[雅思机经]2017年8月19日雅思阅读真题回顾

考试日期

2017年8月19日

Reading Passage 1

Title

Otters 水獭

Question types

段落细节配对题 8题

简答题 5题

文章内容回顾

介绍水獭

1-8段落细节配对题

1. C

2. A

3. G

4. E

5. B

6. D

7. F

8. C

9-13简答题

9. salt

10. sight

11. swimming speed

12. coastal otter

13. Moles

相关英文原文阅读

Otters

A

Otters have long, thin bodies and short legs - ideal for pushing through dense undergrowth or hunting in tunnels. An adult male may be up to 4 feet long and 301bs. Females are smaller, around 161bs typically. The Eurasian otter’s nose is about the smallest among the otter species and has a characteristic shape described as a shallow ‘W’. An otter’s tail (or rudder, or stern) is stout at the base and tapers towards the tip where it flattens. This forms part of the propulsion unit when swimming fast under water. Otter fur consists of two types of hair: stout guard hairs (up to 20mm long) which form a waterproof outer covering, and under-fur which is dense and fine, equivalent to an otter’s thermal underwear. The fur must be kept in good condition by grooming. Sea water reduces the waterproofing and insulating qualities of otter fur when salt water in the fur. This is why freshwater pools are important to otters living on the coast. After swimming, they wash the salts off in the pools and then squirm on the ground to rub dry against vegetation.

B

Scent is used for hunting on land, for communication and for detecting danger. Otterine sense of smell is likely to be similar in sensitivity to dogs. Otters have small eyes and are probably short-sighted on land. But they do have the ability to modify the shape of the lens in the eye to make it more spherical, and hence overcome the refraction of water. In clear water and good light, otters can hunt fish by sight. The otter’s eyes and nostrils are placed high on its head so that it can see and breathe even when the rest of the body is submerged. Underwater, the otter holds its legs against the body, except for steering, and the hind end of the body is flexed in a series of vertical undulations. River otters have webbing which extends for much of the length of each digit, though not to the very end. Giant otters and sea otters have even more prominent webs, while the Asian short-clawed otter has no webbing-they hunt for shrimps in ditches and paddy fields so they don’t need the swimming speed, otter ears are tiny for streamlining, but they still have very sensitive hearing and are protected by valves which close them against water pressure.

C

A number of constraints and preferences limit suitable habitats for otters. Water is a must and the rivers must be large enough to support a healthy population of fish. Being such shy and wary creatures, they will prefer territories where man’s activities do not impinge greatly. Of course, there must also be no other otter already in residence - this has only become significant again recently as populations start to recover. A typical range for a male river otter might be 25km of river, a female’s range less than half this. However, the productivity of the river affects this hugely and one study found male ranges between 12 and 80km. Coastal otters have a much more abundant food supply and ranges for males and females may be just a few kilometers of coastline. Because male ranges are usually larger a male otter may find his range overlaps with two or three females-not bad! Otters will eat anything that they can get hold of – there are records of sparrows and snakes and slugs being gobbled. Apart from fish the most common prey are crayfish, crabs and water birds. Small mammals are occasionally taken, most commonly rabbits but sometimes even moles.

D

Eurasian otters will breed any time where food is readily available. In places where condition is more severe, Sweden for example where the lakes are frozen for much of winter, cubs are born in spring. This ensures that they are well grown before severe weather returns. In the Shetlands, cubs are born in summer when fish is more abundant. Though otters can breed every year, some do not. Again, this depends on food availability. Other factors such as food range and quality of the female may have an effect. Gestation for Eurasian otter is 63 days, with the exception of Lutracanadensis whose embryos may undergo delayed implantation.

E

Otters normally give birth in more secure dens to avoid disturbances. Nests are lined with bedding to keep the cubs warm while mummy is away feeding. Litter Size varies between 1 and 5. For some unknown reason, coastal otters tend to produce smaller litters. At five weeks they open their eyes-a tiny cub of 700g. At seven weeks they’re weaned onto solid food. At ten weeks they leave the nest, blinking into daylight for the first time. After three months they finally meet the water and learn to swim. After eight months they are hunting, though the mother still provides a lot of food herself. Finally, after nine months she can chase them all away with a clear conscience, and relax - until the next fella shows up.

F

The plight of the British otter was recognized in the early 60s, but it wasn’t until the late 70s that the chief cause was discovered. Pesticides, such as dieldrin and aldrin, were first used in 1955in agriculture and other industries - these chemicals are very persistent and had already been recognized as the cause of huge declines in the population of peregrine falcons, sparrow hawks and other predators. The pesticides entered the river systems and the food chain - micro-organisms, fish and finally otters, with every step increasing the concentration of the chemicals. From 1962 the chemicals were phased out, but while some species recovered quickly, otter numbers did not and continued to fall into the 80s. This was probably due mainly to habitat destruction and road deaths. Acting on populations fragmented by the sudden decimation in the 50s and 60s, the loss of just a handful of otters in one area can make an entire population unviable and spell the end.

G

Otter numbers are recovering all around Britain - populations are growing again in the few areas where they had remained and have expanded from those areas into the rest of the country. This is almost entirely due to legislation, conservation efforts, slowing down and reversing the destruction of suitable otter habitat and reintroductions from captive breeding programs. Releasing captive-bred otters is seen by many as a last resort. The argument runs that where there is no suitable habitat for them they will not survive after release and where there is suitable habitat, natural populations should be able to expand into the area. However, reintroducing animals into a fragmented and fragile population may adjust enough impetus for it to stabilize and expand, rather than die out. This is what the Otter Trust accomplished in Norfolk, where the otter population may have been as low as twenty animals at the beginning of the 1980s. The Otter Trust has now finished its captive breeding program entirely, great news because it means it is no longer needed.

题型难度分析

*篇文章的题型包括段落细节配对题和简答题2个题型。简答题难度较小，但在*篇文章就出现了雅思阅读考试难度较大的段落细节配对题，且考题数量很大（8道），无疑给考生来了个下马威。但是本篇文章介绍的是水獭这个动物，因此从文章结构来看，结构清晰，便于考生根据说明文文章结构的特点去文章中定位。

题型技巧分析

简答题首先考察考生勾划关键词，并*到文章中定位的能力，定位后根据答案所需词性就可以看出找出答案。需要提醒考生们注意的是，简答题除了专有名称之外，其余常规答案是不需要首字母大写的。

剑桥雅思推荐原文练习

剑7 Test 1 Passage 1 Let’s Go Bats

Reading Passage 2

Title

Roller coaster 过山车

Question types

图表题 4题

摘要填空题 6题

判断题 4 题

文章内容回顾

本文介绍过山车的历史，发展，原理等。

14-17图表题

14. chain

15. loop

16. gear

17. moter

18-23摘要填空题

18. ice

19. waxed slides

20. melt

21. wheels

22. coal

23. steam engine

24-27判断题

24. NOT GIVEN

25. YES

26. YES

27. NO

相关英文原文阅读

Roller Coaster

A

600 years ago, roller coaster pioneers never would have imagined the advancements that have been made to create the roller coaster of today. The tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world is the Kingda Ka, a coaster in New Jersey that launches its passengers from zero to 128 miles per hour in 3.5 seconds. It then heaves its riders skyward at a 90-degree angle until it reaches a height of 456 feet, over one and a half football fields, above the ground, before dropping another 418 feet With that said, roller coasters are about more than just speed and height, they are about the creativity of the designers that build them, each coaster having its own unique way of producing intense thrills at a lesser risk than the average car ride. Roller coasters have evolved drastically over the years, from their primitive beginnings as Russian ice slides, to the metal monsters of today. Their combination of creativity and structural elements make them one of the purest forms of architecture.

B

A first glance, a roller coaster is something like a passenger train. It consists of a series of connected cars that move on the tracks. But unlike a passenger train, a roller coaster has no engine or power source of its own. For most of the ride, the train is moved by gravity and momentum. To build up this momentum, you need to get the train to the top of the first hill or give it a powerful launch. The traditional lifting mechanism is a long length of chain running up the hill under the track. The chain is fastened in a loop, which is around a gear at the top of the hill and another one at the bottom of the hill. The gear at the bottom of the hill is turned by a simple motor. This turns the chain loop so that it continually moves up the hill like a long conveyer belt. The coaster cars grip onto the chain with several chain dog, sturdy hinged hooks. When the train rolls to the bottom of the hill, the dogs catches onto the chain links. Once the chain dog is hooked, the chain simply pulls the train to the top of the hill. At the summit, the chain dog is released and the train starts its descent down the hill.

C

Roller coasters have a long, fascinating history. The direct ancestors of roller coasters were monumental ice slides - long, steep wooden slides covered in ice, some as high as 70 feet - that were popular in Russia in the 16^th and 17^th centuries. Riders shot down the slope in sleds made out of wood or blocks of ice, crash-landing in a sand pile. Coaster historians diverge on the exact evolution of these ice slides into actual rolling carts. The most widespread account is that a few entrepreneurial Frenchmen imported the ice slide idea to France. The warmer climate of France tended to melt the ice 7 so the French started building waxed slides instead, eventually adding wheels to the sleds. In 1817, the Russes a Belleville became the first roller coaster where the train was attached to the track. The French continued to expand on this idea, coming up with more complex track Iayouts/ with multiple cars and all sorts of twists and turns.

D

In comparison to the world's first roller coaster, there is perhaps an even greater debate over what was America's first true coaster. Many will say that it is Pennsylvania's own Maunch Chunk-Summit Hill and Swildx Back Riulroad. The Maunch Chunk-Summit Hill and Switch Back Railroad was originally America's second raiboad, and considered by many to be the greatest coaster of all time. Located in the Lehigh valley, it was originally used to transport coal from the top
of Mount Pisgah to the bottom of Mount Jefferson, until Josiah White, a mining entrepreneur, had the idea of turning it into d part-time duill ride. Because of its immediate popularity, it soon became strictly a passenger train. A steam engine would haul passengers to the top of the mountain, before letting them coast back down, with speeds rumored to reach 100 miles per hour! The reason that it was called a switch back railroad, a switch back track was located at the top-where the steam engine would let the riders coast back down. This type of track featured a dead end where the steam engine would detach its cars, allowing riders to coast down backwards. The railway went through a couple of minor track changes and name changes over the years, but managed to last to 1937, over 100 years.

E

The coaster craze in America was just starting to build. The creation of the Switch Railway, by La Marcus Thompson, gave roller coasters national attention. Originally built at New York's Coney Island in 1884, Switch Back Railways began popping up all over the country. The popularity of these rides may puzzle the modern day thrill seeker, due to the mild ride they gave in comparison to the modern-day roller coaster. Guests would pay a nickel to wait in line up to five hours just to go down a pair of side by side tracks with gradual hills that vehicles coasted down at a top speed around six miles per hour. Regardless Switchback Railways were very popular, and sparked many people, including Thompson, to design coasters that were bigger and better.

F

The 1910s and 1920s were probably the best decade that the roller coaster has ever seen. The new wave of technology, such as the up stop wheels, an arrangement that kept a coaster's wheels to its tracks by resisted high gravitational forces, showed coasters a realm of possibilities that has never been seen before. In 1919, North America alone had about 1,500 roller coasters, a number that was rising rampantly. Then, the Great Depression gave a crushing blow to amusement parks all over America. As bad as it was, amusement parks had an optimistic look on the future in the late 1930s. But in 1942, roller coasters could already fee] the effects of World War Two, as they were forced into a shadow of neglect Most, nearly all of America's roller coasters were tom down. To this very day, the number of roller coaster in America b just a very tiny fraction of the amount of roller coasters in the 1920s.

题型难度分析

难度适中，3个题型的结合。

题型技巧分析

是非无判断题考生需要注意以下几点：

1. 有序题

2. 根据题干关键词定位文章相应位置

3. 区分是/非/无，尤其是FALSE和NOT GIVEN的判断对大部分考生来说是一大难点。

剑桥雅思推荐原文练习

剑8 Test 1 Passage 1 A Chronicle of Timekeeping

Reading Passage 3

Title

Music and Language 音乐与语言

Question types

段落标题配对题 5题

人名观点配对题 6题

单选题 2题

文章内容回顾

讲音乐的重要性。

28-32段落标题配对题

28. iii

29. vii

30. iv

31. i

32. viii

33-38人名观点配对题

33. C

34. D

35. E

36. G

37. A

38. B

39-40单选题

39. C

40. C

题型难度分析

第三篇文章难度较大，同时出现了段落标题配对题和人名观点配对题这两个难度较大的题型。又放在第三篇文章，对考生的答题速度是个不小的挑战。

题型技巧分析

人名观点配对题是雅思阅读考试中为数不多的乱序题。虽然相较于有序题型而言，人名观点配对题较难，但是在乱序题型中，人名观点配对题的难度则较小。即便题目乱序，考生也可以轻松通过人名到文章中具体定位。而人名是专有名词，属于特殊定位词，在原文中会原词、大写的出现，因此可以帮助考生节省定位时间，*定位以完成相应题目。

剑桥雅思推荐原文练习

剑8 Test 1 Passage 3 Telepathy

考试趋势分析和备考指导：

本次阅读考试难度中等。一共考察了是非无判断题，摘要题，单选题，人名观点配对题，段落标题配对题，段落细节配对题这6大题型。本次考试同时出现了一系列难度较大的题型：段落细节配对题，段落标题配对题以及人名观点配对题。考生在备考过程中，除了要关注基本题型、得分题型外，也千万不可忽略难度较大的题型。只有掌握了每种题型的做题方法才能以不变应万变。