考试日期：

2015年5月21日

Reading Passage 1

Title:

酒精燃料 旧

Question types:

判断

填空

简答

文章大意

乙醇作为新燃料的提炼过程与汽油的对比

部分答案

1-5 T/F/NG

1. 英国农民不太可能会为了制造乙醇燃料大种甘蔗——TRUE

2. 在UK的农民将扩大生产更多乙醇植物——FALSE

3. A gallon ethanol have more engineer than a  gallon gasoline—NG

4. in future US 将会有充足的crop来制造氢气——FALSE

5. 乙醇producers  会尽量减少生产过程中使用的能量——NG

6-10 Flow Chat

Process of producing ethanol

6. distiller

7. lignin

8. remains

9. bioreactor

10. fiber

Reading Passage 2

Title:

Coastal Archaeology of Britain 旧

Question types:

单选 3

判断 7

多选3

文章大意

              Coastal  Archaeology of Britain

　　A The recognition  of the wealth and diversity of England’s coastal archaeology has been one of  the most important developments of recent years. Some elements of this  enormous resource have long been known. The so-called ‘submerged forests’ off  the coasts of England, sometimes with clear evidence of human activity, had  attracted the interest of antiquarians since at least the eighteenth century  but serious and systematic attention has been given to the archaeological  potential of the coast only since the early 1980s.

　　B It is possible to  trace a variety of causes for this concentration of effort and interest. In  the 1980s and 1990s scientific research into climate change and its  environmental impact spilled over into a much broader public debate as  awareness of these issues grew; the prospect of rising sea levels over the  next century, and their impact on current coastal environments, has been a  particular focus for concern. At the same time archaeologists were beginning  to recognize that the destruction caused by natural processes of coastal  erosion and by human activity was having an increasing impact on the  archaeological resource of the coast.

C The dominant process affecting the physical  form of England in the post- glacial period has been the rise in the altitude  of sea level relative to the land, as the glaciers melted and the landmass  readjusted. The encroachment of the sea, the loss of huge areas of land now  under the North Sea and the English Channel, and especially the loss of the  land bridge between England and France, which finally made Britain an island,  must have been immensely significant factors in the lives of our prehistoric  ancestors. Yet the way in which prehistoric communities adjusted to these  environmental changes has seldom been a major theme in discussions of the  period. One factor contributing to this has been that, although the rise in  relative sea level is comparatively well documented, we know little about the  constant reconfiguration of the coastline. This was affected by many  processes, mostly quite, which have not yet been adequately researched. The  detailed reconstruction of coastline histories and the changing environments  available for human use will be an important theme for future research.

D So great has been the rise in sea level and the  consequent regression of the coast that much of the archaeological evidence  now exposed in the coastal zone, whether being eroded or exposed as a buried  land surface, is derived from what was originally terres-trial occupation.  Its current location in the coastal zone is the product of later unrelated  processes, and it can tell us little about past adaptations to the sea.  Estimates of its significance will need to be made in the context of other  related evidence from dry land sites. Nevertheless, its physical environment  means that preservation is often excellent, for example in the case of the  Neolithic structure excavated at the Stumble in Essex.

E In some cases these buried land surfaces do  contain evidence for human exploitation of what was a coastal environment,  and elsewhere along the modem coast there is similar evidence. Where the  evidence does relate to past human exploitation of the resources and the  opportunities offered by the sea and the coast, it is both diverse and as yet  little understood. We are not yet in a position to make even preliminary  estimates of answers to such fundamental questions as the extent to which the  sea and the coast affected human life in the past, what percentage of the  population at any time lived within reach of the sea, or whether human  settlements in coastal environments showed a distinct character from those  inland.

F The most striking evidence for use of the sea  is in the form of boats, yet we still have much to learn about their  production and use. Most of the known wrecks around our coast are not  unexpectedly of post-medieval date, and offer an unparalleled opportunity for  research which has as yet been little used. The prehistoric sewn-plank boats  such as those from the Humber estuary and Dover all seem to belong to the  second millennium BC; after this there is a gap in the record of a  millennium, which cannot yet be explained, before boats reappear, but built  using a very different technology. Boatbuilding must have been an extremely  important activity around much of our coast, yet we know almost nothing about  it, Boats were some of the most complex artefacts produced by pre-modem  societies, and further research on their production and use make an important  contribution to our understanding of past attitudes to technology and  technological change.

G Boats needed landing places, yet here again  our knowledge is very patchy In many cases the natural shores and beaches  would have sufficed, leaving little or no archaeological trace, but  especially in later periods, many ports and harbors, as well as smaller  facilities such as quays, wharves, and jetties, were built. Despite a growth  of interest in the waterfront archaeology of some of our more important Roman  and medieval towns, very little attention has been paid to the multitude of  smaller landing places. Redevelopment of harbor sites and other development  and natural pressures along the coast are subjecting these important  locations to unprecedented threats, yet few surveys of such sites have been  undertaken.

H One of the most important revelations of  recent research has been the extent of industrial activity along the coast.  Fishing and salt production are among the better documented activities, but  even here our knowledge is patchy Many forms of fishing will eave little  archaeological trace, and one of the surprises of recent survey has been the  extent of past investment in facilities for procuring fish and shellfish.  Elaborate wooden fish weirs, often of considerable extent and responsive to  aerial photography in shallow water, have been identified in areas such as  Essex and the Severn estuary. The production of salt, especially in the late  Iron Age and early Roman periods, has been recognized for some time,  especially in the Thames estuary and around the Solent and Poole Harbor, but  the reasons for the decline of that industry and the nature of later coastal  salt working are much less well understood. Other industries were also  located along the coast, either because the raw materials outcropped there or  for ease of working and transport: mineral resources such as sand, gravel,  stone, coal, ironstone, and alum were all exploited. These industries are  poorly documented, but their remains are sometimes extensive and striking.

I Some appreciation of the variety and importance  of the archaeological remains preserved in the coastal zone, albeit only in  preliminary form, can thus be gained from recent work, but the complexity of  the problem of managing that resource is also being realised. The problem  arises not only from the scale and variety of the archaeological remains, but  also from two other sources: the very varied natural and human threats to the  resource, and the complex web of organisations with authority over, or  interests in, the coastal zone. Human threats include the redevelopment of  historic towns and old dockland areas, and the increased importance of the  coast for the leisure and tourism industries, resulting in pressure for the  increased provision of facilities such as marinas. The larger size of ferries  has also caused an increase in the damage caused by their wash to fragile  deposits in the intertidal zone. The most significant natural threat is the  predicted rise in sea level over the next century especially in the south and  east of England. Its impact on archaeology is not easy to predict, and though  it is likely to be highly localised, it will be at a scale much larger than  that of most archaeological sites. Thus protecting one site may simply result  in transposing the threat to a point further along the coast. The management  of the archaeological remains will have to be considered in a much longer  time scale and a much wider geographical scale than is common in the case of  dry land sites, and this will pose a serious challenge for archaeologists.

部分答案

Questions 14-16

　　Choose the correct  letter, A, B, C or D.

　　Write your answers  in boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet.

14 What has caused public interest in coastal archaeology  in recent years?  B

　　A Golds and  jewelleries in the ships that have submerged

　　B The rising  awareness of climate change

　　C Forests under  the sea

　　D Technological  advance in the field of sea research

15 What does the passage say about the evidence of boats?  C

　　A We have a good  knowledge of how boats were made and what boats were for prehistorically

　　B Most of the  boats discovered were found in harbors

　　C The use of boats  had not been recorded for a thousand years

　　D The way to build  boats has remained unchanged throughout human history

16 What can be discovered from the air? D

　　A Salt mines

　　B Shellfish

　　C Ironstones

　　D Fisheries

Questions 17-23

　　Do the following  statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?

　　In boxes 17-23 on  your answer sheet, write

　　TRUE if the statement  is true

　　FALSE if the statement is  false

　　NOT GIVEN if the  information is not given in the passage

17 England lost much of its land after the ice-age due to  the rising sea level. — TRUE

18 The coastline of England has changed periodically.  —FALSE

19 Coastal archaeological evidence may be well-protected by  sea water.— TRUE

20 The design of boats used by pre-modern people was very  simple. —FALSE

21 Similar boats were also discovered in many other  European countries. —NOT GIVEN

22 There are few documents relating to mineral  exploitation.—TRUE

23 Large passenger boats are causing increasing damage to  the seashore. —TRUE

Questions 24-26 Choose THREE  letters A-G

　　Write your answer  in boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet

　　Which THREE  of the following statements are mentioned in the passage?

　　A Our prehistoric  ancestors adjusted to the environmental change caused by the rising sea level  by moving to higher lands

　　B It is difficult  to understand how many people lived close to the sea.

　　C Human  settlements in coastal environment were different from those inland

　　D Our knowledge of  boat evidence is limited.

　　E The prehistoric  boats were built mainly for collecting sand from the river.

　　F Human  development threatens the archaeological remains.

　　G The reason for  the decline of salt industry was the shortage of laborers.

　　24. B

　　25. D

　　26. F

Reading Passage 3

Title:

The origin of language 新

Question types:

单选

配对

多选

文章大意

语言的起源，语言与音乐的关系

附：

剑桥真题语言类文章推荐

C4T2P1 Lost of words

C4T3P3 Obtaining Linguistic Data

C9T3P1 Attitudes to Languages

补充阅读：

Origin of language

The origin of language in the human  species has been the topic of scholarly discussions for several centuries. In  spite of this, there is no consensus on its ultimate origin or age. One  problem that makes the topic difficult to study is the lack of direct  evidence. Consequently, scholars wishing to study the origins of language  must draw inferences from other kinds of evidence such as the fossil record, archaeological evidence, contemporary language  diversity, studies of language acquisition, and comparisons between human  language and systems of communication existing among other animals  (particularly other primates). Many argue that the origins of language  probably relate closely to the origins of modern human behavior, but there is  little agreement about the implications and directionality of this  connection.

This shortage of empirical evidence has led many scholars to regard  the entire topic as unsuitable for serious study. In 1866, the Linguistic  Society of Paris banned any existing or future debates on the subject, a  prohibition which remained influential across much of the western world until  late in the twentieth century.^[1]Today, there are numerous  hypotheses about how, why, when, and where language might have emerged.^[2]  There is scarcely more agreement today than a hundred years ago, when Charles  Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection provoked a rash of armchair  speculations on the topic.^[3] Since the early 1990s, however, a  growing number of professional linguists, archaeologists, psychologists,  anthropologists, and others have attempted to address with new methods what  some consider "the hardest problem in science."^[4]

Read more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_language

Evolution Of Languages

Languages have always changed and evolved and always will do. The evolution  of languages is not something that can be stopped, nor something which can  really be controlled. It is an organic process, often happening very slowly  as languages, and the people who use them, change.

Read more:

http://www.languagetutoring.co.uk/EvolutionOfLanguages.html

难度分析

本次考试二旧一新，难度中等，题型以选择判断为主，三组判断，两组单选，两组多选，一组配对，一组填空，一组简答。

文章选材方面，第一篇科学技术类，第二篇历史考古类， 第三篇语言文化类。

建议备考的同学们仍然要重点把握高频题型，例如判断题的练习。此外，备考期间建议多读一些原版英文读物，例如经济学人等学术性期刊杂志。也可以多用维基百科搜索雅思常考题材话题进行广泛阅读增加知识面，练习阅读速度。