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传送门

1. 明翰英语教学系列之方法篇
2. 明翰英语教学系列之音标篇
3. 明翰英语教学系列之名词篇
4. 明翰英语教学系列之动词篇
5. 明翰英语教学系列之形容词与副词篇
6. 明翰英语教学系列之冠词篇
7. 明翰英语教学系列之代词篇
8. 明翰英语教学系列之介词篇
9. 明翰英语教学系列之连词篇
10. 明翰英语教学系列之数词篇
11. 明翰英语教学系列之时态与语态篇
12. 明翰英语教学系列之句法篇
13. 明翰英语教学系列之口语篇
14. 明翰英语教学系列之雅思篇
15. 明翰英语教学系列之雅思听力篇
16. 明翰英语教学系列之雅思阅读篇
17. 明翰英语教学系列之雅思写作篇
18. 明翰英语教学系列之雅思口语篇
19. 明翰英语教学系列之雅思常见词汇与固定搭配篇
20. 明翰英语教学系列之PTE与多邻国篇
21. 明翰全日制英国硕士留学攻略
22. 明翰全日制英国硕士常见词汇与固定搭配

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6. 阅读 READING

阅读考试一共3篇文章，每篇文章大约700-900个词汇左右，总计2100-2700个词汇，
第1篇文章最简单，第2、3篇文章较难，共计40道题，
每篇文章大约13-14道题，共计60分钟。

文章中可能会出现表格、图等等非文字信息。

阅读是中国考生最容易提分的科目，同时也是听说读写四课里最简单的一科，
中国考生的阅读平均分是6分+，考到7-8的同学也有很多，
中国学生从小学到大学，一直在学英语，做阅读是家常便饭，炉火纯青。

雅思阅读考试中有大剂量的套路可以快速提升做题速度，
阅读想拿高分除了套路外，那就是词汇量的积累，
理论上，词汇量越大的同学，做阅读越快、越准。

阅读笔试考试不像口语笔试考试那样有10分钟写答题卡的时间，
要直接把答案写在答题卡上。

打错不扣分，所以所有答案都要写满，不要空着。

阅读的难点在于长难句分析以及做题时间的把控。

本文链接：
https://yangminghan.blog.csdn.net/article/details/106534893

6.1 阅读评分标准

阅读与听力一样，都是客观题，没有主观题。

39-40：9.0
37-38：8.5
35-36：8.0
33-34：7.5
30-32：7.0
27-29：6.5
23-26：6.0

6.2 阅读题型

题型之间是有差距的，填空题只要文章内容能看懂50%就可以，
不用花太多的时间与精力把所有的内容都翻译出来，
但如果是做搭配题，就必须100%去翻译，
因为一旦遗漏了一点细节，就会答错。

阅读题型包括：单选、多选、填空（句子填空、表格&图标填空）、对错、匹配等。
注意：原文的括号里会出题，不要忽略括号。

6.2.1 阅读填空题

50%去翻译文章即可，填空题有一半是复制粘贴的送分题，
做填空题切记不要逐字翻译，这样会非常非常非常浪费时间，
填空题的答案词必须是原文中的原词，不能自己改动。

做到可以随时调整自己的阅读速度，想快就快，想慢就慢。
感觉答案快要出现了，怕错过一些关键信息，就放慢速度。

答案词千万不要因为拼写问题而写错，
尤其是照抄原文的那种答案词，要有检查机制。

注意细节（拼写，单位）
对于一些专业术语，需要复杂的拼写，千万不要写错，
有的答案词需要数字+单位，如果只写数字是不给分的，尽量保证答案的完整性。

例如：把fuelled错写成fulled。

答题思路：
1.认真分析，寻找线索
题干认真阅读2-3次，挖掘一些找答案的线索：同义词，词性，逻辑关系，
去定位。

2.对比题干与原文（寻找同义转换）
定位后，去对比题干与原文，看哪些内容被转换，转换后又缺了哪部分成分。

3.难题合理推断
遇到难题不要直接放弃，不要乱猜，要进行合理的推断：词性，句意，顺序，
将推断出来的答案词放到题干中读一下，看看是否通顺，是否合适。
如果发现自己读的都别扭，那可能就不是答案。

实在找不到定位词，可以先做后面的题，例如先做第四题，再做第三题。

摘要填空题（Summary）

Summary的意思是，题干本身就是从文章中已经总结好的内容，
可能是总结几段内容也可能是总结全文，这些内容中有缺省部分，
是需要你来填空用的，中国考生对于这类题非常熟悉，从小到大都在做。

无选项摘要填空

答案来自原文原词，原词重现，比较简单，答案有序，词数限制（加粗加黑）。

阅读中表示声称或名称的方式：
called,named,known as,referred to as,单引号,破折号。

1. 找定位词

详见6.3.2章节。

2. 确定答案词的词性

通过题干中填空前后的限定来判断答案的词性，
名词？动词？副词？形容词？单复数？等等，
界定词性后，出错的概率会大大的降低，
在前面词性段落已经有讲解，不再赘述。

3. 原文定位

详见6.3.2章节。

4. 对应

把题干信息与原文做对比，从而确认答案。

观察题干中填空部分的前&后是否在原文中有相似的描述，
找到相似的地方（包括同义词、语态、词性、时态的替换等），
便可快速定位答案。

题干往往对应着原文的几句话，不要看漏。
在查找同义词时，需要结合上下文的语境来分析，
而不是单纯从单词本身的意思来分析，尤其是不要用中文含义来分析。

这就需要我们有意译的能力，而不仅仅是直译，
例如"干燥"可以对应的是"不下雨"。

4.1 找同义词(逻辑关系)
通过一些题干中的逻辑关系可以快速定位答案，例如题干是并列关系，
那么原文中也是并列关系，分别去找并列词就好了，
甚至不用去逐个翻译每一个单词，
有生词也不怕，再通过泛读&速读节省大量时间。

逻辑关键词列表详见3.1.8.2。

【并列关系】
看到题干中存在and等表示逻辑的词，则表示是并列关系，
在and前后有一个词看不懂完全可以pass，可以理解成含义与词性上是相近的。

Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer, thought the statues had been created by pre-Inca peoples from Peru. (C11-T2-P2)

ethnographer看不懂没关系，看到adventurer知道这个人是一个探险家就ok了。

题干：
The sense of smell may involve response to _____ which do not smell, in addition to obvious odours.

原文：
Researchers have still to decide whether smell is one sense or two - one responding to odours proper and the other registering odourless chemicals in the air.

in addition to为并列关系词，并列关系的双方是空格答案词（先忽略定语从句）与odours，
那odours就是我们的定位词，然后我们去原文，发现了odours原词重现，
在原文又发现了in addition to的同义替换and，
因此在原文中去找and后面的词，但后面的词太多了，答案只允许写一个单词，
此时我们要知道，并列关系的两边词性应该是一致的，odour为气味儿，是名词，
所以答案是chemicals，其实不用整句翻译也可以做对题。

【比较关系】

题干：
The discovery on one pyramid of an object which resembled a _____ suggests they may have experimented with flight.

原文：
A wooden artefact found on the step pyramid at Saqqara looks uncannily like a modern glider.

resembled与like是同义替换，空格里的内容与pyramid为比较关系，
所以答案是modern glider。

【因果关系】

题干：
It developed again in the 19th century as a direct result of the _____.

原文：
However, in the 19th century scientific English again enjoyed substantial lexical growth as the industrial revolution created the need for new technical vocabulary, and new, specialised, professional societies were instituted to promote and publish in the new disciplines.

空格答案词与19th century为因果关系，as后面接人一般翻译成作为谁谁谁，
否则翻译成因为，答案是industrial revolution。

【否定关系】

题干：
Children of average ability seem to need more direction from teachers because they do not have _____.

原文：
There appears to be a qualitative difference in the way the intellectually highly able think,compared with more average-ability or older pupils, for whom external regulation by the teacher often compensate for lack of internal regulation.

空格答案词与average ability、teacher为否定关系，原句中的lack是表示否定，
答案是internal regulation。

下面是一些例题。

题干：
Plants which do not respond to light are referred to as _____.

原文：
Plants which flower after a period of vegetative growth, regardless of photoperiod, are known as day-neutral plants.

答案：
day-neutral plants

题干：
It was noted that the music stimulated the brain's neurons to release a substance called _____.

原文：
The first thing they discovered is that music triggers the production of dopamine - a chemical with a key role in setting people’s moods - by the neurons in both the dorsal and ventral regions of the brain.

答案：
dopamine

题干：
In recent years, many of them have been obliged to give up their _____ liestyle, but they continue to depend mainly on _____ for their food and clothes.

原文：
Over the past 40 years, most have abandoned their nomadic ways and settled in the territory’s 28 isolated communities, but they still rely heavily on nature to provide food and clothes.

答案：
nomadic,nature

题干：
In fact, the sensation is more similar to the way in which pain from a _____ arm or leg might be felt.

原文：
Experiments showed that, in fact facial vision is nothing to do with touch or the front of the face, although the sensation may be referred to the front of the face like the referred pain in a phantom limb.

答案：
phantom

题干：
It is still worth doing higher studies in the UK because the gap in earning between university graduates and the people who do not have university degrees is greater than anywhere else (3) _____.

我们先分析这句话的句子成分，从because开始分析即可，
the gap 是主语，从in earning一直到degrees都是在修饰主语，
相当于是the gap is greater than anywhere else.
这句话其实是不缺主干结构的，只缺修饰成分，
所以不能用名词之类的答案。

句子大意为比较上过大学与没上过大学的人的薪资差异巨大。

原文：
International surveys continue to show the salary premium enjoyed by UK graduates over those who choose not to go to university as among the highest in the world.

我们尝试去找题干中的earning收入做定位，
但发现原文找不到，却被同意替换成了salary，
之后university graduates与UK graduates同义替换，
people who do not have university degrees与those who choose not to go to university是同意替换。

后面的is greater than anywhere else与as among the highest in the world做同义替换，
由于题干中缺少修饰成分，故推测出缺少一个表示范围的状语成分。

答案：
in the world

题干：
The consumption of ______ would be cut because agricultural vehicles would be unnecessary.

原文：
It would also dramatically reduce fossil fuel use, by cutting out the need for tractors, ploughs and shipping.

答案：
fossil fuel

5. 检查

有一些错误通过1-2秒的检查是可以看出来的，
可以花一点时间看一下答案词是否有语法错误，答案词前后信息是否有遗漏等，
重新再做一遍这种检查几乎不可能。

比较高频的阅读填空题失误是：

1. 名词单复数；
2. 双写字母；
3. 丢失重要词汇，答案不完整；
4. 答案词改写（时态、词性等）；

有选项摘要填空

此类的填空题是带选项词（一般选项词就是一个单词）让考生选，
让考生在一定范围内进行选择，难度有所提升，
选项不一定是原文原词，会有同义替换，
题目对应原文不明显，答案常有乱序，并不一定每场都考。

如果遇到：“NB You may use any letter more than once.”
则表示选项词可以重复使用，一般是一个选项可以用2次，否则不可以。

我们可以：

1. 找定位词
2. 预判答案（词性&句意）
   不要立刻就去找原文，而是利用选项来预判一下答案。有的题可以缩小选择范围。
   有的题甚至可以不看原文直接出答案，如果时间允许，
   可以再去看一下原文做一下double check，要知道阅读题的时间是很宝贵的。

通过题干我们可以通过空格前后相互搭配来猜到答案的词性，然后再去看选项，
假设只有2个选项词符合该词性，那么把这2个选项词分别代入题干中，
翻译一下看哪个比较通顺、合适，哪个就是答案。

词性相关知识点可以详见：3.1.7。

猜答案也是一种能力，是一种有效的提高答题速度的方法。
如果答案不够要蒙答案的话，也不要都选一个答案，例如都选C，
因为这个提醒一般每个选项只能用一次。

1. 定位
2. 对应

其中1、3、4与无选项摘要填空一致。

图表/流程图/表格填空题（Diagram/Flowchart/Table，相对低频、简单）

这三种题型差异性只存在于外形上，
这些题看上去比较复杂，越复杂的图越简单，一般都是送分题，
这种题的出现就是来帮助大家节省时间的，把时间留给其他难题。

老套路，仍然是回到原文中去找答案词填空，这些题中定位词比较容易找，
一般会给一些生僻词汇&专业术语，一般不用去同义替换，不用去理解其含义。

答案在原文中会体现的非常直接，一般定位词旁边挨着的就是答案，
一般不会乱序，如果乱序也是距离很近几乎是上下句挨着的情况下。

答题技巧：
1.隐藏线索（并列、因果）
有的图是不用去分析的，只靠文字便可解题，
但对于没有空格前后没有文字的场景，就需要看图了。

2.小标题可定位
如果图中包含小标题，小标题可以帮助快速定位答案的起点。

表格例题：

Procedure	Aim
fix strong ______ to Greenland ice sheets	to prevent icebergs moving into the sea

原文：
Scientists have also scrutinised whether it’s possible to preserve the ice sheets of Greenland with reinforced high-tension cables, preventing icebergs from moving into the sea.

答案：
cables

分析：
ice sheets与Greenland没有被同义替换，可以做快速定位，
strong与reinforced做同义替换，要求答案数量只能是一个词，故cables。

图表例题（图略）：
题干：
______ is taken out, enabling Wheel to rotate.

原文：
The water between the gates is then pumped out. A hydrulic clamp, which prevents the arms of the Wheel moving while the gondola is docked, is removed, allowing the Wheel to turn.

答案：
clamp

分析：
本题较难，看到题干有个taken out，原文中有pumped out，可以做同义替换，
在有时间压力的前提下，可能就直接写答案是water了，那就错了。
但如果有一个check的机制的话，看完题干里的第2句话，
说的是"什么东西被拿走，启动大轮转动"，如果答案写water的话，
“门中的水被抽干”，感觉有些不妥，发现端倪后，接着看原文，
发现taken out与is removed可以做同意替换，
enabling Wheel to rotate与allowing the Wheel to turn做同义替换，
所以答案词是被非限从句修饰的clamp。

题干：
Boat travels through tunnel beneath Roman ______.

原文：
The Wheel could not be constructed to elevate boats over the full 35-metre difference between the two canals, owing to the presence of the historically important Antonine Wall, which was built by the Romans in the second century AD. Boats travel under this wall via a tunnel, then through the locks, and finally on to the Union Canal.

答案：
wall

分析：
原文的内容有点多，可以快速定位到Roman，之后看到了beneath与under的替换，
最后把答案锁定在wall。

题干：
______ raise boat 11 m to level of Union Canal.

原文：
The remaining 11 metres of lift needed to reach the Union Canal is achieved by means of a pair of locks.

答案：
locks

分析：
通过数字11可以做快速定位，通过一个被动语态锁定到了locks。

题干：
______ to prevent hull being sucked into mud.

原文：
The problem of the hull being sucked back downwards into the mud was overcome by using 12 hydraulic jacks.

答案：
hydraulic jacks

题干：
______ used as extra protection for the hull.

原文：
The lifting cradle was designed to fit the hull using archaeological survey drawings, and was fitted with air bags to provide additional cushioning for the hull's delicate timeber framework.

答案：
air bags

简答题（Short Answer，低频）

这种题型快消失了，考的越来越少了，这种题会用特殊疑问句来问考生问题，
考生需要根据文章的内容来回答问题，同时必须使用文章中的原词作答，
并且有序，较好定位，难度较低。

what…
where/what place…
why…
when/what time…
who…
which
how much…
how many…
how often…
how…

题干：
Which animal might ichthyosaurs have resembled?

原文：
Ichthyosaurs were reptilian contemporaries of the dinosaurs, with fins and streamlined bodies. The fossils look like dolphins and they surely lived like dolphins.

分析：
题干问哪种动物，原文中描述动物的词只有2个，dolphin与dinosaur，
resemble与like是同义词，所以答案是dolphin。

题干：
What was the name finally used to refer to the first colour Perkin invented?

原文：
Perkin originally named his dye Tyrian Purple, but it later became commonly known as mauve.

分析：
题干第一句问名字，第二句来了一个but表示转折关系，所以真正的答案在第二句， 所以答案是mauve。

题干：
Which two processes are mentioned as those in which animals had to make big changes as they moved onto land?

Moving from water to land involved a major redesign of every aspect of life, including breathing and reproduction.

分析：
题干问哪两个过程，这是隐藏的并列关系，直接去原文找并列关系词and，
所以答案是breathing and reproduction。

套路：

1. 疑问词作用大，用来缩小答案范围，原文生词多也不怕；
2. 找到答案向后看一句，防止转折；
3. 发现题干中的并列关系，可以快速从原文中找到并列关系词；

6.2.2 阅读判断题（超高频，较难）

阅读判断题的出题概率是100%，并且题量还不少，有序，难度比较高。
分析对错时，如果题干与原文说的是一件事，那还有可比性，选TRUE或FALSE，
如果说的不是一件事，谈不上对错，那就选NOT GIVEN。

就像不能用一个人的身高去衡量一个人的性格，
不能用外表去衡量一个人的人品。

我们所有的判断都来源自题干与原文，不要添加主观想法、过度推测、发散思维等。

需要注意题目要求，有的是让写TRUE、FALSE，有的是让写YES、NO，
如果写错则不给分，用T、F、NG或Y、N、NG是给分的。

一般情况下，中国教育普遍把大家培养出一种比较严谨的模式，
我们在分析对错时，只要发现跟标准不符就认为是错的。

类似于考试的标准答案为1，但我们写的是0.99，按照我们之前的理解，这就是错。
雅思考试中，我们写的是0.7，就算对，差不多就行了，很包容。

难点在于我们不太好把握这个度，什么算对，什么算错。

可能会出现题干内容为拿两个东西去做对比的情况，但这两个东西在原文中的位置，
会隔得非常远的情况，这样会导致大家误选NOT GIVEN。

因此我们在把所有的题干都分析完之后，在去原文做定位时，
至少同时带2道题干内容进入原文，以防漏掉中间的大量题干所对应的原文内容。

先带1、2去原文，找到1之后，再带2、3进原文，2找到，再带3、4进原文。

定位原文时遇到指代名词后，去找它的上一句，找它代替的是谁。

在考试时间不足的情况下，有一些规律可以拿来节省时间：

• 6个判断题中，NOT GIVEN的出题概率较小，为1-2个；

• 80%的情况，题干出现表示绝对的词多为FALSE，表达不留余地，把话说死了，像must、only、every、any、all、totally、entirely、fully、completely、purely、solely、sole；

• 80%的情况，题干出现表示相对的词多为TRUE，表达留余地，没把话说死了，像may、may not、not all、possible、likely、in general；

• 90%的情况，题干出现有明显比较双方的比较级，是两个东西做对比，而不是自己跟自己比（类似于"我比之前吃的更多了"），一般选NOT GIVEN；

TRUE/YES

同义表达

题干与原文描述同一事件且大意相似即可，不用做到100%完全一样，
有差异是理所因当的，我们要放宽我们的评价标准，差不多就行了。

例如：weather和nature force虽然含义不同，但也可以算差不多就行了这个范畴。

题干与原文都往一个方向上去描述就算TRUE，不要太抠细节，
例如题干说:“赚了很多钱”，原文说:“经济基础稳定”，
不要纠结要不要把"是否已经买车买房"等因素考虑其中，这个就是TRUE。

题干：
Human beings are responsible for some of the destruction to food-producing land.

原文：
At present, through the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use. Some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices.

分析：
这道题有点难，差不多就行，因为管理疏忽导致15%的庄稼被糟蹋了，
那你说人类有责任吗？责任是不是在人类的疏忽？
虽然不是很严格意义上的对，但也算对了。

题干：
Most countries continue to prefer to trade with nearby nations.

原文：
Countries still trade disproportionately with their geographic neighbours.

分析：
disproportionately是"不成比例的"，一般disproportionately一般表示过多，
所以答案是T。

题干：
From the beginning of the World Solar Challenge races, there were rules governing the effectiveness of the braking systems and the size of the cars.

原文：
Until 2007, apart from overall specifications concerning vehicle dimensions and brake efficiency, there were few restrictions on the design of the cars, which tended to be weird and wonderful.

分析：
同义替换，题干中描述比赛规则有两项，分别为汽车尺寸和刹车有效性，
原文中对应vehicle dimensions，dimension有尺寸的意思，所以答案是T。

题干：
Before the new design rules were introduced, the driver was allowed to be partly lying down in the car.

原文：
Thus, for the 2007 race, some new design rules were established. The driver now has to be in a normal sitting position, rather than reclining as had been the rule, and must be able to get in and out of the vehicle unaided.

分析：
本题较难，原文中描述在2007的比赛中新规则被建立，新规则是必须采用普通坐姿，
后面跟了一个rather than，rather than表示转折关系，意为而不是，
那肯定代表着跟普通坐姿相反的一种状态，就算reclining是生词，
我们也可以大概猜出来其含义，
题干中的["部分躺下"与"普通坐姿"的反向状态]在大方向上是一致的，
更何况还有had been the rule与before the new design rules做同义替换，
所以答案是T。

题干：
The way a child plays may provide information about possible medical problems.

原文：
Gibson adds: ‘Playful behaviour is also an important indicator of healthy social and emotional development. In my previous research, I investigated how observing children at play can give us important clues about their well-being and can even be useful in the diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.’

解析：
未完待续

推断归纳

题干是根据原文的信息作出的推断或总结，
并不是把原文中的内容进行翻译或转换。

题干：
Several species of wildlife in the British countryside are declining.

原文：
In Britain, for example, many of our best-loved farmland birds, such as the skylark, the grey partridge, the lapwing and the corn bunting, have vanished from huge stretches of countryside, as have even more wild flowers and insects.

分析：
答案是TRUE，鸟类等都算是野生动物，“消失"约等于"数量减少”，
不要在意时态、不要从语法角度挑毛病。

题干：
Some banned drugs do not actually improve sporting performance.

原文：
The list of banned substances includes various stimulants, hormones, chemicals and steroids, as well as blood doping and the use of substances to mask drug use.

分析：
答案是TRUE，原文内容表示有一些药物可以用来掩盖服用兴奋剂的作用，
可以先吃兴奋剂，然后再吃某种药物逃避尿检，因此这种药不是用来提高成绩，
而是用来掩盖吃药的事实，与题干描述一致。

FALSE/NO

对于错误的标准，并不是题干与原文描述的不一致就算错，

反义抵触

题干是原文的反义表达，互为对立面。
一个成立了，另一个就不能成立，只有这样才能选FALSE。

题干：
Marie stopped doing research for several years when her children were born.

原文：
The birth of Marie’s two daughters, Irene and Eve, in 1897 and 1904 failed to interrupt her scientific work.

分析：
答案是FALSE，题干说打断了，原文说没有打断，这种就叫"抵触"。

题干：
The East German athletes were not greatly affected by the drug taking they experienced.

原文：
The opening of official secret police records in 1993 showed that doping had been a systematic state policy in East Germany for the past thirty years, often without the knowledge of the young athletes involved. Many still suffers from the effects, both physical and mental, of this extensive drug use.

分析：
答案是FALSE，题干说不受影响，原文说受影响。

推断归纳

原文中没有明确给出信息，根据原文信息可以推断出题干表述错误。

题干：
The study involved asking children a number of yes/no questions.

原文：
School children were asked to complete a questionnaire containing five open form questions.

分析：
原文中这个调查问卷有5个开放问题，与"是/否"类问题不一致，
不要去发散思维，不要主观臆想，所以答案是FALSE。

NOT GIVEN

NOT GIVEN是我们从小到大学英语都没有接触到的新概念，
表示题干中的描述在文章中没有提及。

有的题会出现很多原词重现，但其实是个陷阱，不要选TRUE，
而是选NOT GIVEN，做题不要看外观。

生活常识是不能用到判断题上的，只能用原文内容来进行判断，
例如：原文中给出了中国战车比罗马战车要大，但是不一定大的车装的人就多。

题干：
Tourism contributes over six per cent of the Australian gross national product.

原文：
… producing over six per cent of the world’s gross national product.

分析：
答案是NOT GIVEN，题干与原文并没有在一个对立面上，我们得知了世界的GNP，
但并不知道澳大利亚的GNP，既然判断不出来澳大利亚的GNP，
那就没办法证明题干错了，就写NOT GIVEN。

题干：
There was some opposition to the design of the Falkirk Wheel at first.

原文：
Numerous ideas were submitted for the project, including concepts ranging from rolling eggs to tilting tanks, from giant see-swas to overhead monorails.

分析：
题干说"相反的设计"，原文中说"大量的设计"，没有提到"相反"的相关概念，
因此是NOT GIVEN。

6.2.3 阅读选择题

阅读单选题

单选题一般不会搞太多生词也不会在定位上为难你，
单选选择题的难度比较大，主要是由4个选项，其中只有1个正确答案，
其他3个都会有很强的干扰性，不仅仅考察英语水平，更多的时候是玩的一个心理。
不能有"差不多就行"的这种心态，因为里面会有很多陷阱。

不能根据选项中哪个说的跟原文像就选谁，要知道其他3个选项错哪了。
我们可以给每个选项去挑错，如果挑不出来错的，就可能是答案。

一般正确选项都需要进行深层次的同义替换，
题干如果不好定位的话，可以直接拿选项来定位。

阅读单选题的出题频率较高，有顺序，方便定位。
题干与4个选项基本上都在一个段落中挨着，不会分开。

考官会让每个错误选项中的一小部分出现如下现象，只要遇到某一个就可以排除掉。

• 无
  有一部分信息在原文中未提到，与问题无关，所问非所答，只是从文章中找到一个信息放到选项中，但并没有考虑到文章在问什么。（90%）

• 反
  与原文矛盾，类似于判断题中的FALSE。

• 露
  与原文信息原词对应，恨不得每一个词跟原文都是一模一样，包括单词+数字，
  但其实是陷阱、干扰项。

题干：
The book Educating Psyche is mainly concerned with _____.
A. the power of suggestion in learning.
B. a particular technique for learning based on emotions.
C. the effects of emotion on the imagination and the unconscious.
D. ways of learning which are not traditional.

原文：
Educating Psyche by Bernie Neville is a book which looks at radical new approaches to learning, describing the effects of emotion, imagination and the unconscious on learning. One theory discussed in the book is that proposed by George Lozanov, which focuses on the power of suggestion.

分析：
题目问这本书主要在讲什么什么，原文说的是"科学家提出一个理论，
这个理论是关于什么什么"，这个理论并不是书中的主要内容，只是其中一部分，
which修饰的是theory，选项A偷换主语，选项A是符合文章，但不符合问题。

B选项说以"学习方法以情绪为基础"，原文说"情绪会影响学习"，与原文不符。

D选项说"不传统的学习方法"与原文中的"新学习方法"对应。

题干：
The writer was surprised because the blind woman.
A. drew a circle on her own initiative.
B. did not understand what a wheel looked like.
C. included a symbol representing movement.
D. was the first person to use lines of motion.

原文：
and other surfaces in space. But pictures are more than literal representations. This fact was drawn to my attention dramatically when a blind woman in one of my investigations decided on her own initiative to draw a wheel as it was spinning. To show this motion, she traced a curve inside the circle Fig. 1). I was taken aback.

分析：
问题是：“作者为什么会很惊讶”，原文中"有件事引起作者的极大关注，
就是他看到一个盲人在画一个旋转的轮子"，但这并没有使作者惊讶，
让作者惊讶的是"盲人在轮子里画了一条曲线，表示轮子正在运动"，
take aback表示惊讶，如果不懂也可以用排除法来做题，所以答案选C。

A选项与原文太相似，所以排除。B选项与原文矛盾，
如果盲人不知道轮子长什么样的话她是怎么画出来的？
D选项说盲人是第一个用线表示运动的人，原文中并没有提及。

题干：
According to the writer, the ‘displacement effect’ on the visitor is caused by.
A. the variety of works on display and the way they are arranged.
B. the impossibility of viewing particular works over a long period.
C. the similar nature of the paintings and the lack of great works.
D. the inappropriate nature of the individual works selected for exhibition.

原文：
The visitor may then be struck by the strangeness of seeing such diverse paintings, drawings and sculptures brought together in an environment for which they were not originally created. This ‘displacement effect’ is further heightened by the sheer volume of exhibits. In the case of a major collection, there are probably more works on display than we could realistically view in weeks or even months.

分析：
原文中描述：“参观者去到博物馆、展览馆中去看画或雕塑，让大家感到惊讶的是，这么多不同种类的画和雕塑被带到一个环境中来展览，而这个环境不不是它们最初被创作的地方，这种位移效应会加重了展览的数量，在一个大型展览中，甚至大家要花上好几个礼拜都不太可能看得完这么多的作品”，答案是A，未完待续。

在考试时间不足的情况下，有一些规律可以拿来节省时间：

• 80%的情况，选项出现表示绝对的词多为错误，表达不留余地，把话说死了，像must、only、every、any、all、totally、entirely、fully、completely、purely、solely、sole；

• 80%的情况，选项出现表示相对的词多为对的，表达留余地，没把话说死了，像may、may not、not all、not always、possible、likely、in general；

• 4个选项中，如果有2个非常相似&或者有2个非常相反，那么其中有一个是正确选项，通过这种规律可以快速排出另外2个没有特点的选项。

阅读多选题（低频）

阅读多选题有5选2，6选3，8选3等等，有序，多选题比单选题要更好做。

选项一起出现，通常都在一个段落中，有利于定位，
评分标准比较人性化，如果标准答案是C、D、E，如果答成D、E、F，
那么C、D答对了是给分的，对于不太确定的答案也选上去，
一定要符合答案数量要求。

6.2.4 阅读搭配题

搭配题是把2个不一样的东西给到你，然后用某一种规则把这2个东西搭在一起。

做匹配题时，养成好习惯，读完一段后，立即检查一下有没有能匹配到的匹配题。

阅读[配对/归类]题（Match&Classify，高频，无序）

[Match/Classify]题型的出题概率几乎为100%，
近几年Classify考的越来越少，几乎都是考Match，但套路差不多，
Classify题型时，答案没有限制，可以重复使用。

Match题型时，我们需要看是否有(NB)标识，代表答案是否可以重复选择。
“You may use any letter more than once.”

会给到考生两组信息，其中一种信息用数字标序号（题号），
另外一组用字母标序号（选项），我们需要把数字与字母配成一对。

这种题一般定位比较简单，定位词一般为人名、地名、时间、国家名等等，
需要注意题目是乱序的，要按照原文的顺序去找，而不是按题目的顺序。

万一没有简单的定位词，则需要一次性分析所有的题干，然后一起找定位词，
可以拿选项定位也可以拿题干定位，看哪个方便，
一般拿个数少的来定位，题目个数少就用题目，选项个数少就用选项。

在做Match&Classify这类题时，可以结合其他题型一起做，以便节省时间，
遇到简单的单词需要做翻译，遇到复杂单词，则不用翻译，加快阅读速度。

例题1：
Match each city with the correct description, A-E

1. Perth
2. Auckland
3. Portland

List of Descriptions
A. successfully uses a light rail transport system in hilly environment
B. successful public transport system despite cold winters
C. profitably moved from road to light rail transport system
D. hilly and inappropriate for rail transport system
E. heavily dependent on cars despite widespread poverty
F. inefficient due to a limited public transport system

例题2：
Match each event with the correct nationality, A-F

1. They devised a civil calendar in which the months were equal in lenght.
2. They divided the day into two equal halves.
3. They developed a new cabinet shape for a type of timekeeper.
4. They created a caiendar to organise public events and work schedules.

List of Nationalities
A. Babylonians
B. Egyptians
C. Greeks
D. English
E. Germans
F. French

例题3：
Classify the following descriptions as relating to
A.caloric-restricted monkeys
B.control monkeys
C.neither caloric-restricted monkeys nor control monkeys

Write the correct letter, A, B or C, in boxes 33-37 on your answer sheet.
33. Monkeys were less likely to become diabetic.
34. Monkeys experienced more chronic disease.
35. Monkeys have been shown to experience a longer that average lifespan.
36. Monkeys enjoyed a reduced chance of heart disease.
37. Monkeys produced greater quantities of insulin.

例题4：
本题较难，难度不在于定位，而是在于理解，在于同义替换，生词太多，影响理解。

1. The effects of geo-engineering may not be long-lasting.
2. Geo-engineering is a topic worth exploring.
3. It may be necessary to limit the effectiveness of geo-engineering projects.
4. Research into non-fossil-based fuels cannot be replaced by geo-engineering.

List of Scientists
A. Roger Angel
B. Phil Rasch
C. Dan Lunt
D. Martin Sommerkorn

原文：
And Dr Phil Rasch of the US-based Pacific Norrhwest National Laboratoru is equally guarded about the role of geo-engineering: ‘I think all of us agree that if we were to end geo-engineering on a given day, then the planet would return to its pre-engineered condition very rapidly, and probably within ten to twenty years. That’s certainly something to worry about.’

According to Dr Martin Sommerkorn, climate change advisor for the World Wildlift Fund’s International Arctic Programme, ‘Human-induced climate change has brought humanity to a position where we should’t exclude thinking thoroughly about this topic and its possibilities.’

To aviod such a scenario, Lunt says Angel’s project would have to operate at half strength; all of which reinforces his view that the best option is to avoid the need for geo-engineering altogether.

Angel says that his plan is ‘no substitute for developing renewable energy: the only permanent solution.’

答案：

1. B
2. D
3. C
4. A

阅读完成句子题（Sentence Completion，中频，一般有序）

长得与[Match/Classify]很像，句首句尾匹配，给句子前半句，让我们配后半句。
题干与正确的选项需要可以组成一句话，符合文章、符合语法、答案有序。

在时间不足的情况下，我们甚至可以不看原文，靠猜测的方式来选择正确答案，
看哪些搭配可以在语法层面组成正确的句子，有的搭配是语法就错了，
语法正确的前提下，再检查句意是否很完整、很通顺，不能前言不搭后语。

把不是人话的选项先用排除法PASS掉，之后再用题干的关键词进行定位。

选项有多余干扰信息（一部分正确、一部分错误），不要因为一个单词的对应就直接选择，
一个题目的答案可能会横跨几句话，不要见了逗号就停止。

先做好定位的句子，再通过往前推或往后推去做定位困难的句子。

例题1：
Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-G, below.
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 19-22 on your answer sheet.

1. According to Dingle, migratory routes are likely to
2. To prepare for migration,animals are likely to
3. During migration,animals are unlikely to
4. Arctic terns illustrate migrating animals’ ability to

A. be discouraged by difficulties.
B. travel on open land where they can look out for predators.
C. eat more than they need for immediate purposes.
D. be repeated daily.
E. ignore distractions.
F. be governed by the availability of water.
G. follow a straight line.

例题2：
Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-G below.
Write the correct letter A-G in boxes 24-27 on your answer sheet.

1. One of the brain’s most difficult tasks is to
2. Because of the language they have developed,humans
3. Individual responses to humour
4. Peter Derks believes that humour

A. react to their own thoughts.
B. helped create language in humans.
C. respond instantly to whatever is happening.
D. may provide valuable information about the operation of the brain.
E. cope with difficult situations.
F. relate to a person’s subjective views.
G. led our ancestors to smile and then laugh.

为了节省时间，还没看原文，因为语法层面，24题的候选项可以排除3个：
选项B不行，因为to后面不能跟动词过去式，
选项G不行，同上，
选项D不行，因为to后面不能跟情态动词。

阅读主旨题（List of Headings，无序，中频）

有点像总结段落大意，在雅思阅读主旨题中，会给出一个方框，
里面有若干小标题作为选项，每个小标题都叫heading，
我们需要把文章的每一段总结出一个段落大意之后，正好可以匹配到方框中的小标题。

通常某一个段落的正确答案已经给出，我们则需要把那个选项划掉即可。

拿到题后，我们先看[题目/题干]中的小标题，把标题中的关键词都划出来，
之后读文章原文中的的段落，先看段落主旨句，一般在开头第1句，
观察是否刚才划的定位词在第1句中同义替换出现，
如果出现对应的话，那可能是正确答案，
如果第1句没有，再看第2句，先不要看第3句，可以再看一眼段落的最后1句，
如果再找不到？那就把整个段落都读一遍吧。。。

如果遇到拿不准的标题，类似于有2个段落都可以选， 遇到这种情况我们可以先放一下这道题，先做后面的题，
之后再回来，也许就能迎刃而解。

如果原文的段落中没有同义替换，
而是需要我们自己来归纳的话，我们需要一些规律来快速抓住主旨。

1. 在for example之前的句子是段落中的重点；
2. 做实验&调查时，要有结论，重点结论句型：…show that…/…suggest that…；
3. 注意转折，转折的重点在后面，转折关系关键词详见3.1.8.2；

建议先做细节题（填空、选择等），对文章内容有所了解之后，再做配对题，
就增加成功率。

标题（正确答案）：
Mixed views on current changes to museum.

原文段落第一句：
Recently, however, attitudes towards history and the ways it should be presented have altered.

标题（正确答案）：
Enough food at last.

原文段落最后一句：
The increased productivity from farmland made some countries self-sufficient in grain and livestock and offered effective protection against famine.

标题（正确答案）：
A difficult landscape.

原文段落第一句：
The Canadian Arctic is a vast, treeless polar desert that’s covered with snow for most of the year.

阅读段落题（Paragraph，无序，中频，最难）

Which paragraph contains the following information?
翻译过来是：“每个段落包含如下信息？”。

有的题干抽象性比较强，不好做定位，基本不用划定位词，需要培养归纳总结的能力，
需要先读懂所有题干的准确含义，然后进段落中先找主旨（段落第1-2句以及结尾句），
如果发现主旨没有关联，那么可以直接pass掉这段，如果有的关联的话，
再仔细读中心部分，所谓的找到主旨后再递进细节。

因为是乱序，因此要按照原文的顺序去做，而不是题干的顺序。

先做细节题（选择，填空等）获得一些暗示，再做段落题，不要先做段落题。

我们需要找题干中的关键词来做定位，看这个关键词是来源于哪段，
一个题干中的定位词可能会出现在不同段落中的多处位置，需要小心谨慎，
不要第一个定位词所对应的原文中没有收获就立刻放弃，
这种题比较难做，一般出3-6道题，是否有重复选项还需要看NB标识。

答案无序，因此在审题阶段就需要把这3-6道题都看一遍，然后缓存在大脑中，
原文每读完一段，就停一下，check一下是否包含答案关键词。

如果词汇量不够，导致题干与原文中有大量的生词，很容易定位不到或做错题。

例题：
Reading Passage 1 has six sections, A-F.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter. A-F in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.

1. details of the range of family types involved in an education programme.
2. reasons why a child’s early years are so important.
3. reasons why an education programme failed.
4. a description of the positive outcomes of an education programme.

题干：
mention of a geo-engineering project based on an earlier natural phenomenon.

原文：
The idea is modelled on historic volcanic explosions, such as that of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, which led to a short-term cooling of global temperatures by 0.5 ℃.

分析：
题干中的定位词为：“早期的自然现象”，如果不认识phenomenon，可能会选错，
原文中提及"模仿历史火山喷发"，所以选这句话所在的段落。

6.3 阅读技巧

6.3.1 如何备考阅读

阅读能力的提升非常注重量变引起质变，
我们提升阅读量，阅读量少肯定不行，此外还要了解文章背景，
阅读需要每天持续不断的训练，几天不练阅读，阅读速度会下降。

剑5-15有70多篇雅思阅读原文，
在读懂这些文章之前不用看别的文章材料，
这70篇都搞定后，还可以通过BBC的原版新闻，《Economist》去练。

1. 先把题型特点与解题方式学会，先练题型，弄清解题思路；
2. 把所有题型拼在一起去做，掌握做题节奏，掌握技巧，先做哪个后做哪个；
3. 剑雅真题中先做第1篇文章，因为比较简单，在做了一堆第1篇文章后还能能保证正确率在90%以上，再做第2篇，以此类推；

初学者在开始练习题型的时候，不用给自己卡时间，
因为是锻炼自己的解题思路，锻炼结束后再卡时间做题，
先追求深度，再追求速度，25分钟->20分钟->18分钟。

之后是做好时间管理，一般来说阅读的第1篇文章较简单，
花费时间应该控制在17-18分钟，最后1篇文章较难，
时间应控制在22-23分钟。

在自己做模考或做剑雅真题的时候，需要摸清自己的阅读速度，
从而做到心里有数，用有限的时间去做自己擅长的事情，
不要给自己太大的任务量，欲速则不达。

如果实在做不完题，也不用太担心，优先把简单题做完做准，
难的题放弃或蒙就好了，不要给自己太大心理负担，
考试前就给自己心理暗示，阅读题是肯定做不完的，
这样压力会小很多，自我发挥的也会更好。

先做题，之后看答案，分析自己错在哪里，
之后才是精读，如何精读？

1. 先将[题目/题干]与原文中中非专业术语类的生词查一查，
   自己抽空把这些生词消化掉，可能认识的单词放到句子中感觉很奇怪，翻译的不通顺，那这种单词我们也需要查，可能是我们不了解这个单词的其他含义；

2. 对照文章原文与[题目/题干]，寻找同义替换的套路，自己总结起来；

3. 分析[题目/题干]中长难句的语法结构，例如：后置分词起修饰作用，还有各种从句等等，补充一下自己不了解的语法知识点。

4. 总结段落大意（可省略）。

不要每篇文章都做全文的精读，浪费时间，性价比低，
此外，这也跟真正考试的状态不一样，考点是短时间内答对。
如果备考时间是1年或1年之上，则可以在备考前期句句精读。

阅读提分需要敢于突破舒适区，
去发现哪些地方读不懂，哪些题会做错，
为什么做错，而不是反复的去做你本来就会的题。
建议每天60分钟的精读，60分钟背单词，30分钟的泛读&速读。

6.3.2 阅读解题思路

雅思阅读考试的时间可谓是相当的紧张，阅读考试有3篇文章，
只有60分钟的时间，每篇文章大约20分钟，
如果是笔考，还需要有写答题卡的时间。

中国考生做阅读普遍的问题是速度慢，时间不够用，做不完题。
为什么慢？是因为你没有掌握有效节省时间的阅读方法论。

找定位与详略得等是雅思阅读考试中最重要的能力，
快速做题节省时间，成为了我们答高分的致命武器。

雅思阅读考试的特点是：
文章原文 -> 归纳总结、同义替换 -> [题目/题干]，
因此我们一定要先阅读[题目/题干]内容，再带着问题去阅读原文。

看题顺序

拿到卷子后，先看一眼文章的主标题，
有利于自己快速理解文章大意，大脑有个初步认知，
这篇文章大概是在讲什么。

雅思阅读有序题型，它们分别是：
填空题（除带选项的摘要填空）、判断题、选择题、部分配对题（完成句子）。

对于这些顺序题型，我们只要先看其中1-2个[题目/题干]就可以，
因为都是带顺序的，可以依次按照顺序往下定位，比较简单。

如果一篇文章出了2-3套顺序题，那我们需要使用平行法来做题，
因为这些题都是带顺序的，因此我们可以同时来做这2-3套题，
假如1-7题是填空题，8-13是判断题，
那我们可以先把所有带顺序的题型都看完并划出定位词（或者只看前2个也可以），
大脑要缓存1、2、8、9这些题的定位词，然后进入原文，
同时去找这些题，否则会浪费大量的时间来回反复回原文。

1先出现的话，那下面接着来找2、3、8、9，
2再出现的话，那下面接着来找3、4、8、9，
8再出现的话，那下面接着来找3、4、9、10，
随时保持自己的目标在持续更新的状态。

对于其他乱序题型，就不能用这种平行法，
例如：匹配&归类、段落、带选项的摘要填空（时乱时不乱），
我们则要提前都看一遍，
因为我们也不确定到底在什么位置出题，
这些题型有很强的位置随机性。

原文读完一段，就看一下这些无序题，看哪个能做就做哪个。
段落的第1-2句一般是段落的主旨句，
段落的最后1句一般是段落的总结句，
一般情况下是符合"总-分-总"的结构，当然不是100%这样。

不要刚上来就先做匹配题，要先做细节题（判断、选择等）。

找定位词

根据[题目/题干]找文章原文的这个过程，就叫定位，
用于定位的单词，我们就叫它：“定位词”。

通过[题目/题干]定位词快速定位到原文中找到相应的同义替换，
我们需要有很强的定位能力，不然根本没办法做题，
会定位的话，可以快速找到答案，会节省大量时间。

一些定位规律：
如果[题目/题干]中含有下列词汇，可以帮助快速定位，
例如：[题目/题干]中含有figure、number等词，
则可以快速定位到原文某一段中含有数字的地方。

标题词汇	段落内容
figure, number, amount, statistics, statistical	数字
proportion,percentage	分数/百分数
financial, income, economic, cost, fund, expenditure	钱
time, period, century, past, recent	时间
processes, procedures, stages	序数词
location, region, site, international, global	地名
overview, concept, early, origin, ancient, history, definition, cause, introduction, assumption, hypothesis	文章开头1-2段
impact, future, prospect, outlook, conclusion, result, consequence	文章结尾

开始做题后，先从[题目/题干]中找到若干定位词（线索），
先找特殊定位词，如果没有找到，再找普通定位词。

找特殊定位词

有一些很难被替换的单词可以很容易来做定位词，详见3.1.5章节。

找普通定位词

如果题目&题干中找不到特殊定位词，
那么可以按词性去按顺序找普通定位词，
顺序如下：名词>动词>形容词>副词。

首先找[题干/题目]中的名词，因为名词不容易被换掉，
即使被换了也比较容易找到，例如一个名词"女神"，
可以替换成"美女"、“女生”、"女性"等等，比较容易察觉。

最容易被换掉的是形容词与副词，
例如可以形容女神是"美丽的"，
那还可以替换成"大方的"、“超凡脱俗的”、“伶俐的”、"古灵精怪的"等等，
相对于名词而言，比较难察觉。

有的定位词出现的频率比较高，
那就没办法有效定位，要排除高频词。

例如：你发现[题目/题干]中有个名词"people"，
然后这个"people"在原文中出现了20多次。。。
通常不太常见的名词可以做定位词。

每个[题目/题干]不能只划一个定位词，
这样可能在原文中突然被换掉你发现不了，
要多划几个，多重保险，定位词的数量上至少要>=2。

阅读原文&原文定位

找到定位词后，去阅读原文，
通过定位词+泛读快速定位原文答案大体位置范围，
定位到答案在哪一段哪一行，
同时别忘了读一下原文中定位词前面1-2句，
有可能答案词在定位词前面出现的情况。

千万千万千千万不要每一句话都精读，
更不要去琢磨一些与答案没有关系的生僻词的含义或语法，
记住，我们每篇文章只有不到20分钟的时间，
那为了节省时间，我们需要有略读有精读，
结合自己的定位方法，自己掌握自己的语感与阅读速度。

不是[定位句/出题句]的句子可以泛读，
如果是主旨题，则可以不去看例子之类的句子，
副词、形容词、定语从句、状语从句等都是起修饰作用，
可以选择性pass掉，因为不会影响句子的主要含义，节省时间。

会有很多童鞋吐槽，
说雅思阅读原文有很多生词、很晦涩、学术性强等等，
读不懂原文很正常，主要是由生词+语法结构不熟悉导致。

生词

词汇量再多也不可能把3篇文章里的所有单词都看会，
因为阅读文章中充斥了大量的学术性、专业性单词，
这里可以取巧。

但如果生词的数量在文章中出现很多，
甚至超过一半，那就是神仙难救了， 看见单词的次数越多越熟，因此要多看多练。

其实阅读文章对单词的要求并不是很高，你只要认识单词即可，
你不用去把单词完整的写下来，听出来、读出来。

文章中的很多生词是可以pass掉的，
阅读题文章的内容里有很多段落是不影响答题的，也就是说，
文章中有大约1/3的部分看不懂是不会影响答题甚至不影响答满分。

只有关键的句子段落才是出题的点，
很多生词可以通过词性、词根词缀、上下文语境去猜。

如果通过阅读[题目/题干]得知需要在原文中寻找否定关系，
遇到不符合否定关系的生词，快速pass掉，不要纠结，
我虽然不知道其含义，但我能确定这个生词肯定不是否定。

我们在做雅思阅读模考或练习时，
遇到生词的第一反应不是先查词典，而是通过上下文语境，
去猜其含义，之后再查词典去确认，
这样会培养出一种猜单词的能力，
这在阅读考试中尤为重要。

答案的出题句很有限，把这些出题句都翻译和解析一下。
再去看答案，对比一下自己的感觉哪里有误解，
然后把误解记下来，防止下次再犯。

遇到自己比较生疏的领域（例如：天文学），
会有一些场景词汇需要掌握，
这些词汇可以从做剑雅真题里摘出来，然后转化成熟词，
我们需要重点关注[题目/题干]与出题句的生词。

文章中的专业词汇有很多不用背，只背比较常见的生词即可，
例如"细胞壁"、"纳米科技"、"光合作用"之类的。

阅读考试比较注重词汇的积累，每天不要先背单词，
而是先做阅读题，在做阅读的时候发现高频生词，
记录下来，之后再去背这些高频生词。

做练习的时候遇到生词先PASS掉，
做完题之后，再去统一查词典，
不要遇到一个查一个，
因为这样就练不出来[测词能力]与[阅读速度]了。

做题的时候如果遇到某个以前认识的单词，
但是其含义是说不通的，
那就需要查字典，这就代表句中使用的是该单词的另一种含义，
之后再强化记忆，提升自己对熟词僻义的认知能力。

语法结构

如果一句话中的所有单词都认识，
但还是看不懂，或者看的很别扭，
甚至做错题，那就是语法层面的问题了。

有一些修饰成分是后置的，我们可以在原句中括出来，
把句子中的逻辑搞清楚，把陌生的语法结构学一下。

句子逻辑

有一些单词、词组可以表达逻辑关系，详见3.1.8.2章节，
原文中的逻辑关系一般也是换不掉的，
但表示关系的单词、词组是可以被同义替换的，
即使被换掉也比较容易被找到。

例如：
在题目&题干中说了"因为…所以…“，
那么原文中也大概率会出现"因为…所以…”。

如果题目&题干中存在"for example"，
后面的内容是一般是从原文中摘出来的。

隐藏的逻辑关系

有的地方虽然没有明显的逻辑关系词，但却存在隐藏的逻辑关系。

例如：

1. 像下面的这种小点点，隐藏的是并列关系。

• xxx
• yyy

1. 表格题或填空题中的优缺点对比，隐藏的是转折关系。

2. 像下面的这种括号，隐藏的是举例关系。
   专有名词 +（xxx、yyy、zzz）

相邻题目&题干

有些题干确实很难找到有价值的定位词，不过没关系，
填空题的顺序是按题号来的，我们可以先做下一道题，之后再反推。

填空题、判断题、选择题，大部分顺序出题，
方便定位，先找到2，再往回推1。

用2个题目&题干做双保险去原文定位，
不一定必须先找1，再找2，
可以先找2，再往前推，卡位，
在所有的顺序题中都好用。

两题卡位：
填空题中，在空格这句可能找不到，
可以继续往前或往后找关键词，缩小查找范围。

顺序题型排列

雅思阅读考试有3篇文章，每篇文章有12-14道题目，2-4个题型。
假如1-7题是填空题，8-13是判断题，
我们可以从题型来判断读原文的顺序，
一般来说，填空题所对应的原文内容靠前（也可能是从头到尾），
判断题所对应的原文内容靠后。

做判断题的后道题时，
要从最后一段往前读，而不是从第一段往后读。
这种策略只能用于：填空题、判断题、选择题。

做定位的时候，要把上述的策略都用上，而不是单独找一个策略。

6.4 雅思阅读备考必读文章

考试前需要准备一些基础文章，丰富自己的场景词汇，
真正考试前，需要把下列20篇文章全部阅读至少1-2遍。

不同分段对应练习书籍：

• 5.5分：《IELTS READING 雅思阅读》
• 6.0分：《Collins Reading for IELTS》
• 6.5分及以上：《剑雅真题4-15》

如果刚开始基础非常差，那么就从5.5分那本书开始看，
那本书是最简单的，然后一路走来看到剑雅真题。
从剑雅真题4开始看，一共有100多篇阅读文章，
说实话，够你练了，在这些阅读文章都搞定之前，
没有必要再去看BBC、CNN之类的课外读物了。

大部分同学阅读分数至少要上6.5或7以上，
因为阅读这科本身就是中国学生拉分的法宝。

雅思阅读基本上是学术性论文，因此需要提前背诵《AWL英语学术词汇表》，只有570个单词，你值得拥有。

动植物（最高频）

《The Albatross》

来自《IELTS READING 雅思阅读》p34

Albatrosses are the largest seabirds in existence, with wingspans which extend to over three metres in width. They represent a small subset of the larger group known as tube-nosed petrels, which have strong, curved sharp beaks which they use for catching fish and squid on the surface of the ocean. While there is some debate about the exact taxonomy of the species, it is agreed that there are somewhere between 21 and 24 species of albatrosses.

Of these species, approximately half breed in New Zealand and about 80 per cent breed or fish within New Zealand’s territorial waters. Six species breed only in New Zealand or on its offshore islands. One of only two mainland nesting sites for these birds in the world, for the northern royal albatross, is on the Otago Peninsula in the South Island of New Zealand; it is a popular tourist destination. Visitors can view the albatross colony from a special building which has been established beside the nesting ground and, while the site is closed during breeding season, at other times it is often possible to see parents and their chicks living and feeding only metres away from human observers.

Albatrosses spend most of their lives at sea, coming to land only to mate and raise their chicks. Male and female birds cooperate in raising their offspring. At the Taiaroa nesting site in New Zealand, eggs are laid in October or November each year. Incubation takes about 11 weeks, and during this time both parents take turns to sit on the eggs for periods of up to three weeks, while the other bird goes off to sea to eat. It takes the chicks up to five or six days to hatch from their tough shell. Once they are hatched, the parents take turns in looking after them for about five or six weeks. After this time, they are left alone except for regular feeding until they get their feathers and are ready to fly, at about eight months of age.

Once the young birds are ready to fly, they are off to sea. Albatrosses spend about 80 per cent of their lives at sea, soaring over the waves and feeding off surface fish and squid. Some albatrosses travel long distances over the pelagic, or deep, ocean, while others find food closer to land over areas of continental shelf. They can fly at great speed, at bursts of up to 140km/hour, and they can cover huge distances in one day, even as much as 1800 km.

The royal albatrosses at Taiaroa Head stay at sea for the first three years of their lives, after which they return to the colony once a year for several years before finding a mate and beginning to breed at around the age of eight. Albatrosses are faithful birds; they mate for life and raise one chick every two years on average. They are also long lived, and birds have been recorded still laying eggs into their 50s and even 60s. However, their relatively low reproductive rate is one of the factors which make them vulnerable to the threat of extinction.

There are also risks to albatross chicks on land. Natural predators such as seagulls can eat eggs and young birds, and in mainland areas there are also threats from dogs, cats and other land animals. On some offshore islands, sea lions have been observed raiding nests for eggs. It is thought that this is a new behaviour.

The main threats to the adult albatross occur at sea, and most of these are man-made. Albatrosses like to travel close to fishing boats, to eat the leftover scraps of fish that are dropped over the side of the boat. Sometimes, however, they also eat the bait and accidentally ingest fish hooks, or get dragged along on fishing lines and drown. The number of albatrosses that any one boat catches is small, but because there are so many fishing boats, this may have a long term impact on population numbers. It is estimated that at least 100,000 albatrosses die in this way each year. As for all sea bird species, there are other threats, such as drift nets, oil spills and rubbish such as plastic in the ocean. While there are international agreements and fishing conventions to try and protect sea birds, albatrosses are among the million or so sea birds that get caught in drift nets and die each year.

The albatross is a magnificent, beautiful and awe-inspiring creature. We need to work together to protect this bird and others from threats posed by human activity.

《动物研究》

来自《Collins Reading for IELTS》p49

A scientist based in Scotland claims to have found the first evidence of a common language shared by different animal species. The calls, which are understood by monkeys and birds, were discovered by Klaus Zuberbuhler, a psychologist at St Andrews University. According to Zuberbuhler, animals and birds can communicate complex ideas not just to their peers but across species.

The findings have been heralded as a significant breakthrough in the quest to discover the origins of human language and proof that the ability to construct a complex form of communication is not unique to man. Zuberbuhler made the discovery after spending months observing the calls of Diana monkeys in the Tai Forest in Ivory Coast, in West Africa. He and his colleagues recorded thousands of monkey calls and spent hundreds of hours listening to the animals’ noises. They noticed that the monkeys adapted their calls to change the meaning to warn one another about different threats or opportunities. For example, the sight of a leopard prompted a ‘krack’ alarm call. However, when they merely repeated calls made by other monkeys they added an ‘oo’.

The researchers found that the calls could be understood by other species of monkey as well as by some birds. ‘What our discovery showed is that the alarm calls were far more complex than we had thought,’ said Zuberbuhler. ‘They were conveying information that was contextual, self-aware and intelligent. We then tried playing these calls back to other monkeys and they responded in ways that showed they knew the meaning. What’s more, the same calls would be recognised by other species, like Campbell’s monkeys. So they are communicating across species. And since then we have found that hornbill birds can understand these calls and they too can understand all the different meanings.’

Among scientists, the idea that animals and birds might be sentient has been around a long time. Chimpanzees are perhaps the most obvious species for comparisons with humans, but their abilities can still surprise, as when researchers at Georgia State University’s language research centre in Atlanta taught some to ‘speak’. They taught the animals to use voice synthesisers and a keyboard to hold conversations with humans. One chimp developed a 3,000-word vocabulary and tests suggested she had the language and cognitive skills of a four-year-old child.

Perhaps the most surprising signs of intelligence have been found in birds - whose tiny heads and small brains were long assumed to be a complete barrier to sentience. All that is changing fast, however, with many species showing powerful memories and reasoning power. A few years ago Irene Pepperberg of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology taught a parrot to recognise and count up to six objects and describe their shapes.

Last year that was topped by Alex Kacelnik, a professor of behavioural ecology at Oxford, who discovered that crows are capable of using multiple tools in complex sequences, the first time such behaviour had been observed in non-humans. In an experiment seven crows successfully reeled in a piece of food placed out of reach using three different lengths of stick. Crucially, they were able to complete the task without any special training, suggesting the birds were capable of a level of abstract reasoning and creativity normally associated only with humans.

Last week it emerged that researchers from Padua University in Italy had found that birds were able to read numbers from left to right, as humans do, and count to four even when the line of numbers was moved from vertical to horizontal. They also showed that birds performed better in tests after a good night’s sleep.

All this is powerful evidence against the idea that people are unique.

来自《Collins Reading for IELTS》p56

It is 50 years since Jane Goodall first dipped her toes in the waters of Lake Tanganyika, in what is now the Gombe National Park in Tanzania. Since then she has been responsible for the most comprehensive study of wild chimpanzees — and become an idol of contemporary women scientists around the world.

In 1962, at a time when no woman in the world held a PhD in primatology, Goodall started a PhD in ethology — the scientific study of animal behavior — at the University of Cambridge. Her resulting thesis, Nest Building Behavior in the Free Ranging Chimpanzee, included the observations that chimps use tools and eat meat. Goodall had redefined our understanding of the origins of Man. Louis Leakey, the famous paleontologist and Goodall’s mentor, said of her work: ‘Now we must redefine “tool”, redefine “Man”, or accept chimpanzees as humans.’ Goodall’s work, and that of two other female pioneers in primatology, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas, was made possible by the example of Leakey. Born to British missionaries in Kenya in 1903, he was the first white baby the Kikuyu people had seen and he spoke their language before he learnt English. He grew up to be an ardent paleontologist, archaeologist and anthropologist at the University of Cambridge and, later, with his wife Mary Douglas Nicol.

Leakey thought that the attributes that made a good field scientist were innate to women. Because women were pre—programmed to be mothers, he thought, they had three crucial traits: they were patient, they were better able to understand an animal’s desires by observing social non—verbal cues and they were less aggressive than men — all beliefs later echoed by Goodall. He also felt that men were more concerned with conquering nature than committing themselves to detailed field studies.

Goodall’s career began in the late 1950s, when she worked as secretary to Leakey at the Coryndon Museum in Nairobi, of which he was the director. In 1960, after the 26—year—old Goodall had assisted on a fossil dig at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, she was sent by her mentor to study chimpanzees in the wild. At the insistence of the British Government she arrived in Gombe with her mother, Vanne, in tow. Spending day after day among the primates, she became fascinated by their behavior and began informal studies. But at the insistence of Leakey, who warned that she would need to formalize her work to gain scientific credibility, she applied for a place at Cambridge.

Since then Goodall and her two sisters in science, Fossey and Galdikas, have paved the way in primatology, a field that is now dominated by women. Gombe is one of the longest running research studies of wild animals anywhere in the world: it has produced 35 PhD theses, more than 30 books and 200 research papers and nine films. Furthermore, according to Julie Des Jardins, the author of The Madame Curie Complex: the Hidden History of Women in Science, 78 per cent of all PhDs awarded in primatology in 2000 were awarded to women. Goodall, Fossey and Galdikas have helped to inspire generations of women to pick up their binoculars and take to the world’s fields and forests.

Goodall comes from a dynasty of strong women and describes her mother and grandmother as ‘those two amazing, strong women, undaunted’. Goodall’s mother did not laugh at her daughter when she said she was going to Africa. ‘My mother used to say: “If you really want something and you work hard and never give up, you find a way”,’ Goodall says. “She was definitely the greatest inspiration that I had.’

If only science’s old guard had had the same attitude. Today’s scientific community was formalised by men. As a consequence of the scientific ‘revolution’ of the 17th and 18th centuries, science moved from the home to laboratories, universities and hospitals, establishments to which women were denied access, irrespective of their aptitude or contribution. In most fields of scientific research, most of the big players continue to be men. According to the UKRC (the body responsible for advancing gender equality in science, engineering and technology). in the 2007—08 academic year, in STEM — science, technology, engineering and maths — subjects, about one third of researchers were women. But in the higher reaches of the academic world, the numbers fall away. About a quarter of lecturers and fewer than one in ten professors are female.

Perhaps this under—representation of women in science has in part been caused by a lack of prominent role models. The women who flourished under the guidance of Leakey, however, provide ample proof that if women are given opportunities, they can surpass all expectation. They can tread their own path through the forest and conduct credible research with far—reaching and long—lasting implications.

Jane Goodall still believes that her mother’s words about working hard to achieve a goal have the power to inspire young women who dream of becoming scientists. ‘I would say to them what Mum said to me,’ she says. Clearly, it works.

《The effects of light on plant and animal species》

来自《剑雅5》p94

Light is important to organisms for two different reasons. Firstly it is used as a cue for the timing of daily and seasonal rhythms in both plants and animals, and secondly it is used to assist growth in plants.

Breeding in most organisms occurs during a part of the year only, and so a reliable cue is needed to trigger breeding behaviour. Day length is an excellent cue, because it provides a perfectly predictable pattern of change within the year. In the temperate zone in spring, temperatures fluctuate greatly from day to day, but day length increases steadily by a predictable amount. The seasonal impact of day length on physiological responses is called photoperiodism, and the amount of experimental evidence for this phenomenon is considerable. For example, some species of birds’ breeding can be induced even in midwinter simply by increasing day length artificially (Wolfson 1964). Other examples of photoperiodism occur in plants. A short-day plant flowers when the day is less than a certain critical length. A long-day plant flowers after a certain critical day length is exceeded. In both cases the critical day length differs from species to species. Plants which flower after a period of vegetative growth, regardless of photoperiod, are known as day-neutral plants.

Breeding seasons in animals such as birds have evolved to occupy the part of the year in which offspring have the greatest chances of survival. Before the breeding season begins, food reserves must be built up to support the energy cost of reproduction, and to provide for young birds both when they are in the nest and after fledging. Thus many temperate-zone birds use the increasing day lengths in spring as a cue to begin the nesting cycle, because this is a point when adequate food resources will be assured.

The adaptive significance of photoperiodism in plants is also clear. Short-day plants that flower in spring in the temperate zone are adapted to maximising seedling growth during the growing season. Long-day plants are adapted for situations that require fertilization by insects, or a long period of seed ripening. Short-day plants that flower in the autumn in the temperate zone are able to build up food reserves over the growing season and over winter as seeds. Day-neutral plants have an evolutionary advantage when the connection between the favourable period for reproduction and day length is much less certain. For example, desert annuals germinate, flower and seed whenever suitable rainfall occurs, regardless of the day length.

The breeding season of some plants can be delayed to extraordinary lengths. Bamboos are perennial grasses that remain in a vegetative state for many years and then suddenly flower, fruit and die (Evans 1976). Every bamboo of the species Chusquea abietifolia on the island of Jamaica flowered, set seed and died during 1884. The next generation of bamboo flowered and died between 1916 and 1918, which suggests a vegetative cycle of about 31 years. The climatic trigger for this flowering cycle is not yet known, but the adaptive significance is clear. The simultaneous production of masses of bamboo seeds (in some cases lying 12 to 15 centimetres deep on the ground) is more than all the seed-eating animals can cope with at the time, so that some seeds escape being eaten and grow up to form the next generation (Evans 1976).

The second reason light is important to organisms is that it is essential for photosynthesis. This is the process by which plants use energy from the sun to convert carbon from soil or water into organic material for growth. The rate of photosynthesis in a plant can be measured by calculating the rate of its uptake of carbon. There is a wide range of photosynthetic responses of plants to variations in light intensity. Some plants reach maximal photosynthesis at one-quarter full sunlight, and others, like sugarcane, never reach a maximum, but continue to increase photosynthesis rate as light intensity rises.

Plants in general can be divided into two groups: shade-tolerant species and shade-intolerant species. This classification is commonly used in forestry and horticulture. Shade-tolerant plants have lower photosynthetic rates and hence have lower growth rates than those of shade-intolerant species. Plant species become adapted to living in a certain kind of habitat, and in the process evolve a series of characteristics that prevent them from occupying other habitats. Grime (1966) suggests that light may be one of the major components direrting these adaptations. For example, eastern hemlock seedlings are shade-tolerant. They can survive in the forest understorey under very low light levels because they have a low photosynthetic rate.

《Let's Go Bats》

来自《剑雅7》p18

Bats have a problem: how to find their way around in the dark. They hunt at night, and cannot use light to help them find prey and avoid obstacles. You might say that this is a problem of their own making, one that they could avoid simply by changing their habits and hunting by day. But the daytime economy is already heavily exploited by other creatures such as birds. Given that there is a living to be made at night, and given that alternative daytime trades are thoroughly occupied, natural selection has favoured bats that make ago of the night-hunting trade. It is probable that the nocturnal trades go way back in the ancestry of all mammals. In the time when the dinosaurs dominated the daytime economy, our mammalian ancestors probably only managed to survive at all because they found ways of scraping a living at night. Only after the mysterious mass extinction of the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago were our ancestors able to emerge into the daylight in any substantial numbers.

Bats have an engineering problem: how to find their way and find their prey in the absence of light. Bats are not the only creatures to face this difficulty today. Obviously the night-flying insects that they prey on must find their way about somehow. Deep-sea fish and whales have little or no light by day or by night. Fish and dolphins that live in extremely muddy water cannot see because, although there is light, it is obstructed and scattered by the dirt in the water. Plenty of other modern animals make their living in conditions where seeing is difficult or impossible.

Given the questions of how to man oeuvre in the dark, what solutions might an engineer consider? The first one that might occur to him is to manufacture light, to use a lantern or a searchlight. Fireflies and some fish (usually with the help of bacteria) have the power to manufacture their own light, but the process seems to consume a large amount of energy. Fireflies use their light for attracting mates. This doesn’t require a prohibitive amount of energy: a male’s tiny pinprick of light can be seen by a female from some distance on a dark night, since her eyes are exposed directly to the light source itself. However; using light to find one’s own way around requires vastly more energy, since the eyes have to detect the tiny fraction of the light that bounces off each part of the scene. The light source must therefore be immensely brighter if it is to be used as a headlight to illuminate the path, than if it is to be used as a signal to others. In any event, whether or not the reason is the energy expense, it seems to be the case that, with the possible exception of some weird deep-sea fish, no animal apart from man uses manufactured light to find its way about.

What else might the engineer think of? Well, blind humans sometimes seem to have an uncanny sense of obstacles in their path. It has been given the name ‘facial vision’, because blind people have reported that it feels a bit like the sense of touch, on the face. One report tells of a totally blind boy who could ride his tricycle at good speed round the block near his home, using facial vision. Experiments showed that, in fact, facial vision is nothing to do with touch or the front of the face, although the sensation maybe referred to the front of the face, like the referred pain in a phantom limb. The sensation of facial vision, it turns out, really goes in through the ears. Blind people, without even being aware of the fact, are actually using echoes of their own footsteps and of other sounds, to sense the presence of obstacles. Before this was discovered, engineers had already built instruments to exploit the principle, for example to measure the depth of the sea under a ship. After this technique had been invented, it was only a matter of time before weapons designers adapted it for the detection of submarines. Both sides in the Second World War relied heavily on these devices, under such code names as Asdic (British) and Sonar (American), as well as Radar (American) or RDF (British), which uses radio echoes rather than sound echoes.

The Sonar and Radar pioneers didn’t know it then, but all the world now knows that bats, or rather natural selection working on bats, had perfected the system tens of millions of years earlier; and their ‘radar’ achieves feats of detection and navigation that would strike an engineer dumb with admiration. It is technically incorrect to talk about bat ‘radar’, since they do not use radio waves. It is sonar. But the underlying mathematical theories of radar and sonar are very similar; and much of our scientific understanding of the details of what bats are doing has come from applying radar theory to them. The American zoologist Donald Griffin, who was largely responsible for the discovery of sonar in bats, coined the term ‘echolocation’ to cover both sonar and radar, whether used by animals or by human instruments.

生理（高频）

《Great Minds》

来自《IELTS READING 雅思阅读》p111

Emotional intelligence. Colour psychology. Personality according to place in the family. Do you hear references to issues such as these and wonder what they are about? Join the thousands who click on Google to satisfy their curiosity! Along with medical issues, psychology is one of the most popular topics researched on the Internet. Many people want to increase their knowledge and understanding of their own thought processes as well as the behaviour of other people. It is also a subject area with varied branches of study, such as cognitive, clinical, developmental and social psychology, just to name a few examples. In July 2002, a ranking of the 99 most important psychologists of the past 100 years was published in the Review of General Psychology. These rankings were developed on the basis of survey responses of 1,725 members of the respected American Psychological Association, as well as evidence the frequency with which other writers referred to them in journals and textbooks. The final position in the top 100 was left open as the reader’s choice. Today, we are going to consider a small group of these influential thinkers. They are all people who have made important contributions to the development of psychology as a significant field of study.

Top of the list was B,F. Skinner, who became a full professor at Harvard in 1948. His theories explained human and animal behaviour in terms of conditioning. He based his theory of ‘operant conditioning’ on experiments with rats, which learned to obtain more food by pressing a lever. In other word, he argued that what happens after we do something will affect how we behave in the future. If we do something and get a reward, we will repeat this action; however, if something bad happens, we will quickly stop. His theories dominated his peers’ thinking, and behaviourism underlies some therapy techniques still in use today. His theories influenced education as well as psychology, as he applied them to overcoming difficulties in learning.

Another very influential thinker was Sigmund Freud, writing in Austria in the early part of the 1900s. His most important insights related to his belief that not all mental illnesses can be traced back to physiological causes. He also investigated how cultural differences affect people’s psychology and behaviour. The work done by Freud has had a lasting influence on the areas of clinical psychology, human development and the study of abnormalities in psychology. He also contributed a great deal to our understanding of personality differences.

An eminent psychologist who expanded our knowledge of how children think and develop was a Swiss named Jean Piaget. his observations, which were truly original when first published in 1936, were described as being so obvious that it took a genius to think of then. His research provided evidence that a child thinks differently to an adult, and he identified stages in the development of children’s brains. His work contributed to various branches of psychology, such as cognitive psychology, developmental psychology and educational reform.

Next, consider Erik Erikson, who was born in Germany. He studied psychoanalysis with Anna Freud, the daughter of Sigmund Freud, and later moved to the United States where he first published in 1950. He became renowned for his focus on psychosocial development, human development through the lifespan from childhood to adulthood to old age. His studies also added to the understanding of the development and shaping of personality over the course of people’s lives.

There are many other significant names in the history of psychology; we can only mention a few more. Ican Pavlov (Russia), who died mid 20th century, is remembered for his contribution to the development of behaviourism through his work on conditioned reflexes and his experiments with dogs. Albert Bandura (Canadian), who began his career at Stanford University in 1953, stressed the importance of observation, imitation and modeling in learning. Carl Rogers (American)', who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987, is renowned for his emphasis on human potential. Finally, there is Carl Jung, another Swiss, who studied under Freud; he focused on the unconscious, and is considered to be the founder of analytical psychology.

Even such a brief survery of some of the eminent thinkers in psychology shows the variety of approaches and perspectives in this field. None of these men has worked alone; as with any scholar, they can be said to have ‘stood on the shoulders of giants’. But these are some of the key names that have emerged in the field of psychology, and whose work has contributed so much to our current understanding of human thought processes, brain development and social organisation.

《肥胖与糖尿病》

来自《Collins Reading for IELTS》p22

The rising problem of obesity has helped to make diabetes treatments the biggest drug bill in primary care, with almost £600 million of medicines prescribed by doctors last year, according to the NHS Information Centre.

Analysts said that young people contracting the condition, which is often associated with obesity, were helping to push up costs as doctors tried to improve their long-term control of the disease and prevent complications.

A total of 32.9 million diabetes drugs, costing £599.3 million, were prescribed in the past financial year. In 2004-05 there were 24.8 million, costing £458 million. More than 90 per cent of the 2.4 million diabetics in England have type 2 diabetes, with the remainder suffering from type 1, the insulin-dependent form of the disease. There are thought to be 500,000 undiagnosed cases of diabetes.

While rates of type 1 have shown slight increases in recent years, type 2 has risen far more rapidly — a trend linked to the increasing number of people who are overweight or obese. Almost one in four adults in England is obese, with predictions that nine in ten will be overweight or obese by 2050. Obesity costs the NHS £4.2 billion annually. This year the Government started a £375 million campaign aimed at preventing people from becoming overweight by encouraging them to eat better and exercise more.

An NHS Information Centre spokeswoman who worked on the report, which was published yesterday, said that diabetes was dominating the primary care drug bill as better monitoring identified more sufferers and widely used medications for other conditions such as statins became cheaper. She said that the data suggested a growing use of injectable insulin in type 2 diabetes care, which was helping to push up costs.

Doctors agreed that more expensive long-acting insulin, which can cost about £30 per item, was being used more often, as well as more expensive pills and other agents.

The report, an update of the centre’s June publication Prescribing for Diabetes in England, shows that the number of insulin items prescribed last year rose by 300,000 to 5.5 million, at a total cost of £288.3 million. It marked an 8 per cent rise on the £267 million spent in the previous year. However, while the number of anti-diabetic drugs, which are mostly in tablet form, also rose, the cost dropped slightly to £168.1 million.

‘Type 2 is increasing. We are seeing it in younger people, and because it is a progressive disease, people are needing an increasing number of interventions as time goes by,’ the spokeswoman said, adding that long-acting insulins such as Glargine were now common. ‘For people who are struggling to control their type 2 diabetes it makes sense, but it is quite a big clinical change from five or ten years ago.’

Other anti-diabetic items, such as use of the subcutaneous injection exenatide, have also increased and cost £14.3 million. Laurence Buckman, chairman of the British Medical Association’s general practice committee, said that he had observed a trend with drugs such as exenatide, which costs £80 per item. He said that younger patients could start on cheaper tablets such as metformin, which costs £3.70 per box, but were needing increasingly sophisticated treatments to keep their condition in check.

‘You are talking about an ever larger number of people getting a large range of drugs to reduce long-term complications. Type 2 is a common chronic illness that is getting commoner. It’s in everyone’s interest to treat people early and with the most effective drugs, and these are the more expensive tablets and long-acting insulins,’ he said.

《What's so funny?》

来自《剑雅5》p43

The joke comes over the headphones: ‘Which side of a dog has the most hair? The left’. No, not funny. Try again. ‘Which side of a dog has the most hair? The outside’. Hah! The punchline is silly yet fitting, tempting a smile, even a laugh. Laughter has always struck people as deeply mysterious, perhaps pointless. The writer Arthur Koestler dubbed it the luxury reflex: ‘unique in that it serves no apparent biological purpose’.

Theories about humour have an ancient pedigree. Plato expressed the idea that humour is simply a delighted feeling of superiority over others. Kant and Freud felt that joke-telling relies on building up a psychic tension which is safely punctured by the ludicrousness of the punchline. But most modern humour theorists have settled on some version of Aristotle’s belief that jokes are based on a reaction to or resolution of incongruity, when the punchline is either a nonsense or, though appearing silly, has a clever second meaning.

Graeme Ritchie, a computational linguist in Edinburgh, studies the linguistic structure of jokes in order to understand not only humour but language understanding and reasoning in machines. He says that while there is no single format for jokes, many revolve around a sudden and surprising conceptual shift. A comedian will present a situation followed by an unexpected interpretation that is also apt.

So even if a punchline sounds silly, the listener can see there is a clever semantic fit and that sudden mental ‘Aha!’ is the buzz that makes us laugh. Viewed from this angle, humour is just a form of creative insight, a sudden leap to a new perspective.

However, there is another type of laughter, the laughter of social appeasement and it is important to understand this too. Play is a crucial part of development in most young mammals. Rats produce ultrasonic squeaks to prevent their scuffles turning nasty. Chimpanzees have a “play-face” - a gaping expression accompanied by a panting ‘ah, ah’ noise. In humans, these signals have mutated into smiles and laughs. Researchers believe social situations, rather than cognitive events such as jokes, trigger these instinctual markers of play or appeasement. People laugh on fairground rides or when tickled to flag a play situation, whether they feel amused or not.

Both social and cognitive types of laughter tap into the same expressive machinery in our brains, the emotion and motor circuits that produce smiles and excited vocalisations. However, if cognitive laughter is the product of more general thought processes, it should result from more expansive brain activity.

Psychologist Vinod Goel investigated humour using the new technique of ‘single event’ functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). An MRI scanner uses magnetic fields and radio waves to track the changes in oxygenated blood that accompany mental activity. Until recently, MRI scanners needed several minutes of activity and so could not be used to track rapid thought processes such as comprehending a joke. New developments now allow half-second ‘snapshots’ of all sorts of reasoning and problem-solving activities.

Although Goel felt being inside a brain scanner was hardly the ideal place for appreciating a joke, he found evidence that understanding a joke involves a widespread mental shift. His scans showed that at the beginning of a joke the listener’s prefrontal cortex lit up, particularly the right prefrontal believed to be critical for problem solving. But there was also activity in the temporal lobes at the side of the head (consistent with attempts to rouse stored knowledge) and in many other brain areas. Then when the punchline arrived, a new area sprang to life - the orbital prefrontal cortex. This patch of brain tucked behind the orbits of the eyes is associated with evaluating information.

Making a rapid emotional assessment of the events of the moment is an extremely demanding job for the brain, animal or human. Energy and arousal levels may need to be retuned in the blink of an eye. These abrupt changes will produce either positive or negative feelings. The orbital cortex, the region that becomes active in Goers experiment, seems the best candidate for the site that feeds such feelings into higher-level thought processes, with its close connections to the brain’s sub-cortical arousal apparatus and centres of metabolic control.

All warm-blooded animals make constant tiny adjustments in arousal in response to external events, but humans, who have developed a much more complicated internal life as a result of language, respond emotionally not only to their surroundings, but to their own thoughts. Whenever a sought-for answer snaps into place, there is a shudder of pleased recognition. Creative discovery being pleasurable, humans have learned to find ways of milking this natural response. The fact that jokes tap into our general evaluative machinery explains why the line between funny and disgusting, or funny and frightening, can be so fine. Whether a joke gives pleasure or pain depends on a person’s outlook.

Humour may be a luxury, but the mechanism behind it is no evolutionary accident. As Peter Derks, a psychologist at William and Mary College in Virginia, says: M like to think of humour as the distorted mirror of the mind. Its creative, perceptual, analytical and lingual. If we can figure out how the mind processes humour, then we’ll have a pretty good handle on how it works in general.’

《The meaning and power of smell》

来自《剑雅8》p50

The sense of smell, or olfaction, is powerful. Odours affect us on a physical, psychological and social level. For the most part, however, we breathe in the aromas which surround us without being consciously aware of their importance to us. It is only when the faculty of smell is impaired for some reason that we begin to realise the essential role the sense of smell plays in our sense of well-being.

A survey conducted by Anthony Synott at Montreal’s Concordia University asked participants to comment on how important smell was to them in their lives. It became apparent that smell can evoke strong emotional responses. A scent associated with a good experience can bring a rush of joy, while a foul odour or one associated with a bad memory may make us grimace with disgust. Respondents to the survey noted that many of their olfactory likes and dislikes were based on emotional associations. Such associations can be powerful enough so that odours that we would generally label unpleasant become agreeable, and those that we would generally consider fragrant become disagreeable for particular individuals. The perception of smell, therefore, consists not only of the sensation of the odours themselves, but of the experiences and emotions associated with them.

Odours are also essential cues in social bonding. One respondent to the survey believed that there is no true emotional bonding without touching and smelling a loved one. In fact, infants recognise the odours of their mothers soon after birth and adults can often identify their children or spouses by scent. In one well-known test, women and men were able to distinguish by smell alone clothing worn by their marriage partners from similar clothing worn by other people. Most of the subjects would probably never have given much thought to odour as a cue for identifying family members before being involved in the test, but as the experiment revealed, even when not consciously considered, smells register.

In spite of its importance to our emotional and sensory lives, smell is probably the most undervalued sense in many cultures. The reason often given for the low regard in which smell is held is that, in comparison with its importance among animals, the human sense of smell is feeble and undeveloped. While it is true that the olfactory powers of humans are nothing like as fine as those possessed by certain animals, they are still remarkably acute. Our noses are able to recognise thousands of smells, and to perceive odours which are present only in extremely small quantities.

Smell, however, is a highly elusive phenomenon. Odours, unlike colours, for instance, cannot be named in many languages because the specific vocabulary simply doesn’t exist. 'It smells like … ', we have to say when describing an odour, struggling to express our olfactory experience. Nor can odours be recorded: there is no effective way to either capture or store them over time. In the realm of olfaction, we must make do with descriptions and recollections. This has implications for olfactory research.

Most of the research on smell undertaken to date has been of a physical scientific nature. Significant advances have been made in the understanding of the biological and chemical nature of olfaction, but many fundamental questions have yet to be answered. Researchers have still to decide whether smell is one sense or two - one responding to odours proper and the other registering odourless chemicals in the air. Other unanswered questions are whether the nose is the only part of the body affected by odours, and how smells can be measured objectively given the nonphysical components. Questions like these mean that interest in the psychology of smell is inevitably set to play an increasingly important role for researchers.

However, smell is not simply a biological and psychological phenomenon. Smell is cultural, hence it is a social and historical phenomenon. Odours are invested with cultural values: smells that are considered to be offensive in some cultures may be perfectly acceptable in others. Therefore, our sense of smell is a means of, and model for, interacting with the world. Different smells can provide us with intimate and emotionally charged experiences and the value that we attach to these experiences is interiorised by the members of society in a deeply personal way. Importantly, our commonly held feelings about smells can help distinguish us from other cultures. The study of the cultural history of smell is, therefore, in a very real sense, an investigation into the essence of human culture.

教育

《Education over the past 100 years》

来自《IELTS READING 雅思阅读》p3

The education of our young people is one of the most important aspects of any community, and ideas about what and how to teach reflect the accepted attitudes and unspoken beliefs of society. These ideas change as local customs and attitudes change, and these changes are reflected in the curriculum, teaching and assessment methods and the expectations of how both students and teachers should behave.

Teaching in the late 1800s and early 1900s was very different from today. Rules for teachers at the time in the USA covered both the teacher’s duties and their conduct out of class as well. Teachers at that time were expected to set a good example to their pupils and to behave in a very virtuous and proper manner. Women teachers should not marry, nor should they ‘keep company with men’. They had to wear long dresses and no bright colours and they were not permitted to dye their hair. They were not allowed to loiter downtown in an ice cream store, and women were not allowed to go out in the evenings unless to a school function, although men were allowed one evening a week to take their girlfriends out if they went to church regularly. No teachers were allowed to drink alcohol. They were allowed to read only good books such as the Bible, and they were given a pay increase of 25c a week after five years of work for the local school.

As well as this long list of ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’, teachers had certain duties to perform each day. In country schools, teachers were required to keep the coal bucket full for the classroom fire, and to bring a bucket of water each day for the children to drink. They had to make the pens for their students to write with and to sweep the floor and keep the classroom tidy. However, despite this list of duties, little was stipulated about the content of the teaching, nor about assessment methods.

Teachers would have been expected to teach the three ‘r’s—reading, writing and arithmetic, and to teach the children about Christianity and read from the Bible every day. Education in those days was much simpler than it is today and covered basic literacy skills and religious education. They would almost certainly have used corporal punishment such as a stick or the strap on naughty or unruly children, and the children would have sat together in pairs in long rows in the classroom. They would have been expected to sit quietly and to do their work, copying long rows of letters or doing basic maths sums. Farming children in country areas would have had only a few years of schooling and would probably have left school at 12 or 14 years of age to join their parents in farm work.

Compare this with a country school in the USA today! If you visited today, you would see the children sitting in groups round large tables, or even on the floor. They would be working together on a range of different activities, and there would almost certainly be one or more computers in the classroom. Children nowadays are allowed and even expected to talk quietly to each other while they work, and they are also expected to ask their teachers questions and to actively engage in finding out information for themselves, instead of just listening to the teacher.

There are no rules of conduct for teachers out of the classroom, and they are not expected to perform caretaking duties such as cleaning the classrooms or making pens, but nevertheless their jobs are much harder than they were in the 1900s. Teachers today are expected to work hard on planning their lessons, to teach creatively and to stimulate children’s minds, and there are strict protocols about assessment across the whole of the USA. Corporal punishment is illegal, and any teacher who hit a child would be dismissed instantly. Another big difference is that most state schools in western countries are secular, so religious teaching is not part of the curriculum.

These changes in educational methods and ideas reflect changes in our society in general. Children in western countries nowadays come from all parts of the globe and they bring different cultures, religions and beliefs to the classroom. It is no longer considered acceptable or appropriate for state schools to teach about religious beliefs. Ideas about the value and purpose of education have also changed and with the increasing sophistication of workplaces and life skills needed for a successful career, the curriculum has also expanded to try to prepare children for the challenges of a diverse working community. It will be interesting to see how these changes continue into the future as our society and culture grows and develops.

《英国高等教育》

来自《Collins Reading for IELTS》p67

The recession has brought about an abrupt change of mood on university campuses up and down the country. A five-year boom in the graduate job market has been stopped in its tracks and salary expectations, which hit record levels last year, are heading southwards. No wonder only one in five of 16,000 final year students questioned for a recent survey by High Flyers Research said that they expected to get a job for which they are qualified by the time they graduate this summer.

Despite the gloom, the financial case for going to university remains compelling. International surveys continue to show the salary premium enjoyed by UK graduates over those who choose not to go to university as among the highest in the world. In the post-recession world, a university degree is likely to be even more of an advantage to job-seekers than before.

But choosing the right degree course and the right university will also be more important than ever. This does not necessarily mean that students should go only for job-related degrees, but it will put a premium on marketable skills. And it may mean that more universities can be expected to follow the lead of Liverpool John Moores University, which puts all of its undergraduates through a World of Work (WoW) course designed to give them the problem-solving and communications skills they will need at work.

The Times Good University Guide 2010, published by HarperCollins, offers a wealth of essential information to help candidates to navigate the maze of university choice, as well as advice on student life. It is the most authoritative guide to universities in the UK and is an essential and comprehensive tool for students and parents.

The online version of the Guide allows students and parents to create their own individual university rankings and to compare the strengths and weaknesses of different institutions by sorting universities according to one of eight criteria - from student satisfaction to research quality and degree results. The table sees Oxford maintain its leadership, despite coming below Cambridge in most of the
subject tables. Cambridge has the better record on student satisfaction, research, entry standards, completion and graduate destinations, but Oxford’s lead in staffing levels, degree classifications and particularly in spending on libraries and other student facilities makes the difference.

The biggest climbers at the top of the table include Liverpool (up from 43 to 28), Leeds (up from 31 to 27), Sheffield (up from 22 to 18), Edinburgh (up from 18 to 14] and Exeter (up from 13 to 9). St Andrews remains the top university in Scotland, while Cardiff is well clear in Wales.

The key information is contained in the 62 subject tables, which now cover every area of higher education. The number of institutions in this year’s tables has increased by only one because a fourth university - the West of Scotland - has instructed the Higher Education Statistics Agency not to release its data. It joins Swansea Metropolitan, London Metropolitan and Liverpool Hope universities in blocking the release of data to avoid appearing in league tables.

《These Misconceptions of Tropical Rainforests》

来自《剑雅4》p18

Adults and children are frequently confronted with statements about the alarming rate of loss of tropical rainforests. For example, one graphic illustration to which children might readily relate is the estimate that rainforests are being destroyed at a rate equivalent to one thousand football fields every forty minutes – about the duration of a normal classroom period. In the face of the frequent and often vivid media coverage, it is likely that children will have formed ideas about rainforests – what and where they are, why they are important, what endangers them – independent of any formal tuition. It is also possible that some of these ideas will be mistaken.

Many studies have shown that children harbor misconceptions about ‘pure’,curriculum science. These misconceptions do not remain isolated but become incorporated into a multifaceted, but organized, conceptual framework, making it and the component ideas, some of which are erroneous, more robust but also accessible to modification. These ideas may be developed by children absorbing ideas through the popular media. Sometimes this information may be erroneous. It seems schools may not be providing an opportunity for children to re-express their ideas and so have them tested and refined by teachers and their peers.

Despite the extensive coverage in the popular media of the destruction of rainforests, little formal information is available about children’s ideas in this area,the aim of the present study is to start to provide such information, to help teachers design their educational strategies to build upon correct ideas and to displace misconceptions and to plan programs in environmental studies in their schools.

The study surveys children’s scientific knowledge and attitudes to rainforests. Secondary school children were asked to complete a questionnaire containing five open-form questions. The most frequent responses to the first question were descriptions which are self-evident from the term ‘rainforest’. Some children described them as damp, wet or hot. The second question concerned the geographical location of rainforests. The commonest responses were continents or countries: Africa(given by 43% of children), South America (30%), Brazil (25%). Some children also gave more general locations, such as being near the Equator.

Responses to question three concerned the importance of rainforests. The dominant idea, raised by 64% of the pupils, was that rainforests provide animals with habitats. Fewer students responded that rainforests provide plant habitats, and even fewer mentioned the indigenous populations of rainforests. More girls (70%) than boys (60%) raised the idea of rainforest as animal habitats.

Similarly, but at a lower level, more girls (13%) than boys (5%) said that rainforests provided human habitats. These observations are generally consistent with our previous studied of pupils’ views about the use and conservation of rainforests, in which girls were shown to be more sympathetic to animals and expressed views which seem to place an intrinsic value on non-human animal life.

The fourth question concerned the causes of the destruction of rainforests. Perhaps encouragingly, more than half of the pupil (59%) identified that it is human activities which are destroying rainforests, some personalizing the responsibility by the use of terms such as ‘we are’. About 18% of the pupils referred specifically to logging activity.

One misconception, expressed by some 10% of the pupils, was that acid rain is responsible for rainforest destruction; a similar proportion said that pollution is destroying rainforests. Here, children are confusing rainforest destruction with damage to the forests of Western Europe by these factors. While two fifths of the students provided the information that the rainforests provide oxygen, in some cases this response also embraced the misconception that rainforest destruction would reduce atmospheric oxygen, making the atmosphere incompatible with human life on Earth.

In answer to the final question about the importance of rainforest conservation, the majority of children simply said that we need rainforests to survive. Only a few of the pupils (6%) mentioned that rainforest destruction may contribute to global warming. This is surprising considering the high level of media coverage on this issue. Some children expressed the idea that the conservation of rainforests is not important.

The results of this study suggest that certain ideas predominate in the thinking of children about rainforests. Pupils’ responses indicate some misconceptions in basic scientific knowledge of rainforests’ ecosystems such as their ideas about rainforests as habitats for animals, plants and humans and the relationship between climatic change and destruction of rainforests.

Pupils did not volunteer ideas that suggested that they appreciated the complexity of causes of rainforest destruction. In other words, they gave no indication of an appreciation of either the rage of ways in which rainforests are important or the complex social, economic and political factors which drive the activities which are destroying the rainforests. One encouragement is that the results of similar studies about other environmental issues suggest that older children seem to acquire the ability to appreciate value and evaluate conflicting views. Environmental education offers an arena in which these sills can be developed, which is essential fore these children as future decision –makers.

《LAND OF THE RISING SUM》

来自《剑雅8》p89

Japan has a significantly better record in terms of average mathematical attainment than England and Wales. Large sample international comparisons of pupils’ attainments since the 1960s have established that not only did Japanese pupils at age 13 have better scores of average attainment, but there was also a larger proportion of ‘low’ attainers in England, where, incidentally, the variation in attainment scores was much greater. The percentage of Gross National Product spent on education is reasonably similar in the two countries, so how is this higher and more consistent attainment in maths achieved?

Lower secondary schools in Japan cover three school years, from the seventh grade (age 13) to the ninth grade (age 15). Virtually all pupils at this stage attend state schools: only 3 per cent are in the private sector. Schools are usually modern in design, set well back from the road and spacious inside. Classrooms are large and pupils sit at single desks in rows. Lessons last for a standardised 50 minutes and are always followed by a 10-minute break, which gives the pupils a chance to let off steam. Teachers begin with a formal address and mutual bowing, and then concentrate on whole-class teaching.

Classes are large - usually about 40 - and are unstreamed. Pupils stay in the same class for all lessons throughout the school and develop considerable class identity and loyalty. Pupils attend the school in their own neighbourhood, which in theory removes ranking by school. In practice in Tokyo, because of the relative concentration of schools, there is some competition to get into the ‘better’ school in a particular area.

Traditional ways of teaching form the basis of the lesson and the remarkably quiet classes take their own notes of the points made and the examples demonstrated. Everyone has their own copy of the textbook supplied by the central education authority, Monbusho, as part of the concept of free compulsory education up to the age of 15. These textbooks are, on the whole, small, presumably inexpensive to produce, but well set out and logically developed. (One teacher was particularly keen to introduce colour and pictures into maths textbooks: he felt this would make them more accessible to pupils brought up in a cartoon culture. ) Besides approving textbooks, Monbusho also decides the highly centralised national curriculum and how it is to be delivered.

Lessons all follow the same pattern. At the beginning, the pupils put solutions to the homework on the board, then the teachers comment, correct or elaborate as necessary. Pupils mark their own homework: this is an important principle in Japanese schooling as it enables pupils to see where and why they made a mistake, so that these can be avoided in future. No one minds mistakes or ignorance as long as you are prepared to learn from them. After the homework has been discussed, the teacher explains the topic of the lesson, slowly and with a lot of repetition and elaboration. Examples are demonstrated on the board; questions from the textbook are worked through first with the class, and then the class is set questions from the textbook to do individually. Only rarely are supplementary worksheets distributed in a maths class. The impression is that the logical nature of the textbooks and their comprehensive coverage of different types of examples, combined with the relative homogeneity of the class, renders work sheets unnecessary. At this point, the teacher would circulate and make sure that all the pupils were coping well.

It is remarkable that large, mixed-ability classes could be kept together for maths throughout all their compulsory schooling from 6 to 15. Teachers say that they give individual help at the end of a lesson or after school, setting extra work if necessary. In observed lessons, any strugglers would be assisted by the teacher or quietly seek help from their neighbour. Carefully fostered class identity makes pupils keen to help each other - anyway, it is in their interests since the class progresses together.

This scarcely seems adequate help to enable slow learners to keep up. However, the Japanese attitude towards education runs along the lines of ‘if you work hard enough, you can do almost anything’. Parents are kept closely informed of their children’s progress and will play a part in helping their children to keep up with class, sending them to ‘Juku’ (private evening tuition) if extra help is needed and encouraging them to work harder. It seems to work, at least for 95 per cent of the school population.

So what are the major contributing factors in the success of maths teaching? Clearly, attitudes are important. Education is valued greatly in Japanese culture; maths is recognised as an important compulsory subject throughout schooling; and the emphasis is on hard work coupled with a focus on accuracy.

Other relevant points relate to the supportive attitude of a class towards slower pupils, the lack of competition within a class, and the positive emphasis on learning for oneself and improving one’s own standard. And the view of repetitively boring lessons and learning the facts by heart, which is sometimes quoted in relation to Japanese classes, may be unfair and unjustified. No poor maths lessons were observed. They were mainly good and one or two were inspirational.

科技

《Techno-wizardry in the Home》

来自《IELTS READING 雅思阅读》p93

Techno-wizardry sounds like something for the future, but actually homes with advanced technological ability are already in existence. If you want a home that is not only convenient but far safer than a conventional one, then a techno-savvy home is for you. A techno-savvy house is basically a network of appliances, light switches and various assorted items which inter-communicate, so that the whole house operates a lot more efficiently and smoothly.

Cutting edge technology is being integrated into homes everywhere. In simple terms, a techno-savvy house has a ‘brain’. Techno-savvy systems rely on a control panel, switches or a touch screen to access the desired function. The connections are made using cabling within walls, ceilings and under floors of the house, or an internal wireless system or a combination of both of these.

In order for the system to meet the needs of the home’s occupants, it should not be too complex; it must be both convenient and time saving. This means the architect, developer and home owner have to co-plan very carefully in order to achieve a truly integrated, easy-to-use system. An integrated house system operates and manages all the electrical equipment in a home to increase comfort, flexibility, communication, safety and security, and also to reduce energy consumption.

A techno-savvy home can have a tremendous impact on the occupants’ lives. Many chores or jobs can be done more simply, as it allows all sorts of electronic gadgets and appliances to perform a variety of tasks. For example, an alarm clock can be programmed to send a message to the coffee maker to begin brewing the morning coffee. In another example, the refrigerator can suggest what could be eaten as a snack based on what it has inside. It then communicates with the microwave or oven to suggest a cooking time. It seems hard to believe that these types of refrigerators already exist. They can talk to the Internet and download recipes; they can ever order new groceries as required, because they are able to scan and log bar codes of food items taken from inside.

Although there are many smart appliances available on the market and many more becoming available, probably one of the first aspects that is fully automated in a home is the entertainment system. While it is not necessarily making the lives of the occupants easier or making them any safer, it is fun being able to change channels by speaking to the TV, and to use the Internet in conjunction with the television.

A techno-savvy house can save energy by lowering the temperature setting and switching off appliances and lights that are not required. It can also manage heaters, the air conditioning and fans in such a way as to save energy. For example, if the outside temperature is only slightly more than the setting on the thermostat then a smart home will use fans instead of the air conditioner, which uses a lot more energy. Also, if the television is not in use, then it will completely turn off the energy outlet, which also saves a small amount of energy. Over an extended period of time these actions can mean a considerable saving.

Being able to monitor security from a central system makes the home a safe haven for all occupants. With a single push of a button an alarm system puts the entire home into security mode. All the windows and doors close and lock, and the security systems are activated. Absent owners can check their security system via the Internet, due to hidden surveillance cameras around the house which send information. A further useful feature is that lights can be programmed to go on and off at random times when nobody is at home to make it look like somebody is there. This feature acts as a major deterrent to criminals.

In an emergency, people can panic and not react in the best possible manner. However, a techno-savvy house can help here. For example at the time of a fire, the fire alarm would activate and the techno-savvy house’s ‘brain’ immediately calls the fire brigade. It would also turn on the lights that lead to an exit and unlock all the windows and doors to make the escape route easier.

However, any techno-savvy home has a major vulnerability; it relies on a power supply. If this were to be interrupted, chaos would prevail. Being connected to a battery system is essential, so there is a back up energy supply should there be a power cut. It is essential, that safe entry and exit points to the home are always available. Provided the system is safe, it will save power and increase security and pleasure for house occupants of the future.

《地热工程》

来自《Collins Reading for IELTS》p41

In the coming months, a 170-foot-high drilling rig will transform wasteground near Redruth into a new landmark. The drill belongs to a group that is planning to develop Britain’s first commercial- scale geothermal plant on the site. Geothermal Engineering has chosen this part of Cornwall - once renowned for its tin and copper - because of its geology. It sits on a bed of granite whose temperature can reach 200°C. Water will be pumped deep underground and will return to the surface as steam, which will power turbines to generate electricity.

'Cornwall is a real hotspot. It is like someone has put a power station below ground and you are simply tapping into it,-said Ryan Law, founder and managing director of Geothermal Engineering.

Law, a former consultant to the geothermal industry, plans to have three wells at the plant, which together he estimates will produce 10MW of electricity, enough to power 20,000 homes, and 55MW of thermal energy, capable of heating ten hospitals 24 hours a day. The challenge is that the rock is 4.5 kilometres below the earth’s surface, meaning that months of precise drilling will be required before any energy is produced. The company has a head start. In 1976, the government-funded Hot Dry Rock Research Project began deep drilling to study the area’s geology. Law plans to use the detailed maps the team produced over fifteen years to direct his efforts.

Geothermal energy is not new. The world’s first conventional geothermal power station, in southern Tuscany, has been producing electricity for almost 100 years. In Iceland, a quarter of the country’s electricity comes from geothermal power. Investment in geothermal projects in Australia is expected to reach $2 billion (£1.3 billion) by 2014. The industry is also well established in America and Germany. In Britain, schemes are under way in Southampton and Newcastle.

Conventional geothermal power relies on naturally occurring steam pockets near the earth’s surface so it tends to be confined to volcanically active regions or areas close to fault lines. Law claims the process his company uses removes this limitation, making the industry viable almost anywhere in the world.

However, despite billions of pounds in public and private investment and a raft of big projects, the industry has so far failed to demonstrate it can fulfil its promise. Critics argue it is costly, reliant on high-risk, time-consuming drilling and struggles to produce large amounts of energy capable of making a real contribution to the world’s needs. Law refuses to let such doubts dampen his ambitions. ‘What other renewable energy gives you 24-hour supply? The potential is enormous
and we are planning another 25 plants.’

《The Return of Artificial Intelligence》

来自《剑雅5》p71

After years in the wilderness, the term 'artificial intelligence’ (AI) seems poised to make a comeback. AI was big in the 1980s but vanished in the 1990s. It re-entered public consciousness with the release of AI, a movie about a robot boy. This has ignited public debate about AI, but the term is also being used once more within the computer industry. Researchers, executives and marketing people are now using the expression without irony or inverted commas. And it is not always hype. The term is being applied, with some justification, to products that depend on technology that was originally developed by AI researchers. Admittedly, the rehabilitation of the term has a long way to go, and some firms still prefer to avoid using it. But the fact that others are starting to use it again suggests that AI has moved on from being seen as an over-ambitious and under-achieving field of research.

The field was launched, and the term ‘artificial intelligence’ coined, at a conference in 1956 by a group of researchers that included Marvin Minsky, John McCarthy, Herbert Simon and Alan Newell, all of whom went on to become leading figures in the field. The expression provided an attractive but informative name for a research programme that encompassed such previously disparate fields as operations research, cybernetics, logic and computer science. The goal they shared was an attempt to capture or mimic human abilities using machines. That said, different groups of researchers attacked different problems, from speech recognition to chess playing, in different ways; AI unified the field in name only. But it was a term that captured the public imagination.

Most researchers agree that AI peaked around 1985. A public reared on science-fiction movies and excited by the growing power of computers had high expectations. For years, AI researchers had implied that a breakthrough was just around the corner. Marvin Minsky said in 1967 that within a generation the problem of creating ‘artificial intelligence, would be substantially solved. Prototypes of medical-diagnosis programs and speech recognition software appeared to be making progress. It proved to be a false dawn. Thinking computers and household robots failed to materialise, and a backlash ensued. There was undue optimism in the early 1980s’, says David Leake, a researcher at Indiana University. Then when people realised these were hard problems, there was retrenchment. By the late 1980s, the term AI was being avoided by many researchers, who opted instead to align themselves with specific sub-disciplines such as neural networks, agent technology, case-based reasoning, and so on’.

Ironically, in some ways AI was a victim of its own success. Whenever an apparently mundane problem was solved, such as building a system that could land an aircraft unattended, the problem was deemed not to have been AI in the first place. ‘If it works, it can’t be AI’, as Dr Leake characterises it. The effect of repeatedly moving the goal-posts in this way was that AI came to refer to ‘blue-sky’ research that was still years away from commercialisation. Researchers joked that AI stood for ‘almost implemented’. Meanwhile, the technologies that made it onto the market, such as speech recognition, language translation and decision-support software, were no longer regarded as AI. Yet all three once fell well within the umbrella of AI research.

But the tide may now be turning, according to Dr Leake. HNC Software of San Diego, backed by a government agency, reckon that their new approach to artificial intelligence is the most powerful and promising approach ever discovered. HNC claim that their system, based on a duster of 30 processors, could be used to spot camouflaged vehicles on a battlefield or extract a voice signal from a noisy background - tasks humans can do well, but computers cannot. ‘Whether or not their technology lives up to the claims made for it, the fact that HNC are emphasising the use of AI is itself an interesting development’, says Dr Leake.

Another factor that may boost the prospects for AI in the near future is that investors are now looking for firms using clever technology, rather than just a clever business model, to differentiate themselves. In particular, the problem of information overload, exacerbated by the growth of e-mail and the explosion in the number of web pages, means there are plenty of opportunities for new technologies to help filter and categorise information - classic AI problems. That may mean that more artificial intelligence companies will start to emerge to meet this challenge.

The 1969 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, featured an intelligent computer called HAL 9000. As well as understanding and speaking English, HAL could play chess and even learned to lip-read. HAL thus encapsulated the optimism of the 1960s that intelligent computers would be widespread by 2001. But 2001 has been and gone, and there is still no sign of a HAL-like computer. Individual systems can play chess or transcribe speech, but a general theory of machine intelligence still remains elusive. It may be, however, that the comparison with HAL no longer seems quite so important, and AI can now be judged by what it can do, rather than by how well it matches up to a 30-year-old science-fiction film. ‘People are beginning to realise that there are impressive things that these systems can do’, says Dr Leake hopefully.

《Strking Back at Lightning With Lasers》

来自《剑雅8》p65

Seldom is the weather more dramatic than when thunderstorms strike. Their electrical fury inflicts death or serious injury on around 500 people each year in the United States alone. As the clouds roll in, a leisurely round of golf can become a terrifying dice with death - out in the open, a lone golfer may be a lightning bolt’s most inviting target. And there is damage to property too. Lightning damage costs American power companies more than $100 million a year.

But researchers in the United States and Japan are planning to hit back. Already in laboratory trials they have tested strategies for neutralising the power of thunderstorms, and this winter they will brave real storms, equipped with an armoury of lasers that they will be pointing towards the heavens to discharge thunderclouds before lightning can strike.

The idea of forcing storm clouds to discharge their lightning on command is not new. In the early 1960s, researchers tried firing rockets trailing wires into thunderclouds to set up an easy discharge path for the huge electric charges that these clouds generate. The technique survives to this day at a test site in Florida run by the University of Florida, with support from the Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI), based in California. EPRI, which is funded by power companies, is looking at ways to protect the United States’ power grid from lightning strikes. ‘We can cause the lightning to strike where we want it to using rockets’, says Ralph Bernstein, manager of lightning projects at EPRI. The rocket site is providing precise measurements of lightning voltages and allowing engineers to check how electrical equipment bears up.

Bad behaviour
But while rockets are fine for research, they cannot provide the protection from lightning strikes that everyone is looking for. The rockets cost around $1, 200 each, can only be fired at a limited frequency and their failure rate is about 40 per cent. And even when they do trigger lightning, things still do not always go according to plan. ‘Lightning is not perfectly well behaved’, says Bernstein. ‘Occasionally, it will take a branch and go someplace it wasn’t supposed to go’.

And anyway, who would want to fire streams of rockets in a populated area? ‘What goes up must come down’, points out Jean-Claude Diels of the University of New Mexico. Diels is leading a project, which is backed by EPRI, to try to use lasers to discharge lightning safely - and safety is a basic requirement since no one wants to put themselves or their expensive equipment at risk. With around $500, 000 invested so far, a promising system is just emerging from the laboratory.

The idea began some 20 years ago, when high-powered lasers were revealing their ability to extract electrons out of atoms and create ions. If a laser could generate a line of ionisation in the air all the way up to a storm cloud, this conducting path could be used to guide lightning to Earth, before the electric field becomes strong enough to break down the air in an uncontrollable surge. To stop the laser itself being struck, it would not be pointed straight at the clouds. Instead it would be directed at a mirror, and from there into the sky. The mirror would be protected by placing lightning conductors close by. Ideally, the cloud-zapper (gun) would be cheap enough to be installed around all key power installations, and portable enough to be taken to international sporting events to beam up at brewing storm clouds.

A stumbling block
However, there is still a big stumbling block. The laser is no nifty portable: it’s a monster that takes up a whole room. Diels is trying to cut down the size and says that a laser around the size of a small table is in the offing. He plans to test this more manageable system on live thunderclouds next summer.

Bernstein says that Diels’s system is attracting lots of interest from the power companies. But they have not yet come up with the $5 million that EPRI says will be needed to develop a commercial system, by making the lasers yet smaller and cheaper. ‘I cannot say I have money yet, but I’m working on it’, says Bernstein. He reckons that the forthcoming field tests will be the turning point - and he’s hoping for good news. Bernstein predicts ‘an avalanche of interest and support’ if all goes well. He expects to see cloud-zappers eventually costing $50, 000 to $100, 000 each.

Other scientists could also benefit. With a lightning ‘switch’ at their fingertips, materials scientists could find out what happens when mighty currents meet matter. Diels also hopes to see the birth of ‘interactive meteorology’ - not just forecasting the weather but controlling it. 'If we could discharge clouds, we might affect the weather, ’ he says.

And perhaps, says Diels, we’ll be able to confront some other meteorological menaces. ‘We think we could prevent hail by inducing lightning’, he says. Thunder, the shock wave that comes from a lightning flash, is thought to be the trigger for the torrential rain that is typical of storms. A laser thunder factory could shake the moisture out of clouds, perhaps preventing the formation of the giant hailstones that threaten crops. With luck, as the storm clouds gather this winter, laser-toting researchers could, for the first time, strike back.

环境/地理

《Terror in the Mountains》

来自《IELTS READING 雅思阅读》p70

What is incredibly beautiful, yet absolutely terrifying and deadly at the same time? For anyone above the snowline in the mountains, there is little doubt about the answer. Avalanche—the word strikes fear into the heart of any avid skier or climber. For those unfortunate enough to be caught up in one, there is virtually no warning or time to get out of danger and even less chance of being found. The ‘destroyer’ of the mountains, avalanches can uproot trees, crush whole buildings and bury people metres deep under solidified snow. Around the world, as more and more people head to the mountains in winter, there are hundreds of avalanche fatalities every year.

A snow avalanche is a sudden and extremely fast-moving ‘river’ of snow which races down a mountainside (there can also be avalanches of rocks, boulders, mud or sand). There are four main kinds. Loose snow avalanches, or sluffs, form on very steep slopes. These usually have a ‘teardrop’ shape, starting from a point and widening as they collect more snow on the way down. Slab avalanches, which are responsible for about 90% of avalanche-related deaths, occur when a stiff layer of snow fractures or breaks off and slides downhill at incredible speed. This layer may be hundreds of metres wide and several metres thick. As it tends to compact and set like concrete once it stops, it is extremely dangerous for anyone buried in the flow. The third type is an isothermal avalanche, which results from heavy rain leading to the snowpack becoming saturated with water. In the fourth type, air mixes in with loose snow as the avalanche slides, creating a powder cloud. These powder snow avalanches can be the largest of all, moving at over 300 kmh, with 10,000,000 or more tonnes of snow. They can flow along a valley floor and even a short distance uphill on the other side.

Three factors are necessary for an avalanche to form. The first relates to the condition of the snowpack. Temperature, humidity and sudden changes in weather conditions all affect the shape and condition of snow crystals in the snowpack which, in turn, influences the stability of the snowpack. In some cases, weather causes an improvement in avalanche conditions. For example, low temperature variation in the snowpack and consistent below-freezing temperatures enable the crystals to compress tightly. On the other hand, if the snow surface melts and refreezes, this can create an icy or unstable layer.

The second vital factor is the degree of slope of the mountain. If this is below 25 degrees, there is little danger of an avalanche. Slopes that are steeper than 60 degrees are also unlikely to set off a major avalanche as they ‘sluff’ the snow constantly, in a cascade of loose powdery snow which causes minimal danger or damage. This means that slabs of ice or weaknesses in the snowpack have little chance to develop. Thus the danger zone covers the 25 to 60 degree range of slopes, with most avalanches being slab avalanches that begin on slopes of 35 to 45 degrees.

Finally, there is the movement or event that triggers the avalanche. In the case of slab avalanches, this can be a natural trigger, such as a sudden weather change, a falling tree or a collapsing ice or snow overhang. However, in most fatal avalanches, it is people who create the trigger by moving through an avalanche-prone area. Snowmobiles are especially dangerous. On the other hand, contrary to common belief, shouting is not a big enough vibration to set off a landslide.

Anyone moving through snow in the mountains should understand the danger signals and follow some basic rules. Taking an approved avalanche safety course is an essential first step. Skiers and climbers should be up-to-date with local warning systems and check any avalanche forecast hotline or website. They should also be aware of their surroundings, avoid areas that have signs of previous avalanche activity and monitor the weather conditions carefully. Basic equipment should include a rescue beacon with fresh batteries, an inexpensive inclinometer to measure the angle of slopes and an avalanche probe.

Beautiful but deadly, avalanches kill increasingly numbers of winter sports enthusiasts every year as more and more people enjoy the mountains in winter. As it is easier to avoid an avalanche than to survive one, it is vital for snow enthusiasts to recognise the three basic factors which contribute to avalanches. An awareness of the condition of the snowpack, the angle of the slope and the ways in which an avalanche may be triggered can be the difference between life and death in the mountains.

《火山》

来自《Collins Reading for IELTS》p58

Holidaymakers faced disruption yesterday because of new plumes of ash from an Icelandic volcano, which forced the closure of airports in Spain and Portugal.

The cancellations - which mainly affected Ryanair and easyJet services operating out of Stansted and Gatwick - came as scientists produced the first internal map
of Eyjafjallajokull’s network of magma chambers, which extend 12 miles below the ground.

A new ash cloud has risen 30,000ft into the air and drifted south after a pulse of meltwater and ice poured into the Eyjafjallajokull volcano last week. The water caused huge explosions as it hit the hot lava, generating more ash plumes. European aviation regulators have imposed a maximum safe limit of 0.002 grammes of ash per cubic metre of air, meaning that if levels rise above this, flights cannot enter that airspace.

The map shows how the volcano’s tubes plunge deep down through the earth’s crust to the start of the mantle, which is made of semi-molten rock. It reveals the huge scale of the eruption and the potential for a far greater one. This is because the magma chamber of Eyjafjallajokull is dwarfed by the much larger one under Katla, a volcano 15 miles to the east. Two of Katla’s eruptions, in 1612 and 1821, are thought to have been triggered by those of its neighbour. While Katla is not part of the same underground network of magma channels and chambers, it is close enough to be affected by changes in pressure in Eyjafjallajokull’s system. There is also a chance that a horizontal sheet of magma, known as a dike, beneath Eyjafjallajokull could stretch out far enough to penetrate a magma chamber beneath Katla. Hitting the roots of its neighbour would almost certainly trigger an eruption. The three eruptions of Eyjafjallajokull on record have each been associated with a subsequent eruption
of Katla. There have, so far, been no signs of turbulence beneath Katla’s surface but, having last erupted in 1918, vulcanologists say that a new blast is overdue.

The workings of the volcanoes have been provisionally drawn up by Professor Erik Sturkell, a geologist at the Nordic Volcanological Centre, University of Iceland. Sturkell suggests the Eyjafjallajokull eruption has been building since 1994, when new lava began rising, forming two reservoirs three miles beneath the volcano. A surge of earthquakes under Katla mean it has experienced a similar influx of lava, Sturkell said. ‘This suggests the volcano is close to eruption.’

《Disappearing Delta》

来自《剑雅5》p67

The fertile land of the Nile delta is being eroded along Egypt’s Mediterranean coast at an astounding rate，in some parts estimated at 100 metres per year. In the past, land scoured away from the coastline by the currents of the Mediterranean Sea used to be replaced by sediment brought down to the delta by the River Nile, but this is no longer happening.

Up to now, people have blamed this loss of delta land on the two large dams at Aswan in the south of Egypt, which hold back virtually all of the sediment that used to flow down the river. Before the dams were built, the Nile flowed freely carrying huge quantities of sediment north from Africa’s interior to be deposited on the Nile delta. This continued for 7,000 years, eventually covering a region of over 22,000 square kilometres with layers of fertile silt. Annual flooding brought in new, nutrient-rich soil to the delta region, replacing what had been washed away by the sea, and dispensing with the need for fertilizers in Egypt’s richest food-growing area. But when the Aswan dams were constructed in the 20th century to provide electricity and irrigation, and to protect the huge population centre of Cairo and its surrounding areas from annual flooding and drought, most of the sediment with its naturaI fertilizer accumulated up above the dam in the southern, upstream half of Lake Nasser, instead of passing down to the delta.

Now, however, there turns out to be more to the story. It appears that the sediment-free water emerging from the Aswan dams picks up silt and sand as it erodes the river bed and banks on the 800-kilometre trip to Cairo. Daniel Jean Stanley of the Smithsonian Institute noticed that water samples taken in Cairo, just before the river enters the delta, indicated that the river sometimes carries more than 850 grams of sediment per cubic metre of water — almost half of what it carried before the dams were built. ‘I’m ashamed to say that the significance of this didn’t strike me until after I had read 50 or 60 studies’, says Stanley in Marine Geology. ‘There is still a lot of sediment coming into the delta, but virtually no sediment comes out into the Mediterranean to replenish the coastline. So this sediment must be trapped on the delta itself’.

Once north of Cairo, most of the Nile water is diverted into more than 10,000 kilometres of irrigation canals and only a small proportion reaches the sea directly through the rivers in the delta. The water in the irrigation canals is still or very slow-moving and thus cannot carry sediment, Stanley explains. The sediment sinks to the bottom of the canals and then is added to fields by farmers or pumped with the water into the four large freshwater lagoons that are located near the outer edges of the delta. So very little of it actually reaches the coastline to replace what is being washed away by the Mediterranean currents.

The farms on the delta plains and fishing and aquaculture in the lagoons account for much of Egypt’s food supply. But by the time the sediment has come to rest in the fields and lagoons it is laden with municipal, industrial and agricultural waste from the Cairo region, which is home to more than 40 million people. ‘Pollutants are building up faster and faster’, says Stanley.

Based on his investigations of sediment from the delta lagoons, Frederic Siegel of George Washington University concurs. ‘In Manzalah Lagoon, for example, the increase in mercury, lead, copper and zinc coincided with the building of the High Dam at Aswan, the availability of cheap electricity, and the development of major power-based industries’, he says. Since that time the concentration of mercury has increased significantly. Lead from engines that use leaded fuels and from other industrial sources has also increased dramatically. These poisons can easily enter the food chain, affecting the productivity of fishing and farming. Another problem is that agricultural wastes include fertilizers which stimulate increases in plant growth in the lagoons and upset the ecology of the area, with serious effects on the fishing industry.

According to Siegel, international environmental organisations are beginning to pay closer attention to the region, partly because of the problems of erosion and pollution of the Nile delta, but principally because they fear the impact this situation could have on the whole Mediterranean coastal ecosystem. But there are no easy solutions. In the immediate future, Stanley believes that one solution would be to make artificial floods to flush out the delta waterways, in the same way that natural floods did before the construction of the dams. He says, however, that in the long term an alternative process such as desalination may have to be used to increase the amount of water available. ‘In my view, Egypt must devise a way to have more water running through the river and the delta’, says Stanley. Easier said than done in a desert region with a rapidly growing population.

《THE LITTLE ICE AGE》

来自《剑雅8》p46

This book will provide a detailed examination of the Little Ice Age and other climatic shifts, but, before I embark on that, let me provide a historical context. We tend to think of climate - as opposed to weather - as something unchanging, yet humanity has been at the mercy of climate change for its entire existence, with at least eight glacial episodes in the past 730,000 years. Our ancestors adapted to the universal but irregular global warming since the end of the last great Ice Age, around 10,000 years ago, with dazzling opportunism. They developed strategies for surviving harsh drought cycles, decades of heavy rainfall or unaccustomed cold; adopted agriculture and stock-raising, which revolutionized human life; and founded the world’s first pre-industrial civilizations in Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Americas. But the price of sudden climate change, in famine, disease and suffering, was often high.

The Little Ice Age lasted from roughly 1300 until the middle of the nineteenth century. Only two centuries ago, Europe experienced a cycle of bitterly cold winters; mountain glaciers in the Swiss Alps were the lowest in-recorded memory, and pack ice surrounded Iceland for much of the year. The climatic events of the Little Ice Age did more than help shape the modern world. They are the deeply important context for the current unprecedented global warming. The Little Ice Age was far from a deep freeze, however; rather an irregular seesaw of rapid climatic shifts, few lasting more than a quarter-century, driven by complex and still little understood interactions between the atmosphere and the ocean. The seesaw brought cycles of intensely cold winters and easterly winds, then switched abruptly to years of heavy spring and early summer rains, mild winters, and frequent Atlantic storms, or to periods of droughts, light northeasterly winds, and summer heat waves.

Reconstructing the climate changes of the past is extremely difficult, because systematic weather observations began only a few centuries ago, in Europe and North America. Records from India and tropical Africa are even more recent. For the time before records began, we have only ‘proxy records’ reconstructed largely from tree rings and ice cores, supplemented by a few incomplete written accounts. We now have hundreds of tree-ring records from throughout the northern hemisphere, and many from south of the equator, too, amplified with a growing body of temperature data from ice cores drilled in Antarctica, Greenland the Peruvian Andes, and other locations. We are close to knowledge of annual summer and winter temperature variations over much of the northern hemisphere going back 600 years.

This book is a narrative history of climatic shifts during the past ten centuries, and some of the ways in which people in Europe adapted to them. Part One describes the Medieval Warm Period, roughly 900 to 1200. During these three centuries, Norse voyagers from Northern Europe explored northern seas, settled Greenland, and visited North America. It was not a time of uniform warmth, for then, as always since the Great Ice Age, there were constant shifts in rainfall and temperature. Mean European temperatures were about the same as today, perhaps slightly cooler.

It is known that the Little Ice Age cooling began in Greenland and the Arctic in about 1200. As the Arctic ice pack spread southward, Norse voyages to the west were rerouted into the open Atlantic, then ended altogether. Storminess increased in the North Atlantic and North Sea. Colder, much wetter weather descended on Europe between 1315 and 1319, when thousands perished in a continent-wide famine. By 1400, the weather had become decidedly more unpredictable and stormier, with sudden shifts and lower temperatures that culminated in the cold decades of the late sixteenth century. Fish were a vital commodity in growing towns and cities, where food supplies were a constant concern. Dried cod and herring were already the staples of the European fish trade, but changes in water temperatures forced fishing fleets to work further offshore. The Basques, Dutch, and English developed the first offshore fishing boats adapted to a colder and stormier Atlantic. A gradual agricultural revolution in northern Europe stemmed from concerns over food supplies at a time of rising populations. The revolution involved intensive commercial farming and the growing of animal fodder on land not previously used for crops. The increased productivity from farmland made some countries self-sufficient in grain and livestock and offered effective protection against famine.

Global temperatures began to rise slowly after 1850, with the beginning of the Modern Warm Period. There was a vast migration from Europe by land-hungry farmers and others, to which the famine caused by the Irish potato blight contributed, to North America, Australia, New Zealand, and southern Africa. Millions of hectares of forest and woodland fell before the newcomers’ axes between 1850 and -1890, as intensive European farming methods expanded across the world. The unprecedented land clearance released vast quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, triggering for the first time humanly caused global warming. Temperatures climbed more rapidly in the twentieth century as the use of fossil fuels proliferated and greenhouse gas levels continued to soar. The rise has been even steeper since the early 1980s. The Little Ice Age has given way to a new climatic regime, marked by prolonged and steady warming. At the same time, extreme weather events like Category 5 hurricanes are becoming more frequent.

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