and countryside.The farmer with horses could moveproducts to market more frequently and at greater distances than with only oxen,and the urban development that was to transform the European economic and social landscape after the eleventh century was propelled in large part by these new horse-centered transport capabilities. 4Another indicator of how compelling and important was the new horse agriculture was its sheer cost.Unlike oxen and other cattle,horses cannot be supported exclusively on hay and pasturage;they require,particularly in northern climates where pasturing seasons are short,cropped food,such as oats and alfalfa.Unlike grass and hay,these are grown with much of the same effort and resources applied to human nourishment,and thus their acquisition represents a sacrifice,in a real sense,of human food.The importance of this in a world that usually lived at the margins of sufficient diet is hard to overstate.The increased resources that went into making the horse central to both the medieval economy and,in a separate but related development,medieval warfare,are the surest signs of the great utility the animal now assumed. 1.The word“stagnation”in the passage is closest in meaning to A)instability B)lack of growth C)dependence on others D)decline (第1段)2.According to paragraph 1,what was the main advantage of the new plow over the scratch plow A)The new plow created straighter rows. B)The new plow was easier for animals to pull. C)The new plow could dig deeper into the soil. D)The new plow was easier to make. (第1段)3.According to paragraph 1,the scratch plow was particularly unsuited to A)the lands around the Mediterranean B)places where the soil was often dry。

Q1答案：A解析：option“选择，选项”，所以A的choice正确。

代入原文，提到尽管游牧民族能到处搬家，但到了农耕时代这个就很难，benefit和idea明显不合文意，如果只是experience“体验”的话，即使到了农耕时代experience也不难，所以experience不正确。

Q2答案：B解析：A的healthier lifestyle做关键词定位至最后一句，提到游牧生活更健康，所以A正确，不选；B的knowledge of plants and animals做关键词定位至第二句，原文提到在knowledge比较丰富的人们当中农业发展起来，但不能凭这个推出游牧生活的人知识少，所以B错误，可选；C的storage做关键词定位至第四句，提到农业需要develop storage method，所以可以看出hunting and gathering是不需要这种能力的，C正确，不选；D的specific location定位至倒数第二句，而且根据上题的答案，这个正确，不选。

Q3答案：D解析：therefore“因此”，所以正确答案是D的as a result。

此题简单，A“理论上说”B“明显”C“频繁”都不正确。

Q4答案：A解析：提问全段如何组织，看开头，注意，一开头作者就提到traditionally，这个词的出现意味着全段可能存在转折，看第二句就提到it was argued，这和第一句观点不同，所以答案是A，先提出，再批判。

Q5答案：C解析：注意allowing和due to的双重因果关系，温度上升使得resource丰富，再使得人口增长，所以答案是C，很好地重复了这个双重因果。

A少缺最终的结果，也就是人口；B的simultaneously错误；D弄错了前面两个原因之间的关系。

Q6答案：D解析：以fluctuate做关键词定位至最后一句，提到气候变化，先wet接着干旱，导致availability也跟着波动，所以导致resource波动的原因是气候的干湿，所以答案是D的rainfall变化。

雅思为各位考生推荐复习材料-剑桥雅思9TestTEST 2 PASSAGE 2阅读参考译文-金星凌日,相应的解析，请点击：剑桥雅思9Test2阅读Passage2原文+答案解析。

TEST 2 PASSAGE 2 参考译文：金星凌日2004年6月金星再次越过太阳表面，构成了久违122年的天文奇观，也就是所谓的“凌日”现象。

正如Heather Cooper和Nigel Henbest所解释的那样，金星凌日现象影响了我们对整个宇宙的认识。

A 2004年6月8日，全世界一半以上的人都有幸见证了这起罕见的天文现象——经过六个多小时，金星缓缓滑过了太阳表面。

这是自1882年12月6日以来的第一次金星凌日现象。

彼时，美国天文学家Simon Newcomb教授带领着一队人去南非观测这一天文现象。

他们的观测点设在一所女子学校里，据说这所学校里的三位女教师合力观测出的结果比这组专业人士的还要精确。

B数首年来，金星凌日现象引起了全球各地的探险家与天文学家的关注，而这一切都要归功于非凡的博学家Edmond Hailey。

1677年11月，Hailey在位于南太平洋的荒无人烟的圣赫勒拿岛上，观测到了内行星水星的凌日现象。

他发现，水星滑过太阳盘面的轨迹因观测纬度不同而有差异。

通过计算行星在两个相距甚远的地方之间的运行时间，天文学家小组可以计算出视差角度。

视差角度是指天体的位置由于观测者的位置不同而产生的明显差异。

计算视差角度让天文学家得以实现当时的最终目标——算出地球与太阳之间的距离，这个距离就是所谓的“天文单位(AU)”。

C Hailey知道，天文单位是天文学中测量距离的基本单位之一。

在17世纪早期，Johannes Kepler就认为行星与太阳之间的距离控制着行星的轨道速度，这个很容易就能测量到，但是还没有人能找到一种方法来计算行星与地球之间的精确距离。

目标是先测量出天文单位，然后了解其他所有行星绕太阳运行的轨道速度，最后就能水到渠成，测出太阳系的规模。

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Early Saharan pastoralists早期撒哈拉牧民The Sahara is a highly diverse,albeit dry,region that has undergone major climatic changes since 10,000 B.C.As recently as 6000 B.C.,the southern frontier of the desert was far to the north of where it is now arid plains.This was a landscape where antelope of all kinds abounded—along with Bos primigenius,a kind of oxen that has become extinct.The areas that are now desert were,like all arid regions,very susceptible to cycles of higher and lower levels of rainfall,resulting in major,sudden changes in distributions of plants and animals.The people who hunted the sparse desert animals responded to drought by managing the wild resources they hunted and gathered,especially wild oxen,which had to have regular water supplies to survive.尽管干旱，撒哈拉的物种极其多样，并自公元前10,000年前开始已经历了数次重大气候变迁。

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Railroads and Commercial Agriculture in Nineteenth-Century United States By 1850 the United States possessed roughly 9,000 miles of railroad track;then years later it had over 30,000 miles,more than the rest of the world combined.Much of the new construction during the 1850s occurred west of the Appalachian Mountains–over 2,000 miles in the states of Ohio and Illinois alone. The effect of the new railroad lines rippled outward through the economy.Farmers along the tracks began to specialize in corps that they could market in distant locations.With their profits they purchased manufactured goods that earlier they might have made at home.Before the railroad reached Tennessee,the state produced about 25,000 bushels(or 640 tons)of wheat,which sold for less than 50 cents a bushel.Once the railroad came,farmers in the same counties grew 400,000 bushels(over 10,000 tons)and sold their crop at a dollar a bushel. The new railroad networks shifted the direction of western trade.In 1840 most northwestern grain was shipped south down the Mississippi River to the bustling port of New Orleans.But low water made steamboat travel hazardous in summer,and ice shut down traffic in winter.Products such as lard,tallow,and cheese quickly spoiled if stored in New Orleans’hot and humid warehouses.Increasingly,traffic from the Midwest flowed west to east,over the new rail lines.Chicago became the region’s hub,linking the farms of the upper Midwest to New York and other eastern cities by more than 2,000 miles of track in 1855.Thus while the value of goods shipped by river to New Orleans continued to increase,the South’s overall share of western trade dropped dramatically. A sharp rise in demand for grain abroad also encouraged farmers in the Northeast and Midwest to become more commercially oriented.Wheat,which in 1845 commanded$1.08 a bushel in New York City,fetched$2.46 in 1855;in similar fashion the price of corn nearly doubled.Farmers responded by specializing in cash crops,borrowing to purchase more land,and investing in equipment to increase productivity. As railroad lines fanned out from Chicago,farmers began to acquire open prairie land in Illinois and then Iowa,putting the fertile,deep black soil into production. Commercial agriculture transformed this remarkable treeless environment.To settlers accustomed to eastern woodlands,the thousands of square miles of tall grass were an awesome sight.Indian grass,Canada wild rye,and native big bluestem all grew higher than a person.Because eastern plows could not penetrate the densely tangled roots of prairie grass,the earliest settlers erected farms along the boundary separating the forest from the prairie.In 1837,however,John Deere patented a sharp-cutting steel plow that sliced through the sod without soil sticking to the blade.Cyrus McCormick refined a mechanical reaper that harvested fourteen times more wheat with the same amount of labor.By the 1850s McCormick was selling 1,000 reapers a year and could not keep up with demand,while Deere turned out 10,000 plows annually. The new commercial farming fundamentally altered the Midwestern landscape and the environment.Native Americans had grown corn in the region for years,but never in such large fields as did later settlers who became farmers,whose surpluses were shipped east.Prairie farmers also introduced new crops that were not part of the earlier ecological system,notably wheat,along with fruits and vegetables. Native grasses were replaced by a small number of plants cultivated as commodities.Corn had the best yields,but it was primarily used to feed livestock.Because bread played a key role in the American and European diet,wheat became the major cash crop.Tame grasses replaced native grasses in pastures for making hay. Western farmers altered the landscape by reducing the annual fires that had kept the prairie free from trees.In the absence of these fires,trees reappeared on land not in cultivation and,if undisturbed,eventually formed woodlots.The earlier unbroken landscape gave way to independent farms,each fenced off in a precise checkerboard pattern.It was an artificial ecosystem of animals,woodlots,and crops,whose large,uniform layout made western farms more efficient than the more-irregular farms in the East. 译文：十九世纪美国的铁路和商品农业 在1850年之前美国有约9，000英里铁轨，几年之后铁轨的长度增加到30,000多英里，比世界上其他地方的总和还要多。

Q1答案：A解析：mark“标记”，marked“显著的”。

所在句的上半句提到我们认为artistic efforts是比较粗劣的，然后转折，提到他们应该有技巧，considerable“相当大的”，正确。

surprising“令人惊讶的”，limited“有限的”，adequate“充足的”在这里意思有点过，并且跟“显著的”意思也不符合。

Q2答案：B解析：此题可以使用排除法，原文一共提到了三个地方岩画的年龄，南非28000年前，欧洲和南非一样，澳洲30000年前，所以澳洲最老，A错误，D也错误；B说28000年前，原文既然说欧洲和非洲一样，当然也是28000年前，所以B 正确；C刚好和原文相反，错误。

Q3答案：A解析：principal“主要的”，所以major是正确答案，likely“可能”，well protected “保护好的”，distinct“明显的”在这里意思都不符合。

Q4答案：D解析：以magical-religious activities做关键词定位至（3）的这句话，inner reach 和difficult to access都说明D是正确的，因为四个答案中只有D的hard-to-reach places与文中的difficult to access相对应。

Q5答案：D解析：trappings，复数的时候只有一个意思是“装饰物”。

原文与之并列的是backdrop，而backdrop指背景，所以problems“问题”和influences是完全不合文意的，注意condition选项颇具迷惑性，但条件跟背景的并列明显不如D“装饰”decorations的并列更好。

Q6答案：C解析：原文的结构是旧石器时代的人相信the drawing of a human image could cause death of injury，如果真是这样，it might explain why human figures are rarely depicted in cave art。