1、雅思（阅读）模拟试卷 27及答案与解析 一、 Reading Module (60 minutes) 0 The Bounty Hunters A Here is a dilemma. Suppose you are a computer hacker and you discover a bug in a piece of software that, if it were known to the bad guys, would enable them to steal money or even a persons identity. It would be a feather in y
2、our cap. But feathers do not pay the rent. So how might you sell your discovery for the highest price? Asking for cash from the company that sold the buggy software in the first place sounds a bit like blackmail. The implicit threat is that if the firm does not stump up, the knowledge might end up i
3、n disreputable hands. But, in truth, it is mainly that possibility which gives the bug value in the first place. What, then, is a fair price, and who is to negotiate it? B Since economics, like nature, abhors a vacuum, a small industry of “security companies“ has emerged to exploit the hackers dilem
4、ma. These outfits buy bugs from hackers euphemistically known as “security researchers“). They then either sell them to software companies affected by the flaws, sometimes with a corrective “patch“ as a sweetener, or use them for further “research“, such as looking for more significant and therefore
5、 more lucrative bugs on their own account. Such films seek to act as third parties that are trusted by hacker and target alike; the idea its that they know the market and thus know the price it will bear. C Often, though neither side trusts them. Hackers complain that, if they go to such companies t
6、o try to ascertain what represents a flair price, the value of their Information plummets because too many people now know about IL Software companies, meanwhile, reckon such middlemen are offered only uninteresting information. They suspect, perhaps cynically, that the good stuff is going straight
7、to the black market. Last week, therefore, saw the launch of a service intended to make the whole process of selling bugs more transparent while giving greater rewards to hackers who do the right thing. The company behind it, a Swiss firm called WabiSabiLabi, differs from traditional security compan
8、ies in that it does not buy or sell information in its own right. Instead, it provides a marketplace for such transactions. D A bug-hunter can use this marketplace in one of three ways. He can offer his discovery in a straightforward auction, with the highest bidder getting exclusive rights. He can
9、sell the bug at a fixed price to as many buyers as want it. Or he can try to sell the bug at a fixed price exclusively to one company, without going through an auction. WabiSabiLabi brings two things to the process besides providing the marketplace. The first is an attempt to ensure that only legiti
10、mate traders can buy and sell information. (It does this by a vetting process similar to the one employed by banks to clamp down on money launderers.) The second is that it inspects the goods beforehand to make certain that they live up to the claims being made about them. E Herman Zampariolo, the h
11、ead of WabiSabiLabi, says that hundreds of hackers have registered with the company since the marketplace was set up. So far only four bugs have been offered for sale, and the prices offered for them have been modest, perhaps because buyers are waiting to see how the system will work. A further 200
12、bugs, however, have been submitted and are currently being scrutinised. If such bug auctions are to succeed, they will have to overcome a number of obstacles. One is that if the seller is too clear about what he is offering, the buyer might be able to figure out what is being offered without actuall
13、y paying for it. Another is that the chance of someone else discovering a bug increases with time. A hacker thus needs to sell his find quickly, which requires the verification process to be streamlined. But perhaps the most significant snag to running a bug auction is a legal one. F Jennifer Granlc
14、k, a lawyer at Stanford University who has studied the area for several years, reckons that if someone using a marketplace like WabiSabiLabls went on to commit a crime with a bug they had bought there, then the owners of that marketplace could be in trouble. Under American criminal law, those owners
15、 would have to be shown to have been acting knowingly in order for a prosecution to succeed. A civil action, however, would have to demonstrate only recklessness. In cowboy films, the goodies wear white hats while the baddies wear black ones. Computer hackers have adopted these symbols to describe,
16、respectively, legitimate practitioners of their art and their nefarious counterparts. In becoming the first company to establish bug auctions, WabiS-abiLabi may have breathed life into a third type of cowboy, the sort that sports a grey hat. And the field of hacking, through losing its moral certitu
17、de, may have grown up a little. 1 Questions 1-4 The text has 6 paragraphs (A-F). Which paragraph contains each of the following pieces of information? 1 How security companies aim to work. 2 Why security companies are disliked. 3 Minor problems facing WabiSabiLabi. 4 The fact that WabiSabiLabi check
18、s that what the hackers offer is genuine. 5 Questions 5-8 Complete the following sentences using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the text. 5 The _ of a bug getting into the wrong hands is what gives it value. 6 Security companies might add a _ to a bug. 7 At WabiSabiLabi, a hacker can sell a bug for a f
19、ixed price or _ it. 8 _ of bug-hunting symbolically have white hats. 9 Questions 9-13 Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text? Write TRUE if the information in the text agrees with the statement. Write FALSE if the information in the text contradicts the statement. W
20、rite NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this. 9 “Security researchers“ are not hackers. 10 Security companies keep the best information for themselves. 11 Vetting has reduced the amount of money laundering in the world. 12 WabiSabiLabi is not yet in business because of legal problems. 13 WabiSa
21、biLabi could have legal problems even if they could demonstrate that they didnt know a bug would be used illegally. 13 Book Value A Older people in particular are often taken aback by the speed with which the Internets “next big thing“ can cease being that. It even happens to Rupert Murdoch, a septu
22、agenarian me dia mogul. Two years ago he bought MySpace, a social-networking site that has becomed the worlds largest. The other day, however, Mr Murdoch was heard lamenting that MySpace appears already to be last years news, because everybody is now going to Facebook, the second-largest social netw
23、ork on the web, with 31 million registered users at the last count Facebook was started in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, a student at Harvard and not even 20 a the time, along with two of his friends. The site requires users to provide their real names and e-mail addresses for registration, and it then l
24、inks them up with current and former friend., and colleagues with amazing ease. Each Facebook ,profile“ becomes both a repository of each users information and photos, and a social warren where friends gossip, exchange messages and “poke“ one another. B Facebook is generating so much excitement this
25、 summer that bloggers are likening Mi Zuckerberg to Steve Jobs, the charismatic boss of Apple, and calling his company “the nex Google“ on the assumption that a stock market listing must be imminent. It may be. Mr Zuck. erberg has rejected big offers from new- and old-media giants such as Yahoo! and
26、 Viacom One of his three sisters, who also works for Facebook, has posted a silly video online that makes fun of Yahoo!s takeover bid and sings about “going for IPO“. And Facebook has advertised for a “stock administration manager“ with expertise in share regulations. Yet Mr Zuckerberg insists that
27、he is “a little bit surprised about how focused everybody is on the exit.“ The truth is that he is sick of talking about it. The venture capitalists backing Facebook may want to cash out, but Mr Zuckerberg is only 23 and doesnt need the money. He also happens to believe rather as Googles young found
28、ers do that he can, and should, change the world. A flotation would be a big distraction. C Metaphorically, Mr Zuckerberg views himself as similar to the pioneering Renaissance map-makers who amassed and combined snippets of information and then charted new lands and seas so that other people could
29、use their maps to find, say, new trade routes. In Mr Zucker-bergs case, the map charts human relationships. Whereas many of the other social networks on the web primarily help people to make new contacts online whether for hanky panky, marriage or business Mr Zuckerberg is exclusively interested in
30、“mapping out“ the “real and pre-existing connections“ among people, he says. D The fancy mathematical name he has for this map is a “social graph“, a model of nodes and links in which nodes are people and connections are friendships. Once this social graph, or map, is in place, it becomes a potent m
31、echanism for spreading information. For instance, he says, “we automatically know who should have a new photo album,“ because as soon as one person uploads it to the site, all her friends see it, and the friends of friends might notice too. Other social networks can also do this, of course, but Face
32、book is distinctive in several ways. First, it is currently considered classier than, say, MySpace. One academic researcher argues that Facebook is for “good kids“, whereas MySpace is for blue-collar kids, “art fags“, “goths“ and “gangstas“. Facebooks roots are indeed preppie. Mr Zuckerberg took Lat
33、in, Greek and fencing at Phillips Exeter Academy and started Facebook at Harvard, after all. From there, it spread to other elite universities, and it only opened up to the general population last September. E Mr Zuckerberg, however, thinks that the bigger difference is that Facebook is now becoming
34、 a “platform“. By this he means that it is evolving into a technology on top of which others can build new software tools and businesses. In May, Mr Zuckerberg opened Facebook up for outsiders to do just that, promising that any advertising revenues that third parties collect within Facebook are the
35、irs to keep. Already, thousands of little tools have been created that allow Facebook users to share and discover music, play Sudoku, lend each other money, and so on. These toys can then spread through the social graph. If one user plays Sudoku, his friends see it and might try it too. These innova
36、tive uses of the social graph are, in Mr Zuckerbergs mind, the precise analogy to the trade routes that were found once the ancient mapmakers had done their part. F Clever though this is, the comparisons to Mr Jobs and (3oogle are not merited yet. Mr Zuckerberg has evidently studied Mr Jobss speakin
37、g style closely; and just as Mr Jobs is known for his uniform of jeans and a black mock-turtleneck, so Mr Zuckerberg has turned his combination of Adidas sandals, jeans and fleece sweaters into a trademark. But he has not had the chance to prove whether he has Mr Jobss abilities to triumph over adve
38、rsity and deliver not just one big idea, but a string of them. G Mr Zuckerberg is about to be tested in two ways. A three-year-old lawsuit is coming to court in which he is accused, in effect, of stealing the idea for Facebook from three other Harvard students. If Facebook really is going to do a (3
39、oogle and go public, he will have to convince investors that mapmaking can be a business. One of its investors recently said revenues might come to $100 million this year. But it is not clear how much of this comes from one big deal with Microsoft, which needs Facebook as a partner and might even li
40、ke it as a division. Advertising, the obvious business model, does not seem to work well on Facebook, perhaps because people go there to socialise, not to shop. Trying to make money in other ways could be risky, since it might alienate users and damage the social graph. And it is, remember, awfully
41、easy for one “next big thing“ to be overtaken by the next. 14 Questions 14-17 The text has 7 paragraphs (A-G). Which paragraph does each of the following headings best fit? 14 On Trial 15 No exit - yet 16 Not Quite Google 17 Online Commercial Connections 18 Questions 18-22 According to the text, FIV
42、E of the following statements are true. Write the corresponding letters in answer boxes 18 to 22 in any order. A. MySpace has more than 31 million users. B. Mr Zuckerberg financed Facebook alone. C. Mr Zuckerberg is not so interested in helping people to establish new contacts. D. It is easier for p
43、eople to upload photographs onto Facebook than onto MySpace. E. Facebook is considered more upmarket than MySpace. F. Facebook users usually copy each other. G. Mr Jobs and Mr Zuckerberg dress differently. H. Mr Zuckerberg has not yet proven he can deal with big problems. 23 Questions 23-26 Accordin
44、g to the information given in the text, choose the correct answer from the choices given. 23 Rupert Murdoch （ A） owns many Intemet companies. （ B） realises that MySpace is going out of fashion. （ C） has sold MySpace. 24 It appears that offers from media giants （ A） do not interest Mr Zuckerberg. （ B
45、） are not large enough for Mr Zuckerberg. （ C） are not large enough for Mr Zuckerbergs sisters. 25 Facebook allows advertisers to （ A） trade information about people using the website. （ B） sell their products and services for free. （ C） keep the money they make from the website. 26 Advertising work
46、s badly on Facebook because （ A） of a big deal with Microsoft. （ B） it is basically a social network. （ C） advertisers are waiting for “the next big thing“. 26 The Turth About Recycling It is an awful lot of rubbish. Since 1960 the amount of municipal waste being collected in America has nearly trip
47、led, reaching 245 million tonnes in 2005. According to European Union statistics, the amount of municipal waste produced in Western Europe increased by 23% between 1995 and 2003, to reach 577kg per person, (So much for the plan to reduce waste per person to 300kg by 2000.) As the volume of waste has
48、 increased, so have recycling efforts. In 1980 America recycled only 9.6% of its municipal rubbish, today the rate stands at 32%. A similar trend can be seen in Europe, where some countries, such as Austria and the Netherlands, now recycle,60% or more of their municipal waste. Britains recycling rat
49、e, at 27%. is low, but it is improving fast, having nearly doubled in the past three years. Even so, when a city introduces a kerbside recycling programme, the sight of all those recycling lorries trundling around can raise doubts about whether the collection and transportation of waste materials requires more energy than it saves. “We are constantly being asked: Is recycling worth doing on environmental grounds? says Julian Parfitt, principal analyst at Waste and although incinerators are not as p
