基于考生回忆投稿及材料收集整理 — 非官方 IELTS 资料。
Reading Passage 1: A New Ice Age
A William Curry is a sincere, sober climate scientist, not an art critic. But, he has contributed a large amount of time to examine Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s prominent painting, “George Washington Crossing the Delaware”, which portrays a heap of colonial American fighters making their way to attack English and Hessian troops the day after Christmas in 1776. “Most people think of these other fellows,” says Curry, tapping his finger on a duplication of the painting. Sure enough, the guide oarsman is hitting the iced river with his gumboot. “I grew up in Philadelphia. The place in this painting is half an hour away by car. I can tell you, this kind of thing just doesn’t occur once again.”
B But it may happen again soon. An ice-gag location, similar to those commemorated by the 16th-century Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder, may also return to Europe. His works, as well as the 1565 masterpiece “Hunters in the Snow”, make the now-mild European scenery look more like Lapland. Such bitterly cold sets were ordinary throughout a period dating roughly from 1300 to 1850 since much of North America and Europe was in the agony of a small ice age. And currently there is growing proof that the chill could go back. A flourishing number of researchers trust states are mature for another extended calm down, or tiny ice age. While no one is forecasting a savage ice sheet like the one that covered the Northern Hemisphere with icebergs about 12,000 years ago, the next cooling tendency could let fall average climate 5 degrees Fahrenheit over much of the United States and 10 degrees in the Northeast, northern Europe, and northern Asia.
C “It could occur in 10 years,” says Terrence Joyce, who chairs the Woods Hole Physical Oceanography Department. “Once it does, it may take a century to come back.” And he is frightened that Americans have so far not taken the warning seriously.
D A drop of 5-10 degrees necessitates much more than simply turning up the thermostat and carrying on. Both frugal and green, such fast, tenacious chilling could have destructive results. A 2002 announcement titled “Abrupt Temperature Change: Inevitable Shocks”, produced by the National Academy of Sciences, fixed the cost from farming losses alone at $100 billion to $250 billion, also forecasting that harm to human environments could be huge and uncountable. A stern sampler: vanishing forests, increased housing cost, diminished pure water, lower crop yield and expedited species dying out.
E The cause for such an enormous result is easy. A rapid change in temperature inflicts much more interference than a slow one. People, plants, animals and the economies that depend on them are like rivers; says the report: “for illustration, high water in a river will constitute few difficulties till the water tramples on the bank, after which ridges can be ruptured and huge inundation can happen. Many biotic procedures go through moves at specific thresholds of climate and abrupt.”
F Political changes since the last ice age could make existence much more hard for the world’s poor. Throughout previous cooling times, entire ethnic groups simply gathered and shifted to the south, but that choice doesn’t work in the present-day, rigid world of closed boundaries. “To the extent that sudden temperature swap may cause quick and large swaps of chance for those who exploit the land, the lack of ability to roam may remove one of the main welfare nets of upset people,” says the report.
G But foremost. Isn’t the earth actually warming? Actually it is, says Joyce. In his littered office, full of mushy lights from the misty Cape Cod morning, he describes how such warming could literally be the astonishing cause of the next small ice age. The contradiction is a result of the observation over the over 30 years in the North Atlantic of immense rivers of pure water—the equivalent of a 10-foot-thick layer—mixed into the saline sea. No one is certain where the pure flood is coming from, but a main suspicion is melting Arctic ice, created by a build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere that traps solar energy.
H The pure water trend is crucial news in marine-science circles. Bob Dickson, a British oceanographer who sounded an alarm at a February conference in Honolulu, has called the drop in salinity and temperature in the Labrador Sea—a loch between northeastern Canada and Greenland that abuts the Atlantic—“possibly the biggest full-depth changes noticed in the current involved oceanography record.”
I The trend can create a small ice age by destabilizing the northern penetration of Gulf Stream waters. Usually, the Gulf Stream, loaded with heat absorbed in the tropics, zigzags the east seaboard of the United States and Canada. As it runs through the north side, the stream gives up heat to the air. Since the warm North Atlantic winds gust eastward, a lot of the heat drifts to Europe. That’s why many researchers believe that the winter climate on the mainland is 36 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than those in North America at the same latitude. Frigid Boston, for example, lies at nearly exactly the same latitude as mild Rome. Some researchers say that the heat can also warm Americans and Canadians. “It’s an actual error to think of this only as a European occurrence,” says Joyce.
J Having given up its heat to the air, the now-cooler water becomes dense and sinks into the North Atlantic by a mile or more in a process oceanographers call marine conveyor belt motion. This huge pillar of pouring cold is the chief engine powering a predicament current called the immense marine conveyor that snakes through all the world’s oceans, but as the North Atlantic fills with pure water, it becomes less dense, making the waters conveyed facing north by the Gulf Stream less able to sink. The new pile of relatively pure water sits on top of the ocean like a big warm cover, threatening the point, the entire system could clearly shut down, and do so quickly. “There is bigger proof that we are closer to a change point, from which we can leap to a fresh state.”
- 1
The writer uses paintings in the first paragraph to illustrate
- A. possible future climate change.
- B. climate change of the last two centuries.
- C. the river doesn't freeze in winter anymore.
- D. how George Washington led his troops across the river.
- 2
Which of the following do scientists believe to be possible?
- A. The temperature may drop over much of the Northern Hemisphere.
- B. It will be colder than 12,000 years ago.
- C. The entire Northern Hemisphere will be covered in ice.
- D. Europe will look more like Lapland.
- 3
Why is it difficult for the poor to survive the next ice age?
- A. People don't live in tribes anymore.
- B. Politics are changing too fast today.
- C. Abrupt climate change causes people to live off their land.
- D. Migration has become impossible because of closed borders.
- 4
Why is continental Europe much warmer than North America in winter?
- A. Wind blows most of the heat of tropical currents to Europe.
- B. Europe and North America are at different latitudes.
- C. The Gulf Stream has stopped yielding heat to the air.
- D. The Gulf Stream moves north along the east coast of North America.
- 5
Most Americans are not prepared for the next ice age.
- A. William Curry
- B. Terrence Joyce
- C. Bob Dickson
- D. National Academy of Sciences
- 6
The result of abrupt climate change is catastrophic.
- 7
The world is not as cold as it used to be.
- 8
Global warming is closely connected to the ice age.
- 9
Alerted people to the change of ocean water in a conference.
- 10
Flowchart of ocean circulation: Tropical warm water travels north and gives up ______ to the air.
- 11
Flowchart of ocean circulation: having given up its heat, the water becomes ______ and sinks.
- 12
Flowchart of ocean circulation: the sinking water forms a deep ocean current called the ______.
- 13
Flowchart of ocean circulation: an increase in ______ instead makes the water less dense, so it stays on top and the Gulf Stream slows or shuts down.
Reading Passage 2: Insect Decision-Making
A
It has long been held that decisions made collectively by large groups of people are more likely to turn out to be accurate than decisions made by individuals. The idea goes back to the ‘jury theorem’ of Nicolas de Condorcet, an 18th-century French philosopher who was one of the first to apply mathematics to the social sciences. Condorcet’s theory describes collective decisions, outlining how democratic decisions tend to outperform dictatorial ones. If, for example, each member of a jury has only partial information, the majority decision is more likely to be correct than a decision arrived at by a single juror. Moreover, the probability of a correct decision increases with the size of the jury.
B
Now it is becoming clear that group decisions are also extremely valuable for the success of social animals, such as ants, bees, birds and dolphins. Bees make collective decisions, and they do it rather well, according to Christian List of the London School of Economics, who has studied group decision-making in humans and animals. Researchers led by Dr List looked at colonies once the original colony reached a certain size. The queen goes off with about two-thirds of the worker bees to live in a new home or nest, leaving a daughter queen in the old nest with the remaining workers. Among the bees that depart are some that have searched for and found some new nest sites, and reported back using a characteristic body movement known as a ‘waggle dance’ to indicate to the other bees the suitable places they have located. The longer the dance, the better the site. After a while, other bees start to visit the sites signalled by their companions to see for themselves and, on their return, also perform more waggle dances. The process eventually leads to a consensus on the best site and the breakaway swarm migrates. The decision is remarkably reliable, with the bees choosing the best site even when there are only small differences between alternative sites.
C
But exactly how do bees reach such a robust consensus? To find out, Dr List and his colleagues used a computer-generated model of the decision-making process. By experimenting with it, they found that, when bees in the model were very good at finding nesting sites but did not share their information, this dramatically slowed down the migration, leaving the swarm homeless and vulnerable. Conversely, bees in the model blindly followed the waggle dances of others without first checking. The researchers concluded that the ability of bees to identify successfully and quickly the best site depends on both the bees’ interdependence in communicating the whereabouts of the best site, and their independence in confirming this information for themselves.
D
Another situation in which collective decisions are taken occurs when animals are either isolated from crucial sources of information or dominated by other members of the group. Jose Halloy of the Free University of Brussels in Belgium used robotic cockroaches to subvert the behaviour of living cockroaches and control their decision-making process. In his experiment, the artificial bugs were introduced to the live ones and soon became sufficiently socially integrated that they were perceived by the real cockroaches as equals. By manipulating the robots, which were in the minority, Halloy was able to persuade the living cockroaches to choose an inappropriate shelter—even one which they had rejected before being infiltrated by the robots.
E
The way insects put into effect collective decisions can be complex and as important as the decisions themselves. At the University of Bristol, in the UK, Nigel Franks and his colleagues studied how a species of ant establishes a new nest. Franks and his associates reported how the insects reduce the problems associated with making a necessarily swift choice. If the ants’ existing nest becomes suddenly threatened, the insects choose certain ants to act as scouts to find a new nest. How quickly they accomplish the transfer to a new home depends not only on how soon the best available site is found, but also on how quickly the migration there can be achieved.
F
Once the suitable new nest is identified, the chosen ants begin to lead others, which have made it to the new site or which may simply be in the vicinity, back to the original threatened nest. In this way, those ants which are familiar with the route can help transport, for example, the queen and young ants to the new site, and simultaneously show the way to those ants which have been left behind to guard the old nest. In this way, moving processes are accomplished faster and more efficiently. Thus the dynamics of collective decision-making are closely related to the efficient implementation of those decisions. How this might apply to choices that humans make is, as yet, unclear. But it does suggest, even for humans, the importance of recruiting dynamic leaders to a cause, because the most important thing about collective decision-making, as shown by these insect experiments, is to get others to follow.
- 14
Paragraph A
- i. The effect of man-made imitations on insects
- ii. The need to instruct additional insect guides
- iii. Signals used by certain insects to indicate a discovery
- iv. How urgency can affect the process of finding a new home
- v. The use of trained insects in testing scientific theories
- vi. The use of virtual scenarios in the study of insect behaviour
- vii. How the number of decision-makers affects the decision
- 15
Paragraph B
- 16
Paragraph C
- 17
Paragraph D
- 18
Paragraph E
- 19
Paragraph F
- 20
Certain members can influence the rest of the group to alter a previous decision.
- A. Nicolas de Condorcet
- B. Christian List and colleagues
- C. José Halloy
- D. Nigel Franks and colleagues
- 21
Individual verification of a proposed choice is important for a successful decision outcome.
- 22
The more individuals taking part in a decision, the better the decision will be.
- 23
The decision-making process of certain insects produces excellent results even when fine distinctions are required.
- 24
A Bristol University study looked at how insects make decisions when their home has been ______.
- 25
The ants in the experiment relied on the use of individuals called ______ to find a new nest and efficiently direct the others to go there.
- 26
The study emphasized the necessity, for people as well as insects, of having active ______ in order to execute decisions successfully.
Reading Passage 3: Facial Expression
A facial expression is one or more motions or positions of the muscles in the skin. These movements convey the emotional state of the individual to observers. Facial expressions are a form of nonverbal communication. They are a primary means of conveying social information among aliens, but also occur in most other mammals and some other animal species. Facial expressions and their significance in the perceiver can, to some extent, vary between cultures with evidence from descriptions in the works of Charles Darwin.
Humans can adopt a facial expression to read as a voluntary action. However, because expressions are closely tied to emotion, they are more often involuntary. It can be nearly impossible to avoid expressions for certain emotions, even when it would be strongly desirable to do so; a person who is trying to avoid insulting an individual he or she finds highly unattractive might, nevertheless, show a brief expression of disgust before being able to reassume a neutral expression. Microexpressions are one example of this phenomenon. The close link between emotion and expression can also work in the other direction; it has been observed that voluntarily assuming an expression can actually cause the associated emotion.
Some expressions can be accurately interpreted even between members of different species—anger and extreme contentment being the primary examples. Others, however, are difficult to interpret even in familiar individuals. For instance, disgust and fear can be tough to tell apart. Because faces have only a limited range of movement, expressions rely upon fairly minuscule differences in the proportion and relative position of facial features, and reading them requires considerable sensitivity to some. Some faces are often falsely read as expressing some emotion, even when they are neutral, because their proportions naturally resemble those another face would temporarily assume when emoting.
Also, a person’s eyes reveal much about how they are feeling, or what they are thinking. Blink rate can reveal how nervous or at ease a person may be. Research by Boston College professor Joe Tecce suggests that stress levels are revealed by blink rates. He supports his data with statistics on the relation between the blink rates of presidential candidates and their success in their races. Tecce claims that the faster blinker in the presidential debates has lost every election since 1980. Though Tecce’s data is interesting, it is important to recognize that non-verbal communication is multi-channeled, and focusing on only one aspect is reckless. Nervousness can also be measured by examining each candidate’s perspiration, eye contact and stiffness.
As Charles Darwin noted in his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals: the young and the old of widely different races, both with man and animals, express the same state of mind by the same movements. Still, up to the mid-20th century most anthropologists believed that facial expressions were entirely learned and could therefore differ among cultures. Studies conducted in the 1960s by Paul Ekman eventually supported Darwin’s belief to a large degree.
Ekman’s work on facial expressions had its starting point in the work of psychologist Silvan Tomkins. Ekman showed that contrary to the belief of some anthropologists including Margaret Mead, facial expressions of emotion are not culturally determined, but universal across human cultures. The South Fore people of New Guinea were chosen as subjects for one such survey. The study consisted of 189 adults and 130 children from among a very isolated population, as well as twenty-three members of the culture who lived a less isolated lifestyle as a control group. Participants were told a story that described one particular emotion; they were then shown three pictures (two for children) of facial expressions and asked to match the picture which expressed the story’s emotion.
While the isolated South Fore people could identify emotions with the same accuracy as the non-isolated control group, problems associated with the study include the fact that both fear and surprise were constantly misidentified. The study concluded that certain facial expressions correspond to particular emotions and cannot be covered, regardless of cultural background, and regardless of whether or not the culture has been isolated or exposed to the mainstream.
Expressions Ekman found to be universal included those indicating anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise (note that none of these emotions has a definitive social component, such as shame, pride, or schadenfreude). Findings on contempt (which is social) are less clear, though there is at least some preliminary evidence that this emotion and its expression are universally recognized. This may suggest that the facial expressions are largely related to the mind and each part on the face can express specific emotion.
- 27
The result of Ekman's study demonstrates that fear and surprise are persistently ______.
- 28
...and made a conclusion that some facial expressions have something to do with certain ______ which is impossible to be covered,
- 29
...in spite of ______
- 30
...and whether the culture has been ______
- 31
...or ______ to the mainstream.
- 32
the difficulty identifying the actual meaning of facial expressions
- 33
the importance of culture in facial expressions is initially described
- 34
collected data for the research on the relation between blink and the success in elections
- 35
the features on sociality of several facial expressions
- 36
an indicator to reflect one's extent of nervousness
- 37
the relation between emotion and facial expressions
- 38
Which TWO of the following statements are true according to Ekman's theory?
- A. No evidence shows animals have their own facial expressions.
- B. The potential relationship between facial expressions and state of mind exists.
- C. Facial expressions are concerning different cultures.
- D. Different areas on face convey certain state of mind.
- E. Mind controls men's facial expressions more obviously than women's.
- 39
Which TWO of the following statements are true according to Ekman's theory?
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答案
1. B
2. A
3. D
4. A
5. B
6. D
7. A
8. B
9. C
10. heat
11. dense
12. greater ocean conveyor
13. pure water
14. vii
15. iii
16. vi
17. i
18. iv
19. ii
20. C
21. B
22. A
23. B
24. threatened
25. scouts
26. leaders
27. misidentified
28. emotions
29. cultural background
30. isolated
31. exposed
32. C
33. A
34. D
35. H
36. D
37. B
38. B / D
39. B / D