2019年2月23日雅思阅读考题回顾

　　2019年2月23日雅思考试阅读回顾

　　P1 丝绸(参考C11T3P1)

　　P2 Mammoth Kill 猛犸象的灭绝 (20110813)

　　P3 天赋与练习 (20160130)

　　朗阁讲师詹旭点评

　　1. 本次考试整体程度属中上等。

　　2. 整体分析：涉及历史文化类(P1)动物类(P2)和人文社科类(P3)

　　3. 主要题型：2月底的最后一场考试在重点题型和题型搭配组合上延续了今年考试的重点，主流基础题型依然为填空类和判断题。其中，三篇文章后皆出现了对填空类的考察，总计14题左右，值得注意的是P3仍延续了自2月首场14日及16日考次以来考官偏爱的词库型Summary。此外，判断题则保持近期一贯两组10题左右出题风格，为 P1—T/F/NG(6道)及P3—Y/N/NG(6道)。而乱序匹配题本考次中延续上场回归趋势，在P2中大量同时考察段落细节配对和人名理论配对(共10道)，增加了考试难度。而前两场皆出现的Heading标题配对在本场考试中缺失。另外，本次雅思阅读考试中仍旧在P3中保留对单选题的考察(4道)。

　　P1丝绸

　　文章主旨：讲述丝绸产业的发展历程

　　填空7 + 判断 6

　　参考答案：待补充

　　相似主题文章参考：C11T3P1

　　THE STORY OF SILK

　　The history of the world’s most luxurious fabric, from ancient China to the present day.

　　Silk is a fine, smooth material produced from the cocoons — soft protective shells — that are made by mulberry silkworms (insect larvae). Legend has it that it was Lei Tzu, wife of the Yellow Emperor, ruler of China in about 3000 BC, who discovered silkworms. One account of the story goes that as she was taking a walk in her husband’s gardens, she discovered that silkworms were responsible for the destruction of several mulberry trees. She collected a number of cocoons and sat down to have a rest. It just so happened that while she was sipping some tea, one of the cocoons that she had collected landed in the hot tea and started to unravel into a fine thread. Lei Tzu found that she could wind this thread around her fingers. Subsequently, she persuaded her husband to allow her to rear silkworms on a grove of mulberry trees. She also devised a special reel to draw the fibres from the cocoon into a single thread so that they would be strong enough to be woven into fabric. While it is unknown just how much of this is true, it is certainly known that silk cultivation has existed in China for several millennia.

　　Originally, silkworm farming was solely restricted to women, and it was they who were responsible for the growing, harvesting and weaving. Silk quickly grew into a symbol of status, and originally, only royalty were entitled to have clothes made of silk. The rules were gradually relaxed over the years until finally during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911 AD), even peasants, the lowest caste, were also entitled to wear silk. Sometime during the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), silk was so prized that it was also used as a unit of currency. Government officials were paid their salary in silk, and farmers paid their taxes in grain and silk. Silk was also used as diplomatic gifts by the emperor. Fishing lines, bowstrings, musical instruments and paper were all made using silk. The earliest indication of silk paper being used was discovered in the tomb of a noble who is estimated to have died around 168 AD.

　　Demand for this exotic fabric eventually created the lucrative trade route now known as the Silk Road, taking silk westward and bringing gold, silver and wool to the East. It was named the Silk Road after its most precious commodity, which was considered to be worth more than gold. The Silk Road stretched over 6,000 kilometres from Eastern China to the Mediterranean Sea, following the Great Wall of China, climbing the Pamir mountain range, crossing modern-day Afghanistan and going on to the Middle East, with a major trading market in Damascus. From there, the merchandise was shipped across the Mediterranean Sea. Few merchants travelled the entire route; goods were handled mostly by a series of middlemen.

　　With the mulberry silkworm being native to China, the country was the world’s sole producer of silk for many hundreds of years. The secret of silk-making eventually reached the rest of the world via the Byzantine Empire, which ruled over the Mediterranean region of southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East during the period 330-1453 AD. According to another legend, monks working for the Byzantine emperor Justinian smuggled silkworm eggs to Constantinople (Istanbul in modern-day Turkey) in 550 AD, concealed inside hollow bamboo walking canes. The Byzantines were as secretive as the Chinese, however, and for many centuries the weaving and trading of silk fabric was a strict imperial monopoly. Then in the seventh century, the Arabs conquered Persia, capturing their magnificent silks in the process. Silk production thus spread through Africa, Sicily and Spain as the Arabs swept through these lands. Andalusia in southern Spain was Europe’s main silk-producing centre in the tenth century. By the thirteenth century, however, Italy had become Europe’s leader in silk production and export. Venetian merchants traded extensively in silk and encouraged silk growers to settle in Italy. Even now, silk processed in the province of Como in northern Italy enjoys an esteemed reputation.

　　The nineteenth century and industrialisation saw the downfall of the European silk industry. Cheaper Japanese silk, trade in which was greatly facilitated by the opening of the Suez Canal, was one of the many factors driving the trend. Then in the twentieth century, new manmade fibres, such as nylon, started to be used in what had traditionally been silk products, such as stockings and parachutes. The two world wars, which interrupted the supply of raw material from Japan, also stifled the European silk industry. After the Second World War, Japan’s silk production was restored, with improved production and quality of raw silk. Japan was to remain the world’s biggest producer of raw silk, and practically the only major exporter of raw silk, until the 1970s. However, in more recent decades, China has gradually recaptured its position as the world’s biggest producer and exporter of raw silk and silk yarn. Today, around 125,000 metric tons of silk are produced in the world, and almost two thirds of that production takes place in China.

　　P2 Mammoth Kill 猛犸象的灭绝

　　文章主旨: 对于远古野生动物猛犸象尸体研究

　　Matching段落细节配对题 + Matching人名理论配对题 + 句子填空3

　　参考答案: 待补充

　　参考文章

　　Mammoth Kill

　　Mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus, proboscideans commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and in northern species, a covering of long hair. They lived from the Ptiocene epoch from around 5 million years ago, into the Hotocene at about 4,500 years ago, and were members of the family Elephantidae, which contains, along with mammoths, the two genera of modern elephants and their ancestors.

　　A

　　Like their modern relatives, mammoths were quite large. The largest known species reached heights in the region of 4m at the shoulder and weights up t0 8 tonnes, while exceptionally large males may have exceeded 12 tonnes. However, most species of mammoth were only about as large as a modern Asian elephant. Both sexes bore tusks. A first, small set appeared at about the age of six months and these were replaced at about 18 months by the permanent set. Growth of the permanent set was at a rate of about l t0 6 inches per year. Based on studies of their close relatives, the modem elephants, mammoths probably had a gestation period of 22 months, resulting in a single calf being born. Their social structure was probably the same as that of African and Asian elephants, with females living in herds headed by a matriarch, whilst hulls lived solitary lives or formed loose groups after sexual maturity.

　　B

　　MEXICO CITY-Although it’s hard to imagine in this age of urban sprawl and automobiles, North America once belonged to mammoths, camels, ground sloths as large as cows, bear-size beavers and other formidable beasts. Some 11,000 years ago, however, these large bodied mammals and others-about 70 species in all-disappeared. Their demise coincided roughly with the arrival of humans in the New World and dramatic climatic change-factors that have inspired several theories about the die-off. Yet despite decades of scientific investigation, the exact cause remains a mystery. Now new findings offer support to one of these controversial hypotheses: that human hunting drove this megafaunal menagerie ( 巨型动物兽群)to extinction. The overkill model emerged in the 1960s, when it was put forth by Paul S. Martin of the University of Arizona. Since then, critics have charged that no evidence exists to support the idea that the first Americans hunted to the extent necessary to cause these extinctions. But at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Mexico City last October, paleoecologist John Alroy of the University of California at Santa Barbara argued that, in fact, hunting-driven extinction is not only plausible, it was unavoidable. He has determined, using a computer simulation that even a very modest amount of hunting would have wiped these animals out.

　　C

　　Assuming an initial human population of 100 people that grew no more than 2 percent annually, Alroy determined that if each band of, say, 50 people killed 15 to 20 large mammals a year, humans could have eliminated the animal populations within 1,000 years. Large mammals in particular would have been vulnerable to the pressure because they have longer gestation periods than smaller mammals and their young require extended care.

　　D

　　Not everyone agrees with Alroy’s assessment. For one, the results depend in part on population-size estimates for the extinct animals-figures that are not necessarily reliable. But a more specific criticism comes from mammalogist Ross D. E. MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, who points out that the relevant archaeological record contains barely a dozen examples of stone points embedded in mammoth bones (and none, it should be noted, are known from other megafaunal remains)-hardly what one might expect if hunting drove these animals to extinction. Furthermore, some of these species had huge rangesthe giant Jefferson’s ground sloth, for example, lived as far north as the Yukon and as far south as Mexicowhich would have made slaughtering them in numbers sufficient to cause their extinction rather implausible, he says.

　　E

　　MacPhee agrees that humans most likely brought about these extinctions (as well as others around the world that coincided with human arrival), but not directly. Rather he suggests that people may have introduced hyperlethal disease, perhaps through their dogs or hitchhiking vermin, which then spread wildly among the immunologically naive species of the New World. As in the overkill model, populations of large mammals would have a harder time recovering. Repeated outbreaks of a hyperdisease could thus quickly drive them to the point of no return. So far MacPhee does not have empirical evidence for the hyperdisease hypothesis, and it won’t be easy to come by: hyperlethal disease would kill far too quickly to leave its signature on the bones themselves. But he hopes that analyses of tissue and DNA from the last mammoths to perish will eventually reveal murderous microbes.

　　F

　　The third explanation for what brought on this North American extinction does not involve human beings. Instead, its proponents blame the loss on the weather. The Pleistocene epoch witnessed considerable climatic instability, explains paleontologist Russell W. Graham of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. As a result, certain habitats disappeared, and species that had once formed communities split apart. For some animals, this change brought opportunity. For much of the megafauna, however, the increasingly homogeneous environment left them with shrinking geographical ranges-a death sentence for large animals, which need large ranges. Although these creatures managed to maintain viable populations through most of the Pleistocene, the final major fluctuation-the so-called Younger Dryas eventpushed them over the edge, Graham says. For his part, Alroy is convinced that human hunters demolished the titans of the Ice Age. The overkill model explains everything the disease and climate scenarios explain, he asserts, and makes accurate predictions about which species would eventually go extinct. “Personally, I’m a vegetarian,” he remarks, “and I find all of this kind of gross-but believable.”

　　P3 天赋与练习

　　文章主旨: 天赋是遗传先天的还是靠练习，主要以音乐为例讨论坚持不懈对成功的作用和他们的关系。在论证天才是不是也需要坚持不懈时，举例了莫扎特一个人坚持的过程，最后证明了坚持不懈和成功的关系密切。

　　单选 4 + 判断 6 + Summary (词库型)4

　　参考答案:

　　原文及答案待补充

　　考试预测

　　1. 本场考试总体中等偏上，文章选材涉及历史文化类、动物类和人文社科类，考生可在备考时关注相应高频主题词。

　　2. 此次考试中，三篇文章皆有相似旧题可循。第一篇可参考剑11Test3Passage1，第二篇为20110813机经旧题改动，而Passage3可参照20160130阅读机经。鉴于此，考生复习备考时可借机经熟悉雅思阅读真题文章行文思路和逻辑，辅助深化理解。

　　3. 从题型方面来看，P1中为两种顺序型组合判断加填空类，P2中经典段落细节配对和人名理论两种乱序型同时出现搭配句子填空及P3中的单选判断和Summary，2月收尾的本次雅思阅读考试中出现的题型组合实际较为常规经典。本次考试第一篇较为简单，不论是文章内容还是题目组合及难度都较低，可较好完成。但考生普遍反映第二篇文章偏难，主要由于篇幅过长和生词障碍造成理解不足及文后两种乱序匹配题段落细节和人名理论集中出现导致用时过长，以致根本无时间认真完成第三篇。因此考生在平时做题训练时可以加强对文章精读练习，熟悉各类型文章出题思路行文逻辑，提升阅读速度，并且平时刷题练习时一定要注意时间的把握控制以适应考试时的紧张感。

　　4. 下场考试的话题可能有关商业类和科技类话题。

　　5. 重点浏览11-16年机经。