[外语类试卷]雅思（阅读）模拟试卷86及答案与解析.doc

1、雅思（阅读）模拟试卷 86及答案与解析 0 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below. Reducing electricity consumption on the Isle of Eigg Background The Isle of Eigg is situated off the West Coast of Scotland, and is reached by ferry from the mainland. For the islan

2、d community of about a hundred residents, it has always been expensive to import products, materials and skilled labour from the mainland, and this has encouraged a culture of self-sufficiency and careful use of resources. Today, although the island now has most modern conveniences, CO2 emissions pe

3、r household are 20 percent lower than the UK average, and electricity use is 50 percent lower. When Eigg designed its electricity grid, which was switched on in February 2008, it quickly became apparent that in order to keep the capital building costs down, it would be necessary to manage demand. Th

4、is would also allow the island to generate most of its electricity from renewable sources, mainly water, wind and solar power. This goal was overseen by the Eigg Heritage Trust(EHT). The technology Eigg manages electricity demand mainly by capping the instantaneous power that can be used to five kil

5、owatts(kW)for a household and ten kW for a business. If usage goes over the limit, the electricity supply is cut off and the maintenance team must be called to come and switch it back on again. All households and businesses have energy monitors, which display current and cumulative electricity usage

6、, and sound an alarm when consumption reaches a user-defined level, usually set a few hundred watts below the actual limit. The result is that Eigg residents have a keen sense of how much power different electrical appliances use, and are careful to minimise energy consumption. Demand is also manage

7、d by warning the entire island when renewable energy generation is lower than demand, and diesel generators are operating to back it up - a so-called red light day, as opposed to green light days when there is sufficient renewable energy. Residents then take steps to temporarily reduce electricity d

8、emand further still, or postpone demand until renewable energy generation has increased. Energy use on the island has also been reduced through improved wall and loft insulation in homes, new boilers, solar water heating, car-sharing and various small, energy-saving measures in households. New energ

9、y supplies are being developed, including sustainably harvested forests to supply wood for heating. Eigg Heritage Trust has installed insulation in all of its own properties at no cost to the tenants, while private properties have paid for their own insulation to be installed. The same applies for i

10、nstallations of solar water heating, although not all Trust properties have received this as yet. The Trust also operates a Green Grants scheme, where residents can claim 50 percent of the cost of equipment to reduce carbon emissions, up to a limit of 300. Purchases included bikes, solar water heati

11、ng, secondary glazing, thicker curtains, and greenhouses to grow food locally, rather than importing it. Environmental benefits Prior to the installation of the new electricity grid and renewable energy generation, most households on Eigg used diesel generators to supply electricity, resulting in si

12、gnificant carbon emissions. Homes were also poorly insulated and had old, inefficient oil-burning boilers, or used coal for heating. The work by the Eigg Heritage Trust to reduce energy use has resulted in significant reductions in carbon emissions from the islands households and businesses. The ave

13、rage annual electricity use per household is just 2,160 kilowatt hours(kWh), compared to a UK average in 2008 of 4,198 kWh. Domestic carbon emissions have fallen by 47 percent, from 8.4 to 4.45 tonnes per year. This compares to average UK household emissions of 5.5 to 6 tonnes per year. The emission

14、s should fall even further over the next few years as the supply of wood for heating increases. Social benefits The completion of Eiggs electricity grid has made a significant difference to the islands residents, freeing them from dependence on diesel generators and providing them with a stable and

15、affordable power supply. A reliable electricity supply has brought improvements in other areas, for example, better treatment of drinking water in some houses, and the elimination of the constant noise of diesel generators. Improved home insulation and heating has also yielded benefits, making it mo

16、re affordable to keep homes at a comfortable temperature. One of the incentives for capping electricity use, rather than charging different amounts according to usage, was to make access to energy equitable. Every household has the same five kW cap, irrespective of income, so distributing the availa

17、ble resources equally across the islands population. Economic and employment benefits Eiggs electricity grid supports four part-time maintenance jobs on the island, and residents have also been employed for building work to improve Trust-owned houses and other buildings. Likewise, the start of organ

18、ised harvesting of wood for heating has created several forestry jobs for residents. A part-time green project manager post has also been created. A wider economic impact has come from having a reliable and affordable electricity supply, which has enabled several new businesses to start up, includin

19、g restaurants, shops, guest houses and self-catering accommodation. As Eigg has become known for cutting carbon emissions and protecting the environment, an increasing number of visitors have come to the island to learn about its work, bringing a further economic benefit to the residents. Questions

20、1-7 Answer the questions below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer. 1 Approximately how many people live on Eigg? 2 What proportion of a UK households electricity consumption does an Eigg household consume? 3 Apart from wind and sun, where does most of Eig

21、gs electricity come from? 4 What device measures the amount of electricity Eiggs households are using? 5 When renewable energy supplies are insufficient, what backs them up? 6 What has EHT provided free of charge in all the houses it owns? 7 Which gardening aid did some Eigg inhabitants claim grants

22、 for? 7 Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? Write TRUE if the statement agrees with the information FALSE if the statement contradicts the information NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this 8 Electricity was available for the first time on Eigg wh

23、en a new grid was switched on. 9 Eiggs carbon emissions are now much lower than before. 10 Wood will soon be the main source of heating on Eigg. 11 Eigg is quieter as a result of having a new electricity supply. 12 Well-off households pay higher prices for the use of extra electricity. 13 1The new e

24、lectricity grid has created additional employment opportunities on Eigg. 13 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1426, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below. Change in business organisations A The forces that operate to bring about change in organisations can be thought of as winds wh

25、ich are many and varied from small summer breezes that merely disturb a few papers, to mighty howling gales which cause devastation to structures and operations, causing consequent reorientation of purpose and rebuilding. Sometimes, however, the winds die down to give periods of relative calm, perio

26、ds of relative organisational stability. Such a period was the agricultural age, which Goodman(1995)maintains prevailed in Europe and western societies as a whole until the early 1700s. During this period, wealth was created in the context of an agriculturally based society influenced mainly by loca

27、l markets(both customer and labour)and factors outside peoples control, such as the weather. During this time, people could fairly well predict the cycle of activities required to maintain life, even if that life might be at little more than subsistence level. B To maintain the meteorological metaph

28、or, stronger winds of change blew to bring in the Industrial Revolution and the industrial age. Again, according to Goodman, this lasted for a long time, until around 1945. It was characterised by a series of inventions and innovations that reduced the number of people needed to work the land and, i

29、n turn, provided the means of production of hitherto rarely obtainable goods; for organisations, supplying these in ever increasing numbers became the aim. To a large extent, demand and supply were predictable, enabling companies to structure their organisations along what Burns and Stalker(1966)des

30、cribed as mechanistic lines, that is as systems of strict hierarchical structures and firm means of control. C This situation prevailed for some time, with demand still coming mainly from the domestic market and organisations striving to fill the supply gap. Thus the most disturbing environmental in

31、fluence on organisations of this time was the demand for products, which outstripped supply. The saying attributed to Henry Ford that You can have any colour of car so long as it is black, gives a flavour of the supply-led state of the market. Apart from any technical difficulties of producing diffe

32、rent colours of car, Ford did not have to worry about customers colour preferences: he could sell all that he made. Organisations of this period can be regarded as task-oriented, with effort being put into increasing production through more effective and efficient production processes. D As time pas

33、sed, this favourable period for organisations began to decline. In the neo-industrial age, people became more discriminating in the goods and services they wished to buy and, as technological advancements brought about increased productivity, supply overtook demand. Companies began, increasingly, to

34、 look abroad for additional markets. E At the same time, organisations faced more intensive competition from abroad for their own products and services. In the West, this development was accompanied by a shift in focus from manufacturing to service, whether this merely added value to manufactured pr

35、oducts, or whether it was service in its own right. In the neo-industrial age of western countries, the emphasis moved towards adding value to goods and services what Goodman calls the value-oriented time, as contrasted with the task-oriented and products/services-oriented times of the past. F Today

36、, in the post-industrial age, most people agree that organisational life is becoming ever more uncertain, as the pace of change quickens and the future becomes less predictable. Writing in 1999, Nadler and Tushman, two US academics, said: Poised on the eve of the next century, we are witnessing a pr

37、ofound transformation in the very nature of our business organisations. Historic forces have converged to fundamentally reshape the scope, strategies, and structures of large enterprises. At a less general level of analysis, Graeme Leach, Chief Economist at the British Institute of Directors, claime

38、d in the Guardian newspaper(2000)that: By 2020, the nine-to-five rat race will be extinct and present levels of self-employment, commuting and technology use, as well as age and sex gaps, will have changed beyond recognition. According to the article, Leach anticipates that: In 20 years time, 20-25

39、percent of the workforce will be temporary workers and many more will be flexible, .25 percent of people will no longer work in a traditional office and . 50 percent will work from home in some form. Continuing to use the winds of change metaphor, the expectation is of damaging gale-force winds brin

40、ging the need for rebuilding that takes the opportunity to incorporate new ideas and ways of doing things. G Whether all this will happen is arguable. Forecasting the future is always fraught with difficulties. For instance, Mannermann(1998)sees future studies as part art and part science and notes:

41、 The future is full of surprises, uncertainty, trends and trend breaks, irrationality and rationality, and it is changing and escaping from our hands as time goes by. It is also the result of actions made by innumerable more or less powerful forces. What seems certain is that the organisational worl

42、d is changing at a fast rate - even if the direction of change is not always predictable. Consequently, it is crucial that organisational managers and decision makers are aware of, and able to analyse the factors which trigger organisational change. Questions 14-18 Reading Passage 2 has SEVEN paragr

43、aphs, A-G. Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter, A-G. 14 some specific predictions about businesses and working practices 15 reference to the way company employees were usually managed 16 a warning for business leaders 17 the description of an era notable for

44、the relative absence of change 18 a reason why customer satisfaction was not a high priority 18 Questions 19-23 Look at the following characteristics(Questions 19-23)and the list of periods below. Match each characteristic with the correct period, A, B or C. Write the correct letter, A, B or C. NB Y

45、ou may use any letter more than once. List of periods A The agricultural age B The industrial age C The neo-industrial age 19 a surplus of goods 20 an emphasis on production quantity 21 the proximity of consumers to workplaces 22 a focus on the quality of goods 23 new products and new ways of workin

46、g 23 Complete the summary below. Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer. Businesses in the 21st century It is generally agreed that changes are taking place more quickly now, and that organisations are being transformed. One leading economist suggested that by 2020, up to a quarter of

47、 employees would be 【 R24】 _, and half of all employees would be based in the 【 R25】 _. Although predictions can be wrong, the speed of change is not in doubt, and business leaders need to understand the 【 R26】 _that will be influential. 24 【 R24】 25 【 R25】 26 【 R26】 26 You should spend about 20 min

48、utes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below. The creation of lasting memories Many studies of the brain processes underlying the creation of memory consolidation(lasting memories)have involved giving various human and animal subjects treatment, while training them to perform

49、a task. These have contributed greatly to our understanding. In pioneering studies using goldfish, Bernard Agranoff found that protein synthesis inhibitors injected after training caused the goldfish to forget what they had learned. In other experiments, he administered protein synthesis inhibitors immediately before the fish were trained. The remarkable finding was that the fish learned the task completely normally, but forgot it within a few hours that is, the protein synthesis inhibitors blocked memory consolidation, but did not in