1、雅思（阅读）-试卷 94及答案解析(总分：80.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、Reading Module(总题数：13，分数：80.00)1.Reading Module (60 minutes)_You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.Walking with dinosaursPeter L Falkingham and his colleagues at Manchester University are developing tec
2、hniques which look set to revolutionise our understanding of how dinosaurs and other extinct animals behaved.The media image of palaeontologists who study prehistoric life is often of field workers camped in the desert in the hot sun, carefully picking away at the rock surrounding a large dinosaur b
3、one. But Peter Falkingham has done little of that for a while now. Instead, he devotes himself to his computer. Not because he has become inundated with paperwork, but because he is a new kind of palaeontologist: a computational palaeontologist.What few people may consider is that uncovering a skele
4、ton, or discovering a new species, is where the research begins, not where it ends. What we really want to understand is how the extinct animals and plants behaved in their natural habitats. Drs Bill Sellers and Phil Manning from the University of Manchester use agenetic algorithm-a kind of computer
5、 code that can change itself and evolve - to explore how extinct animals like dinosaurs, and our own early ancestors, walked and stalked.The fossilised bones of a complete dinosaur skeleton can tell scientists a lot about the animal, but they do not make up the complete picture and the computer can
6、try to fill the gap.The computer model is given a digitised skeleton, and the locations of known muscles.The model then randomly activates the muscles.This, perhaps unsurprisingly, results almost without fail in the animal falling on its face. So the computer alters the activation pattern and tries
7、again. usually to similar effect.The modelled dinosaurs quickly evolve. If there is any improvement, the computer discards the old pattern and adopts the new one as the base for alteration. Eventually, the muscle activation pattern evolves a stable way of moving, the best possible solution is reache
8、d, and the dinosaur can walk, run, chase or graze. Assuming natural selection evolves the best possible solution too, the modelled animal should be moving in a manner similar to its now-extinct counterpart. And indeed, using the same method for living animals(humans, emu and ostriches)similar top sp
9、eeds were achieved on the computer as in reality. By comparing their cyberspace results with real measurements of living species, the Manchester team of palaeontologists can be confident in the results computed showing how extinct prehistoric animals such as dinosaurs moved.The Manchester University
10、 team have used the computer simulations to produce a model of a giant meat-eating dinosaur. It is called an acrocanthosaurus which literally meanshigh spined lizardbecause of the spines which run along its backbone. It is not really known why they are there but scientists have speculated they could
11、 have supported a hump that stored fat and water reserves.There are also those who believe that the spines acted as a support for a sail. Of these, one half think it was used as a display and could be flushed with blood and the other half think it was used as a temperature-regulating device. It may
12、have been a mixture of the two.The skull seems out of proportion with its thick, heavy body because it is so narrow and the jaws are delicate and fine. The feet are also worthy of note as they look surprisingly small in contrast to the animal as a whole. It has a deep broad tail and powerful leg mus
13、cles to aid locomotion. It walked on its back legs and its front legs were much shorter with powerful claws.Falkingham himself is investigating fossilised tracks, or footprints, using computer simulations to help analyse how extinct animals moved. Modern-day trackers who study the habitats of wild a
14、nimals can tell you what animal made a track, whether that animal was walking or running, sometimes even the sex of the animal. But a fossil track poses a more considerable challenge to interpret in the same way. A crucial consideration is knowing what the environment including the mud, or sediment,
15、 upon which the animal walked was like millions of years ago when the track was made. Experiments can answer these questions but the number of variables is staggering.To physically recreate each scenario with a box of mud is extremely time-consuming and difficult to repeat accurately.This is where c
16、omputer simulation comes in.Falkingham uses computational techniques to model a volume of mud and control the moisture content, consistency, and other conditions to simulate the mud of prehistoric times. A footprint is then made in the digital mud by a virtual foot. This footprint can be chopped up
17、and viewed from any angle and stress values can be extracted and calculated from inside it. By running hundreds of these simulations simultaneously on supercomputers, Falkingham can start to understand what types of footprint would be expected if an animal moved in a certain way over a given kind of
18、 ground. Looking at the variation in the virtual tracks, researchers can make sense of fossil tracks with greater confidence.The application of computational techniques in palaeontology is becoming more prevalent every year. As computer power continues to increase, the range of problems that can be
19、tackled and questions that can be answered will only expand.Questions 1-6Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet, writeTRUE if the statement agrees with the informationFALSE if the statement contradicts the informationNOT GI
20、VEN if there is no information on this（分数：12.00）(1).In his study of prehistoric life, Peter Falkingham rarely spends time on outdoor research these days.（分数：2.00）A.TRUEB.假C.NOT GIVEN(2).Several attempts are usually needed before the computer model of a dinosaur used by Sellers and Manning manages to
21、 stay upright.（分数：2.00）A.TRUEB.假C.NOT GIVEN(3).When the Sellers and Manning computer model was used for people, it showed them moving faster than they are physically able to.（分数：2.00）A.TRUEB.假C.NOT GIVEN(4).Some palaeontologists have expressed reservations about the conclusions reached by the Manche
22、ster team concerning the movement of dinosaurs.（分数：2.00）A.TRUEB.假C.NOT GIVEN(5).An experienced tracker can analyse fossil footprints as easily as those made by live animals.（分数：2.00）A.TRUEB.假C.NOT GIVEN(6).Research carried out into the composition of prehistoric mud has been found to be inaccurate.（
23、分数：2.00）A.TRUEB.假C.NOT GIVENLabel the diagram below.Choose NO MORE THAN ONE WORD from the passage for each answer.Write your answers in boxes 7-9 on your answer sheet.A model of an acrocanthosaurusDinosaurs name comes from spines. One theory: they were necessaryto hold up a 1whichhelped control body
24、 heat.Skull is 2compared with rest of body. （分数：6.00）填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_Complete the flow-chart below.Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer. （分数：8.00）填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.The robots are c
25、oming - or are they? （分数：14.00）(1).an insect that proves the superiority of natural intelligence over Artificial Intelligence（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(2).robots being able to benefit from their mistakes（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(3).many researchers not being put off believing that Artificial Intelligence will eventual
26、ly be developed（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(4).an innovative approach that is having limited success（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(5).the possibility of creating Artificial Intelligence being doubted by some academics（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(6).no generally accepted agreement of what our brains do（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(7).robots not being
27、 able to extend their intelligence in the same way as humans（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_Look at the following people(Questions 21-23)and the list of statements below.Match each person with the correct statement, A-E.Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 21-23 on your answer sheet.A Artificial Intelligence may
28、 require something equivalent to feelings in order to succeed.B Different kinds of people use different parts of the brain.C Tests involving fiction have defeated Artificial Intelligence so far.D People have intellectual capacities which do not exist in computers.E People have no reason to be fright
29、ened of robots.（分数：6.00）(1).Colin McGinn（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(2).Marvin Minsky（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_(3).Hans Moravec（分数：2.00）填空项 1:_Complete the summary below.Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.Write your answers in boxes 24-26 on your answer sheet.When will we have a thinking machine?Despit
30、e some advances, the early robots had certain weaknesses. They were given the information they needed on a 1This was known as the top-down approach and enabled them to do certain tasks but they were unable to recognise 2Nor did they have any intuition or ability to make decisions based on experience
31、. Rodney Brooks tried a different approach. Robots similar to those invented by Brooks are to be found on 3where they are collecting information.（分数：6.00）填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below. Endangered languages Never
32、mind whales, save the languages, says Peter Monaghan, graduate of the Australian National UniversityWorried about the loss of rainforests and the ozone layer? Well, neither of those is doing any worse than a large majority of the 6,000 to 7,000 languages that remain in use on Earth. One half of the
33、survivors will almost certainly be gone by 2050, while 40% more will probably be well on their way out. In their place, almost all humans will speak one of a handful of megalanguages - Mandarin, English, Spanish.Linguists know what causes languages to disappear, but less often remarked is what happe
34、ns on the way to disappearance: languages vocabularies, grammars and expressive potential all diminish as one language is replaced by another. Say a community goes over from speaking a traditional Aboriginal language to speaking a Creole*, says Australian Nick Evans, a leading authority on Aborigina
35、l languages, you leave behind a language where theres very fine vocabulary for the landscape. All that is gone in a Creole. Youve just got a few words like gum tree or whatever. As speakers become less able to express the wealth of knowledge that has filled ancestors lives with meaning over millenni
36、a, its no wonder that communities tend to become demoralised.If the losses are so huge, why are relatively few linguists combating the situation? Australian linguists, at least, have achieved a great deal in terms of preserving traditional languages. Australian governments began in the 1970s to supp
37、ort an initiative that has resulted in good documentation of most of the 130 remaining Aboriginal languages. In England, another Australian, Peter Austin, has directed one of the worlds most active efforts to limit language loss, at the University of London. Austin heads a programme that has trained
38、 many documentary linguists in England as well as in language-loss hotspots such as West Africa and South America.At linguistics meetings in the US, where the endangered-language issue has of late been something of a flavour of the month, there is growing evidence that not all approaches to the pres
39、ervation of languages will be particularly helpful. Some linguists are boasting, for example, of more and more sophisticated means of capturing languages: digital recording and storage, and internet and mobile phone technologies. But these are encouraging the quick dash style of recording trip: fly
40、in, switch on digital recorder, fly home, download to hard drive, and store gathered material for future research. Thats not quite what some endangered-language specialists have been seeking for more than 30 years. Most loud and untiring has been Michael Krauss, of the University of Alaska. He has o
41、ften complained that linguists are playing with non-essentials while most of their raw data is disappearing.Who is to blame? That prominent linguist Noam Chomsky, say Krauss and many others. Or, more precisely, they blame those linguists who have been obsessed with his approaches. Linguists who go o
42、ut into communities to study, document and describe languages, argue that theoretical linguists, who draw conclusions about how languages work, have had so much influence that linguistics has largely ignored the continuing disappearance of languages.Chomsky, from his post at the Massachusetts Instit
43、ute of Technology, has been the great man of theoretical linguistics for far longer than he has been known as a political commentator. His landmark work of 1957 argues that all languages exhibit certain universal grammatical features, encoded in the human mind. American linguists, in particular, hav
44、e focused largely on theoretical concerns ever since, even while doubts have mounted about Chomskys universals.Austin and Co. are in no doubt that because languages are unique, even if they do tend to have common underlying features, creating dictionaries and grammars requires prolonged and dedicate
45、d work. This requires that documentary linguists observe not only languages structural subtleties, but also related social, historical and political factors. Such work calls for persistent funding of field scientists who may sometimes have to venture into harsh and even hazardous places. Once there,
46、 they may face difficulties such as community suspicion. As Nick Evans says, a community who speak an endangered language may have reasons to doubt or even oppose efforts to preserve it. They may have seen support and funding for such work come and go. They may have given up using the language with
47、their children, believing they will benefit from speaking a more widely understood one.Plenty of students continue to be drawn to the intellectual thrill of linguistics field work. Thats all the more reason to clear away barriers, contend Evans, Austin and others. The highest barrier, theyagree, is
48、that the linguistics professions emphasis on theory gradually wears down the enthusiasm of linguists who work in communities. Chomsky disagrees. He has recently begun to speak in support of language preservation. But his linguistic, as opposed to humanitarian, argument is, lets say, unsentimental: the loss of a language, he states, is much more of a tragedy for linguists whose interests are mostly theoretical, like me, than for lin
