1、雅思（听力）模拟试卷 5及答案与解析 一、 Listening Module (30 minutes among them the American Black Bear and the Brown Bear-from which evolved the newest species of bear-the Polar Bear. Interviewer: So how old is the Polar Bear? Alison: Oh, hes a relative newcomer - just 20,000 years old. Interviewer: And could you te
2、ll us a little about them? Which is the largest bear, for instance? Alison: Well, the largest bear existing today is either the Polar Bear or the Brown Bear. Interviewer: Right . Dont we know? Alison: Well, it depends which criteria you use. The Polar Bear is the heaviest; the male weighs up to 1,50
3、0 pounds but his narrow body actually makes him look smaller than the much more robust Brown Bear. Interviewer: So the Brown Bear appears the biggest. Alison: Yes. Interviewer: And the smallest? Alison: Well, the Sun Bear is the smallest of the eight species. They only weigh between 60 and 145 pound
4、s. Interviewer: That makes him a comparative junior! Alison: Yes. And then next we have the so-called Giant Panda . but thats a small bear too, comparatively speaking. Interviewer: And are all bears meat eaters? Alison: No, not at all. In fact the Giant Panda is almost entirely herbivorous living on
5、 a diet of 30 types of bamboo. Interviewer: Oh, yes of course. Pandas are famous for that. Alison: And another interesting bear is the Sloth Bear which eats insects, particularly termites. He can turn his mouth into a tube and suck the insects out of their nests. Interviewer: So going back to my sec
6、ond question . Are bears really in danger of extinction? Alison: Yes indeed . they are . the Sun Bear in particular as theyve been hunted almost out of existence. And the habitat of the Panda is also being reduced on a daily basis. Interviewer: Can anything be done to reduce the threat to these enda
7、ngered species? I know for instance that its very hard to breed bears in captivity. Alison: Yes, well . I think that by raising peoples awareness generally we can reduce conflict between humans and animals . to stop the slaughter in parts of the world where bears are still hunted-supposedly in selfd
8、efense or to protect livestock, but . often quite unnecessarily. And we can also encourage governments to preserve the natural environment of the bear rather than allow the areas where they live to be systematically destroyed in the name of Progress. Interviewer: Yes, of course. Alison: And in addit
9、ion to these global efforts, all profits from the sale of my book will go towards the United Nations Bear Protection Program. Interviewer: Thats wonderful . and with the news coming up, thank you for your time, Alison, and best of luck with the book. Alison: Thank you very much. 21 【正确答案】 40 million
10、 22 【正确答案】 dogs/the dog 23 【正确答案】 only ate plants 24 【正确答案】 Polar Bear 25 【正确答案】 Brown Bear 26 【正确答案】 Sun Bear 27 【正确答案】 Giant Panda 28 【正确答案】 Sloth Bear 29 【正确答案】 B 30 【正确答案】 E 31 【听力原文】 Male: Good evening and welcome to this months Observatory Club lecture. Im Donald Mackie and Im here to talk to
11、you about the solar eclipse in history. A thousand years ago, a total eclipse of the sun was a terrifying religious experience - but these days an eclipse is more likely to be viewed as a tourist attraction than as a scientific or spiritual event. People will travel literally miles to be in the righ
12、t place at the right time- to get the best view of their eclipse. Well, what exactly causes a solar eclipse - when the world goes dark for a few minutes in the middle of the day? Scientifically speaking, the dark spot itself is easy to explain; it is the shadow of the moon streaking across the earth
13、. This happens every year or two, each time along a different and, to all intents and purposes, a seemingly random piece of the globe. In the past people often interpreted an eclipse as a danger signal heralding disaster and in fact, the Chinese were so disturbed by these events that they included a
14、mong their gods one whose job it was to prevent eclipses. But whether or not you are superstitious or take a purely scientific view, our earthly eclipses are special in three ways. Firstly, there can be no doubt that they are very beautiful. Its as if a deep blue curtain had fallen over the daytime
15、sky as the sun becomes a black void surrounded by the glow of its outer atmosphere. But beyond this, total eclipses possess a second more compelling beauty in the eyes of us scientists . for they offer a unique opportunity for research. Only during an eclipse can we study the corona and other dim th
16、ings that are normally lost in the suns glare. And thirdly, they are rare. Even though an eclipse of the sun occurs somewhere on earth every year or two, if you sit in your garden and wait, it will take 375 years on average for one to come to you. If the moon were any larger, eclipses would become a
17、 monthly bore; if it were smaller, they simply would not be possible. The ancient Babylonian priests, who spent a fair bit of time staring at the sky, had already noted that there was an 18- year pattern in their recurrence but they didnt have the mathematics to predict an eclipse accurately. It was
18、 Edmund Halley, the English astronomer, who knew his maths well enough to predict the return of the comet which, incidentally bears his name, and in 1715 he became the first person to make an accurate eclipse prediction. This brought eclipses firmly into the scientific domain and they have since all
19、owed a number of important scientific discoveries to be made. For instance, in the eclipse of 1868 two scientists, Janssen and Lockyer, were observing the suns atmosphere and it was these observations that ultimately led to the discovery of a new element. They named the element helium after the Gree
20、k god of the Sun. This was a major find, because helium turned out to be the most common element in the universe after hydrogen. Another great triumph involved Mercury . Ill just put that up on the board for you now. See - theres Mercury- the planet closest to the Sun - then Venus, Earth, etc. For c
21、enturies, scientists had been unable to understand why Mercury appeared to rotate faster than it should. Some astronomers suggested that there might be an undiscovered planet causing this unusual orbit and even gave it the name Vulcan. During the eclipse of 1878, an American astronomer, James Watson
22、, thought he had spotted this so-called lost planet. But, alas for him, he was later obliged to admit that he had been wrong about Vulcan and withdrew his claim. Then Albert Einstein came on the scene. Einstein suggested that rather than being wrong about the number of ,planets, astronomers were act
23、ually wrong about gravity. Einsteins theory of relativity - for which he is so famous - disagreed with Newtons law of gravity in just the right way to explain Mercurys odd orbit. He also realised that a definitive test would be possible during the total eclipse of 1919 and this is indeed when his th
24、eory was finally proved correct. So there you have several examples of how eclipses have helped to increase our understanding of the universe, and now lets move on to the social aspects. 31 【正确答案】 C 32 【正确答案】 B 33 【正确答案】 C 34 【正确答案】 B 35 【正确答案】 A 36 【正确答案】 C 37 【正确答案】 first person 38 【正确答案】 (a)new element/helium 39 【正确答案】 (the) lost planet/(the) new planet/Vulcan 40 【正确答案】 gravity
