雅思真题原文
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READING PASSAGE 1You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.Johnson’s DictionaryFor the centur y before Johnson’s Dictionary was published in 1775, there had been concern about the state of the English language. There was no standard way of speaking or writing and no agreement as to the best way of bringing some order to the chaos of English spelling. Dr Johnson provided the solution.There had, of course, been dictionaries in the past, the first of these being a little book of some 120 pages, compiled by a certain Robert Cawdray, published in 1604 under the title A Table Alphabeticall ‘of hard usuall English wordes’. Like the various dictionaries that came after it during the seventeenth century, Cawdray’s tended to concentrate on ‘scholarly’ words; one function of the dictionary was to enable its student to convey an impression of fine learning.Beyond the practical need to make order out of chaos, the rise of dictionaries is associated with the rise of the English middle class, who were anxious to define and circumscribe thevarious worlds to conquer —lexical as well as social and commercial. it is highly appropriate that Dr Samuel Johnson, the very model of an eighteenth-century literary man, as famous in his own time as in ours, should have published his Dictionary at the very beginning of the heyday of the middle class.Johnson was a poet and critic who raised common sense to the heights of genius. His approach to the problems that had worried writers throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was intensely practical. Up until his time, the task of producing a dictionary on such a large scale had seemed impossible without the establishment of an academy to make decisions about right and wrong usage. Johnson decided he did not need an academy to settle arguments about language; he would write a dictionary himself and he would do it single-handed. Johnson signed the contract for the Dictionary with the bookseller Robert Dosley at a breakfast held at the Golden Anchor Inn near Holbom Bar on 18 June 1764.He was to be paid £1.575 in instalments, and from this he took money to rent Gou gh Square, in which he set up his ‘dictionary workshop’.James Boswell, his biographer, described the garret where Johnson worked as ‘fitted up like a counting house’ with a long desk running down the middle at which the copying clerks would work standing up. Johnson himself was stationed on a rickety chair at an ‘old crazy deal table’ surrounded by a chaos of borrowed books. He was also helped by six assistants, two of whom died whilst the Dictionary was still in preparation.The work was immense; filling about eighty large notebooks (and without a library to hand), Johnson wrote the definitions of over 40,000 words, and illustrated their many meanings with some 114,000 quotations drawn from English writing on everysubject, from the Elizabethans to his own time. He did not expect to achieve complete originality. Working to a deadline, he had to draw on the best of all previous dictionaries, and to make his work one of heroic synthesis. In fact, it was very much more. Unlike his predecessors, Johnson treated English very practically, as a living language, with many different shades of meaning. He adopted his definitions on the principle of English common law —according to precedent. After its publication, his Dictionary was not seriously rivalled for over a century.After many vicissitudes the Dictionary was finally published on 15 April 1775. It was instantly recognised as a landmark throughout Europe. ‘This very noble work,’ wrote the leading Italian lexicographer, ‘will be a perpetual monument of Fame to the Author, an Honour to his own Country in particular, and a general Benefit to the republic of Letters throughout Europe" The fact that Johnson had taken on the Academies of Europe and matched them (everyone knew that forty French academics had taken forty years to produce the first French national dictionary) was cause for much English celebration.Johnson had worked for nine years, ‘with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow’. For all its faults and eccentricities his two-volume work is a masterpiece and a landmark, in his own words, ‘setting the orthography, displaying the analogy, regulating the structures, and ascertaining the significations of English words’. It is the cornerstone of Standard English an achievement which, in James Boswell’s words ‘conferred stability on the language of his country.’The Dictionary, together with his other writing, made Johnson famous and so well esteemed that his friends were able to prevail upon King George Ⅲ to offer him a pension. From then on, he was to become the Johnson of folklore.Questions 1-3Choose THREE letters A-H.Write your answers in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet.NB Your answers may be given in any order.Which THREE of the following statements are true of Johnson’s Dictionary?A It avoided all scholarly words.B It was the only English dictionary in general use for 200 years.C It was famous because of the large number of people involved.D It focused mainly on language from contemporary texts.E There was a time limit for its completion.F It ignored work done by previous dictionary writers.G It took into account subtleties of meaning.H Its definitions were famous for their originality.Questions 4-7Complete the summary.Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.Write your answers in boxes 4-7 on your answer sheet.In 1764 Dr Johnson accepted the contract to produce a dictionary. Having rented a garret, he took on a number of 4…………, who stood at a long central desk. Johnson did not have a 5………… available to him, but eventually produced definitions of in excess of 40,000 words written down in 80 large notebooks.On publications, the Dictionary was immediately hailed in many European countries as a landmark. According to his biographer, James Boswell, Johnson’s principal achievement was to bring 6……… to the English language. As a reward for his ha rd work, he was granted a 7………by the king.Questions 8-13Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?In boxes 8-13 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 this8 The growing importance of the middle classes led to an increased demand for dictionaries.9 Johnson has become more well known since his death.10 Johnson had been planning to write a dictionary for several years.11 Johnson set up an academy to help with the writing of his Dictionary.12 Johnson only received payment for his Dictionary on its completion.13 Not all of the assistants survived to see the publication of the Dictionary.READING PASSAGE 2You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.Nature or Nurture?A A few years ago, in one of the most fascinating and disturbing experiments in behavioural psychology, Stanley Milgram of Yale University tested 40 subjects from all walks of lifefor their willingness to obey instructions given by a ‘leader’ in a situation in which the subjects might feel a personal distaste for the actions they were called upon to perform. Specifically M ilgram told each volunteer ‘teacher-subject’ that the experiment was in the noble cause of education, and was designed to test whether or not punishing pupils for their mistakes would have a positive effect on the pupils’ ability to learn.B Milgram’s expe rimental set-up involved placing the teacher-subject before a panel of thirty switches with labels ranging from ‘15 volts of electricity (slight shock)’ to ‘450 volts (danger —severe shock)’ in steps of 15 volts each. The teacher-subject was told that whenever the pupil gave the wrong answer to a question, a shock was to be administered, beginning at the lowest level and increasing in severity with each successive wrong answer. The supposed ‘pupil’ was in reality an actor hired by Milgram to simulate receiving the shocks by emitting a spectrum of groans, screams and writings together with an assortment of statements and expletives denouncing both the experiment and the experimenter. Milgram told the teacher-subject to ignore the reactions of the pupil, and to administer whatever level of shock was called for, as per the rule governing the experimental situation of the moment.C As the experiment unfolded, the pupil would deliberately give the wrong answers to questions posed by the teacher, thereby bringing on various electrical punishments, even up to the danger level of 300 volts and beyond. Many of the teacher-subjects balked at administering the higher levels of punishment, and turned to Milgram with questioning looks and/or complaints about continuing the experiment. In these situations, Milgramcalmly explained that the teacher-subject was to ignore the pupil’s cries for mercy and carry on with the experiment. If the subject was still reluctant to proceed, Milgram said that it was important for the sake of the experiment that the procedure be followed through to the end. His final argument was ‘you have no other choice. You must go on’. What Milgram was trying to discover was the number of teacher-subjects who would be willing to administer the highest levels of shock, even in the face of strong personal and moral revulsion against the rules and conditions of the experiment.D Prior to carrying out the experiment, Milgram explained his idea to a group of 39 psychiatrists and asked them to predict the average percentage of people in an ordinary population who would be willing to administer the highest shock level of 450 volts. The overwhelming consensus was that virtually all the teacher-subjects would refuse to obey the experimenter. The psychiatrists felt that ‘most subjects would not go beyond 150 volts’ and they further anticipated that only four per cent would go up to 300 volts. Furthermore, they thought that only a lunatic fringe of about one in 1,000 would give the highest shock of 450 volts.E What were the actual results? Well, over 60 per cent of the teacher-subjects continued to obey Milgram up to the 450-volt limit in repetitions of the experiment in other countries, the percentage of obedient teacher-subjects was even higher, reaching 85 per cent in one country. How can we possibly account for this vast discrepancy between what calm, rational, knowledgeable people predict in the comfort of their study and what pressured, flustered, but cooperative ‘teachers’ actually do in the laboratory of real life?F One’s first inclination might be to argue that there must be some sort of built-in animal aggression instinct that was activated by the experiment, and that Milgram’s teache-subjects were just following a genetic need to discharge this pent-up primal urge onto the pupil by administering the electrical shock. A modern hard-core sociobiologist might even go so far as to claim that this aggressive instinct evolved as an advantageous trait, having been of survival value to our ancestors in their struggle against the hardships of life on the plains and in the caves, ultimately finding its way into our genetic make-up as a remnant of our ancient animal ways.G An alternative to this notion of genetic programming is to see the teacher-subjects’ actions as a result of the social environment under which the experiment was carried out. As Milgram himself pointed out, ‘Most subjects in the experiment see their behaviour in a larger context that is benevolent and useful to society —the pursuit of scientific truth. The psychological laboratory has a strong claim to legitimacy and evokes trust and confidence in those who perform there. An action such as shocking a victim, which in isolation appears evil, acquires a completely different meaning when placed in this se tting.’H Thus, in this explanation the subject merges his unique personality and personal and moral code with that of larger institutional structures, surrendering individual properties like loyalty, self-sacrifice and discipline to the service of malevolent systems of authority.I Here we have two radically different explanations for why so many teacher-subjects were willing to forgo their sense of personal responsibility for the sake of an institutional authorityfigure. The problem for biologists, psychologists and anthropologists is to sort out which of these two polar explanations is more plausible. This, in essence, is the problem of modern sociobiology — to discover the degree to which hard-wired genetic programming dictates, or at least strongly biases, the interaction of animals and humans with their environment, that is, their behaviour. Put another way, sociobiology is concerned with elucidating the biological basis of all behaviour.Questions 14-19Reading Passage 2 has nine paragraphs, A-I.Which paragraph contains the following information?Write the correct letter A-I in boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet.14 a biological explanation of the teacher-subjects’ behaviour15 the explanation Milgram gave the teacher-subjects for the experiment16 the identity of the pupils17 the expected statistical outcome18 the general aim of sociobiological study19 the way Milgram persuaded the teacher-subjects to continueQuestions 20-22Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.Write your answers in boxes 20-22 on your answer sheet.20 The teacher-subjects were told that were testing whetherA a 450-volt shock was dangerous.B punishment helps learning.C the pupils were honest.D they were suited to teaching.21 The teacher-subjects were instructed toA stop when a pupil asked them to.B denounce pupils who made mistakes.C reduce the shock level after a correct answer.D give punishment according to a rule.22 Before the experiment took place the psychiatristsA believed that a shock of 150 volts was too dangerous.B failed to agree on how the teacher-subjects would respond to instructions.C underestimated the teacher-subjects’ willingness to comply with experimental procedure.D thought that many of the teacher-subjects would administer a shock of 450 volts.Questions 23-26Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?In boxes 23-26 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 this23 Several of the subjects were psychology students at Yale University.24 Some people may believe that the teacher-subjects’ behaviour could be explained as a positive survival mechanism.25 In a sociological explanation, personal values are more powerful than authority.26 Milgram’s experiment solves an important question in sociobiology.READING PASSAGE 3You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40,which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.The Truth about the EnvironmentFor many environmentalists, the world seems to be getting worse. They have developed a hit-list of our main fears: that natural resources are running out; that the population is ever growing, leaving less and less to eat; that species are becoming extinct in vast numbers, and that the planet’s air and water are becoming ever more polluted.But a quick look at the facts shows a different picture. First, energy and other natural resources have become more abundant, not less so, since the book ‘The Limits to Growth’ was published in 1972 by a group of scientists. Second, more food is now produced per head of the world’s population than at any time in history. Fewer people are starving. Third, although species are indeed becoming extinct, only about 0.7% of them are expected to disappear in the next 50 years, not 25-50%, as has so often been predicted. And finally, most forms of environmental pollution either appear to have been exaggerated, or are transient —associated with the early phases of industrialisation and therefore best cured not by restricting economic growth, but by accelerating it. One form of pollution — the release of greenhouse gases that causes global warming — does appear to be a phenomenon that is going to extend well into our future, but its total impact is unlikely to pose a devastating problem. A bigger problem may well turn out to be an inappropriate response to it.Yet opinion polls suggest that many people nurture the belief that environmental standards are declining and four factors seem to cause this disjunction between perception and reality.One is the lopsidedness built into scientific research. Scientific funding goes mainly to areas with many problems. That may be wise policy, but it will also create an impression that many more potential problems exist than is the case.Secondly, environmental groups need to be noticed by the mass media. They also need to keep the money rolling in. Understandably, perhaps, they sometimes overstate their arguments. In 1997, for example, the World Wide Fund for Nature issued a press release entitled: ‘Two thirds of the world’s forests lost forever.’ The truth turns out to be nearer 20%.Though these groups are run overwhelmingly by selfless folk, they nevertheless share many of the characteristics of other lobby groups. That would matter less if people applied the same degree of scepticism to environmental lobbying as they do to lobby groups in other fields. A trade organisation arguing for, say, weaker pollution controls is instantly seen as self-interested. Yet a green organisation opposing such a weakening is seen as altruistic, even if an impartial view of the controls in question might suggest they are doing more harm than good.A third source of confusion is the attitude of the media. People are clearly more curious about bad news than good. Newspapers and broadcasters are there to provide what the public wants. That, however, can lead to significant distortions of perception. An example was America’s encounter with El Nino in 1997 and 1998. This climatic phenomenon was accused of wrecking tourism, causing allergies, melting the ski-slopes and causing 22 deaths. However, according to an article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, the damage it did was estimated at US$4 billion but the benefits amounted to some US$19 billion. These came from higher winter temperatures(which saved an estimated 850 lives, reduced heating costs and diminished spring floods caused by meltwaters).The fourth factor is poor individual perception. People worry that the endless rise in the amount of stuff everyone throws away will cause the world to run out of places to dispose of waste. Yet, even if America’s trash output continues to rise as it has done in the past, and even if the American population doubles by 2100, all the rubbish America produces through the entire 21st century will still take up only one-12,000th of the area of the entire United States.So what of global warming? As we know, carbon dioxide emissions are causing the planet to warm. The best estimates are that the temperatures will rise by 2-3℃ in this century, causing considerable problems, at a total cost of US$5,000 billion.Despite the intuition that something drastic needs to be done about such a costly problem, economic analyses clearly show it will be far more expensive to cut carbon dioxide emissions radically than to pay the costs of adaptation to the increased temperatures. A model by one of the main authors of the United Nations Climate Change Panel shows how an expected temperature increase of 2.1 degrees in 2100 would only be diminished to an increase of 1.9 degrees. Or to put it another way, the temperature increase that the planet would have experienced in 2094 would be postponed to 2100.So this does not prevent global warming, but merely buys the world six years. Yet the cost of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, for the United States alone, will be higher than the cost of solving the world’s single, most pressing health problem: providing universal access to clean drinking water and sanitation. Such measures would avoid 2 million deaths every year, andprevent half a billion people from becoming seriously ill.It is crucial that we look at the facts if we want to make the best possible decisions for the future. It may be costly to be overly optimistic — but more costly still to be too pessimistic.Questions 27-32Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 3?In boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet, writeYES if the statement ag rees with the writer’s claimsNO if the statement contradicts the writer’s clamsNOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this27 Environmentalists take a pessimistic view of the world fora number of reasons28 Data on the Earth’s natural resources has only been collected since 1972.29 The number of starving people in the world has increased in recent years.30 Extinct species are being replaced by new species.31 Some pollution problems have been correctly linked to industrialisation.32 It would be best to attempt to slow down economic growth.Questions 33-37Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.Write your answers in boxes 33-37 on your answer sheet.33 What aspect of scientific research does the writer express concern about in paragraph 4?A the need to produce resultsB the lack of financial supportC the selection of areas to researchD the desire to solve every research problem34 The writer quotes from the Worldwide Fund for Nature to illustrate howA influential the mass media can be.B effective environmental groups can be.C the mass media can help groups raise funds.D environmental groups can exaggerate their claims.34 What is the writer’s main point about lobby groups in paragraph 6?A Some are more active than others.B Some are better organised than others.C Some receive more criticism than others.D Some support more important issues than others.35 The writer suggests that newspapers print items that are intended toA educate readers.B meet their readers’ expec tations.C encourage feedback from readers.D mislead readers.36 What does the writer say about America’s waste problem?A It will increase in line with population growth.B It is not as important as we have been led to believe.C It has been reduced through public awareness of the issues.D It is only significant in certain areas of the country.Questions 38-40Complete the summary with the list of words A-I below.Write the correct letter A-I in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.GLOBAL WARMINGThe writer admits that global warming is a 38…………….challenge, but says that it will not have a catastrophic impact on our future, if we deal with it in the 39…………… way. If we try to reduce the levels of greenhouse gases, he believes that it would only have a minimal impact on rising temperatures. He feels it would be better to spend money on the more 40………… health problem of providing the world’s population with clean drinking water.A unrealisticB agreedC expensiveD rightE long-termF usualG surprisingH personalI urgent剑桥雅思阅读5原文参考译文(test1)TEST 1 PASSAGE 1参考译文:Johnson’s Dictionary约翰逊博士的字典For the century before Johnson’s Dictionary was published in 1775, there had been concern about the state of the English language. There was no standard way of speaking or writing and no agreement as to the best way of bringing some order to the chaos of English spelling. Dr Johnson provided the solution.约翰逊博士的《字典》于1775年出版,在此之前的一个世纪,人们一直对英语的发展状况担忧。
雅思5听力真题一、雅思5 Personal Finance听力真题原文:OK,so we've been looking at the attitudes of various social and cultural groups towards the management of their personal finances-how important they feel it is to save money,and what they save their money for.One aspect that we haven't yet considered is gender.So if we consider gender issues we're basically asking whether men and women have different attitudes towards saving money,and whether they save money for different things.Back in 1928 the British writer George Bernard Shaw wrote in his Intelligent Women's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism that'A man is supposed to understand politics,economics and finance and is therefore unwilling to accept essential instruction.'He also said,‘A woman,having fewer pretensions,is far more willing to learn'.Now,though these days people might question a lot of the assumptions contained in those statements,recent research does suggest that there are some quite fundamental differences between men and women in their attitudes to economic matters.Let's look at what men and women actually save for.Research studies of women in North America have found that women are far more likely to save for their children's education and they are also more likely to save up in order to buy a house one day.The same studies have found that men,on the other hand,tend to save for a car,which by the way takes a surprisingly large amount of the household budget in North America.But the other main priority for men when saving money is their retirement.When they're earning,they're far more likely to put money aside for their old age than women are.Now this is rather disturbing,because in fact the need for women to save for their old age is far greater than for men.Let's consider this for a moment.To start with,it is a fact that throughout the world,women are likely to live many years longer than men,so they need money to support them during this time.Since women are likely to be the ones left without a partner in old age,they may therefore have to pay for nursing care,because they don't have a spouse to look after them.Furthermore the high divorce rates in North America are creating a poverty cycle for women.It is the divorced women who will most often have to look after the children and thus they need more money to look after not just themselves but others.So what can be done about this situation?The population in North America is likely to contain an increasing number of elderly women.The research indicates that at present for women it takes a crisis to make them think about their future financial situation.But of course this is the very worst time for anyone to make important decisions.Women today need to look ahead,think ahead-not wait until they're under pressure.Even women in their early twenties need to think about pensions,for example,and with increasing numbers of women in professional positions there are signs that this is beginning to happen.Then research also suggests that women avoid dealing effectively with their economic situation because of a lack of confidence.The best way for them to overcome this is by getting themselves properly informed so they are less dependent on other people's advice.A number of initiatives have been set up to help them do this.This College,for example,is one of the educational institutions which offers night classes in Money Management,and increasing numbers of women are enrolling on such courses.Here,they can be given advice on different ways of saving.Many women are unwilling to invest in stocks and shares,for instance,but these can be extremely profitable.It is usually advised that at least 70%of a person's savings should be in low-risk investments but for the rest,financial advisors often advise taking some well-informed risks.Initiatives such as this can give women the economic skills and knowledge they need for a comfortable,independent retirement.The increasing proportion of elderly women in the population is likely to have other economic consequences…二、雅思5 Personal Finance听力中文翻译:好的,我们一直在关注各种社会和文化群体对个人财务管理的态度——他们觉得省钱有多重要,以及他们省钱的目的是什么。
Keys:Each question correctly answered scores 1 mark. CORRECT SPELLING IS NEEDED IN ALL ANSWERS.注:Questions 35, 38 and 40 (IN EITHER ORDER, BOTH REQUIRED FOR ONE MARK)If you score…Audio ScriptsSECTION 1LYNDA: Sara, I’ve heard that you want to move into a homestay family. Is that correct SARA: Yes, that’s right. I’ve been staying with my aunt and now my cousin is arriving from Singapore and my aunt needs the room for him.LYNDA: Oh, that’s bad luck. Well, I’II need to get some particulars first. Sara, what’s your full nameSARA: Sara Lim, and that’s Sara without the ‘h’ at the end.LYNDA: Mmm. How old are you, SaraSARA: Twenty-three, only just. It was my birthday on the twenty-first of August.LYNDA: Happy birthday for yesterday. How long have you been in AustraliaSARA: (Q1) A year in Adelaide and six months in Sydney. I prefer Sydney. I’ve got more friends here.LYNDA: What’s your address at your aunt’s houseSARA: Flat one, five three nine (Q2) Forest Road, Canterbury. And the post code is two, o, three, six.LYNDA: OK. What are you studying nowSARA: I was studying General English in Adelaide and now I’m doing (Q3) Academic English, because I’m trying to get into Medicine next year.LYNDA: That sounds good, but it’ll take you a long time. When would you like to move out from your aunt’sSARA: My cousin arrives on Friday morning, so I’d better be out on (Q4) Thursday. LYNDA: What, the seventh of SeptemberSARA: Yes, that’s right.LYNDA: That doesn’t leave us much time. Right, OK. I need to know what kind of accommodation you’d like, so I can get you something suitableSARA: Can I (Q5) share a room with someone else I’ve been alone in my room at my aunt’s and I’ve always shared with my sister and I like that.LYNDA: Yes, fine. That’ll save you money too. Would you like to live with a family or do you think that a (Q6) single person would be better for you I have lots of very nice singlepeople on my books.SARA: Do you have any women living alone, retired womenLYNDA: Yes, I have quite a few whose children have grown up and left home. In fact, I have some really lovely retired ladies, living by themselves, who just love the company of students. Most of them live in (Q7) flats, but that’s not a problem for you, is it SARA: Not at all. I’m used to that. My aunt lives in a flat too, remember. I’m not use to a big house with a garden, swimming pool, pets and all that.LYNDA: OK, fine. I know quite a bit about what you want now. I should let you know that your rent will be a hundred and sixty dollars per week. You’ll have to pay me three hundredand twenty dollars as a (Q8) deposit before you move in. The deposit is as insurance, incase you break something. You’ll need to pay (Q9) monthly to me, by cash or cheque, Idon’t mind. You don’t need to pay for gas, electricity or water, but you will need to payyour proportion of the (Q10) phone bill. Most families do that on an honour system,but you’ll have to wait and seeSARA: Mmm.LYNDA: Have you got any more questions for meSARA: When will you know where I can goLYNDA: I’II work on it now, so come and see me tomorrow and I should have some news for you then.SARA: Thanks a lot.LYNDA: Goodbye. See you tomorrow – after lunch would be better for me.SARA: OK, see you then. Bye.SECTION 2GEOFFREY: Good evening, and in this week’s edition of ‘Focus on the Arts’, Jane Hemmington is going to fill us in on what’s in store for us at this year’s Summer Festival. Over to you,Jane.JANE: Thank you, Geoffrey. This year, the Summer Festival is the biggest we’ve ever seen, so there should be something for everybody. This is the third year they’ve run it and the timing’s slightly different: for the last couple of years it’s been around the fifth to seventeenth, but this year they wanted to allow everyone enough time to recover from the first of January celebrations and they’ve put it (Q11) at the end of the month.The programme has sensational theatre, dance and also a large number of art exhibitions, but the thing the Festival is most famous for is its great street music. For today’s report though, Geoffrey, I’m looking at some of the (Q12) theatrical events that you might like to see; in particular, at this year’s theme – circuses.I’m going to tell you about two circus performances, but there are (Q13) plenty of others in the progralmme. I’ve chosen these because they represent distinct movements within circus performance. The first is the Circus Romano from Italy. As this is a travelling circus, it follows a long tradition by performing (Q14) in a marquee– which is really like a canvas portable building, usually put up in a green space or car park, rather than in a theatre or stadium.In spite of this, Circus Romano isn’t at all like the traditional circuses I grew up with. There are no animals – just very talented clowning and acrobatic routines. The show has a lot of very funny moments, especially at the beginning, but the best part is the music and (Q15) lighting. They’re magical. At forty-five dollars it’s very expensive anyway – it’s really for (Q16) adult tastes. In fact, much of it would be wasted on children – so I suggest you leave them at home.The second circus performance is Circus Electrica at the (Q17) Studio Theatre. The purists are suggesting that this isn’t a circus at all. It’s a showcase for skills in dance and magic, rather than the usual ones you expect in a circus. With only six performers it’s a small production, which suits the venue well – the Studio only seats about two hundred people. For my money it’s the aerial displays which are outstanding as well as the magical tricks – features which are missing from Circus Romano. An interesting feature of the show is that the performers are so young – the youngest is only fourteen. But it’s still well worth seeing: a good one for (Q18) the whole family.And finally, as it’s summer, you may wish to see some of the Festival performances that are being presented outdoors. Like the famous Mekong Water Puppet Troupe, performing in the (Q19) City Gardens this week. Now, water puppetry is amazing! It’s large puppets on long sticks, controlled by puppeteers standing waist deep in the lake. The puppets do comedy routines andthere is some terrific formation dancing. This is a fantastic show and the best moment comes at the end –seeing the puppeteers. When the troupe walks up out of the water, you get this amazing feeling. It’s really hard to believe that what you’ve been watching is lifeless wood and cloth. As an adult, I had a great time, but I did note that other older people in the audience weren’t quite as taken with it as I was. It’s a must for (Q20) young children though, and that’s the audience it’s really aimed at.Well, that’s all I’ve time for today, but I’II be back next week with more news of what’s worth seeing and what it’s best to miss.SECTION 3OFFICER: Hello. Er, I’m Dawn Matthews.STUDENT: Yes, hello. I’ve been referred to you because I’m enquiring about the refresher courses that you run. I’d like to find out a bit more about them.OFFICER: OK. Well, we run quite a few different short courses for students who are either (Q21)returning to study or studying part-time. Um, tell me about your situation. STUDENT: Well, I think that I really need some help in preparing for the coming semester, especially to build up my confidence a bit and help me study effectively because, yousee, I’ve been out in the work-force for nearly twelve years now, so it really is a longtime since I was last a student.OFFICER: Yes, it can seem like a long time, can’t it Um, well, let me start by telling you what courses we have that might suit you. Are you an undergraduate or postgraduate Artsor SciencesSTUDENT: Undergraduate, and I’m in the Business faculty.OFFICER: Right then. First of all, there’s our intensive ‘Study for Success’ seminar on (Q22) the first and second of February. It’s aimed at students like you who are uncertain aboutwhat to expect at college, and looks at a fairly wide range of approaches to universitylearning, to motivate you to begin your study and build on your own learningstrategies.STUDENT: Mm, that sounds good. What are some of the strategies that are presented OFFICER: Well, we try to cover all aspects of study. Some of the strategies in writing, for example, would be improving your planning for writing, organising your thinking andbuilding some techniques to help you (Q23) write more clearly. With reading,there’ll be sessions aimed at getting into the habit of (Q24) analysing material asyou read it, and tips to help you record and remember what you have read. It reallyis very important to begin reading confidently right from the beginning. STUDENT: Mm.OFFICER: There’s also advice on how to get the most from your lectures and practice in giving confident presentations, as well as how to prepare for exams.STUDENT: What about the motivational side of thingsOFFICER: Ah. Well, there’s a range of motivational exercises that we do to help the students feel (Q25) positive and enthusiastic about their study. The process of learning andexploring a subject can lead to a whole new way of looking at the world, and thestudy skills and techniques that you build up can be applied in all sorts of differentways.STUDENT: Actually, I… I’m very excited about the whole thing of taking up studying again but, you know, I’m a little nervous about whether I’ll manage to get everything done. Isuppose it’s the same for all mature studentsOFFICER: Of course it is. Two of the key components of the course are (Q26) time management and overcoming procrastination. People discover that, once they learnto plan their days, all the work can be accomplished and there’ll still be time forleisure.STUDENT: Is there an enrolment feeOFFICER: Well, er, oh, just a minute, let’s see . . . Ah, the cost is thirty pounds, which includes all course materials and morning tea. You have to arrange your own lunch. STUDENT: That wouldn’t be a problem. I already make sandwiches for my three kids and my wife and myself every day. I won’t have to change my routine.OFFICER: No. Now, I need to tell you that this is a very popular course and it’s essential that you (Q27) book well ahead of time. In fact, the Course Convenor tells me that thereare only five places left.STUDENT: What other course might be good for meOFFICER: There is one other that you could benefit from. It’s simply called ‘Learning Skills for University Study’ and is on (Q28) three consecutive mornings starting on a Monday,from nine to twelve, and costs twenty-five pounds. This is aimed at upgrading thestudy skills most school-leavers have and help them cope with the increaseddemands of university study. It focuses mainly on making students more responsiblefor their own success.STUDENT: What sort of things are covered in this courseOFFICER: Well, basically it’s more advanced thinking, note-taking, reading and writing strategies, but also some input about (Q29) stress management.STUDENT: I think I’d be better off (Q30) starting from the basics and looking at all the strategies, don’t youOFFICER: Yes, from what you’ve told me, I think that’s more in line with your situation. STUDENT: Alright then, um, can I book a place on the ‘Study for Success’ seminar course now OFFICER: Yes. Let me just get out a registration form and take down your details.SECTION 4We’re very grateful that the Committee has agreed that a representative for the Students’Union can present students’ suggestions about the design for the proposed new Union building. We appreciate that some of our ideas may not be feasible in the circumstances, but we do feel that it is important that the ultimate beneficiaries of the facilities should have some say in its design.If I could start by briefly explaining what steps were taken to find out student opinion and how we have arrived at conclusions. Firstly, a meeting was held in the current Union for our SU Committee to explain the options. Then we invited all students to submit written suggestions for the design, placing cards in a suggestion box. These suggestions then provided the basis for the design of a (Q31) questionnaire, which was completed by (Q32) approximately two thousand of the College students over a period of three weeks. Finally, the SU Committee collated the resultsand drew up a report. If I can just hand around a copy of that report. This presentation is essentially a summary and discussion of the key points of this report.So, in broad terms, the consensus was as follows. Firstly, regarding the crucial matter of the site, we presented the three options that you have proposed. One: in the city centre, near the Faculty of (Q33) Education; two: on the outskirts of the city, near the park, and three: out of town, near the (Q34) halls of residence. We asked students to cite reasons for and against these sites and, and there was remarkable agreement on all three. Site One was unpopular because of (Q35) traffic and parking problems. Site Two had a number of supporters, mainly because it was close to (Q36) most lecture rooms. And Site Three, out of town, near the halls of residence, was clearly the most popular because of access from living quarters. It was clear that the Union was mainly to be used after lectures. It was also felt that the large site would allow (Q37) more room for a choice of facilities.Our second area of interest was obviously the facilities: there was minimal interest in having a library on the premises, but one option seemed to be a reading room instead – more useful. We would like the current table games room to be replaced with (Q38) a small gym. And, if possible, a small swimming pool – not, of course, Olympic-sized! There was a large number of respondents in favour of a travel agent’s and insurance centre. We also request that there be the offices of the Student Counselling Centre, moving this from the Refectory. There was, however, much disagreement about whether to build a drama theatre. Just over forty per cent of the respondents were in favour, but a largish minority were strongly against it, claiming that it is (Q39) elitist and a waste of funds. Essentially the jury is out on that.Finally, given the number of unfortunate incidents in the current Union over the past few months, a strong point was repeatedly made about security. The recommendations would be at least (Q40) video surveillance and security personnel who would check Student Union cards on request. We doubt if it would be feasible in.Well, this is the summary of the views of the student population. As I say, fuller details are given in our report but I’m happy to take any questions if you have them . . .。
剑桥雅思18听力文本原题Part 1Section 1In this section, you will hear a conversation between a woman named Lucy and a man named Tom. They are discussing a trip to Australia that Lucy is planning. Pay attention to the details of their conversation.Lucy: Hi Tom, I've been thinking about taking a trip to Australia. Do you have any recommendations?Tom: Oh, Australia is an amazing country to visit! Where are you planning to go?Lucy: I'm thinking about starting in Sydney and then exploring the east coast. I've heard there are beautiful beaches and national parks there.Tom: That sounds like a great plan. Sydney has a lot to offer, and the east coast is known for its stunning landscapes. Don't miss the Great Barrier Reef, it's a must-see.Lucy: Definitely, I've always wanted to see the Great Barrier Reef. Are there any other places you recommend visiting?Tom: If you have time, you should visit Melbourne. It's a vibrant city with a lot of cultural attractions. And if you're into wildlife, don't miss Kangaroo Island.Lucy: That sounds fantastic. I'll make sure to include Melbourne and Kangaroo Island in my itinerary. Thanks for the suggestions, Tom!Section 2In this section, you will hear a monologue about a newly opened museum. Listen carefully and answer the questions that follow.Narrator: Welcome to the London History Museum, the newest addition to the city's cultural scene. The museum showcases the rich history and heritage of London, fromancient times to the present day. Here, you can explore interactive exhibits, view historical artifacts, and learn about the city's famous landmarks.One of the highlights of the museum is the "Great Fire of London" exhibition. Step back in time and experience the devastation caused by the fire in 1666. You can see original documents, paintings, and models that depict the events of that fateful day.Another fascinating exhibit is the "London's Underground" section. Discover the history of the world's first underground railway system and learn how it transformed the city's transportation. You can even step into a replica of the original steam-powered train and experience what it was like to travel underground in the 19th century.For those interested in art, the museum houses a collection of paintings by famous London artists, such as Turner and Constable. Admire their masterpieces and gain a deeper understanding of the artistic heritage of the city.Make sure to visit the museum shop, where you can find a wide range of souvenirs and books about London's history. And don't forget to stop by the café for a cup of tea and some delicious pastries.So, whether you're a history enthusiast, an art lover, or simply curious about London's past, the London History Museum is the perfect destination for you. Come and immerse yourself in the fascinating stories and treasures of this great city.Part 2Section 3In this section, you will hear a conversation between a student named Jane and her professor, Mr. Thompson. They are discussing Jane's research project. Listen carefully and answer the questions that follow.Jane: Hi, Professor Thompson. I wanted to discuss my research project with you. I'm interested in studying the effects of social media on teenagers' mental health.Professor Thompson: That's a very relevant and important topic, Jane. What specific aspects of social media and mental health do you want to focus on?Jane: I want to explore how the excessive use of social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, can contribute to feelings of loneliness and low self-esteem among teenagers.Professor Thompson: That's an interesting angle. How do you plan to conduct your research?Jane: I'm planning to distribute questionnaires to a sample of teenagers and ask them about their social media habits, their mental well-being, and their perception of themselves. I also want to conduct interviews with mental health professionals to gather their insights on the issue.Professor Thompson: Good approach, Jane. It's important to gather data from both the teenagers themselves and the professionals working in the field. Have you thought about any potential limitations of your study?Jane: Yes, I'm aware that self-reporting through questionnaires may not always provide accurate information, and there may be other factors influencing teenagers' mental health besides social media. However, I'll try to address these limitations in my analysis.Professor Thompson: Excellent. I think your research has the potential to contribute to the existing body of knowledge on this topic. Keep me updated on your progress, Jane.Section 4In this section, you will hear a lecture about the impact of climate change on marine ecosystems. Listen carefully and answer the questions that follow.Lecturer: Good afternoon, everyone. Today, we're going to discuss the effects of climate change on marine ecosystems. Climate change, primarily caused by human activities, is resulting in rising sea temperatures and changing oceanic conditions, which are having a profound impact on marine life.One of the major consequences of climate change is the bleaching of coral reefs. Coral reefs are extremely sensitive to changes in temperature, and when the water gets too warm, the coral expels the algae living inside them, causing them to turn white. This not only affects the coral itself but also disrupts the entire reef ecosystem, as coral reefs are home to a diverse range of marine species.Another significant impact is the acidification of the oceans. As the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, the oceans absorb a large amount of this gas, resulting in a decrease in the pH level of the water. This change in acidity has harmful effects on marine organisms, particularly those with calcium carbonate shells or skeletons, such as shellfish and certain types of plankton.Furthermore, climate change is causing shifts in the distribution and behavior of marine species. Warmer waters are pushing some species towards the poles, while others are migrating to deeper waters in search of suitable conditions. This disruption in the natural balance of marine ecosystems can lead to changes in predator-prey relationships and the decline of certain species.In conclusion, climate change is posing significant threats to marine ecosystems. It is essential that we take immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the impacts of climate change on our oceans. Only by protecting our marine ecosystems can we ensure the sustainability of our planet and the diverse array of life it supports.Note: The above transcript has been created based on the description provided and the general knowledge of the topic. It may not be an exact replication of the original listening material.。
剑桥雅思阅读11真题及答案解析(test3)雅思阅读部分一直都是中国考生比较重视的题目,并且也是很有难度的题目,针对于雅思阅读真题资料也是大家需要重点分析的。
今天小编就给大家带来了关于剑桥雅思阅读11原文参考译文以及答案(test3)的内容,一起来分析一下吧。
剑桥雅思阅读11原文(test3)READING PASSAGE 1You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.THE STORY OF SILKThe history of the world’s most luxurious fabric, from ancient China to the present daySilk is a fine, smooth material produced from the cocoons —soft protective shells —that are made by mulberry silkworms (insect larvae). Legend has it that it was Lei Tzu, wife of the Yellow Emperor, ruler of China in about 3000 BC, who discovered silkworms. One account of the story goes that as she was taking a walk in her husband’s gardens, she discovered that silkworms were responsible for the destruction of several mulberry trees. She collected a number of cocoons and sat down to have a rest. It just so happened that while she was sipping some tea, one of the cocoons that she had collected landed in the hot tea and started to unravel into a fine thread. Lei Tzu found that she could wind this thread around her fingers. Subsequently, she persuaded her husband to allow her to rear silkworms on a grove of mulberry trees. She also devised a special reel to draw the fibres from the cocoon into a single thread so that they would be strong enough to be woven into fabric. While it is unknown just how much of this is true, it is certainly known that silk cultivationhas existed in China for several millennia.Originally, silkworm farming was solely restricted to women, and it was they who were responsible for the growing, harvesting and weaving. Silk quickly grew into a symbol of status, and originally, only royalty were entitled to have clothes made of silk. The rules were gradually relaxed over the years until finally during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911 AD), even peasants, the lowest caste, were also entitled to wear silk. Sometime during the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), silk was so prized that it was also used as a unit of currency. Government officials were paid their salary in silk, and farmers paid their taxes in grain and silk. Silk was also used as diplomatic gifts by the emperor. Fishing lines, bowstrings, musical instruments and paper were all made using silk. The earliest indication of silk paper being used was discovered in the tomb of a noble who is estimated to have died around 168 AD.Demand for this exotic fabric eventually created the lucrative trade route now known as the Silk Road, taking silk westward and bringing gold, silver and wool to the East. It was named the Silk Road after its most precious commodity, which was considered to be worth more than gold. The Silk Road stretched over 6,000 kilometres from Eastern China to the Mediterranean Sea, following the Great Wall of China, climbing the Pamir mountain range, crossing modern-day Afghanistan and going on to the Middle East, with a major trading market in Damascus. From there, the merchandise was shipped across the Mediterranean Sea. Few merchants travelled the entire route; goods were handled mostly by a series of middlemen.With the mulberry silkworm being native to China, the country was the world’s sole producer of silk for many hundreds of years. The secret of silk-making eventually reached the rest ofthe world via the Byzantine Empire, which ruled over the Mediterranean region of southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East during the period 330-1453 AD. According to another legend, monks working for the Byzantine emperor Justinian smuggled silkworm eggs to Constantinople (Istanbul in modern-day Turkey) in 550 AD, concealed inside hollow bamboo walking canes. The Byzantines were as secretive as the Chinese, however, and for many centuries the weaving and trading of silk fabric was a strict imperial monopoly. Then in the seventh century, the Arabs conquered Persia, capturing their magnificent silks in the process. Silk production thus spread through Africa, Sicily and Spain as the Arabs swept through these lands. Andalusia in southern Spain was Europe’s main silk-producing centre in the tenth century. By the thirteenth century, however, Italy had become Europe’s leader in silk production and export. Venetian merchants traded extensively in silk and encouraged silk growers to settle in Italy. Even now, silk processed in the province of Como in northern Italy enjoys an esteemed reputation.The nineteenth century and industrialisation saw the downfall of the European silk industry. Cheaper Japanese silk, trade in which was greatly facilitated by the opening of the Suez Canal, was one of the many factors driving the trend. Then in the twentieth century, new manmade fibres, such as nylon, started to be used in what had traditionally been silk products, such as stockings and parachutes. The two world wars, which interrupted the supply of raw material from Japan, also stifled the European silk industry. After the Second World War, Japan’s silk production was restored, with improved production and quality of raw silk. Japan was to remain the world’s biggest producer of raw silk, and practically the only major exporter of raw silk, untilthe 1970s. However, in more recent decades, China has gradually recaptured its position as the world’s biggest producer and exporter of raw silk and silk yarn. Today, around 125,000 metric tons of silk are produced in the world, and almost two thirds of that production takes place in China.Questions 1-9Complete the notes below.Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.Write your answers in boxes 1-9 on your answer sheet.THE STORY OF SILKEarly silk production in ChinaAround 3000 BC, according to legend:- silkworm cocoon fell into emperor’s wife’s 1 __________- emperor’s wife invented a 2 __________ to pull out silk fibresOnly 3 __________ were allowed to produce silkOnly 4 __________ were allowed to wear silkSilk used as a form of 5 __________- e.g. farmers’ taxes consisted partly of silkSilk used for many purposes- e.g. evidence found of 6 __________ made from silk around 168 ADSilk reaches rest of worldMerchants use Silk Road to take silk westward and bring back 7 __________ and precious metals550 AD: 8 __________ hide silkworm eggs in canes and take them to ConstantinopleSilk production spreads across Middle East and Europe20th century: 9 __________ and other manmade fibres cause decline in silk productionQuestions 10-13Do the following statements agree with the information in Reading Passage 1?In boxes 10-13 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 this10 Gold was the most valuable material transported along the Silk Road.11 Most tradesmen only went along certain sections of the Silk Road.12 The Byzantines spread the practice of silk production across the West.13 Silk yarn makes up the majority of silk currently exported from China.READING PASSAGE 2You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.Great MigrationsAnimal migration, however it is defined, is far more than just the movement of animals. It can loosely be described as travel that takes place at regular intervals ?— often in an annual cycle — that may involve many members of a species, and is rewarded only after a long journey. It suggests inherited instinct. The biologist Hugh Dingle has identified five characteristics that apply, in varying degrees and combinations, to all migrations. They are prolonged movements that carry animals outside familiar habitats; they tend to be linear, not zigzaggy; they involve special behaviours concerning preparation (such as overfeeding) and arrival; they demand special allocations of energy. And onemore: migrating animals maintain an intense attentiveness to the greater mission, which keeps them undistracted by temptations and undeterred by challenges that would turn other animals aside.An arctic tern, on its 20,000 km flight from the extreme south of South America to the Arctic circle, will take no notice of a nice smelly herring offered from a bird-watcher’s boat along the way. While local gulls will dive voraciously for such handouts, the tern flies on. Why? The arctic tern resists distraction because it is driven at that moment by an instinctive sense of something we humans find admirable: larger purpose. In other words, it is determined to reach its destination. The bird senses that it can eat, rest and mate later. Right now it is totally focused on the journey; its undivided intent is arrival.Reaching some gravelly coastline in the Arctic, upon which other arctic terns have converged, will serve its larger purpose as shaped by evolution: finding a place, a time, and a set of circumstances in which it can successfully hatch and rear offspring.But migration is a complex issue, and biologists define it differently, depending in part on what sorts of animals they study. Joe! Berger, of the University of Montana, who works on the American pronghorn and other large terrestrial mammals, prefers what he calls a simple, practical definition suited to his beasts: ‘movements from a seasonal home area away to another home area and back again’. Generally the reason for such seasonal back-and-forth movement is to seek resources that aren’t available within a single area year-round.But daily vertical movements by zooplankton in the ocean —upward by night to seek food, downward by day to escapepredators —can also be considered migration. So can the movement of aphids when, having depleted the young leaves on one food plant, their offspring then fly onward to a different host plant, with no one aphid ever returning to where it started.Dingle is an evolutionary biologist who studies insects. His definition is more intricate than Berger’s, citing those five features that distinguish migration from other forms of movement. They allow for the fact that, for example, aphids will become sensitive to blue light (from the sky) when it’s time for takeoff on their big journey, and sensitive to yellow light (reflected from tender young leaves) when it’s appropriate to land. Birds will fatten themselves with heavy feeding in advance of a long migrational flight. The value of his definition, Dingle argues, is that it focuses attention on what the phenomenon of wildebeest migration shares with the phenomenon of the aphids, and therefore helps guide researchers towards understanding how evolution has produced them all.Human behaviour, however, is having a detrimental impact on animal migration. The pronghorn, which resembles an antelope, though they are unrelated, is the fastest land mammal of the New World. One population, which spends the summer in the mountainous Grand Teton National Park of the western USA, follows a narrow route from its summer range in the mountains, across a river, and down onto the plains. Here they wait out the frozen months, feeding mainly on sagebrush blown clear of snow. These pronghorn are notable for the invariance of their migration route and the severity of its constriction at three bottlenecks. If they can’t pass through each of the three during their spring migration, they can’t reach their bounty of summer grazing; if they can’t pass through again in autumn, escaping south ontothose windblown plains, they are likely to die trying to overwinter in the deep snow. Pronghorn, dependent on distance vision and speed to keep safe from predators, traverse high, open shoulders of land, where they can see and run. At one of the bottlenecks, forested hills rise to form a V, leaving a corridor of open ground only about 150 metres wide, filled with private homes. Increasing development is leading toward a crisis for the pronghorn, threatening to choke off their passageway.Conservation scientists, along with some biologists and land managers within the USA’s National Park Service and other agencies, are now working to preserve migrational behaviours, not just species and habitats. A National Forest has recognised the path of the pronghorn, much of which passes across its land, as a protected migration corridor. But neither the Forest Service nor the Park Service can control what happens on private land at a bottleneck. And with certain other migrating species, the challenge is complicated further —by vastly greater distances traversed, more jurisdictions, more borders, more dangers along the way. We will require wisdom and resoluteness to ensure that migrating species can continue their journeying a while longer.Questions 14-18Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?In boxes 14-18 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 this14 Local gulls and migrating arctic terns behave in the same way when offered food.15 Experts’ definitions of migration tend to vary accordingto their area of study.16 Very few experts agree that the movement of aphids can be considered migration.17 Aphids’ journeys are affected b y changes in the light that they perceive.18 Dingle’s aim is to distinguish between the migratory behaviours of different species.Questions 19-22Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G, below.Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 19-22 on your answer sheet.19 According to Dingle, migratory routes are likely to20 To prepare for migration, animals are likely to21 During migration, animals are unlikely to22 Arctic terns illustrate migrating animals’ ability toA be discouraged by difficulties.B travel on open land where they can look out for predators.C eat more than they need for immediate purposes.D be repeated daily.E ignore distractions.F be governed by the availability of water.G follow a straight line.Questions 23-26Complete the summary below.Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.Write your answers in boxes 23-26 on your answer sheet.The migration of pronghornsPronghorns rely on their eyesight and 23 __________ to avoid predators. One particular pop ulation’s summer habitat is a national park, and their winter home is on the 24 __________,where they go to avoid the danger presented by the snow at that time of year. However, their route between these two areas contains three 25 __________. One problem is the construction of new homes in a narrow 26 __________ of land on the pronghorns’ route.READING PASSAGE 3You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.Preface to ‘How the other half thinks: Adventu res in mathematical reasoning’A Occasionally, in some difficult musical compositions, there are beautiful, but easy parts — parts so simple a beginner could play them. So it is with mathematics as well. There are some discoveries in advanced mathematics that do not depend on specialized knowledge, not even on algebra, geometry, or trigonometry. Instead they may involve, at most, a little arithmetic, such as ‘the sum of two odd numbers is even’, and common sense. Each of the eight chapters in this book illustrates this phenomenon. Anyone can understand every step in the reasoning.The thinking in each chapter uses at most only elementary arithmetic, and sometimes not even that. Thus all readers will have the chance to participate in a mathematical experience, to appreciate the beauty of mathematics, and to become familiar with its logical, yet intuitive, style of thinking.B One of my purposes in writing this book is to give readers who haven’t had the opportunity to see and enjoy real mathematics the chance to appreciate the mathematical way of thinking. I want to reveal not only some of the fascinating discoveries, but, more importantly, the reasoning behind them.In that respect, this book differs from most books on mathematics written for the general public. Some present the lives of colorful mathematicians. Others describe important applications of mathematics. Yet others go into mathematical procedures, but assume that the reader is adept in using algebra.C I hope this book will help bridge that notorious gap that separates the two cultures: the humanities and the sciences, or should I say the right brain (intuitive) and the left brain (analytical, numerical). As the chapters will illustrate, mathematics is not restricted to the analytical and numerical; intuition plays a significant role. The alleged gap can be narrowed or completely overcome by anyone, in part because each of us is far from using the full capacity of either side of the brain. To illustrate our human potential, I cite a structural engineer who is an artist, an electrical engineer who is an opera singer, an opera singer who published mathematical research, and a mathematician who publishes short stories.D Other scientists have written books to explain their fields to non-scientists, but have necessarily had to omit the mathematics, although it provides the foundation of their theories. The reader must remain a tantalized spectator rather than an involved participant, since the appropriate language for describing the details in much of science is mathematics, whether the subject is expanding universe, subatomic particles, or chromosomes. Though the broad outline of a scientific theory can be sketched intuitively, when a part of the physical universe is finally understood, its description often looks like a page in a mathematics text.E Still, the non-mathematical reader can go far in understanding mathematical reasoning. This book presents thedetails that illustrate the mathematical style of thinking, which involves sustained, step-by-step analysis, experiments, and insights. You will turn these pages much more slowly than when reading a novel or a newspaper. It may help to have a pencil and paper ready to check claims and carry out experiments.F As I wrote, I kept in mind two types of readers: those who enjoyed mathematics until they were turned off by an unpleasant episode, usually around fifth grade, and mathematics aficionados, who will find much that is new throughout the book.This book also serves readers who simply want to sharpen their analytical skills. Many careers, such as law and medicine, require extended, precise analysis. Each chapter offers practice in following a sustained and closely argued line of thought. That mathematics can develop this skill is shown by these two testimonials:G A physician wrote, ‘The discipline of analytical thought processes [in mathematics] prepared me extremely well for medical school. In medicine one is faced with a problem which must be thoroughly analyzed before a solution can be found. The proces s is similar to doing mathematics.’A lawyer made the same point, ‘Although I had no background in law — not even one political science course — I did well at one of the best law schools. I attribute much of my success there to having learned, through the study of mathematics, and, in particular, theorems, how to analyze complicated principles. Lawyers who have studied mathematics can master the legal principles in a way that most others cannot.’I hope you will share my delight in watching as simple, even na?ve, questions lead to remarkable solutions and purely theoretical discoveries find unanticipated applications.Questions 27-34Reading Passage 3 has seven sections, A-G.Which section contains the following information?Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 27-34 on your answer sheet.NB You may use any letter more than once.27 a reference to books that assume a lack of mathematical knowledge28 the way in which this is not a typical book about mathematics29 personal examples of being helped by mathematics30 examples of people who each had abilities that seemed incompatible31 mention of different focuses of books about mathematics32 a contrast between reading this book and reading other kinds of publication33 a claim that the whole of the book is accessible to everybody34 a reference to different categories of intended readers of this bookQuestions 35-40Complete the sentences below.Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.Write your answers in boxes 35-40 on your answer sheet.35 Some areas of both music and mathematics are suitable for someone who is a __________.36 It is sometimes possible to understand advanced mathematics using no more than a limited knowledge of __________.37 The writer intends to show that mathematics requires__________ thinking, as well as analytical skills.38 Some books written by __________ have had to leave out the mathematics that is central to their theories.39 The writer advises non-mathematical readers to perform __________ while reading the book.40 A lawyer found that studying __________ helped even more than other areas of mathematics in the study of law.剑桥雅思阅读11原文参考译文(test3)PASSAGE 1 参考译文:丝绸的故事世上最昂贵奢华织物的历史,从古代中国直到今天丝绸是种细软、光滑的布料,产自桑蚕(该昆虫的幼体形态)制作出的蚕茧——即其柔软的保护性外壳。
剑4T1P1Tropical RainforestsAdults and children are frequently confronted with statements about the alarming rate of loss of tropical rainforests. For example; one graphic illustration to which children might readily relate is the estimate that rainforests are being destroyed at a rate equivalent to one thousand football fields every forty minutes - about the duration of a normal classroom period. In the face of the frequent and often vivid media coverage; it is likely that children will have formed ideas about rainforests - what and where they are; why they are important; what endangers them - independent of any formal tuition. It is also possible that some of these ideas will be mistaken.Many studies have shown that children harbour misconceptions about ‘pure' curriculum science. These misconceptions do not remain isolated but become incorporated into a multifaceted; but organised; conceptual framework; making it and the component ideas; some of which are erroneous;more robust but also accessible to modification. These ideas may be developed by children absorbing ideas through the popular media. Sometimes this information may be erroneous. It seems schools may not be providing an opportunity for children to re-express their ideas and so have them tested and refined by teachers and their peers.Despite the extensive coverage in the popular media of the destruction of rainforests; little formal information is available about children’s ideas in this area. The aim of the present study is to start to provide such information; to help teachers design their educational strategies to build upon correct ideas and to displace misconceptions and to plan programmes in environmental studies in their schools.The study surveys children’s scientific knowledge and attitudes to rainforests. Secondary school children were asked to complete a questionnaire containing five open-form questions. The most frequent responses to the first question were descriptions which are self-evident from the term "rainforest". Some children described them as damp; wet or hot. The second question concerned the geographical location of rainforests. The commonest responses were continents or countries:Africa given by 43% of children; South America 30%; Brazil 25%. Some children also gave more general locations; such as being near the Equator.Responses to question three concerned the importance of rainforests. The dominant idea; raised by 64% of the pupils; was that rainforests provide animals with habitats. Fewer students responded chat rainforests provide plant habitats; and even fewer mentioned the indigenous populations of rainforests. More girls 70% than boys 60% raised die idea of rainforest as animalhabitats.Similarly; but at a lower level; more girls 13% than boys 5% said that rainforests provided human habitats. These observations are generally consistent with our previous studies of pupils’ views about the use and conservation of rainforests; in which girls were shown to be more sympathetic to animals and expressed views which seem to place an intrinsic value on non-human animal life.The fourth question concerned the causes of the destruction of rainforests. Perhaps encouragingly; more than half of the pupils 59% identified chat it is human activities which are destroying rainforests; some personalising the responsibility by the use of terms such as "we are". About 18% of the pupils referred specifically to logging activity.One misconception; expressed by some 10% of the pupils; was chat acid rain is responsible for rainforest destruction; A similar proportion said chat pollution is destroying rainforests. Here; children are confusing rainforest destruction with damage to the forests of Western Europe by these factors. While two fifths of the students provided the information that the rainforests provide oxygen; in some cases this response also embraced. The misconception that rainforest destruction would reduce atmospheric oxygen; making the atmosphere incompatible with human life on Earth.In answer to the final question about the importance of rainforest conservation; the majority of children simply said that we need rainforests to survive. Only a few of the pupils 6% mentioned that rainforest destruction may contribute to global warming. This is surprising considering the high level of media coverage on this issue. Some children expressed the idea that the conservation of rainforests is not important.The results of this study suggest that certain ideas predominate in the thinking of children about rainforests. Pupils’ responses indicate some misconceptions in basic scientific knowledge of rain forests’ ecosystems such as their ideas about rainforests as habitats for animals; plants and humans and the relationship between climatic change and destruction of rainforests.Pupils did not volunteer ideas that suggested that they appreciated the complexity of causes of rainforest destruction. In other words; they gave no indication of an appreciation of either the range of ways in which rainforests are important or the complex social; economic and political factors which drive the activities which are destroying the rainforests. One encouragement is that the results of similar studies about other environmental issues suggest that older children seem to acquire the ability to appreciate; value and evaluate conflicting views. Environmental education offers anarena in which these skills can be developed; which is essential for these children as future decision-makers.无论大人还是孩子都经常会遇到这样的报道;那就是热带雨林正在以惊人的速度消失.. 打个比方;孩子们很容易就能理解这样一个图例;即平均每四十分钟;也就是一节课的时间内;世界上就会有相当于一千个足球场大小的热带雨林进到破坏..面对媒体频繁且生动的报道;也许不需要任何正规的教育;孩子们就能够形成一系列有关热带雨林的观点:比如说雨林是什么;位置在哪里;为什么如此重要;又是什么在威胁它们等等..当然;这些观点也很有可能是错的..许多研究表明孩子们对于在学校里学到的科学知识心存误解..这些误解不是孤立存在的; 而是组成了一个尽管多层面却十分有条理的概念体系;这一点使得该体系本身及其所有的组成观点更加难以攻破;有些观点本身甚至就是错误的;但是也正是这样;它们反而更容易被改动..这些错误观点正是由于孩子们从大众煤体上吸收了信息而形成的..有时连这些信息本身都是错误的..学校似乎也没能够给们提供一个再度阐述自己观点的机会;因此老师及其他学生也不能帮助其检验及纠正这种错误观点..尽管媒体对于热带雨林所遭受的破坏做了大量的报道;何是有关孩子相关观点的信息却少之又少..所以;目前这项研究的目的就是要给教师提供这样的信息来帮助他们设计自己的教学策略;以便帮助学生构筑正确的观点;置换他们的错误概念;并在学校中展开环保研究项目..该项研究调查了孩子有关热带雨林的科学知识以及态度..研究要求一些中学生填写一份包含了五个简答题的调查表..对于第一个问题.最常见的解答就来自“热带雨林”这一名称所附带的不言自明的含义..有些孩子把雨林描述成一个又潮又湿或闷热的地方..第二个问题是关于雨林的地理位置的;大多数答案都提到了国名或洲名:百分之四十三的孩子写了非洲; 百分之三十写了美洲;还有百分之二十五的人认为热带雨林主要分布在巴西..有些孩子给出了如“赤道附近”这样更为宽泛的答案..第三道题目问及了热带雨林的重要性..百分之六十四的学生认为雨林为动物提供了栖身之所..较少的学生回答说雨林是植物的生长地..更少的学生提到了雨林中的土着居民..其中; 有百分之七十的女孩子认为雨林是动物的家;而男孩子中只有百分之六十的人执此观点..相似的是;有百分之十三的女生认为热带雨林为人类提供了居所;而男生中有此想法的人只占百分之五..这些观点与先前就学生对热带雨林的开发及保护状况所做的研究的结果基本一致;该结果表项女生更容易表现出对小动物的同情;其观点也更容易将内在价值观基于动物而非人类生命上..第四个问题问到了热带雨林遭到破坏的原因..值得庆幸的是;过半的学生百分之五十九都认为是人类的行为导致了这一破坏;有人甚至用“我们”这样的字眼将问题与自身联系起来..大概有百分之十八的学生将这一破坏归咎干滥砍滥伐..百分之十的学生错误地认为是酸雨导致了雨林的破坏;.还有百分之十的学生觉得污染才是罪魁祸首..看来学生们是将热带雨林所受的破坏与上述因素对西欧森林的毁坏混为一谈了.. 百分之四十的学生认为热带雨林为人们提供了氧气;在某种程度上;这样的答案也包含着一个误解;那就是认为热带雨林的消失会减少大气中氧气的含量;最终导致地球上的大气不再适合人类呼吸..在被问及雨林保护的重要性时;大部分学生只是认为人类离开雨林就无法生存..只有寥寥百分之六的人提到热带雨林的消失会导致全球变暖..鉴于媒体对这个问题长篇累牍的报道; 这样的结果真是有点出人意料..还有些学生认为保不保护雨林根本无关紧要..研究结果表明;在学生们对雨林的观点中;某些观点明显占上风..在有些问题上;比如说热带雨林是植物、动物及人类的栖息地以及天气变化与雨林破坏之间的关系等;学生们的回答又表明了他们在一些基本科学知识上的误区..学生们给出的答案并不能够表明他们了解热带雨林所遭受破坏的原因的复杂性..换言之;没有任何迹象表明他们了解热带雨林对人类来讲到底如何重要以及那些破坏行为背后所潜藏的复杂社会、经济及政治因素..然而;值得欣慰的是;其他类似环保研究的结果表明;大孩子们已经具备了鉴赏、理解以及评价矛盾观点的能力..而环保教育正是为这些能力的养成提供舞台;这一点对于孩子们成为未来的政策制定者是至关重要的..剑4T1P2What Do Whales FeelSome 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’ responsiveness to being touched or rubbed; and both captive and free ranging cetacean individuals of all species particularly adults and calves; ormembers 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. Andalthough 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 echolocation. 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 thefrequency 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.鲸鱼的感官对我们人类以及其他的陆地哺乳动物来说;有些感官是与生俱来的;然而对于鲸鱼来讲; 这些功能要么已经衰退或彻底消失;要么就无法在水中正常发挥作用..比如说从齿鲸的大脑结构来看;它们是嗅不到气味的;而须鲸虽然有与嗅觉相关的脑部结构;可是我们却无法判断这些结构是否起作用..据推测;由于鲸鱼的气孔进化并最终移到了头部的正中所以掌管嗅觉的神经纤维几乎全部不见了..同样;尽管有些鲸鱼也有味蕾;但这些味觉器官要么已经退化;要么就根本没有发育..有人认为鲸鱼的触觉也不发达;不过这个观点很可能是错误的..训练人工饲养海豚和小鲸鱼的人常常会评论他们的小动物对于触碰和抚摩的敏感度..而无论是人工饲养还是放养; 几乎所有种类的鲸鱼个体之间都会进行频繁的接触;特别是在成年鲸鱼和幼鲸之间或同一亚群的成员之间..这种接触有助于维护同一种群内部的秩序;而且对大多数鲸鱼而言;抚摸和触碰也是求偶仪式的一部分..气孔周围的部分尤其敏感;一旦被触碰;人工饲养的鲸鱼就会有激烈的反应..不同种类的鲸鱼;视觉发达程度也各不相同..通过研究一只被人工饲养了一年的小灰鲸;以及通过对阿根廷和夏威夷沿海所放养的露脊鲸和座头鲸的研究及拍摄;人们发现在封闭水域中的须鲸显然可以利用视觉来追踪水下的物体;而且它们无论在水中或空气中视力都相当好..但是眼睛的位置如此严重地限制了须鲸的视野;以致于它们可能不具备立体视觉..从另一方面来看;大多数海豚和江豚眼睛的位置表明它们是拥有向前及向下的立体视觉的..淡水海豚经常则游;或是在吃东西的时候肚皮朝上游泳;这就表明眼睛的位置使它们拥有向前及向上的立体视觉..相反的是;宽吻海豚在水中视力就很敏锐;而从它观察及追踪空中飞鱼的方式来看;它在水天交界面的视力也相当好..尽管之前的实验证据表明;海豚在露天环境中可能是睁眼瞎;然而;它们能够从水中跃起很髙;并且能够准确地吃到训练员手中的小鱼;这就有趣地证明了上述观点是错误的..当然;这些变异可以通过这些品种所生长的环境来解释..比如说;对于宽广清澈水域中的鲸鱼来说;视觉显然就有用的多;而对于那些住在混浊的河流或水淹的平原上的品种来说; 视力显然就没什么大用..比如;南美洲亚马逊河中的江豚以及中国的白鳍啄视力都相当有限; 而印度河中的江豚根本看不见东西;它们的眼睛已经退化成了两条窄缝;除了感知上下方向和光的强度几乎没什么作用..尽管鲸鱼们的味觉和嗅觉严重衰退;在水中的视觉又不那么确定;然而这些缺陷完全可以被它们那高度发迖的听觉系统所弥补..尽管鲸鱼们音域不同;但是大多数鲸鱼都很会“唱歌”;而且还能用回声定位法来觅食..大个子须鲸只能用低频发声;除此之外就黔“鲸”计穷了..当然也有些着名的例外:比如夏天里北极露脊鲸歌曲般的合唱;还有座头鲸那复杂的.. 令人难以忘怀的低语..与须鲸相比;齿鲸们可以更多地利用频谱;发出多种声音;当然;抹香鲸只会发出一系列单调激烈的喀哒声..有些复杂的声音显然具有交流作用;然而想要搞淸楚它们在鲸鱼的社会生活及文化中到底起何作用;与其说是严谨科学研究的对象;不如说是丰富想象力的结果..剑4T1P3Visual 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 to describe 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.When I asked several other blind study subjects to draw a spinning wheel; one particularly clever rendition appearedrepeatedly: 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 of motion 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 spokesextending 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 to a circle and the term that best related to a square. For example; weasked: What goes with soft A circle or a square Which shape goes with hardAll 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.盲人与视觉符号最近的几次研究表明;盲人可以理解用轮廓线和透视法来描述物体排列及空间平面的方法..但是;图画不只是表面意思的体现..在研究中;一名盲人女性自发地画出了一个转动的车轮;这就引起了我对上述事实的极大关注..为了展示这样一个动作;她在圆圈中画了一条曲线..我大吃一惊..像她所使用的这种运动线是插图史上最近的发明..实际上;正如艺术学者David Kunzle指出的那样;Wilhelm Busch;—名引领潮流的19世纪卡通画家;直到1877 年才开始在其最流行的人物身上使用运动线..当我要其他接受研究的盲人对象画出转动中的车轮时;一种特别聪明的画法反复出现了:几个人把车条画成了曲线..当被问到为什么要用曲线的时候;他们都说这是喑示运动的一种带有隐喻意味的方法..多数原则会认为从某种角度来讲;这个图案充分地表示了运动..但是就此而言;曲线是不是比;比如说虚线;波浪线或者其他任何一种线条;更能说明问题呢答案是不确定的..所以我决定测试一下;不同的运动线是否就是表现运动的恰当方式;而或它们只是一些特殊的符号而已..进一步而言;我还想找出盲人和普通人在诠释运动线时的不同之处..为了找出答案;我用凸起线条做出了五幅有关轮子的画;车条被画成大曲线;小曲线;波浪线;虚线以及超出车轮的直线..然后;我让18名盲人志愿者抚摩这些轮子;并且将它们分别与下列运动中的一个搭配:不稳定地转动1飞速转动;稳定地转动;颠簸和刹车..参照组则是由来自于多伦多大学的18名普通大学生组成的..除了一个人;其他所有的盲人都将具体的动作与车轮搭配了起来..大多数人猜测被画成大曲线的车条表示车轮正在稳定地转动;而他们认为波浪线车条表示车轮在不稳定地转动;小曲线则被认为是车轮正在颠簸的象征..受试者推测;超出车轮边缘的车条代表车轮正处在刹车状态;而虚线车条则说明车轮正在飞快地旋转..另外;在每种情况下;普通人喜爱的表达与盲人喜爱的基本一致..更有甚者;盲人之间的共识几乎与普通人的一样高..因为言人不熟悉运动装置;因此这个任务对他们而言相当困难.. 然而;很明显;盲人不仅能够搞清楚每种运动线所代表的意义;而且作为一个团队;他们达成共识的频率也不比普通人低..我们还发现盲人同样可以理解其他的视觉隐喻..有个盲人女性在心形中画了个小孩儿一一她说选择心形是为了表示这个孩子周围充满了爱..于是;我和刘长虹;一名来自中国的博士生;开始探索盲人对如心形这样含义不直白的图形的象征意义;到底理解到了何种程度..我们给普通受试者一张有二十对词的单子;并且要求他们从每一对词当中挑一个最能代表圆形的词以及一个最能代表方形的词..举个例子;我们会问:“哪个形状和柔软有关圆形还是方形哪个形状表示坚硬”所有的受试者都认为圆形代表柔软;方形代表坚硬..高达94%的人将快乐归给了圆形;而没有选悲伤..但是在其他词组上;不同意见就出现了:79%的人分别认为圆是快的而方是慢的; 圆是弱的而方是强的..只有51%的人将深与圆形相连;将浅与方形相连见图 2..当我们用同样的单子去测试四个完全失明的人时;他们的选择几乎与普通受试者的一模一样;有个先天失明的人做得极好..他的选择只有一个与众不同;那就是把“远”与方形联系起来而把“近”同圆形联系起来..实际上;也只有刚刚过半53%的普通受试者认为圆形代表远;而方形代表近..因此;我们可以得出结论;盲人同普通人一样能够理解抽象的图形..剑4T2P1Lost for wordsIn the Native American Navajo nation which sprawls across four states in the American south-west; the native language is dying.Most of its speakers are middle-age or elderly. Although many students take classes in Navajo; the schools are run in English. Street sign; supermarket goods and even their own newspaper are all in English. Not surprisingly; linguists doubt that any native speakers of Navajo will remain in a hundred years’ time.Navajo is far from alone. Half the world’s 6;800 languages are likely to vanish within two generations - that’s one language lost every ten days. Never before has the planet’s linguistic diversity shrunk at such a pace. “At the moment; we are heading for about three or four languages dominating the world”; says Mark Pagel; an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading. “It’s a mass extinction; and whether we will ever rebound from the lost is difficult to know.Isolation breeds linguistic diversity as a result; the world is peppered with languages spoken by only a few people. Only 250 language have more than a million speaker; and at least 3;000 have fewer than 2;500. It is not necessarily these small languages that are about to disappear. Navajo is considered endangered despite having 150;000 speakers. What makes a language endangered is not that the number of speakers; but how old they are. If it is spoken by children it is relatively safe. The critically endangered languages are those that are only spoken by the elderly; accordingto Michael Krauss; director of the Alassk Native Language Center; in Fairblanks.Why do people reject the language of their parent It begins with a crisis of confidence; when a small community find itself alongside a larger; wealthier society; says Nicholas Ostler of Britain’s Foundation for Endangered Languages; in Bath. ‘People lose faith in their culture’he say. ‘When the next generation reaches their teens; they might not want to be induced into the old tradition.’The change is not always voluntary. Quite often; governments try to kill off a minority language by banning its use in public or discouraging its use in school; all to promote national unity. The former US policy of running Indian reservation in English; for example; effectively put languages such as Navajo on the danger list. But Salikoko Mufwene; who chairs the Linguistics Department at the University of Chicago; argues that the deadliest weapon is not government policy but economic globalisation. ‘Native Americans have not lost pride in their language; but they have had to adapt to socioeconomic pressures’ he say. ‘They cannot refuse to speak English if most commercial activity is in English". But are languages worth saving At the very least; there is a loss of data for the study of languages and their evolution; which relies oncomparisons between languages; both living and dead. When an unwritten and unrecorded language disappears; it is lost to science.Language is also intimately bond up with culture; so it may be difficult to reserve one without the other. ‘If a person shifts from Navajo to English; they lose something' Mufwene says. ‘More over; the loss of diversity may also deprive us of different ways of looking at the world’ say Pagel. There is mounting evidence that learning a language produces physiological changes in brain. ‘Your brain and mine are difference from the brain of someone; who speaks French; for instance’ Pagel says; and this could affect our thoughts and perceptions. ‘The patterns and connections we make among various concepts may be structured by the linguistic habits of our community.’So despite linguists’ best efforts; many languages will disappear over the next century. But a growing interest in cultural identity may prevent the direst predictions from coming true. ‘The key to fostering diversity is for people to learn their ancestral tongue; as well as the dominant l anguage’ says Doug Whalen; founder and president of the Endangered Language Fund in New Haven; Connecticut. ‘Most of these languages will not survive without a large degree of bilingualism’ he says. In New Zealand; classes for children have slowed the erosion of Maori and rekindled interestin the language. A similar approach in Hawaii has produce about 8000 new speakers of Polynesian languages in the past few years. In California; ‘apprentice’ programmes have provided life support to several indigenous languages. Volunteer 'apprentices' pair up with one of the last living speakers of Native American tongue to learn traditional skill such as basket weaving; with instruction exclusively in the endangered language. After about 300 hours of training they are generally sufficiently fluent to transmit the language to next generation. But Mufwene says that preventing a language dying out is not the same as giving it new life by using every day. ‘Preserving a language is more likely preserving fruits in a jar’ he sa ys.However; preservation can bring a language back from the dead. There are examples of languages that have survived in written form and then been revived by latter generations. But a written form is essential for this; so the mere possibility of revival has led many speakers of endangered languages to develop systems of writing where none existed before.无言以对对于美洲土着纳瓦霍人其居住在美国西南四州而言;他们的土着语正遭受灭顶之灾..讲土着语的大都是中年或老年人..尽管很多学生仍然在学校中学习纳瓦霍语;但是学校的官方语言却是英语..路牌、超市商品、甚至他们自己的报纸都是使用英语的..不足为奇的是;语言学家已经开始猜测一百年后到底还会不会有讲纳瓦霍语的土着人存在..并非只有纳瓦霍语才如此..全世界6800种语言当中;有一半很可能在两代人之后彻底消失;这相当于每十年就有一种语言消亡..世界语言多样性的萎缩速度从未如此之快..“当前;我们正进入一个由3-4种语言主导。
IELTS EXAMINATION LISTENINGREADINGSection 1You should spend about 20 minutes on questions 1 - 15, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.Sharks—— Face Extinction ——Professor Robert Law, head of Marine Biological Ltd, which monitors the ocean environment, and a leading governmental advisor on marine pollution, is claiming today that sharks are in danger of extinction. Professor Law's main point is that worldwide the number of sharks of most species is dropping rapidly. Exact figures about these elusive creatures are hard to come by, but the general consensus is that certain kinds of shark population have decreased by up to 75% in the last 30 years.The great white and tiger sharks have seen the greatest drop in numbers, down by as much as 90% from 20 years ago. Smaller sharks are also under threat - the populations of makos, hammerheads, even common dogfish are being decimated. Estimates suggest that British dogfish numbers have halved in the last decade alone.And this decline is worldwide. The big sharks congregate mainly in the warmer waters of the Pacific and Caribbean, but cold water areas such as the Atlantic and the north Sea have their own species and these too are in danger.The reasons for the decline in numbers are not hard to see. One huge reason is the continued demand for shark fins in South-East Asia, where they are used to make soup and as ingredients in medicines. Most sharks that are killed commercially in the West are processed for the oil that comes from their livers Sharks are also victims of fear, since they are routinely killed by fishermen when they are landed with other catches."Sharks have no protection," writes Professor Law. "They are not outside the law - most countries have laws protecting the species which are most under threat - but the problem is that people are so frightened of these creatures that the laws are not enforced. There are perhaps five marine biologists in Europe actively involved in attempts to save shark species, although there is greater awareness in America and Australia. Sharks have an image problem. Nobody associates them with needing to be saved, simply because they are such fearsome predators."But the market demand for shark products has always been high. The real reason why shark stocks have plummeted is the same as the reason why other fish species are in decline. Modern fishing technology - the use of sonar and deep-netting in particular - has made the shark's natural defences useless.Charles Starkling, author of Jaws: the Myth of the Sea, agrees. "The equipment the shark has to defend itself is perfect in the right environment. Against other sharks, humans, fish, all the normal dangers, the shark is virtually invincible." But Starkling adds that no animal, no matter how large and dangerous on its own, can fight against steel nets. "The nets that are put out to protect swimmers don't just keep sharks away. They kill them. A shark which is caught in a net dies, because sharks can't stop swimming. Without a swim bladder, the shark drowns as soon as it stops moving." Starkling says it is common practice for sharks to have their fins cut off by fishermen and then to be dropped back in the ocean alive. They die by drowning.And the ecology of sharks makes them especially vulnerable. Sharks are top-of-the-chain predators, feeding on virtually anything else in the water, and consequently they are quite rare. For every million herring in the Atlantic, there will be one mako. Sharks are solitary and territorial, with unimaginably vast areas. The larger sharks also reproduce slowly, giving birth to live young one at a time.Most people are afraid of sharks, but without good reason. You are many thousands of times more likely to be run over or die from smoking - even death by lightning or drowning in your bath are more likely - than to be attacked by a shark, and even then most shark attack victims survive. Recent research suggests that most sharks kill by mistake after taking an exploratory bite - humans are not sharks' chosen food. But time is running out for these ancient predators of the deeps. When their populations have gone below a certain level, no amount of legislation will protect them. Professor Law points out that most sharks cannot be kept in zoos, like tigers, and that once they are gone they will be gone forever. He counsels that sharks urgently need protection by law if they are to continue to grace the seas.Questions 1 - 8Complete the summary below. Choose your answers from the box below the summary and write them in boxes 1 - 8 on your answer sheet. There are more words than spaces, so you will not use all the given words.Sharks Face ExtinctionAll over the world, shark populations are in dramatic ________ (1). In warm and cold waters, many shark species have been reduced to a ________ (2) of their former size. This has come about largely as a result of the demand for shark products in the medical and catering industries, but sharks are also left biologically ________ (3), since they lack swim bladders and can drown if they are ________ (4). And the shark's reputation means it does not enjoy the (5) of other endangered species; conservation laws are often ________ (6). All these factors are compounded by recent ________ (7) in the techniques of fishing. Sharks are comparatively rare, because of their status as ________ (8), and reproduce slowly. This makes them even more exposed to the dangers of overfishing. With stocks already very low, the time for full legal protection has come.Questions 9 - 15Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?In boxes 9 - 15 on your answer sheet, write Yes if the statement agrees with the information, No if the statement contradicts the information, Not Given if there is no information on this in the passage.9 We know precisely how much shark populations have declined.10 The biggest reason for the decline of sharks is the demand for shark fins.11 People are afraid to implement regulations safeguarding sharks.12 The shark is able to protect itself in all circumstances.13 Sharks live in groups.14 Shark attacks are a statistically improbable cause of death for humans.15 Sharks will become extinct in the near future.Section 2You should spend about 20 minutes on questions 16 -27, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.The Truth About artModern art has had something of a bad press recently - or, to be more precise, it has always had a bad press in certain newspapers and amongst certain sectors of the public. In the public mind, it seems, art (that is, graphic art - pictures - and spatial art - sculpture) is divided into two broad categories. The first is 'classic' art, by which is meant representational painting, drawing and sculpture; the second is 'modern' art, also known as abstract or non-representational. British popular taste runs decidedly in favour of the former, if one believes a recent survey conducted by Sir Bruce McGowen, owner of the Tarn Gallery and Workshops in Suffolk, and one of Britain's most influential artistic commentators. He found that the man (or woman) in the street has a distrust of cubism, abstracts, sculptures made of bricks and all types of so-called 'found' art, He likes Turner and Constable, the great representatives of British watercolour and oil painting respectively, or the French Impressionists, and his taste for statues is limited to the realistic figures of the great and good that litter the British landscape - Robin Hood in Nottingham and Oliver Cromwell outside the Houses of Parliament. This everyman does not believe in primary colours, abstraction and geometry in nature - the most common comment is that such-and-such a painting is "something a child could have done".Maurice Coates, director of the Buckinghamshire Galleries in Windsor, which specialises in modern painting, agrees. "Look around you at what art is available every day," he says. "Our great museums and galleries specialize in work which is designed to appeal to the lowest commondenominator. It may be representational, it may be 'realistic' in one sense, but a lot of it wouldn't make it into the great European galleries. Britain has had maybe two or three major world painters in the last 1000 years, so we make up the space with a lot of second-rate material."Coates believes that our ignorance of what modern art is has been caused by this lack of exposure to truly great art. He compares the experience of the average British city-dweller with that of a citizen of Italy, France or Spain."Of course, we don't appreciate any kind of art in the same way because of the paucity of good art in Britain. We don't have galleries of the quality of those in Madrid, Paris, V ersailles, Florence, New York or even some places in Russia. We distrust good art - by which I mean both modern and traditional artistic forms - because we don't have enough of it to learn about it. In other countries, people are surrounded by it from birth. Indeed they take it as a birthright, and are proud of it. The British tend to be suspicious of it. It's not valued here."Not everyone agrees. Jane Forrester, who runs the Hampshire Art House, believes that while the British do not have the same history of artistic experience as many European countries, their senses are as finely attuned to art as anyone else's."Look at what sells - in the great art auction houses, in greetings cards, in posters. Look at what's going on in local amateur art classes up and down the country. Of course, the British are not the same as other countries, but that's true of all nationalities. The French artistic experience and outlook is not the same as the Italian. In Britain, we have artistic influences from all over the world. There's the Irish, Welsh, and Scottish influences, as well as Caribbean, African and European. We also have strong links with the Far East, in particular the Indian subcontinent. All these influences come to bear in creating a British artistic outlook. There's this tendency to say that British people only want garish pictures of clowns crying or ships sailing into battle, and that anything new or different is misunderstood. That's not my experience at all. The British public is poorly educated in art, but that's not the same as being uninterested in it."Forrester points to Britain's long tradition of visionary artists such as William Blake, the London engraver and poet who died in 1827. Artists like Blake tended to be one-offs rather than members of a school, and their work is diverse and often word-based so it is difficult to export.Perhaps, as ever, the truth is somewhere in between these two opinions. It is true that visits to traditional galleries like the National and the National Portrait Gallery outnumber attendance at more modern shows, but this is the case in every country except Spain, perhaps because of the influence of the two most famous non-traditional Spanish painters of the 20th century, Picasso and Dali. However, what is also true is that Britain has produced a long line of individual artists with unique, almost unclassifiable styles such as Blake, Samuel Palmer and Henry Moore.Questions 16 - 24Classify the following statements as referring toA Sir Bruce McGowanB Maurice CoatesC Jane ForresterWrite the appropriate letters A - C in boxes 16 - 24 on your answer sheet.16 British people don't appreciate art because they don't see enough art around them all the time.17 British museums aim to appeal to popular tastes in art.18 The average Englishman likes the works of Turner and Constable.19 Britain, like every other country, has its own view of what art is.20 In Britain, interest in art is mainly limited to traditional forms such as representational painting.21 British art has always been affected by other cultures.22 Galleries in other countries are of better quality that those in Britain.23 People are not raised to appreciate art.24 The British have a limited knowledge of art.Questions 25 - 27Choose the best answers, A, B, C or D. Write your answers in boxes 25 -27 on your answer sheet.25 Many British artistsA are engravers or poets.B are great but liked only in Britain.C do not belong to a school or general trend.D are influenced by Picasso and Dali.26 'Classic' art can be described asA sentimental, realistic paintings with geometric shapes.B realistic paintings with primary colours.C abstract modern paintings and sculptures.D realistic, representational pictures and sculptures.27 In Spain, people probably enjoy modern art becauseA Their artists have a classifiable style.B the most renowned modern artists are Spanish.C they attend many modern exhibitions.D they have different opinions on art.Section 3You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28 - 40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.Australian Aborigines Demand Return of RemainsAs a former British colony, Australia has close cultural and historical links with the United Kingdom, due to the British and Irish settlers who arrived in droves in the 19th and 20th centuries. One aspect of this contact is the role of Britain, and British archaeologists and collectors, in taking Aboriginal bones, relics and artefacts from Australia to museums and collections in the UK. Now leaders of the indigenous people of Australia, the Aborigines, are demanding that any Aboriginal remains in the UK are returned to Australia.In 19th century Britain, there was a mania for collecting all kinds of objects from other countries. These were sent home, where they were kept in museums such as the British Museum and the Natural History Museum. Museums in the UK have a huge number of such objects - objects which, say protesters, were basically stolen during Britain's long colonial history, with little or no regard for the feelings or rights of the people to whom the objects originally belonged.Now the Australian Prime Minister is supporting Aboriginal calls for the objects and remains to be returned to their original home. A spokesman for the Aboriginal Council of New South Wales, Stevie McCoy, said:" The bones do not belong abroad. They belong here. This is about beliefs, and a traditional Aboriginal belief is that our ancestors can only find peace if their remains are buried in the homeland."There are certainly lots of Aboriginal remains in the UK, although their exact locations are not entirely clear. What is known is that, between them, the British Museum and the Natural History Museum have some 2,000 - 2,5000 artefacts composed of human remains, although the museums point out that only about 500 of these are of Aboriginal origin. Dr William Cowell Bell, for the London Museum Association, adds that "A lot of the objects are not human remains in their original form, but are made out of human remains. These include decorated skulls and bones from which charms and amulets have been created." A smaller number of similar artefacts are known to be held in collections in Oxford and Cambridge.There is some sensitivity to Aboriginal demands in the archaeological world. Lady Amanda Spurway, life president of the Glover Museum in London, says that the museum has had its small collection of Aboriginal remains packed ready for return for a decade, and is only waiting for information about where they must go.The National College of Surgeons says it will return the remains of any individual who can be named (although it is obviously difficult to put names to them after such a long time). This growing sensitivity to the hitherto ignored rights of indigenous peoples around the world has caused some relics to be restored to their original country, particularly in Scotland, where a group of Aboriginal remains has already been returned. Edinburgh University has returned skulls and bones to Tasmania and New Zealand.One problem, according to legal expert Ewan Mather, is that the law allowing museums to decide what to do with these objects is more relaxed in Scotland. English museums, on the other hand, are not allowed (either by law or by the groups of trustees who run them) to just hand back remains of their own accord. However, British supporters of the Aborigines claim that such restrictive laws are inhumane in the modern world, and that it would be a simple enough matter to change them in order to allow the items to be returned.A further objection to handing back relics is because of their scientific value, claim some museum directors. Dr Bell believes that the size of the collection in the Natural History Museum in Lincoln made it a very valuable resource in the analysis of the way of life of Aborigines, and could be usedto study the origin and development of the people. Breaking up the collection might mean that such knowledge could be lost forever.Aboriginal groups, however, respond by pointing out that the scientific importance of the remains has to be seen against a backdrop of human rights. "I doubt whether the British government would allow several thousand bones of British soldiers to be used for 'scientific purposes' in any other country," said Stevie McCoy, with a hint of irony. "Would the families allow it? I think there would be a public outcry, no matter how old the remains were. This practice [of taking bones and human remains] went on from the first moment the white man came to Australia right up to the early part of the 20th century. It is a scandal."The British government, meanwhile, has announced that it will set up a working party to discuss the possibility of changes to the law. This might allow museums to negotiate on their own with Aboriginal and other groups around the world.Questions 28 - 30Choose the TWO best answers according to the text, and write the letters A - E in boxes 28 - 30 on your answer sheet.28-29 The Aboriginal demand that bones be returned to Australia is based on which TWO ideas?A The rightful place for the remains is Australia.B Britain had no right to take the remains.C The remains have religious significance for Aborigines.D Some remains have already been returned.E Aboriginal ancestors cannot find peace unless their remains are laid to rest there.30 Which factor might cause problems when it comes to returning the remains?A Scottish and English law does not allow museums to return objects.B It is not clear what will happen to the remains once they have been returned.C The remains are scientifically important and need to be studied.D Not all the Australian artefacts are human remains.E Some museums do not have the right to return objects to their countries of origin.Questions 31 - 36Classify the following opinions as referring toA The National college of SurgeonsB Stevie McCoyC Dr William Cowell BellD Lady Amanda SpurwayE Ewan MatherWrite the appropriate letter A - E in boxes 31 - 36 on your answer sheet.31 No country would allow the bones of its citizens to be used for scientific purposes in another country.32 The Glover Museum is ready to return its Aboriginal bones.33 Australian remains are a useful resource for scientific study.34 It would be a problem to accurately identify the human remains.35 Many Aboriginal remains in Britain have been made into artefacts.36 Discrepancies in the laws of different countries can hinder the return of relics.Questions 37 - 40Complete the following paragraph based on information in Reading Passage 3 using ONE or TWO WORDS from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 37 -40 on your answer sheet.Aborigines believe that the remains should be returned for a number of reasons. First is the fact that the relics were taken during the period when Australia was a ________ (37). The Aborigine belief that their ancestors can only ________ (38) if their bones are returned is a further factor. Thirdly, the restitution of the remains is an issue of human rights. However, objectors who oppose the return of the artefacts point out that not only is there a ________ (39) problem, but also that the remains constitute an important ________ (40) in studying the lifestyle of the Aborigines. WRITINGPART1The chart shows student expenditure over a three-year period in the United Kingdom.Write a report for a university lecture describing the information shown below.You should write at least 150 words.PART2Some people believe that environmental problems are too big for individuals to deal with, while others think that individuals should take some action. Discuss both views and give your opinion.SPEAKING。
剑桥雅思13Test2雅思写作Task2真题+参考范文剑桥雅思13Test2雅思写作Task2真题+参考范文WRITING TASK 2You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.Write about the following topic:题目:Some people believe that nowadays we have too many choices.To what extent do you agree or disagree?Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.Write at least 250 words.参考范文With the development of our society, people ’ s living conditions are improving. Meanwhile, some people think that at present, there are too many choices for people to select. As fas as I am concerned, I totally agree with it.On one hand, more and more companies are established as the result of economic globalization. And these companies can not only provide people with enough job opportunities, they can also offer people a variety of products they make. However, in the past, there were not so many companies, and many people could only choose to spend their whole day in the farm and do their own business.On the other hand, people nowadays are having better life now than they did in the past as the result of economic development, which means that they have more money now, and they can afford to buy more things. We may see rich people have a lot of choices when they buy luxuries to show their social status, and normal people are richer than before, and most of them can buy things they want.Last but not least, the advent of the Internet has contributed a l ot to the increasing number of people’s choices. At present, we individuals could even sell our brand new or used things on the Internet. However, in the past, we did not have such platforms to sell the things we did not need at all.All in all, I agree that with the development of our society and economy, as well as the advent of the Internet, people nowadays are faced with too many choices.上一篇:剑桥雅思13Test2雅思写作Task1真题+参考范文相关推荐《剑桥雅思真题13》PDF下载《剑桥雅思真题13》MP3音频下载上海雅思培训哪家好?雅思怎么样?雅思好不好?上海专注雅思教育12年,每120分钟就有一位高分学员来自,加入,实现高分梦!。
剑桥雅思6第一套写作Task 1真题+考官范文+参考译文+分析:WRITING TASK 1You should spend about 20 minutes on this task。
The graph and table below give information about water use worldwide and water consumption in two different countries。
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.Write at least 150 words。
Water consumption in Brazil and Congo in 2000Water consumption per Country Population Irrigated landperson Brazil176 million26,500 km2359m3 Democractic5.2 million100 km28 m3Republicof CongoTASK 1考官范文The graph shows how the amount of water used worldwide changed between 1900 and 2000。
Throughout the century, the largest quantity of water was used for agricultural purposes, and this increased dramatically from about 500 km3 to around 3,000 km3 in the year 2000. Water used in the industrial and domestic sectors also increased,but consumption was minimal until mid—century. From 1950 onwards, industrial use grew steadily to just over 1,000 km3, while domestic use rose more slowly to only 300 km3, both far below the levels of consumption by agriculture.The table illustrates the differences in agricultural consumption in some areas of the world by contrasting the amount of irrigated land in Brazil (26,500 km2) with that in the D。
蚂蚁智力Collective intelligence::Ants and brain's neuronsSTANFORD - An individual ant is not very bright, but ants in a colony, operating as a collective, do remarkable things.A single neuron in the human brain can respond only to what the neurons connected to it are doing, but all of them together can be Immanuel Kant.That resemblance is why Deborah M. Gordon, StanfordUniversity assistant professor of biological sciences, studies ants."I'm interested in the kind of system where simple units together do behave in complicated ways," she said.No one gives orders in an ant colony, yet each ant decides what to do next.For instance, an ant may have several job descriptions. When the colony discovers a new source of food, an ant doing housekeeping duty may suddenly become a forager. Or if the colony's territory size expands or contracts, patroller ants change the shape of their reconnaissance pattern to conform to the new realities. Since no one is in charge of an ant colony - including the misnamed "queen," which is simply a breeder - how does each ant decide what to do?This kind of undirected behavior is not unique to ants, Gordon said. How do birds flying in a flock know when to make a collective right turn? All anchovies and other schooling fish seem to turn in unison, yet no one fish is the leader.Gordon studies harvester ants in Arizona and, both in the field and in her lab, the so-called Argentine ants that are ubiquitous to coastal California.Argentine ants came to Louisiana in a sugar shipment in 1908. They were driven out of the Gulf states by the fire ant and invaded California, where they have displaced most of the native ant species. One of the things Gordon is studying is how they did so. No one has ever seen an ant war involving the Argentine species and the native species, so it's not clear whether they are quietly aggressive or just find ways of taking over food resources and territory.The Argentine ants in her lab also are being studied to help her understand how they change behavior as the size of the space they are exploring varies."The ants are good at finding new places to live in and good at finding food," Gordon said. "We're interested in finding out how they do it."Her ants are confined by Plexiglas walls and a nasty glue-like substance along the tops of the boards that keeps the ants inside. She moves the walls in and out to change the arena and videotapes the ants' movements. A computer tracks each ant from its image on the tape and reads its position so she has a diagram of the ants' activities.The motions of the ants confirm the existence of a collective."A colony is analogous to a brain where there are lots of neurons, each of which can only do something very simple, but together the whole brain can think. None of the neurons can think ant, but the brain can think ant, though nothing in the brain told that neuron to think ant."For instance, ants scout for food in a precise pattern. What happens when that pattern no longer fits the circumstances, such as when Gordon moves the walls?"Ants communicate by chemicals," she said. "That's how they mostly perceive theworld; they don't see very well. They use their antennae to smell. So to smell something, they have to get very close to it."The best possible way for ants to find everything - if you think of the colony as an individual that is trying to do this - is to have an ant everywhere all the time, because if it doesn't happen close to an ant, they're not going to know about it. Of course, there are not enough ants in the colony to do that, so somehow the ants have to move around in a pattern that allows them to cover space efficiently."Keeping in mind that no one is in charge of a colony and that there is no central plan, how do the ants adjust their reconnaissance if their territory expands or shrinks?"No ant told them, 'OK, guys, if the arena is 20 by 20. . . .' Somehow there has to be some rule that individual ants use in deciding to change the shape of their paths so they cover the areas effectively. I think that that rule is the rate in which they bump into each other."The more crowded they are, the more often each ant will bump into another ant. If the area of their territory is expanded, the frequency of contact decreases. Perhaps, Gordon thinks, each ant has a threshold for normality and adjusts its path shape depending on how often the number of encounters exceeds or falls short of that threshold.If the territory shrinks, the number of contacts increases and the ant alters its search pattern. If it expands, contact decreases and it alters the pattern a different way.In the Arizona harvester ants, Gordon studies tasks besides patrolling. Each ant has a job."I divide the tasks into four: foraging, nest maintenance, midden [piling refuse, including husks of seeds] and patrolling - patrollers are the ones that come out first in the morning and look for food. The foragers go where the patrollers find food."The colony has about eight different foraging paths. Every day it uses several of them. The patrollers go out first on the trails and they attract each other when they find food. By the end of an hour's patrolling, most patrollers are on just a few trails. . . . All the foragers have to do is go where there are the most patrollers."Each ant has its prescribed task, but the ants can switch tasks if the collective needs it. An ant on housekeeping duty will decide to forage. No one told it to do so and Gordon and other entomologists don't know how that happens."No ant can possibly know how much food everybody is collecting, how many foragers are needed," she said. "An ant has to have very simple rules that tell it, 'OK, switch and start foraging.' But an ant can't assess globally how much food the colony needs."I've done perturbation experiments in which I marked ants according to what task they're doing on a given day. The ants that were foraging for food were green, those that were cleaning the nest were blue and so on. Then I created some new situation in the environment; for example, I create a mess that the nest maintenance workers have to clean up or I'll put out extra food that attracts more foragers."It turns out that ants that were marked doing a certain task one day switch to do a different task when conditions change."Of about 8,000 species of ants, only about 10 percent have been studied thus far."It's hard to generalize anything about the behavior of ants," Gordon said. "Most of what we know about ants is true of a very, very small number of species compared to thenumber of species out there."天才儿童TIME: 5-7'HOW IQ BECOMES IQIn 1904 the French minister of education, facing limited resources for schooling, sought a way to separate the unable from the merely lazy. Alfred Binet got the job of devising selection principles and his brilliant solution put a stamp on the study of intelligence and was the forerunner of intelligence tests still used today. He developed a thirty-problem test in 1905, which tapped several abilities related to intellect, such as judgment and reasoning. The test determined a given child's mental age'. The test previously established a norm for children of a given physical age. For example, five-year-olds on average get ten items correct, therefore, a child with a mental age of five should score 10, which would mean that he or she was functioning pretty much as others of that age. The child's mental age was then compared to his physical age.A large disparity in the wrong direction (e.g., a child of nine with a mental age of four) might suggest inability rather than laziness and means that he or she was earmarked for special schooling. Binet, however, denied that the test was measuring intelligence and said that its purpose was simply diagnostic, for selection only. This message was however lost and caused many problems and misunderstandings later.Although Binet's test was popular, it was a bit inconvenient to deal with a variety of physical and mental ages. So, in 1912, Wilhelm Stern suggested simplifying this by reducing the two to a single number. He divided the mental age by the physical age and multiplied the result by 100. An average child, irrespective of age, would score 100. a number much lower than 100 would suggest the need for help and one much higher would suggest a child well ahead of his peer.This measurement is what is now termed the IQ (intelligence quotient) score and it has evolved to be used to show how a person, adult or child, performed in relation to others. The term IQ was coined by Lewis m. Terman, professor of psychology and education of Stanford University, in 1916. He had constructed an enormously influential revision of Binet's test, called the Stanford-Binet test, versions of which are still given extensively.The field studying intelligence and developing tests eventually coalesced into a sub-field of psychology called psychometrics (psycho for ‘mind' and metrics for 'measurements'). The practical side of psychometrics (the development and use of tests) became widespread quite early, by 1917, when Einstein published his grand theory of relativity, mass-scale testing was already in use.Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare (which led to the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915) provoked the United States to finally enter the first world war in the same year. The military had to build up an army very quickly and it had two million inductees to sort out. Who would become officers and who enlisted men? Psychometricians developed two intelligence tests that helped sort all these people out, at least to some extent. This was the first major use of testing to decide who lived and who died since officers were a lot safer on the battlefield. The tests themselves were given under horrendously bad conditions and the examiners seemed to lack common sense. A lot of recruits simply had no idea what to do and in several sessions most inductees scored zero! The examiners also came up with thequite astounding conclusion from the testing that the average American adult's intelligence was equal to that of a thirteen-year-old!Nevertheless, the ability for various authorities to classify people on scientifically justifiable premises was too convenient and significant to be dismissed lightly, so with all good astounding intentions and often over enthusiasm, society's affinity for psychological testing proliferated.Back in Europe, Sir Cyril Burt, professor of psychology at University College London from 1931 to 1950, was a prominent figure for his contribution to the field. He was a firm advocate of intelligence testing and his ideas fitted in well with English cultural ideas of elitism. A government committee in 1943 used some of Burt's ideas in devising a rather primitive typology on children's intellectual behavior. All were tested at age eleven and the top 15 or 20 per cent went to grammar schools with good teachers and a fast pace of work to prepare for the few university places available. A lot of very bright working-class children, who otherwise would never have succeeded, made it to grammar schools and universities.The system for the rest was however disastrous. These children attended lesser secondary or technical schools and faced the prospect of eventual education oblivion. They felt like dumb failures, which having been officially and scientifically branded. No wonder their motivation to study plummeted. It was not until 1974 that the public education system was finally reformed. Nowadays it is believed that Burt has fabricated a lot of his data. Having an obsession that intelligence is largely genetic, he apparently made up twin studies, which supported this idea, at the same time inventing two co-workers who were supposed to have gathered the results.Intelligence testing enforced political and social prejudice and their results were used to argue that Jews ought to be kept out of the United States because they were so intelligently inferior that they would pollute the racial mix. And blacks ought not to be allowed to breed at all. Abuse and test bias controversies continued to plaque psychometrics.Measurement is fundamental to science and technology. Science often advances in leaps and bounds when measurement devices improve. Psychometrics has long tried to develop ways to gauge psychological qualities such as intelligence and more specific abilities, anxiety, extroversion, emotional stability, compatibility with marriage partner and so on. Their scores are often given enormous weight. A single IQ measurement can take on a life of its own if teachers and parents see it as definitive. It became a major issue in the 70s when court cases were launched to stop anyone from making important decisions based on IQ test scores. the main criticism was and still is that current tests don't really measure intelligence. Whether intelligence can be measured at all is still controversial. some say it cannot while others say that IQ tests are psychology's greatest accomplishments.全球变暖A Canary in the Coal MineThe Arctic seems to be getting warmer. So what?A. “Climate change in the Arctic is a reality now!”So insists Robert Corell, an oceanographer with the American Meteorological Society. Wild-eyed proclamations are all too common when it comes to global warming, but in this case his assertion seems well founded.B. At first sight, the ACIA’s (American Construction Inspectors Association) report’s conclusions are not so surprising. After all, scientists have long suspected that several factors lead to greater temperature swings at the poles than elsewhere on the planet. One is albedo —the posh scientific name for how much sunlight is absorbed by a planet’s surface, and how much is reflected. Most of the Polar Regions are covered in snow and ice, which are much more reflective than soil or ocean. If that snow melts, the exposure of dark earth (which absorbs heat) acts as a feedback loop that accelerates warming. A second factor that makes the poles special is that the atmosphere is thinner there than at the equator, and so less energy is required to warm it up. A third factor is that less solar energy is lost in evaporation at the frigid poles than in the steamy tropics.C. And yet the language of this week’s report is still eye-catching: “the Arctic is now experiencing some of the most rapid and severe climate change on Earth.”The last authoritative assessment of the topic was done by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001. That report made headlines by predicting a rise in sea level of between 10cm (four inches) and 90cm, and a temperature rise of between 1.4°C and 5.8°C over this century. However, its authors did not feel confident in predicting either rapid polar warming or the speedy demise of the Greenland ice sheet. Pointing to evidence gathered since the IPCC report, this week’s report suggests trouble lies ahead.D. The ACIA reckons that in recent decades average temperatures have increased almost twice as fast in the Arctic as they have in the rest of the world. Skeptics argue that there are places, such as the high latitudes of the Greenland ice sheet and some buoys at sea, where temperatures seem to have fallen. On the other hand, there are also places, such as parts of Alaska, where they have risen far faster than average. Robin Bell, a geophysicist at Columbia University who was not involved in the report’s compilation, believes that such conflicting local trends point to the value of the international, interdisciplinary approach of this week’s report. As he observes, “climate change, like the weather, can be patchy and you can get fooled unless you look at the whole picture.”E. And there is other evidence of warming to bolster the ACIA’s case. For example, the report documents the widespread melting of glaciers and of sea ice, a trend already making life miserable for the polar bears and seals that depend on that ice. It also notes a shortening of the snow season. The most worrying finding, however, is the evidence — still preliminary — that the Greenland ice sheet may be melting faster than previously thought.F. That points to one reason the world should pay attention to this week’s report. Like a canary in a coal mine, the hypersensitive Polar Regions may well experience the full force of global warming before the rest of the planet does. However, there is a second and bigger reason to pay attention. An unexpectedly rapid warming of the Arctic could also lead directly to greater climate change elsewhere on the planet.G. Arctic warming may influence the global climate in several ways. One is that huge amounts of methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas, are stored in the permafrost of the tundra. Although a thaw would allow forests to invade the tundra, which would tend to ameliorate any global warming that is going on (since trees capture carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas most talked about in the context of climate change), a melting of the permafrost might also lead to a lot of trapped methane being released into the atmosphere, more than offsetting the cooling effects of the new forests.H. Another worry is that Arctic warming will influence ocean circulation in ways that are not fully understood. One link in the chain is the salinity of seawater, which is decreasing in the north Atlantic thanks to an increase in glacial melt waters. “Because fresh water and salt water have different densities, this ‘freshening’ of the ocean could change circulation patterns.” said Dr. Thomson, a British climate expert. “The most celebrated risk is to the mid-Atlantic Conveyor Belt, a current which brings warm water from the tropics to north-western Europe, and which is responsible for that region’s unusually mild winters,”he added. Some of the ACIA’s experts are fretting over evidence of reduced density and salinity in waters near the Arctic that could adversely affect this current.I. The biggest popular worry, though, is that melting Arctic ice could lead to a dramatic rise in sea level. Here, a few caveats are needed. For a start, much of the ice in the Arctic is floating in the sea already. Archimedes’s principle shows that the melting of this ice will make no immediate difference to the sea’s level, although it would change its albedo. Second, if land ice, such as that covering Greenland, does melt in large quantities, the process will take centuries. And third, although the experts are indeed worried that global warming might cause the oceans to rise, the main way they believe this will happen is by thermal expansion of the water itself.J. Nevertheless, there is some cause for nervousness. As the ACIA researchers document, there are signs that the massive Greenland ice sheet might be melting more rapidly than was thought a few years ago. Cracks in the sheet appear to be allowing melt water to trickle to its base, explains Michael Oppenheimer, a climatologist at Princeton University who was not one of the report’s authors. That water may act as a lubricant, speeding up the sheet’s movement into the sea. If the entire sheet melted, the sea might rise by 6-7 meters. But when will this kind of disastrous ice disintegration really happen? While acknowledging it this century is still an unlikely outcome, Dr. Oppenheimer argues that the evidence of the past few years suggests it is more likely to happen over the next few centuries if the world does not reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. He worries that an accelerating Arctic warming trend may yet push the ice melt beyond an “irreversible on / off switch”.K. That is scary stuff, but some scientists remain unimpressed. Patrick Michaels, a climatologist at the University of Virginia, complains about the ACIA’s data selection, which he believes may have produced evidence of “spurious warming”. He also points out, in a new book, that even if Arctic temperatures are rising, that need not lead directly to the ice melting. As he puts it, “Under global warming, Greenland’s ice indeed might grow, especially if the warming occurs mostly in winter. After all, warming the air ten degrees when the temperature is dozens of degrees below freezing is likely to increase snowfall, since warmer air is generally moister and precipitates more water.”L. Nils-Axel Morner, a Swedish climate expert based at Stockholm University, points out that observed rises in sea levels have not matched the IPCC’s forecasts. Since this week’s report relies on many such IPCC assumptions, he concludes it must be wrong. Others acknowledge that there is a warming trend in the Arctic, but insist that the cause is natural variability and not the burning of fossil fuels. Such folk point to the extraordinarily volatile history of Arctic temperatures. These varied, often suddenly, long before sport-utility vehicles were invented. However, some evidence also shows that the past few millenniahave been a period of unusual stability in the Arctic. It is just possible that the current period of warming could tip the delicate Arctic climate system out of balance, and so drag the rest of the planet with it.M. Not everybody wants to hear a story like that. But what people truly believe is happening can be seen in their actions better than in their words. One of the report’s most confident predictions is that the breakup of Arctic ice will open the region to long-distance shipping and, ironically, to drilling for oil and gas. It is surely no coincidence, then, that the Danish government, which controls Greenland, has just declared its intention to claim the mineral rights under the North Pole. It, at least, clearly believes that the Arctic ocean may soon be i人类文字进化史History of WritingWriting was first invented by the Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia before 3,000 BC. It was also independently invented in Meso-America before 600 BC and probably independently invented in China before 1,300 BC. It may have been independently invented in Egypt around 3,000 BC although given the geographical proximity between Egypt and Mesopotamia the Egyptians may have learnt writing from the Sumerians.There are three basic types of writing systems. The written signs used by the writing system could represent either a whole word, a syllable or an individual sound. Where the written sign represents a word the system is known as logographic as it uses logograms which are written signs that represent a word. The earliest writing systems such as the Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Mayan glyphs are predominantly logographics as are modern Chinese and Japanese writing systems. Where the written sign represents a syllable the writing system is known as syllabic. Syllabic writing systems were more common in the ancient world than they are today. The Linear A and B writing systems of Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece are syllabic. The most common writing systems today are alphabetical. These involve the written sign (a letter) representing a single sound (known as a phoneme). The earliest known alphabetical systems were developed by speakers of semetic languages around 1700 BC in the area of modern day Israel and Palestine. All written languages will predominately use one or other of the above systems. They may however partly use the other systems. No written language is purely alphabetic, syllabic or logographic but may use elements from any or all systems.Such fully developed writing only emerged after development from simplier systems. Talley sticks with notches on them to represent a number of sheep or to record a debt have been used in the past. Knotted strings have been used as a form of record keeping particularly in the area around the Pacific rim. They reached their greatest development with the Inca quipus where they were used to record payment of tribute and to record commercial transactions. A specially trained group of quipu makers and readers managed the whole system. The use of pictures for the purpose of communication was used by native Americans and by the Ashanti and Ewe people in Africa. Pictures can show qualities and characteristics which can not be shown by tally sticks and knot records. They do not however amount to writing as they do not bear a conventional relationship to language. Even so, the Gelb dictum (from its originator Ignace Gelb), that “At the basis of all writing stands the picture” has been widely accepted.An alternative idea was that a system by which tokens, which represented objects likesheep, were placed in containers and the containers were marked on the outside indicating the number and type of tokens within the container gave rise to writing in Mesopotamia. The marks on the outside of the container were a direct symbolic representation of the tokens inside the container and an indirect symbolic representation of the object the token represented. The marks on the outside of the containers were graphically identical to some of the earliest pictograms used in Sumerian cuneiform, the worlds first written language. However cuneiform has approximately 1,500 signs and the marks on the ouside of the containers can only explain the origins of a few of those signs.The first written language was the Sumerian cuneiform. Writing mainly consisted of records of numbers of sheep, goats and cattle and quantites of grain. Eventually clay tablets were used as a writing surface and were marked with a reed stylus to produce the writing. Thousands of such clay tablets have been found in the Sumerian city of Uruk. The earliest Sumerian writing consists of pictures of the objects mentioned such as sheep or cattle. Eventually the pictures became more abstract and were to consist of straight lines that looked like wedgesce-free.阅读常用词组:1. abide by(=be faithful to ; obey)忠于;遵守。
Materials for lecture 16-18Reading passage 1Questions 1-13 are based on the following passage.Sheet glass manufacture: the float processGlass, which has been made since the time of the Mesopotamians and Egyptians, islittle more than a mixture of sand, soda ash and lime. When heated to about 1500degrees Celsius (°C) this becomes a molten mass that hardens when slowly cooled.The first successful method for making clear, flat glass involved spinning. Thismethod was very effective as the glass had not touched any surfaces between beingsoft and becoming hard, so it stayed perfectly unblemished, with a ‘fire finish’. However, the process took a long time and was labour intensive.Nevertheless, demand for flat glass was very high and glassmakers across the world were looking for a method of making it continuously. The first continuous ribbonprocess involved squeezing molten glass through two hot rollers, similar to an old mangle. This allowed glass of virtually any thickness to be made non-stop, but therollers would leave both sides of the glass marked, and these would then need tobe ground and polished. This part of the process rubbed away around 20 per cent ofthe glass, and the machines were very expensive.The float process for making flat glass was invented by Alistair Pilkington. Thisprocess allows the manufacture of clear, tinted and coated glass for buildings, and clear and tinted glass for vehicles. Pilkington had been experimenting with improving the melting process, and in 1952 he had the idea of using a bed of molten metal to form the flat glass, eliminating altogether the need for rollers withinthe float bath. The metal had to melt at a temperature less than the hardening point of glass (about 600°C), but could n ot boil at a temperature below the temperatureof the molten glass (about 1500°C). The best metal for the job was tin.The rest of the concept relied on gravity, which guaranteed that the surface of the molten metal was perfectly flat and horizontal. Consequently, when pouring moltenglass onto the molten tin, the underside of the glass would also be perfectly flat.If the glass were kept hot enough, it would flow over the molten tin until the topsurface was also flat, horizontal and perfectly parallel to the bottom surface. Once t he glass cooled to 604°C or less it was too hard to mark and could be transported out of the cooling zone by rollers. The glass settled to a thickness of six millimetres because of surface tension interactions between the glass and the tin. By fortunate coincidence, 60 per cent of the flat glass market at that time was for six- millimetre glass.Pilkington built a pilot plant in and by 1955 he had convinced his company to build a full-scale plant. However, it took 14 months of non-stop production, costing the company £100,000 a month, before the plant produced any usable glass. Furthermore, once they succeeded in making marketable flat glass, the machine was turned off for a service to prepare it for years of continuous production. When i t started up again it took another four months to get the process right again. They finally succeededin 1959 and there are now float plants all over the world, with each able to produce around 1000 tons of glass every day, non-stop for around 15 years.Float plants today make g lass of near optical quality. Several processes - melting, refining, homogenising - take place simultaneously in the 2000 tonnes of molten glass in the furnace. They occur in separate zones in a complex glass flow driven by high temperatures. It adds up to a continuous melting process, lasting as long as 50 hours, that delivers glass smoothly and continuously to the float bath, and from there to a coating zone and finally a heat treatment zone, where stresses formed duringcooling are relieved.The principle of float glass is unchanged since the 1950s. However, the product has changed dramatically, from a single thickness of mm to a range from sub-millimetreto 25 mm, f rom a ribbon frequently marred by inclusions and bubbles to almost optical perfection. To ensure the highest quality, inspection takes place at every stage.Occasionally, a bubble is not removed during refining, a sand grain refuses to melt, a tremor in the tin puts ripples into the glass ribbon. Automated on-line inspection does two things. Firstly, it reveals process faults upstream that can be corrected. Inspection technology allows more than 100 million measurements a second to be made across the ribbon, locating flaws the unaided eye would be unable to see. Secondly, it enables computers downstream to steer cutters around flaws.Float glass is sold by the square metre, and at the final stage computers translate customer requirements into patterns of cuts designed to minimise waste.Questions 9-13Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1 In boxes 9-13 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 this in the passage9. The metal used in the float process had to have specific properties.10. Pilkington invested some of his own money in his float plant.11. Pilkington’s first full-scale plant was an instant commercial success.12. The process invented by Pilkington has now been improved.13. Computers are better than humans at detecting faults in glass.THE LITTLE ICE AGEA This book will provide a detailed examination of the Little Ice Age and otherclimatic shifts, but, before I embark on that, let me provide a historicalcontext. We tend to think of climate - as opposed to weather -as somethingunchanging, yet humanity has been at the mercy of climate change for its entire existence, with at least eight glacial episodes in the past 730,000 years. Our ancestors adapted to the universal but irregular global warming since the endof the last great Ice Age, around 10,000 years ago, with dazzling opportunism.They developed strategies for surviving harsh drought cycles, decades of heavy rainfall or unaccustomed cold; adopted agriculture and stock-raising, whichrevolutionised human life; and founded the world’s first pre-industrial civilisations in Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Americas. But the price of suddenclimate change, in famine, disease and suffering, was often high.B The Little Ice Age lasted from roughly 1300 until the middle of the nineteenthcentury. Only two centuries ago, Europe experienced a cycle of bitterly coldwinters; mountain glaciers in the Swiss Alps were the lowest in recorded memory, and pack ice surrounded Iceland for much of the year. The climatic events ofthe Little Ice Age did more than help shape the modern world. They are the deeply important context for the current unprecedented global warming. The Little Ice Age was far from a deep freeze, however; rather an irregular seesaw of rapidclimatic shifts, few lasting more than a quarter-century, driven by complex and still little understood interactions between the atmosphere and the ocean. The seesaw brought cycles of intensely cold winters and easterly winds, then switched abruptly to years of heavy spring and early summer rains, mild winters, and frequent Atlantic storms, or to periods of droughts, light northeasterlywinds, and summer heat waves.C Reconstructing the climate changes of the past is extremely difficult, becausesystematic weather observations began only a few centuries ago, in Europe andNorth America. Records from India and tropical Africa are even more recent. For the time before records began, we have only ‘proxy records’ r econstructed largely from tree rings and ice cores, supplemented by a few incomplete written accounts. We n ow have hundreds of tree-ring records from throughout the northern hemisphere, and many from south of the equator, too, amplified with a growingbody of temperature data from ice cores drilled in Antarctica, Greenland, thePeruvian Andes, and other locations. We are close to a knowledge of annual summer and winter temperature variations over much of the northern hemisphere goingback 600 years.D This book is a narrative history of climatic shifts during the past ten centuries,and some o f the ways in which people in Europe adapted to them. Part One describes the Medieval Warm Period, roughly 900 to 1200. During these three centuries,Norse voyagers from Northern Europe explored northern seas, settled Greenland, and visited North America. It was not a time of uniform warmth, for then, asalways since the Great Ice Age, there were constant shifts in rainfall andtemperature. Mean European temperatures were about the same as today, perhapsslightly cooler.E It is known that the Little Ice Age cooling began in Greenland and the Arcticin about 1200. As the Arctic ice pack spread southward, Norse voyages to thewest were rerouted into the open Atlantic, then ended altogether. Storminessincreased in the North Atlantic and North Sea. Colder, much wetter weatherdescended on Europe between 1315 and 1319, when thousands perished in a continent-wide famine. By 1400, the weather had become decidedly more unpredictable and stormier, with sudden shifts and lower temperatures thatculminated in the cold decades of the late sixteenth century. Fish were a vital commodity in growing towns and cities, where food supplies were a constantconcern. Dried cod and herring were already the staples of the European fishtrade, but changes in water temperatures forced fishing fleets to work further offshore. The Basques, Dutch, and English developed the first offshore fishing boats adapted to a colder and stormier Atlantic. A gradual agriculturalrevolution in northern Europe stemmed from concerns over food supplies at a time of rising populations. The revolution involved intensive commercial farming and the growing of animal fodder on land not previously used for crops. The increased productivity from farmland made some countries self-sufficient in grain andlivestock and offered effective protection against famine.F Global temperatures began to rise slowly after 1850, with the beginning of theModern Warm Period. There was a vast migration from Europe by land-hungry farmers and others, to which the famine caused by the Irish potato blight contributed, to North America, Australia, New Zealand, and southern Africa. Millions ofhectares of forest and woodland fell before the newc omers’ axes between 1850 and 1890, as intensive European farming methods expanded across the world. The unprecedented land clearance released vast quantities of carbon dioxide intothe atmosphere, triggering for the first time humanly caused global warming.Temperatures climbed more rapidly in the twentieth century as the use of fossil fuels proliferated and greenhouse gas levels continued to soar. The rise hasbeen even steeper since the early 1980s. The Little Ice Age has given way toa new climatic regime, marked by prolonged and steady warming. At the same time,extreme weather events like Category 5 hurricanes are becoming more frequent.Questions 23-26Classify the following events as occurring during theA Medieval Warm PeriodB Little Ice AgeC Modern Warm PeriodWrite the correct letter, A, B or C, in boxes 23-26 on your answer sheet.23 Many Europeans started farming abroad.24 The cutting down of trees began to affect the climate.25 Europeans discovered other lands.26 Changes took place in fishing patterns.The meaning and power of smellThe sense of smell, or olfaction, is powerful. Odours affect us on a physical,psychological and social level. For the most part, however, we b reathe in the aromas which surround us without being consciously aware of their importance to us. It isonly when the faculty of smell is impaired for some r eason that we begin to realizethe essential role of the sense of smell plays in our sense of well-being.A A survey conducted by Anthony Synott at Montreal's Concordia University askedparticipants to comment on how important smell was to them in their lives. Itbecame apparent that smell can evoke strong emotional responses. A scent associated with a good experience can bring a rush of joy, while a foul odouror one associated with a bad memory m ay make u s grimace with disgust. Respondents to the survey noted that many of their olfactory likes and dislikes were basedon emotional associations. Such associations can be powerful enough so thatodours that we would generally label unpleasant become agreeable, and those that we would generally consider fragrant become disagreeable for particular individuals. The perception of smell, therefore, consists not only of thesensation of the odours themselves, but of the experiences and emotions associated with them.B Odours are also essential cues in social bonding. One respondent to the surveybelieved that there is no true emotional bonding without touching and smellinga loved one. In fact, infants recognise the odours of their mothers soon afterbirth and adults can often identify their children or spouses by scent. In one well-known test, women a nd men were able to distinguish by smell alone clothing worn by their marriage partners from similar clothing worn by other people. Most of the subjects would probably never have given much thought to odour as a cuefor identifying family members before being involved in the test, but as theexperiment revealed, even when not consciously considered, smells register.C In spite of its importance to our emotional and sensory lives, smell is probablythe most undervalued sense in many cultures. The reason often given for the low regard in which smell is held is that, in comparison with its importance amonganimals, the human sense of smell is feeble and undeveloped. While it is truethat the olfactory powers of humans are nothing like as fine as those possessed by certain animals, they are still remarkably acute. Our noses are able torecognise thousands of smells, and to perceive odours which are present onlyin extremely small quantities.D Smell, however, is a highly elusive phenomenon. Odours, unlike colours, forinstance, cannot be named in many languages because the specific vocabularysimply doesn't exist. ‘It smells like . . .,’ we have to say when describingan odour, struggling to express our olfactory experience. Nor can odours berecorded: there is no effective way to either capture or store them over time.In the realm of olfaction, we must make do with descriptions and recollections.This has implications for olfactory research.E Most of the research on smell undertaken to date has been of a physical scientificnature. Significant advances have been made in the understanding of the biological and chemical nature of olfaction, but many f undamental questions have yet to be answered. Researchers have still to decide whether smell is one sense or two-one responding to odours proper and the other registering odourlesschemicals in the air. Other unanswered questions are whether the nose is theonly part of the body affected by odours, and how smells can be measuredobjectively given the non-physical components. Questions like these mean thatinterest in the psychology of smell is inevitably set to play an increasinglyimportant role for researchers.F However, smell is not simply a biological and psychological phenomenon. Smellis cultural, hence it is a social and historical phenomenon. Odours are invested with cultural values: smells that are considered to be offensive in some cultures may be perfectly acceptable in others. Therefore, our sense of smell is a meansof, and model for, interacting with the world. Different smells can provide us with intimate and emotionally charged experiences and the value that we attach to these experiences is interiorised by the members of society in a deeplypersonal way. Importantly, our commonly held feelings about smells can helpdistinguish us from other cultures. The study of the cultural history of smell is, therefore, in a very real sense, an investigation into the essence of human culture.Questions 33-36Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.Write the correct letter in boxes 33-36 on your answer sheet.33. According to the introduction, we become aware of the importance of smell whenA. we discover a new smell.B. we experience a powerful smell.C. our ability to smell is damaged.D. we are surrounded by odours.34. The experiment described in Paragraph BA. shows how we make use of smell without realising it.B. demonstrates that family members have a similar smell.C. proves that a sense of smell is learnt.D. compares the sense of smell in males and females.35. What is the writer doing in paragraph CA. supporting other researchB. making a proposalC. rejecting a common beliefD. describing imitations36. What does the writer suggest about the study of smell in the atmosphere inparagraph EA. The measurement of smell is becoming more accurate.B. Researchers believe smell is purely physical reaction.C. Most smells are inoffensive.D. Smell is yet to be defined.Questions 37-40Complete the sentences below.Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.Write your answers in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.37. Tests have shown that odours can help people recognise the ________ belongingto their husbands and wives.38. Certain linguistic groups may have difficulty describing smell because they lackthe appropriate ________.39. The sense of smell may involve response to ________ which do not smell, inaddition to obvious odours.40. Odours regarded as unpleasant in certain ________ are not regarded asunpleasant in others.。