1、雅思（阅读）历年真题试卷汇编 16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. The Forgotten Forest Found only in the Deep South of America, longleaf pine woodlands have dwindled to about 3 percent of their former range, but new efforts are under way to re
2、store them. THE BEAUTY AND THE BIODIVERSITY of the longleaf pine forest are well-kept secrets, even in its native South. Yet it is among the richest ecosystems in North America, rivaling tallgrass prairies and the ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest in the number of species it shelters. And lik
3、e those two other disappearing wildlife habitats, longleaf is also critically endangered. In longleaf pine forests, trees grow widely scattered, creating an open, parklike environment, more like a savanna than a forest. The trees are not so dense as to block the sun. This openness creates a forest f
4、loor that is among the most diverse in the world, where plants such as many-flowered grass pinks, trumpet pitcher plants, Venus flytraps, lavender ladies and pineland bog-buttons grow. As many as 50 different species of wildflowers, shrubs, grasses and ferns have been cataloged in just a single squa
5、re meter. Once, nearly 92 million acres of longleaf forest flourished from Virginia to Texas, the only place in the world where it is found. By the turn of the 21st century, however, virtually all of it had been logged, paved or farmed into oblivion. Only about 3 percent of the original range still
6、supports longleaf forest, and only about 10,000 acres of that is uncut old-growth the rest is forest that has regrown after cutting. An estimated 100,000 of those acres are still vanishing every year. However, a quiet movement to reverse this trend is rippling across the region. Governments, private
7、 organisations(including NWF)and individual conservationists are looking for ways to protect and preserve the remaining longleaf and to plant new forests for future generations. Figuring out how to bring back the piney woods also will allow biologists to help the plants and animals that depend on th
8、is habitat. Nearly two-thirds of the declining, threatened or endangered species in the southeastern United States are associated with longleaf. The outright destruction of longleaf is only part of their story, says Mark Danaher, the biologist for South Carolinas Francis Marion National Forest He sa
9、ys the demise of these animals and plants also is tied to a lack of fire, which once swept through the southern forests on a regular basis. “Fire is absolutely critical for this ecosystem and for the species that depend on it,“ says Danaher. Name just about any species that occurs in longleaf and yo
10、u can find a connection to fire. Bach-mans sparrow is a secretive bird with a beautiful song that echoes across the longleaf flatwoods. It tucks its nest on the ground beneath clumps of wiregrass and little bluestem in the open understory. But once fire has been absent for several years, and a tangl
11、e of shrubs starts to grow, the sparrows disappear. Gopher tortoises, the only native land tortoises east of the Mississippi, are also abundant in longleaf. A keystone species for these forests, its burrows provide homes and safety to more than 300 species of vertebrates and invertebrates ranging fr
12、om eastern diamond-back rattlesnakes to gopher frogs. If fire is suppressed, however, the tortoises are choked out. “If we lose fire,“ says Bob Mitchell, an ecologist at the Jones Center, “we lose wildlife.“ Without fire, we also lose longleaf. Fire knocks back the oaks and other hardwoods that can
13、grow up to overwhelm longleaf forests. “They are fire forests,“ Mitchell says. “They evolved in the lightning capital of the eastern United States.“ And it wasnt only lightning strikes that set the forest aflame. “Native Americans also lit fires to keep the forest open,“ Mitchell says. “So did the e
14、arly pioneers. They helped create the longleaf pine forests that we know today.“ Fire also changes how nutrients flow throughout longleaf ecosystems, in ways we are just beginning to understand. For example, researchers have discovered that frequent fires provide extra calcium, which is critical for
15、 egg production, to endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers. Frances James, a retired avian ecologist from Florida State University, has studied these small black-and-white birds for more than two decades in Floridas sprawling Apalachicola National Forest. When she realised female woodpeckers laid large
16、r clutches in the first breeding season after their territories were burned, she and her colleagues went searching for answers. “We learned calcium is stashed away in woody shrubs when the forest is not burned,“ James says. “But when there is a fire, a pulse of calcium moves down into the soil and u
17、p into the longleaf.“ Eventually, this calcium makes its way up the food chain to a tree-dwelling species of ant, which is the red-cockadeds favorite food. The result: more calcium for the birds, which leads to more eggs, more young and more woodpeckers. Today, fire is used as a vital management too
18、l for preserving both longleaf and its wildlife. Most of these fires are prescribed burns, deliberately set with a drip torch. Although the public often opposes any type of fire and the smoke that goes with itthese frequent, low-intensity burns reduce the risk of catastrophic conflagrations. “Forest
19、s are going to burn,“ says Amadou Diop, NWFs southern forests restoration manager. “If s just a question of when. With prescribed burns, we can pick the time and the place.“ Diop is spearheading a new NWF effort to restore longleaf. “Its a species we need to go back to,“ he says. Educating landowner
20、s about the advantages of growing longleaf is part of the program, he adds, which will soon be under way in nine southern states. “Right now, most longleaf is on public land,“ says Jerry McCollum, president of the Georgia Wildlife Federation. “Private land is where we need to work,“ he adds, pointin
21、g out that more than 90 percent of the acreage within the historic range of longleaf falls under this category. Interest among private landowners is growing throughout the South, but restoring longleaf is not an easy task. The herbaceous layer the understory of wiregrasses and other plants also need
22、s to be re-created. In areas where the land has not been chewed up by farming, but converted to loblolly or slash pine plantations, the seed bank of the longleaf forest usually remains viable beneath the soil. In time, this original vegetation can be coaxed back. Where agriculture has destroyed the
23、seeds, however, wiregrass must be replanted. Right now, the expense is prohibitive, but researchers are searching for low-cost solutions. Bringing back longleaf is not for the short-sighted, however. Few of us will be alive when the pines being planted today become mature forests in 70 to 80 years.
24、But that is not stopping longleaf enthusiasts. “Today, if s getting hard to find longleaf seedlings to buy,“ one of the private landowners says. “Everyone wants them. Longleaf is in a resurgence.“ Questions 1-5 Complete the notes below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
25、 Write your answers in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet. Forest fire ensures that: Birds can locate their【 R1】 _in the ground. The burrows of a species of【 R2】 _provide homes to many other animals. Hardwoods such as【 R3】 _dont take over. Apart from fires lit by lightning: Fires are created by【 R4】 _an
26、d settlers. Fires deliberately lit are called【 R5】 _. 1 【 R1】 2 【 R2】 3 【 R3】 4 【 R4】 5 【 R5】 5 Complete the flow-chart below.Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.Write your answers in boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet.How to increase the number of cockaded woodpeckers 9 Do the followi
27、ng statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 10-13 on your answer sheet, 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 10 The sparse distribution of longleaf pin
28、e trees leads to the most diversity of species. （ A）真 （ B）假 （ C） Not Given 11 It is easier to restore forests converted to farms than forests converted to plantations. （ A）真 （ B）假 （ C） Not Given 12 The cost to restore forest is increasing recently. （ A）真 （ B）假 （ C） Not Given 13 Few can live to see t
29、he replanted forest reach its maturity. （ A）真 （ B）假 （ C） Not Given 13 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below. Storytelling, From Prehistoric Caves To Modern Cinemas A It was told, we suppose, to people crouched around a fire: a tale of advent
30、ure, most likely relating some close encounter with death; a remarkable hunt, an escape from mortal danger; a vision, or something else out of the ordinary. Whatever its thread, the weaving of this story was done with a prime purpose. The listeners must be kept listening. They must not fall asleep.
31、So, as the story went on, its audience should be sustained by one question above all. What happens next? B The first fireside stories in human history can never be known. They were kept in the heads of those who told them. This method of storage is not necessarily inefficient. From documented oral t
32、raditions in Australia, the Balkans and other parts of the world we know that specialised storytellers and poets can recite from memory literally thousands of lines, in verse or prose, verbatim word for word. But while memory is rightly considered an art in itself, it is clear that a primary purpose
33、 of making symbols is to have a system of reminders or mnemonic cues signs that assist us to recall certain information in the minds eye. C In some Polynesian communities a notched memory stick may help to guide a storyteller through successive stages of recitation. But in other parts of the world,
34、the activity of storytelling historically resulted in the development or even the invention of writing systems. One theory about the arrival of literacy in ancient Greece, for example, argues that the epic tales about the Trojan War and the wanderings of Odysseustraditionally attributed to Homer wer
35、e just so enchanting to hear that they had to be preserved. So the Greeks, c. 750-700BC, borrowed an alphabet from their neighbors in the eastern Mediterranean, the Phoenicians. D The custom of recording stories on parchment and other materials can be traced in many manifestations around the world,
36、from the priestly papyrus archives of ancient Egypt to the birch-bark scrolls on which the North American Ojibway Indians set down their creation-myth. It is a well-tried and universal practice: so much so that to this day storytime is probably most often associated with words on paper. The formal p
37、ractice of narrating a story aloud would seem so we assume to have given way to newspapers, novels and comic strips. This, however, is not the case. Statistically it is doubtful that the majority of humans currently rely upon the written word to get access to stories. So what is the alternative sour
38、ce? E Each year, over 7 billion people will go to watch the latest offering from Hollywood, Bollywood and beyond. The supreme storyteller of today is cinema. The movies, as distinct from still photography, seem to be an essentially modem phenomenon. This is an illusion, for there are, as we shall se
39、e, certain ways in which the medium of film is indebted to very old precedents of arranging sequences of images. But any account of visual storytelling must begin with the recognition that all storytelling beats with a deeply atavistic pulse: that is, a good story relies upon formal patterns of plot
40、 and characterisation that have been embedded in the practice of storytelling over many generations. F Thousands of scripts arrive every week at the offices of the major film studios. But aspiring screenwriters really need look no further for essential advice than the fourth-century BC Greek Philoso
41、pher Aristotle. He left some incomplete lecture notes on the art of telling stories in various literary and dramatic modes, a slim, volume known as The Poetics. Though he can never have envisaged the popcorn-fuelled actuality of a multiplex cinema, Aristotle is almost prescient about the key element
42、s required to get the crowds flocking to such a cultural hub. He analyzed the process with cool rationalism. When a story enchants us, we lose the sense of where we are; we are drawn into the story so thoroughly that we forget it is a story being told. This is, in Aristotles phrase, the suspension o
43、f disbelief. G We know the feeling. If ever we have stayed in our seats, stunned with grief, as the credits roll by, or for days after seeing that vivid evocation of horror have been nervous about taking a shower at home, then we have suspended disbelief. We have been caught, or captivated, in the s
44、torytellers web. Did it all really happen? We really thought so for a while. Aristotle must have witnessed often enough this suspension of disbelief. He taught at Athens, the city where theater developed as a primary form of civic ritual and recreation. Two theatrical types of storytelling, tragedy
45、and comedy, caused Athenian audiences to lose themselves in sadness and laughter respectively. Tragedy, for Aristotle, was particularly potent in its capacity to enlist and then purge the emotions of those watching the story unfold on the stage, so he tried to identify those factors in the storytell
46、ers art that brought about such engagement. He had, as an obvious sample for analysis, not only the fifth-century BC masterpieces of Classical Greek tragedy written by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Beyond them stood Homer, whose stories even then had canonical status: The Iliad and The Odyssey
47、 were already considered literary landmarks stories by which all other stories should be measured. So what was the secret of Homers narrative art? H It was not hard to find. Homer created credible heroes. His heroes belonged to the past, they were mighty and magnificent, yet they were not, in the en
48、d, fantasy figures. He made his heroes sulk, bicker, cheat and cry. They were, in short, characters protagonists of a story that an audience would care about, would want to follow, would want to know what happens next. As Aristotle saw, the hero who shows a human side some flaw or weakness to which
49、mortals are prone is intrinsically dramatic. Questions 14-18 Reading Passage 2 has eight paragraphs, A-H. Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter, A-H, in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet. 14 A misunderstanding of how people today get stories 15 The categorisation of stories 16 The fundamental aim of storytelling 17 A description of reciting stories without any assistance 18 How to make story characters attractive 18 Classify the following information as referring to A adopted the writing system fr
