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雅思的模拟题Academic Reading

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“三笠阿克曼”通过精心收集，向本站投稿了9篇雅思的模拟题Academic Reading，以下是小编为大家准备的雅思的模拟题Academic Reading，希望对大家有帮助。

篇1：雅思阅读模拟题

Part I

Reading Passage 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-14 which are based on

Reading Passage 1 below.

Next Year Marks the EU's 50th Anniversary of the Treaty

After a period of introversion and stunned self-disbelief, continental

European governments will recover their enthusiasm for pan-European

institution-building in . Whether the European public will welcome a return

to what voters in two countries had rejected so short a time before is another

matter.

There are several reasons for Europe’s recovering self-confidence. For

years European economies had been lagging dismally behind America (to say

nothing of Asia), but in the large continental economies had one of their

best years for a decade, briefly outstripping America in terms of growth. Since

politics often reacts to economic change with a lag, 2006’s improvement in

economic growth will have its impact in 2007, though the recovery may be ebbing

by then.

The coming year also marks a particular point in a political cycle so

regular that it almost seems to amount to a natural law. Every four or five

years, European countries take a large stride towards further integration by

signing a new treaty: the Maastricht treaty in 1992, the Treaty of Amsterdam in

, the Treaty of Nice in . And in they were supposed to ratify a

European constitution, laying the ground for yet more integration—until the calm

rhythm was rudely shattered by French and Dutch voters. But the political

impetus to sign something every four or five years has only been interrupted,

not immobilised, by this setback.

In 2007 the European Union marks the 50th anniversary of another treaty—the

Treaty of Rome, its founding charter. Government leaders have already agreed to

celebrate it ceremoniously, restating their commitment to “ever closer union”

and the basic ideals of European unity. By itself, and in normal circumstances,

the EU’s 50th-birthday greeting to itself would be fairly meaningless, a routine

expression of European good fellowship. But it does not take a Machiavelli to

spot that once governments have signed the declaration (and it seems unlikely

anyone would be so uncollegiate as to veto it) they will already be halfway

towards committing themselves to a new treaty. All that will be necessary will

be to incorporate the 50th-anniversary declaration into a new treaty containing

a number of institutional and other reforms extracted from the failed attempt at

constitution-building and—hey presto—a new quasi-constitution will be ready.

According to the German government—which holds the EU’s agenda-setting

presidency during the first half of 2007—there will be a new draft of a

slimmed-down constitution ready by the middle of the year, perhaps to put to

voters, perhaps not. There would then be a couple of years in which it will be

discussed, approved by parliaments and, perhaps, put to voters if that is deemed

unavoidable. Then, according to bureaucratic planners in Brussels and Berlin,

blithely ignoring the possibility of public rejection, the whole thing will be

signed, sealed and a new constitution delivered in -10. Europe will be

nicely back on schedule. Its four-to-five-year cycle of integration will have

missed only one beat.

The resurrection of the European constitution will be made more likely in

2007 because of what is happening in national capitals. The European Union is

not really an autonomous organisation. If it functions, it is because the

leaders of the big continental countries want it to, reckoning that an active

European policy will help them get done what they want to do in their own

countries.

That did not happen in 2005-06. Defensive, cynical and self-destructive,

the leaders of the three largest euro-zone countries—France, Italy and

Germany—were stumbling towards their unlamented ends. They saw no reason to

pursue any sort of European policy and the EU, as a result, barely functioned.

But by the middle of 2007 all three will have gone, and this fact alone will

transform the European political landscape.

The upshot is that the politics of the three large continental countries,

bureaucratic momentum and the economics of recovery will all be aligned to give

a push towards integration in 2007. That does not mean the momentum will be

irresistible or even popular. The British government, for one, will almost

certainly not want to go with the flow, beginning yet another chapter in the

long history of confrontation between Britain and the rest of Europe. More

important, the voters will want a say. They rejected the constitution in 2005.

It would be foolish to assume they will accept it after 2007 just as a result of

an artful bit of tinkering.

篇2：雅思阅读模拟题

Sleep medication linked to bizarre behaviour

12:44 06 February 2007

NewScientist.com news service

Roxanne Khamsi

New evidence has linked a commonly prescribed sleep medication with bizarre

behaviours, including a case in which a woman painted her front door in her

sleep.

UK and Australian health agencies have released information about 240 cases

of odd occurrences, including sleepwalking, amnesia and hallucinations among

people taking the drug zolpidem.

While doctors say that zolpidem can offer much-needed relief for people

with sleep disorders, they caution that these newly reported cases should prompt

a closer look at its possible side effects.

Zolpidem, sold under the brand names Ambien, Stilnoct and Stilnox, is

widely prescribed to treat insomnia and other disorders such as sleep apnea.

Various forms of the drug, made by French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis,

were prescribed 674,500 times in 2005 in the UK.

A newly published report from Australia’s Federal Health Department

describes 104 cases of hallucinations and 62 cases of amnesia experienced by

people taking zolpidem since marketing of the drug began there in . The

health department report also mentioned 16 cases of strange sleepwalking by

people taking the medication.

Midnight snack

In one of these sleepwalking cases a patient woke with a paintbrush in her

hand after painting the front door to her house. Another case involved a woman

who gained 23 kilograms over seven months while taking zolpidem. “It was only

when she was discovered in front of an open refrigerator while asleep that the

problem was resolved,” according to the report.

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, meanwhile,

has recorded 68 cases of adverse reactions to zolpidem from 2001 to 2005.

The newly reported cases in the UK and Australia add to a growing list of

bizarre sleepwalking episodes linked to the drug in other countries, including

reports of people sleep-driving while on the medication. In one case, a

transatlantic flight had to be diverted after a passenger caused havoc after

taking zolpidem.

Hypnotic effects

There is no biological pathway that has been proven to connect zolpidem

with these behaviours. The drug is a benzodiazepine-like hypnotic that promotes

deep sleep by interacting with brain receptors for a chemical called

gamma-aminobutyric acid. While parts of the brain become less active during deep

sleep, the body can still move, making sleepwalking a possibility.

The product information for prescribers advises that psychiatric adverse

effects, including hallucinations, sleepwalking and nightmares, are more likely

in the elderly, and treatment should be stopped if they occur.

Patient advocacy groups say they would like government health agencies and

drug companies to take a closer look at the possible risks associated with sleep

medicines. They stress that strange sleepwalking and sleep-driving behaviours

can have risky consequences.

“When people do something in which they’re not in full control it’s always

a danger,” says Vera Sharav of the New York-based Alliance for Human Research

Protection, a US network that advocates responsible and ethical medical research

practices.

Tried and tested

“The more reports that come out about the potential side effects of the

drug, the more research needs to be done to understand if these are real side

effects,” says sleep researcher Kenneth Wright at the University of Colorado in

Boulder, US.

Millions of people have taken the drug without experiencing any strange

side effects, points out Richard Millman at Brown Medical School, director of

the Sleep Disorders Center of Lifespan Hospitals in Providence, Rhode Island,

US. He says that unlike older types of sleep medications, zolpidem does not

carry as great a risk of addiction.

And Wright notes that some of the reports of “sleep-driving” linked to

zolpidem can be easily explained: some patients have wrongly taken the drug

right before leaving work in hopes that the medicine will kick in by the time

they reach home. Doctors stress that the medication should be taken just before

going to bed.

The US Food & Drug Administration says it is continuing to “actively

investigate” and collect information about cases linking zolpidem to unusual

side effects.

The Ambien label currently lists strange behaviour as a “special concern”

for people taking the drug. “It’s a possible rare adverse event,” says

Sanofi-Aventis spokesperson Melissa Feltmann, adding that the strange

sleepwalking behaviours “may not necessarily be caused by the drug” but instead

result from an underlying disorder. She says that “the safety profile [of

zolpidem] is well established”. The drug received approval in the US in

1993.

雅思阅读模拟题：Food agency takes on industry

Food agency takes on industry over junk labels

Felicity Lawrence

Thursday December 28, 2006

The Guardian

1. Consumers are to be presented with two rival new year advertising

campaigns as the Food Standards Agency goes public in its battle with the

industry over the labelling of unhealthy foods.

2. The Guardian has learned that the FSA will launch a series of 10-second

television adverts in January telling shoppers how to follow a red, amber and

green traffic light labelling system on the front of food packs, which is

designed to tackle Britain's obesity epidemic.

3. The campaign is a direct response to a concerted attempt by leading food

manufacturers and retailers, including Kellogg's and Tesco, to derail the

system. The industry fears that traffic lights would demonise entire categories

of foods and could seriously damage the market for those that are fatty, salty

or high in sugar.

4. The UK market for breakfast cereals is worth ￡1.27bn a year and the

manufacturers fear it will be severely dented if red light labels are put on

packaging drawing attention to the fact that the majority are high in salt

and/or sugar.

5. The industry is planning a major marketing campaign for a competing

labelling system which avoids colour-coding in favour of information about the

percentage of “guideline daily amounts” (GDAs) of fat, salt and sugar contained

in their products.

6. The battle for the nation's diet comes as new rules on television

advertising come into force in January which will bar adverts for unhealthy

foods from commercial breaks during programmes aimed at children. Sources at the

TV regulators are braced for a legal challenge from the industry and have

described the lobbying efforts to block any new ad ban or colour-coded labelling

as “the most ferocious we've ever experienced”.

7. Ofcom's chief executive, Ed Richards, said: “We are prepared to face up

to any legal action from the industry, but we very much hope it will not be

necessary.” The FSA said it was expecting an onslaught from the industry in

January. Senior FSA officials said the manufacturers' efforts to undermine its

proposals on labelling could threaten the agency's credibility.

8. Terrence Collis, FSA director of communications, dismissed claims that

the proposals were not based on science. “We have some of the most respected

scientists in Europe, both within the FSA and in our independent advisory

committees. It is unjustified and nonsensical to attack the FSA's scientific

reputation and to try to undermine its credibility.”

9. The FSA is understood to have briefed its ad agency, United, before

Christmas, and will aim to air ads that are “non-confrontational, humorous and

factual” as a counterweight to industry's efforts about the same time. The

agency, however, will have a tiny fraction of the budget available to the

industry.

10. Gavin Neath, chairman of Unilever UK and president of the Food and

Drink Federation, has said that the industry has made enormous progress but

could not accept red “stop” signs on its food.

11. Alastair Sykes, chief executive of Nestlé UK, said that under the FSA

proposals all his company's confectionery and most of its cereals would score a

red. “Are we saying people shouldn't eat confectionery? We're driven by

consumers and what they want, and much of what we do has been to make our

products healthier,” he said.

12. Chris Wermann, director of communications at Kellogg's, said: “In

principle we could never accept traffic light labelling.”

13. The rival labelling scheme introduced by Kellogg's, Danone, Unilever,

Nestlé, Kraft and Tesco and now favoured by 21 manufacturers, uses an

industry-devised system based on identifying GDAs of key nutrients. Tesco says

it has tested both traffic lights and GDA labels in its stores and that the

latter increased sales of healthier foods.

14. But the FSA said it could not live with this GDA system alone because

it was “not scientific” or easy for shoppers to understand at a glance.

篇3：雅思阅读经典模拟题

雅思阅读经典模拟题

Part Ⅲ Reading Tasks

True／False／Not Given Exercises

Unit2

When was the last time you saw a frog? Chances are, if you live in a city, you have not seen one for some time. Even in wet areas once teeming with frogs and toads, it is becoming less and less easy to find those slimy, hopping and sometimes poisonous members of the animal kingdom. All over the world, and even in remote parts of Australia, frogs are losing the ecological battle for survival, and biologists are at a loss to explain their demise. Are amphibians simply oversensitive to changes in the ecosystem? Could it be that their rapid decline in numbers is signaling some coming environmental disaster for us all? This frightening scenario is in part the consequence of a dramatic increase over the last quarter century in the development of once natural areas of wet marshland; home not only to frogs but to all manner of wildlife. However, as yet, there are no obvious reasons why certain frog species are disappearing from rainforests in Australia that have barely been touched by human hand. The mystery is unsettling to say the least, for it is known that amphibian species are extremely sensitive to environmental variations in temperature and moisture levels. The danger is that planet Earth might not only lose a vital link in the ecological food chain (frogs keep populations of otherwise pestilent insects at manageable levels), but we might be increasing our output of air pollutants to levels that may have already become irreversible. Frogs could be inadvertently warning us of a catastrophe.??

篇4：雅思阅读经典模拟题

Part Ⅲ Reading Tasks

True／False／Not Given Exercises

Unit2

been touched by human hand. The mystery is unsettling to say the least, for it is known that amphibian species are extremely sensitive to environmental variations in temperature and moisture levels. The danger is that planet Earth might not only lose a vital link in the ecological food chain (frogs keep populations of otherwise pestilent insects at manageable levels), but we might be increasing our output of air pollutants to levels that may have already become irreversible. Frogs could be inadvertently warning us of a catastrophe.お

An example of a species of frog that, at far as is known, has become extinct, is the platypus frog. Like the well-known Australian mammal it was named after, it exhibited some very strange behaviour; instead of giving birth to tadpoles in the water, it raised its young within its stomach. The baby frogs were actually born from out of their mother s mouth. Discovered in 1981, less than ten years later the frog had completely vanished from the crystal clear waters of Booloumba Creek near Queensland s Sunshine Coast. Unfortunately, this freak of nature is not the only frog species to have been lost in Australia. Since the 1970s, no less than eight others have suffered the same fate.

One theory that seems to fit the facts concerns the depletion of the ozone layer, a well documented phenomenon which has led to a sharp increase in ultraviolet radiation levels.The ozone layer is meant to shield the Earth from UV rays, but increased radiation may be having a greater effect upon frog populations than previously believed. Another theory is that worldwide temperature increases are upsetting the breeding cycles of frogs.

TRUE／FALSE／NOT GIVEN

1.Frogs are disappearing only from city areas.

2.Frogs and toads are usually poisonous.

3.Biologists are unable to explain why frogs are dying.

4.The frogs natural habitat is becoming more and more developed.

5.Attempts are being made to halt the development of wet marshland.

6.Frogs are important in the ecosystem because they control pests.

7.The platypus frog became extinct by 1991.

8.Frogs usually give birth to their young in an underwater nest.

9.Eight frog species have become extinct so far in Australia.

10.There is convincing evidence that the ozone layer is being depleted.

11.It is a fact that frogs breeding cycles are upset by worldwide in creases in temperature.

Practice 3

Almost everyone with or without a computer is aware of the latest technological revolution destined to change forever the way in which humans communicate, namely, the Information Superhighway, best exemplified by the ubiquitous Internet. Already, millions of people around the world are linked by computer simply by having a modem and an address on the `Net , in much the same way that owning a telephone links us to almost anyone who pays a phone bill. In fact, since the computer connections are made via the phone line, the Internet can be envisaged as a network of visual telephone links. It remains to seen in which direction the Information Superhighway is headed, but many believeit is the educational hope of the future.

The World Wide Web, an enormous collection of Internet addresses or sites, all of which can be accessed for information, has been mainly responsible for the increase in interest in the Internet in the 1990s. Before the World Wide Web, the `Net was comparable to an integrated collection of computerized typewriters, but the introduction of the `Web in 1990 allowed not only text links to be made but also graphs, images and even video.

A Web site consists of a `home page , the first screen of a particular site on the computer to which you are connected, from where access can be had to other subject related `pages (or screens) at the site and on thousands of other computers all over the world. This is a

chieved by a process called `hypertext . By clicking with a mouse device on various parts of the screen, a person connected to the `Net can go traveling, or surfing through a of the screen, a person connected to the `Net can go traveling, or `surfing through a web of pages to locate whatever information is required.

Anyone can set up a site; promoting your club, your institution, your company s products or simply yourself, is what the Web and the Internet is all about. And what is more, information on the Internet is not owned or controlled by any one organization. It is, perhaps, true to say that no one and therefore everyone owns the `Net . Because of the relative freedom of access to information, the Internet has often been criticised by the media as a potentially hazardous tool in the hands of young computer users. This perception has proved to be largely false however, and the vast majority of users both young and old get connected with the Internet for the dual purposes for which it was intended - discovery and delight.

TRUE／FALSE／NOT GIVEN

1.Everyone is aware of the Information Superhighway.

2.Using the Internet costs the owner of a telephone extra money.

3.Internet computer connections are made by using telephone lines.

4.The World Wide Web is a network of computerised typewriters.

5.According to the author, the Information Superhighway may be the future hope of education.

6.The process called`hypertext requires the use of a mouse device.

7.The Internet was created in the 1990s.

8.The `home page is the first screen of a `Web site on the `Net .

9.The media has often criticised the Internet because it is dangerous.

10. The latest technological revolution will change the way humans communicate.

Practice 4

The Australian political scene is dominated by two major parties that have quite different political agendas. However, the policies of the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal Party have become much more difficult to tell apart in recent years. In fact, it would be true to say that both parties consist of conservative, moderate and radical elements, and therefore the general public is often perplexed about which party to vote for. Nonetheless, it is usual to find that an Australian will lean towards supporting one of these two parties and remain faithful to that party for life.

The Labor Party was formed early in the twentieth century to safeguard the interests of the common working man and to give the trade unions political representation in Parliament. The Party has always had strong connections with the unions, and supports the concept of a welfare society in which people who are less fortunate than others are financially, and otherwise, assisted in their quest for a more equitable slice of the economic pie. The problem is that such socialist political agendas are extremely expensive to implement and maintain, especially in a country that, although comparatively wealthy, is vast and with a small working and hence taxpaying population base. Welfare societies tend towards bankruptcy unless government spending is kept in check. The Liberal Party, on the other hand, argues that the best way to ensure a

fair division of wealth in the country is to allow more freedom to create it.This, in turn, means more opportunities, jobs created etc., and therefore more wealth available to all. Just how the poor are to share in the distribution of this wealth (beyond being given, at least in theory, the opportunity to create it) is, however, less well understood. Practice, of course, may make nonsense of even the best theoretical intentions, and often the less politically powerful are badly catered for under governments implementing free-for-all policies.

It is no wonder that given the two major choices offered them, Australian voters are increasingly turning their attention to the smaller political parties, which claim to offer a more balanced swag of policies, often based around one major current issue. Thus, for instance, at the last election there was the No Aircraft Noise Parry, popular in city areas, and the Green Party, which is almost solely concerned with environmental issues.

篇5：雅思模拟题1套

雅思模拟题1套

Practice IELTS Reading Test A (Academic Module)

READING PASSAGE 1

PERSONAL TIME MANAGEMENT

Since the early work of Halberg(1960),the existence of human “circadian rhythms” has been well-known to biologists and psychologists. Circadian rhythms dictate that there are certain times of the day when we are at our best both physically and psychologically. At its simplest, the majority of us feel more alive and creative in the mornings, while come the evenings we are fit only for collapsing with a good book or in front of the television. Other of us note that in the morning we take a great deal of time to get going physically and mentally, but by the evening are full of energy and bright ideas, while a very few of us feel most alert and vigorous in the late afternoon .

Irrespective of our personal rhythms, most of us have a productive period between 10a.m. and noon, when the stomach, pancreas, spleen and heart all appear to be in their most active phases. Conversely, the majority of us experience a low period in the hour or two after lunch (a time when people in some societies sensibly take a rest), as most of our energy is devoted to the process of digestion. The simple rules here are: don't waste too much prime time having a coffee break around 11a.m.when you should be doing some of your best work, and don't make the after-lunch period even less productive by overloading your digestion. A short coffee or tea break is ,in fact, best taken on arrival at the office ,when it helps us start the day in a positive mood, rather than mid-morning when it interrupts the flow of our activities. Lunch is best taken early, when we are just beginning to feel hungry, and we are likely to eat less than if we leave it until later. An early lunch also means that we can get back into our productive stride earlier in the afternoon.

Changes in one's attitude can also enhance personal time management. For example, the notion of pro-action is

篇6：雅思阅读段落标题模拟题

雅思(IELTS)阅读模拟练习题：段落标题题【1】

Volcanoes-earth-shattering news

When Mount Pinatubo suddenly erupted on 9 June 1991, the power of volcanoes past and present again hit the headlines

Volcanoes are the ultimate earth-moving machinery. A violent eruption can blow the top few kilometres off a mountain, scatter fine ash practically all over the globe and hurl rock fragments into the stratosphere to darken the skies a continent away.

But the classic eruption―cone-shaped mountain, big bang, mushroom cloud and surges of molten lava―is only a tiny part of a global story. Vulcanism, the name given to volcanic processes, really has shaped the world. Eruptions have rifted continents, raised mountain chains, constructed islands and shaped the topography of the earth. The entire ocean floor has a basement of volcanic basalt.

Volcanoes have not only made the continents, they are also thought to have made the world's first stable atmosphere and provided all the water for the oceans, rivers and ice-caps. There are now about 600 active volcanoes. Every year they add two or three cubic kilometres of rock to the continents. Imagine a similar number of volcanoes smoking away for the last 3,500 million years. That is enough rock to explain the continental crust.

What comes out of volcanic craters is mostly gas. More than 90% of this gas is water vapour from the deep earth: enough to explain, over 3,500 million years, the water in the oceans. The rest of the gas is nitrogen, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, methane, ammonia and hydrogen. The quantity of these gases, again multiplied over 3,500 million years, is enough to explain the mass of the world's atmosphere. We are alive because volcanoes provided the soil, air and water we need.

Geologists consider the earth as having a molten core, surrounded by a semi-molten mantle and a brittle, outer skin. It helps to think of a soft-boiled egg with a runny yolk, a firm but squishy white and a hard shell. If the shell is even slightly cracked during boiling, the white material bubbles out and sets like a tiny mountain chain over the crack―like an archipelago of volcanic islands such as the Hawaiian Islands. But the earth is so much bigger and the mantle below is so much hotter.

Even though the mantle rocks are kept solid by overlying pressure, they can still slowly 'flow' like thick treacle. The flow, thought to be in the form of convection currents, is powerful enough to fracture the 'eggshell' of the crust into plates, and keep them bumping and grinding against each other, or even overlapping, at the rate of a few centimetres a year. These fracture zones, where the collisions occur, are where earthquakes happen. And, very often, volcanoes.

These zones are lines of weakness, or hot spots. Every eruption is different, but put at its simplest, where there are weaknesses, rocks deep in the mantle, heated to 1,350℃, will start to expand and rise. As they do so, the pressure drops, and they expand and become liquid and rise more swiftly.

Sometimes it is slow: vast bubbles of magma―molten rock from the mantle―inch towards the surface, cooling slowly, to show through as granite extrusions (as on Skye, or the Great Whin Sill, the lava dyke squeezed out like toothpaste that carries part of Hadrian's Wall in northern England). Sometimes―as in Northern Ireland, Wales and the Karoo in South Africa―the magma rose faster, and then flowed out horizontally on to the surface in vast thick sheets. In the Deccan plateau in western India, there are more than two million cubic kilometres of lava, some of it 2,400 metres thick, formed over 500,000 years of slurping eruption.

Sometimes the magma moves very swiftly indeed. It does not have time to cool as it surges upwards. The gases trapped inside the boiling rock expand suddenly, the lava glows with heat, it begins to froth, and it explodes with tremendous force. Then the slightly cooler lava following it begins to flow over the lip of the crater. It happens on Mars, it happened on the moon, it even happens on some of the moons of Jupiter and Uranus. By studying the evidence, vulcanologists can read the force of the great blasts of the past. Is the pumice light and full of holes? The explosion was tremendous. Are the rocks heavy, with huge crystalline basalt shapes, like the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland? It was a slow, gentle eruption.

The biggest eruptions are deep on the mid-ocean floor, where new lava is forcing the continents apart and widening the Atlantic by perhaps five centimetres a year. Look at maps of volcanoes, earthquakes and island chains like the Philippines and Japan, and you can see the rough outlines of what are called tectonic plates―the plates which make up the earth's crust and mantle. The most dramatic of these is the Pacific 'ring of fire' where there have been the most violent explosions―Mount Pinatubo near Manila, Mount St Helen's in the Rockies and El Chichón in Mexico about a decade ago, not to mention world-shaking blasts like Krakatoa in the Sunda Straits in 1883.

But volcanoes are not very predictable. That is because geological time is not like human time. During quiet periods, volcanoes cap themselves with their own lava by forming a powerful cone from the molten rocks slopping over the rim of the crater; later the lava cools slowly into a huge, hard, stable plug which blocks any further eruption until the pressure below becomes irresistible. In the case of Mount Pinatubo, this took 600 years.

Then, sometimes, with only a small warning, the mountain blows its top. It did this at Mont Pelée in Martinique at 7.49 a.m. on 8 May, 1902. Of a town of 28,000, only two people survived. In 1815, a sudden blast removed the top 1,280 metres of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. The eruption was so fierce that dust thrown into the stratosphere darkened the skies, cancelling the following summer in Europe and North America. Thousands starved as the harvests faded, after snow in June and frosts in August. Volcanoes are potentially world news, especially the quiet ones.

篇7：雅思的模拟题Academic Reading

Academic Reading

Wind Power in the US

Prompted by the oil crises of the 1970s, a wind-power industry flourished briefly in the United States. But then world oil prices dropped, and funding for research into renewable energy was cut. By the mid 1980s US interest in wind energy as a large-scale source of energy had almost disappeared. The development of wind power at this time suffered not only from badly designed equipment, but also from poor long-term planning, economic projections that were too optimistic and the difficulty of finding suitable locations for the wind turbines.

Only now are technological advances beginning to offer hope that wind power will come to be accepted as a reliable and important source of electricity. There have been significant successes in California, in particular, where wind farms now have a capacity of 1500 megawatts, comparable to a large nuclear or fossil-fuelled power station, and produce 1.5 per cent of the state’s electricity.

Nevertheless, in the US, the image of wind power is still distorted by early failures. One of the most persistent criticisms is that wind power is not a significant energy resource. Researchers at the Battelle Northwest Laboratory, however, estimate that today wind turbine technology could supply 20 per cent of the electrical power the country needs. As a local resource, wind power has even greater potential. Minnesota’s energy commission calculates that a wind farm on one of the state’s south western ridges could supply almost all that state’s electricity. North Dakota alone has enough sites suitable for wind farms to supply more than a third of all electricity consumed in the continental US.

The prevailing notion that wind power is too costly results largely from early research which focused on turbines with huge blades that stood hundreds of metres tall. These machines were not designed for ease of production or maintenance, and they were enormously expensive. Because the major factors influencing the overall cost of wind power are the cost of the turbine and its supporting systems, including land, as well as operating and maintenance costs, it is hardly surprising that it was thought at the time that wind energy could not be supplied at a commercially competitive price.

More recent developments such as those seen on California wind farms have dramatically changed the economic picture for wind energy. These systems, like installations in Hawaii and several European countries, have benefited from the economies of scale that come through standardised manufacturing and purchasing. The result has been a dramatic drop in capital costs: the installed cost of new wind turbines stood at $1000 per kilowatt in 1993, down from about $4000 per kilowatt in 1980, and continues to fall.

Design improvements and more efficient maintenance programs for large numbers of turbines have reduced operating costs as well. The cost of electricity delivered by wind farm turbines has decreased from about 30 cents per kilowatt-hour to between 7 and 9 cents, which is generally less than the cost of electricity from conventional power stations. Reliability has also improved dramatically. The latest turbines run more than 95 per cent of the time, compared with around 60 per cent in the early 1980s.

Another misconception is that improved designs are needed to make wind power feasible. Out of the numerous wind turbine designs proposed or built by inventors or developers, the propeller-blade type, which is based on detailed analytical models as well as extensive experimental data, has emerged as predominant among the more than 20,000 machines now in commercial operation world-wide. Like the gas-driven turbines that power jet aircraft, these are sophisticated pieces of rotating machinery. They are already highly efficient, and there is no reason to believe that other configurations will produce major benefits.

Like other ways of generating electricity, wind power does not leave the environment entirely unharmed. There are many potential problems, ranging from interference with telecommunications to impact on wildlife and natural habitats. But these effects must be balanced against those associated with other forms of electricity generation. Conventional power stations impose hidden costs on society, such as the control of air pollution, the management of nuclear waste and global warming.

As wind power has been ignored in the US over the past few years, expertise and commercial exploitation in the field have shifted to Europe. The European Union spends 10 times as much as the US government on research and development of wind energy. It estimates that at least 10 per cent of Europe’s electrical power could be supplied by land-based wind-turbines using current technology. Indeed, according to the American Wind Energy Association, an independent organisation based in Washington, Denmark, Brit

篇8：雅思的模拟题Academic Reading

ain, Spain and the Netherlands will each surpass the US in the generating capacity of wind turbines installed during the rest of the decade.

Glossary

fossil fuel: coal, oil and natural gas

kilowatt: 1,000 watts; a watt is a unit of power

kilowatt-hour: one kilowatt for a period of one hour

megawatt: one million watts

wind farm: a group of wind turbines in one location producing a large amount of electricity

wind turbine: a machine which produces energy when the wind turns its blades

Questions 1 - 5

Complete the summary below.

Choose your answers from the box below the summary and write them in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.

NB There are more words or phrases than you will need to fill the gaps.

You may use any word or phrase more than once.

Example

The failure during the late 1970s and early 1980s of an attempt to

establish a widespread wind power industry in the United States resulted largely from the ...(1) ... in oil prices during this period. The industry is now experiencing a steady ...(2)... due to improvements in technology and an increased awareness of the potential in the power of wind. The wind turbines that are now being made, based in part on the ...(3)... of wide-ranging research in Europe, are easier to manufacture and maintain than their predecessors. This has led wind-turbine makers to be able to standardise and thus minimise ...(4)... . There has been growing ...(5)... of the importance of wind power as an energy source.

criticism success

design costs production costs

failure stability

operating costs fall

growth recognition

scepticism decisions

effects decline

results

Questions 6 - 10

Look at the following list of issues (Questions 6-10) and implications (A-C).

Match each issue with one implication.

Write the appropriate letters A-C in boxes 6-10 on your answer sheet.

Example Answer

The current price of one wind-generated kilowatt...A

6. The recent installation of systems taking advantage of economies of scale ...

7. The potential of meeting one fifth of current US energy requirements by wind power ...

8. The level of acceptance of current wind turbine technology ...

9. A comparison of costs between conventional and wind power sources ...

10. The view of wind power in the European Union ...

IMPLICATIONS

A provides evidence against claims that electricity produced from wind power is relatively expensive.

B supports claims that wind power is an important source of energy.

C opposes the view that wind power technology requires further development.

篇9：雅思阅读段落标题模拟题

雅思(IELTS)阅读模拟练习题：段落标题题【2】

The Problem of Scarce Resources

Section A

The problem of how health-care resources should be allocated or apportioned, so that they are distributed in both the most just and most efficient way, is not a new one. Every health system in an economically developed society is faced with the need to decide (either formally or informally) what proportion of the community's total resources should be spent on health-care; how resources are to be apportioned; what diseases and disabilities and which forms of treatment are to be given priority; which members of the community are to be given special consideration in respect of their health needs; and which forms of treatment are the most cost-effective.

Section B

What is new is that, from the 1950s onwards, there have been certain general changes in outlook about the finitude of resources as a whole and of health-care resources in particular, as well as more specific changes regarding the clientele of health-care resources and the cost to the community of those resources. Thus, in the 1950s and 1960s, there emerged an awareness in Western societies that resources for the provision of fossil fuel energy were finite and exhaustible and that the capacity of nature or the environment to sustain economic development and population was also finite. In other words, we became aware of the obvious fact that there were 'limits to growth'. The new consciousness that there were also severe limits to health-care resources was part of this general revelation of the obvious. Looking back, it now seems quite incredible that in the national health systems that emerged in many countries in the years immediately after the 1939-45 World War, it was assumed without question that all the basic health needs of any community could be satisfied, at least in principle; the 'invisible hand' of economic progress would provide.

Section C

However, at exactly the same time as this new realisation of the finite character of health-care resources was sinking in, an awareness of a contrary kind was developing in Western societies: that people have a basic right to health-care as a necessary condition of a proper human life. Like education, political and legal processes and institutions, public order, communication, transport and money supply, health-care came to be seen as one of the fundamental social facilities necessary for people to exercise their other rights as autonomous human beings. People are not in a position to exercise personal liberty and to be self-determining if they are poverty-stricken, or deprived of basic education, or do not live within a context of law and order. In the same way, basic health-care is a condition of the exercise of autonomy.

Section D

Although the language of 'rights' sometimes leads to confusion, by the late 1970s it was recognised in most societies that people have a right to health-care (though there has been considerable resistance in the United States to the idea that there is a formal right to health-care). It is also accepted that this right generates an obligation or duty for the state to ensure that adequate health-care resources are provided out of the public purse. The state has no obligation to provide a health-care system itself, but to ensure that such a system is provided. Put another way, basic health-care is now recognised as a 'public good', rather than a 'private good' that one is expected to buy for oneself. As the 1976 declaration of the World Health Organisation put it: 'The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.' As has just been remarked, in a liberal society basic health is seen as one of the indispensable conditions for the exercise of personal autonomy.

Section E

Just at the time when it became obvious that health-care resources could not possibly meet the demands being made upon them, people were demanding that their fundamental right to health-care be satisfied by the state. The second set of more specific changes that have led to the present concern about the distribution of health-care resources stems from the dramatic rise in health costs in most OECD countries, accompanied by large-scale demographic and social changes which have meant, to take one example, that elderly people are now major (and relatively very expensive) consumers of health-care resources. Thus in OECD countries as a whole, health costs increased from 3.8% of GDP in 1960 to 7% of GDP in 1980, and it has been predicted that the proportion of health costs to GDP will continue to increase. (In the US the current figure is about 12% of GDP, and in Australia about 7.8% of GDR.)

As a consequence, during the 1980s a kind of doomsday scenario (analogous to similar doomsday extrapolations about energy needs and fossil fuels or about population increases) was projected by health administrators, economists and politicians. In this scenario, ever-rising health costs were matched against static or declining resources.

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