1、雅思(阅读)-试卷 96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. Seed vault guards resources for the future Fiona Harvey paid a visit to a building whose contents are
2、very precious. About 1,000 km from the North Pole, Svalbard is one of the most remote places on earth. For this reason, it is the site of a vault that will safeguard a priceless component of our common heritage - the seeds of our staple crops. Here, seeds from the worlds most vital food crops will b
3、e locked away for hundreds or even thousands of years. If something goes wrong in the world, the vault will provide the means to restore farming. We, or our descendants, will not have to retread thousands of years of agriculture from scratch.Deep in the vault at the end of a long tunnel, are three s
4、torage vaults which are lined with insulated panels to help maintain the cold temperatures. Electronic transmitters linked to a satellite system monitor temperature, etc. and pass the information back to the appropriate authorities at Longyearbyen and the Nordic Gene Bank which provide the technical
5、 information for managing the seed vaults.The seeds are placed in sealed boxes and stored on shelves in the vaults.The minimal moisture level and low temperature ensure low metabolic activity.The remote location, as well as the rugged structure, provide unparalleled security for the worlds agricultu
6、ral heritage.The three vaults are buried deep in the hillside. To reach them, it is necessary to proceed down a long and surprisingly large corridor. At 93.3 metres in length, it connects the 26-metre long entrance building to the three vaults, each of which extends a further 27 metres into the moun
7、tain.Towards the end of this tunnel, after about 80 metres, there are several small rooms on the right-hand side. One is a transformer room to which only the power company officials have access - this houses the equipment needed to transform the incoming electrical current down to 220 volts. A secon
8、d is an electrical room housing controls for the compressor and other equipment.The other room is an office which can be heated to provide comfortable working conditions for those who will make an inventory of the samples in and out of the vault.Anyone seeking access to the seeds has to pass through
9、 four locked doors: the heavy steel entrance doors, a second door approximately 90 metres down the tunnel and finally the two keyed doors separated by an airlock, from which it is possible to proceed directly into the seed vaults. Keys are coded to allow access to different levels of the facility.A
10、work of art will make the vault visible for miles around.The vault entrance is filled with highly reflective sheets of steel and mirrors which form an installation acting as a beacon. It reflects polar light in the summer months, while in the winter, a network of 200 fibre-optic cables will give the
11、 piece a muted greenish-turquoise and white light.Cary Fowler, the mastermind behind the vault, stands inside the echoing cavern. For him, this is the culmination of nearly 30 years of work. Its an insurance policy, he explains, a very cheap insurance policy when you consider what were insuring -the
12、 earths biological diversity.Seeds are being brought here from all over the world, from seed banks created by governments, universities and private institutions. Soon, there will be seed varieties from at least 100 crops in the Svalbard vault - extending to examples of all of the 1.5 million known c
13、rop seed varieties in the world. If any more are unearthed, either in the wild or found in obscure collections, they can be added, too - the vault has room for at least 4.5 million samples.Inside the entrance area it is more than 10 C below freezing, but in the chambers where the seeds are kept, ref
14、rigerators push down the temperature even further, to -18 C. At this temperature, which will be kept constant to stop the seeds germinating or rotting, the wheat seeds will remain viable for an estimated 1,700 years, the barley for 2,000 years and the sorghum for 20,000 years.Svalbards Arctic condit
15、ions will keep the seeds cold. In order to maintain the temperature at a constant -10 C to -20 C, the cold Arctic air will be drawn into the vault during the winter, automatically and without human intervention.The surrounding rock will maintain the temperature requirements during the extremely cold
16、 season and, during warmer periods, refrigeration equipment will engage. Looking out across the snow-covered mountains of Svalbard, it is hard not to feel respect for the 2,300 or so people who live here, mainly in Longyearbyen, a village a few miles away.There are three months without light in wint
17、er.Svalbard is intended as the seed bank of last resort. Each sample is made up of a few hundred seeds, sealed inside a watertight package which will never be tampered with while it is in the vault. The packages of seeds remain the property of the collections they have come from. Svalbard will disbu
18、rse samples only if all the other seeds in other collections around the world are gone, explains Fowler. If seeds do have to be given out, those who receive them are expected to germinate them and generate new samples, to be returned to the vault.Questions 1-6Label the diagram below.Choose NO MORE T
19、HAN TWO WORDS OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet. (分数:12.00)填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1 ? In boxes 7-13 on your answer sheet, writeTRUE if t
20、he statement agrees with the informationFALSE if the statement contradicts the informationNOT GIVEN if there is no information on this(分数:14.00)(1).The vault has the capacity to accommodate undiscovered types of seed at a later date.(分数:2.00)A.真B.假C.NOT GIVEN(2).There are different levels of refrige
21、ration according to the kinds of seeds stored.(分数:2.00)A.真B.假C.NOT GIVEN(3).During winter, the flow of air entering the vault is regularly monitored by staff.(分数:2.00)A.真B.假C.NOT GIVEN(4).There is a back-up refrigeration system ready to be switched on if the present one fails.(分数:2.00)A.真B.假C.NOT GI
22、VEN(5).The people who work at Svalbard are mainly locals.(分数:2.00)A.真B.假C.NOT GIVEN(6).Once a seed package is in the vault, it remains unopened.(分数:2.00)A.真B.假C.NOT GIVEN(7).If seeds are sent from Svalbard to other banks, there is an obligation for the recipient to send replacements back.(分数:2.00)A.
23、真B.假C.NOT GIVENYou should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1426, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.WHAT COOKBOOKS REALLY TEACH USA Shelves bend under their weight of cookery books. Even a medium-sized bookshop contains many more recipes than one person could hope to cook in a lifetime. A
24、lthough the recipes in one book are often similar to those in another, their presentation varies wildly, from an array of vegetarian cookbooks to instructions on cooking the food that historical figures might have eaten. The reason for this abundance is that cookbooks promise to bring about a kind o
25、f domestic transformation for the user. The daily routine can be put to one side and they liberate the user, if only temporarily. To follow their instructions is to turn a task which has to be performed every day into an engaging, romantic process. Cookbooks also provide an opportunity to delve into
26、 distant cultures without having to turn up at an airport to get there.B The first Western cookbook appeared just over 1,600 years ago. De re coquinara(it means concerning cookery)is attributed to a Roman gourmet named Apicius. It is probably a compilation of Roman and Greek recipes, some or all of
27、them drawn from manuscripts that were later lost. The editor was sloppy, allowing several duplicated recipes to sneak in. Yet Apiciuss book set the tone of cookery advice in Europe for more than a thousand years. As a cookbook it is unsatisfactory with very basic instructions. Joseph Vehling, a chef
28、 who translated Apicius in the 1930s, suggested the author had been obscure on purpose, in case his secrets leaked out.C But a more likely reason is that Apiciuss recipes were written by and for professional cooks, who could follow their shorthand. This situation continued for hundreds of years. The
29、re was no order to cookbooks: a cake recipe might be followed by a mutton one. But then, they were not written for careful study. Before the 19th century few educated people cooked for themselves. The wealthiest employed literate chefs; others presumably read recipes to their servants. Such cooks wo
30、uld have been capable of creating dishes from the vaguest of instructions.D The invention of printing might have been expected to lead to greater clarity but at first the reverse was true. As words acquired commercial value, plagiarism exploded. Recipes were distorted through reproduction. A recipe
31、for boiled capon in The Good Huswives Jewell, printed in 1596, advised the cook to add three or four dates. By 1653, when the recipe was given by a different author in A Book of Fruits she elevated it to the status of science. Progress in civilisation has been accompanied by progress in cookery, she
32、 breezily announced in The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, before launching into a collection of recipes that sometimes resembles a book of chemistry experiments. She was occasionally over-fussy. She explained that currants should be picked between June 28th and July 3rd, but not when it is raining
33、. But in the main her book is reassuringly authoritative. Its recipes are short, with no unnecessary chat and no unnecessary spices.I In 1950 Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David launched a revolution in cooking advice in Britain. In some ways Mediterranean Food recalled even older cookbooks but th
34、e smells and noises that filled Davids books were not mere decoration for her recipes. They were the point of her books. When she began to write, many ingredients were not widely available or affordable. She understood this, acknowledging in a later edition of one of her books that even if people co
35、uld not very often make the dishes here described, it was stimulating to think about them. Davids books were not so much cooking manuals as guides to the kind of food people might well wish to eat.Questions 14-16Complete the summary below.Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answe
36、r. Write your answers in boxes 14-16 on your answer sheet. Why are there so many cookery books?There are a great number more cookery books published than is really necessary and it is their 1which makes them differ from each other. There are such large numbers because they offer people an escape fro
37、m their 2and some give the user the chance to inform themselves about other 3(分数:6.00)填空项 1:_填空项 1:_填空项 1:_Which paragraph contains the following information?Write the correct letter, A-l, in boxes 17-21 on your answer sheet. NB You may use any letter more than once.(分数:10.00)(1).cookery books provi
38、ding a sense of stability during periods of unrest(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_(2).details in recipes being altered as they were passed on(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_(3).knowledge which was in danger of disappearing(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_(4).the negative effect on cookery books of a new development(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_(5).a period when
39、 there was no need for cookery books to be precise(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_Look at the following statements(Questions 22-26)and list of books(A-E)below.Match each statement with the correct book, A-E.Write the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 22-26 on your answer sheet. List of cookery booksA De re coquinaraB T
40、he Book of Household ManagementC Le Guide CulinaireD The Boston Cooking-School Cook BookE Mediterranean Food(分数:10.00)(1).Its recipes were easy to follow despite the writers attention to detail.(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_(2).Its writer may have deliberately avoided passing on details.(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_(3).It app
41、ealed to ambitious ideas people have about cooking.(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_(4).Its writer used ideas from other books but added additional related information.(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_(5).It put into print ideas which are still respected today.(分数:2.00)填空项 1:_You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, whi
42、ch are based on Reading Passage 3 below. Is there more to video games than people realise?Many people who spend a lot of time playing video games insist that they have helped them in areas like confidence-building, presentation skills and debating. Yet this way of thinking about video games can be f
43、ound almost nowhere within the mainstream media, which still tend to treat games as an odd mix of the slightly menacing and the alien. This lack of awareness has become increasingly inappropriate, as video games and the culture that surrounds them have become very big business indeed.Recently, the B
44、ritish government released the Byron report into the effects of electronic media on children. Its conclusions set out a clear, rational basis for exploring the regulation of video games. The ensuing debate, however, has descended into the same old squabbling between partisan factions: the preachers
45、of mental and moral decline, and the innovative game designers. In between are the gamers, busily buying and playing while nonsense is talked over their heads.Susan Greenfield, renowned neuroscientist, outlines her concerns in a new book. Every individuals mind is the product of a brain that has bee
46、n personalised by the sum total of their experiences; with an increasing quantity of our experiences from very early childhood taking placeon screenrather than in the world, there is potentially a profound shift in the way childrens minds work. She suggests that the fast-paced, second-hand experienc
47、es created by video games and the Internet may inculcate a worldview that is less empathetic, more risk-taking and less contemplative than what we tend to think of as healthy.Greenfields prose is full of mixed metaphors and self-contradictions and is perhaps the worst enemy of her attempts to persua
48、de. This is unfortunate, because however much technophiles may snort, she is articulating widely held fears that have a basis in fact. Unlike even their immediate antecedents, the latest electronic media are at once domestic and work-related, their mobility blurring the boundaries between these spaces, and video games are at their forefront. A generational divide has opened that is in many ways more profound than the equivalent shifts associated with