考试日期：

2014年5月24日

Reading Passage 1 （新题）考古类

Title:

Buried Cities in Amazon Rainforest

Question types:

1-6.单选；7-13.Summary( 无词库)

文章大意

说一个英国的探险家，去雨林探险，认为有一个城市，然后就消失了。

此人从未被发现，但是现在考古学家认为他可能是正确的，因为他们

在他失踪的雨林发现了人类聚居地的遗址28个settlements。

但是热带雨林中的环境很恶劣，土壤中只有 10%不到的 nutrients，

更多的植物都在植物动物身上，所以只有植物才能从 rotten 的动物

遗体来吸收营养。

但是他们就在这个地方就发现了 man-made soil。这个土壤里是当地

人把 human remains 等东西混合起来制造的土壤，非常有营养。

这些土都是人为的固定在区域，在河流的附近，所以这些 settlement

推测也在河流附近，所以这些土可以种出 Q7fruit 和 cereal。

这个土还有一个特点，可以 retain Q8fertility

最早有认为亚马逊是有人居住的人是在 Q91543 年提出的，当时没有人

相信，但是后来的研究证明他是对的。虽然没有找到房子，可能是

wooden 的房子已经腐烂了，但是发现了一些 Q10vessels 是用来 store Q11water 他们用卫星照片研究发现这些 settlements 都是 connected

by Q12roads。

每一个 settlements 都是中间有一个Q13 plaza，所以是 well planned

补充阅读

Based on archaeological evidence from an excavation at Caverna da Pedra Pintada, human inhabitants first settled in the Amazon region at least 11,200 years ago.Subsequent development led to late-prehistoric settlements along the periphery of the forest by AD 1250, which induced alterations in the forest cover.

For a long time, it was thought that the Amazon rainforest was only ever sparsely populated, as it was impossible to sustain a large population through agriculture given the poor soil. ArchaeologistBetty Meggers was a prominent proponent of this idea, as described in her book Amazonia: Man and Culture in a Counterfeit Paradise. She claimed that a population density of 0.2 inhabitants per square kilometre (0.52 /sq mi) is the maximum that can be sustained in the rain forest through hunting, with agriculture needed to host a larger population. However, recent anthropological findings have suggested that the region was actually densely populated. Some 5 million people may have lived in the Amazon region in AD 1500, divided between dense coastal settlements, such as that at Marajó, and inland dwellers. By 1900 the population had fallen to 1 million and by the early 1980s it was less than 200,000.

The first European to travel the length of the Amazon River was Francisco de Orellana in 1542. The BBC's Unnatural Histories presents evidence that Orellana, rather than exaggerating his claims as previously thought, was correct in his observations that a complex civilization was flourishing along the Amazon in the 1540s. It is believed that the civilization was later devastated by the spread of diseases from Europe, such as smallpox.

Since the 1970s, numerous geoglyphs have been discovered on deforested land dating between AD 0–1250, furthering claims about Pre-Columbiancivilizations. Alceu Ranzi, a Brazilian geographer, is accredited with first discovering the geoglyphs whilst flying overAcre.The BBC's Unnatural Histories presented evidence that the Amazon rainforest, rather than being a pristine wilderness, has been shaped by man for at least 11,000 years through practices such as forest gardening and terra preta.

Terra preta (black earth), which is distributed over large areas in the Amazon forest, is now widely accepted as a product of indigenous soil management. The development of this fertile soil allowed agriculture and silviculture in the previously hostile environment; meaning that large portions of the Amazon rainforest are probably the result of centuries of human management, rather than naturally occurring as has previously been supposed.[23] In the region of the Xingu tribe, remains of some of these large settlements in the middle of the Amazon forest were found in 2003 by Michael Heckenberger and colleagues of the University of Florida. Among those were evidence of roads, bridges and large plazas.

More to find at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_rainforest

剑桥推荐

C411. C442

Reading Passage 2 (旧题)V120609 健康类

Title:

Weighty matters

Question types:

14-17Heading; 18-22人名理论配对; 23-27Summary(无词库)

14.各种各样的减肥方式 E

15.有一群人大量的做运动在减肥之后没有反弹 A

16.Relative Group 的实验 D

17.有人在减肥的过程中经过了 illusion 觉得饿 B

18 关于减肥每个人都有自己的观点 第一个专家

19 减肥没用，因为基因当中规定了体重范围 第二个专家

20 每天少量的运动没有用 第三个专家

21 测试了母亲和孩子的体重关系，发现母亲如果高血糖的话，孩子就更容易肥胖，但是这是可以治疗的，在孕期保持比较低的血糖就可以 第四个专家

22 主流的减肥方法都是 more or less the same 没有打的不同 第五个专家

第六个专家认为肥胖是由一种病毒造成，他之前在一个 M 打头的地方，对去Q23 chicken 身上进行第一个实验。后来他搬家到美国，在那里他实验了一种新的病毒名字为 Q24 AD-36。他们的实验发现这种病毒没有办法杀死，但是可以让一种 Q25 gene 可以 Q26 block 病毒的发展。他将来的研究方向是发明一种Q27 vaccine 来抑制这种病毒。

文章大意

第一段： 对于减肥，人们一直各执己见，但是专家认为每个人关于减肥的观点都是存在局限性的。

第二段： 有人认为减肥没必要，遵循自然规律就好。

第三段：有人认为运动量比较小的运动对减肥没用，有人则觉得长期坚持这种运动可以减肥且不反弹。

第四段： 有人认为肥胖可能会通过基因由母亲传给孩子，专家们致力于通过改变 DNA 排序来预防这种事情的发生。

第五段： 肥胖以及减肥不当会带来很多疾病

第六段： 专家们对一种导致肥胖病毒的研究 这种病毒叫 AD-36。

第七段： 美国专家们研制出了对抗 AD-36 的疫苗

Reading Passage 3 (旧题) V110611 科学类

Title:

Multitasking Debate

Question types:

28-32 人名理论配对；33-35 单选；36-40 T/F/NG

28. a theory explained delay happens when selecting one reaction

29 Different age groups responds to important things differently

30 conflicts happened when visual and audio element emerge

simultaneously

31 An experiment designed to demonstrates blocks for multitasking

32 An viewpoint favours optimistic side of multitask performance

33. Which one is correct about experiment conducted by Rene Marois?

A. participants performed poorly on listening task solely

B. volunteers press different key on different colours

C. participants need to use different fingers on different colored objects

D. they did a better job on mixed image and sound information

34. Which statement is correct about the first imitation of Marois’experiment?

A. ‘attentional blink’ takes about ten seconds

B. lag occurs if we concentrate on one object while second one appears

C. we always have trouble in reacting the second one

D. first limitation can be avoided by certain measure

35. Which one is NOT correct about Meyer’s experiments and

statements?

A. just after failure in several attempts can people execute dual-task

B. Practice and overcome dual-task interference

C. Meyer holds a different opinion on Marois’ theory

D. An existing processor decides whether delay another task or not

文章大意

关于一个人同时做很多事儿的能力 multitasking 的,不同 researchers 的不同研究。如何能做到同时完成多种任务。

开始问大家能不能同时完成三个以上的任务呢。Morris 教授做了一个

试验，他的试验做了几百例，结果发现根本不可完成三个的任务。后

来有总人对外境的反应，第一反应就是说，你在十分之一秒的时间，

你对外界的情况什么也记不住，第二反应就是说，你在五分之一秒的

内时间，你不可能记外界的变化，第三反应就是说，你在很短的时

间，你不可同时间做几件事情（这个印象不是太深，因为 matching 不

难）。

后来有个叫 Mayer 的教授不这想，他也做了试验，也做了几百

例，如果他发现如果人在受了培训的情况下可以完成同时做几种事，

而且和男人和女人无关，在这一种情况下，Morris 也同意这种看法

（这里有三个题，二个选择，一个 Y/N/NG），然后他们对在某种过程

反应下，人怎么完成任务，发挥了一二段，分析总结之类了，（有一

个 Y/N/NG 题）

最后有教授也做了一个开车的试验，是在开车时，如果一边开车一边聊天会有什么反应，是年轻人和老年人的对比，老年人在边开车边聊天是很容易引起不良的后果，但这个教授对这个试没有预订前提，（所有一个答案是选 NG）最后面还有二段是对整个文章的总结，（有一个 Y/N/NG）

大部分题目都在前二三四段，看完这三段你就能完成十个题目。

难度分析

本次阅读考试难度中等，三篇文章一新二旧，话题难度不是太偏。从最近的考试趋势看来，新话题的出现也并不意味着难度的增加，比如第一篇关于亚马逊雨林的题目难度较容易。因而同学们在备考雅思阅读的时候除了要积累常考话题（如生物动植物，社科类等）文章背景及词汇以外，更要夯实对雅思阅读主流题型的强化训练-T/F/NG,Summary,单选，配对题等。从今年1月至今的考试趋势可以看出，人名理论配对，摘要填空，单选等细节题仍会成为今后考试的重点题型。