 |
| IELTS Reading Practice Test-11 With Answers |
READING PASSAGE 1
You
should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which
are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
Copy
your neighbour
A
THERE’S
no animal that symbolises rainforest diversity quite as spectacularly as the
tropical butterfly. Anyone lucky enough to see these creatures flitting between
patches of sunlight cannot fail to be impressed by the variety of their
patterns. But why do they display such colourful exuberance? Until recently,
this was almost as pertinent a question as it had been when the 19th-century
naturalists, armed only with butterfly nets and insatiable curiosity, battle
through the rainforests. These early explorers soon realised that although some
of the butterflies’ bright colours are there to attract a mate, others are
warning signals. They send out a message to any predators: “Keep off, we’re
poisonous.” And because wearing certain patterns affords protection, other
species copy them. Biologists use the term “mimicry rings” for these clusters
of impostors and their evolutionary idol.
B
But
here’s the conundrum. “Classical mimicry theory says that only a single ring
should be found in any one area,” explains George Beccaloni of the Natural
History Museum, London. The idea is that in each locality there should be just
the one pattern that best protects its wearers. Predators would quickly learn
to avoid it and eventually, all mimetic species in a region should converge
upon it. “The fact that this is patently not the case has been one of the major
problems in mimicry research,” says Beccaloni. In pursuit of a solution to the
mystery of mimetic exuberance, Beccaloni set off for one of the mega centres
for butterfly diversity, the point where the western edge of the Amazon basin
meets the foothills of the Andes in Ecuador. “It’s exceptionally rich, but
comparatively well collected, so I pretty much knew what was there, says
Beccaloni.” The trick was to work out how all the butterflies were organised
and how this related to mimicry.
C
Working
at the Jatun Sach Biological Research Station on the banks of the Rio Napo,
Beccaloni focused his attention on a group of butterflies called ithomiines.
These distant relatives of Britain’s Camberwell Beauty are abundant throughout
Central and South America and the Caribbean. They are famous for their bright
colours, toxic bodies and complex mimetic relationships. “They can comprise up
to 85 per cent of the individuals in a mimicry ring and their patterns are
mimicked not just by butterflies, but by other insects as diverse as
damselflies and true bugs,” says Philip DeVries of the Milwaukee Public
Museum’s Center for Biodiversity Studies.
D
Even
though all ithomiines are poisonous, it is in their interests to evolve to look
like one another because predators that learn to avoid one species will also
avoid others that resemble it. This is known as Müllerian mimicry. Mimicry
rings may also contain insects that are not toxic but gain protection by
looking likes a model species that is: an adaptation called Batesian mimicry.
So strong is an experienced predator’s avoidance response that even quite inept
resemblance gives some protection. “Often there will be a whole series of
species that mimic, with varying degrees of verisimilitude, a focal or model
species,” says John Turner from the University of Leeds. “The results of these
deceptions are some of the most exquisite examples of evolution known to
science.” In addition to colour, many mimics copy behaviours and even the
flight pattern of their model species.
E
But
why are there so many different mimicry rings? One idea is that species flying
at the same height in the forest canopy evolve to look like one another. “It
had been suggested since the 1970s that mimicry complexes were stratified by
flight height,” says DeVries. The idea is that wing colour patterns are
camouflaged against the different patterns of light and shadow at each level in
the canopy, providing the first line of defence against predators.” But the
light patterns and wing patterns don’t match very well,” he says. And
observations show that the insects do not shift in height as the day progresses
and the light patterns change. Worse still, according to DeVries, this theory
doesn’t explain why the model species is flying at that particular height in
the first place.
F
“When
I first went out to Ecuador, I didn’t believe the flight height hypothesis and
set out to test it,” says Beccaloni. “A few weeks with the collecting net
convinced me otherwise. They really flew that way.” What he didn’t accept, however,
was the explanation about light patterns. “I thought if this idea really is
true, can I can work out why it could help explain why there are so many
different warning patterns in any not place. Then we might finally understand
how they could evolve in such a complex way.” The job was complicated by the
sheer diversity of species involved at Jatun Sach. Not only were there 56
ithomiine butterfly species divided among eight mimicry rings, but there were
also 69 other insect species, including 34 day-flying moths and a damselfly,
all in a 200-hectare study area. Like many entomologists before him, Beccaloni
used a large bag-like net to capture his prey. This allowed him to sample the
2.5 metres immediately above the forest floor. Unlike many previous workers, he
kept very precise notes on exactly where he caught his specimens.
G
The
attention to detail paid off. Beccaloni found that the mimicry rings were
flying at two quite separate altitudes. “Their use of the forest was quite
distinctive,” he recalls. “For example, most members of the clear-winged
mimicry ring would fly close to the forest floor, while the majority of the 12
species in the tiger-winged ring fly high up.” Each mimicry wing had its own
characteristic flight height.
H
However,
this being practice rather than theory, things were a bit fuzzy. “They’d spend
the majority of their time flying at a certain height. But they’d also spend a
smaller proportion of their time flying at other heights,” Beccaloni admits.
Species weren’t stacked rigidly like passenger jets waiting to land, but they
did appear to have preferred airspace in the forest. So far, so good, but he
still hadn’t explained what causes the various groups of ithomiines and their
chromatic consorts to fly in formations at these particular heights.
I
Then
Beccaloni had a bright idea. “I started looking at the distribution of
ithomiine larval food plants within the canopy,” he says. “For each one, I’d
record the height to which the host plant grew and the height above the ground
at which the eggs or larvae were found. Once I got them back to the field
station’s lab, it was just a matter of keeping them alive until they pupated
and then hatched into adults which I could identify.”
Questions 1-5
The
reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-I
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-I, in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.
NB You
may use any letter more than once.
1 Criticism
against flight height theory of butterfly
2 Explained
why Beccaloni carried out research in Ecuador.
3 Different
mimicry ring flies at different height
4 The
method of catching butterfly by Beccaloni
5 Not
all Mimicry patterns are toxic information sent out from insects.
Questions 6-11
Do
the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 6-11 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE
if the statement is true
FALSE
if the statement is false
NOT
GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage
6 All
butterflies’ colours of wings reflect the sense of warning to other predators.
7 Insects
may imitate butterflies’ wing pattern as well.
8 Flying
Altitude of the butterfly is determined by their food.
9 Beccaloni
agreed with the flight height hypothesis and decided to reassure its validity.
10 Jatun
Sacha has the richest diversity of breeds in the world.
11 Beccaloni
has more detailed records on the location of butterfly collection than others.
Questions 12-13
Choose
the correct letter A, B, C or D
Write your answers in boxes 12-13 on your answer sheet.
12 Which
is correct about butterflies flight altitude?
A
Flight height theory already established
B
Butterfly always flies at a certain height
C
It is like the airplane’s flying phenomenon
D
Each butterfly has its own favorable height
13 Which
is correct about Beccaloni next investigation after flight height?
A
Some certain statistics have already been collected
B
Try to find connections between larval height and adult ones
C
It’s very difficult to raise butterfly larval
D
Different larval favors different kinds of trees
READING PASSAGE 2
You
should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-27 which are based on
Reading Passage 2 below.
European
Heat Wave
A
IT
WAS the summer, scientists now realise, when felt. We knew that summer 2003 was
remarkable; global warming, at last, made itself unmistakably Britain
experienced its record high temperature and continental Europe saw forest fires
raging out of control, great rivers drying of a trickle and thousands of
heat-related deaths. But just how remarkable is only now becoming clean.
B
The
three months of June, July and August were the warmest ever recorded in western
and central Europe, with record national highs in Portugal, Germany and
Switzerland as well as Britain. And they were the warmest by a very long way
Over a great rectangular block of the earth stretching from west of Paris to
northern Italy, taking in Switzerland and southern Germany, the average temperature
for the summer months was 3.78°C above the long-term norm, said the Climatic
Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, which is one
of the world’s leading institutions for the monitoring and analysis of
temperature records.
C
That
excess might not seem a lot until you are aware of the context – but then you
realise it is enormous. There is nothing like this in previous data, anywhere.
It is considered so exceptional that Professor Phil Jones, the CRU’s director,
is prepared to say openly – in a way few scientists have done before – that the
2003 extreme may be directly attributed, not to natural climate variability,
but to global warming caused by human actions.
D
Meteorologists
have hitherto contented themselves with the formula that recent high
temperatures are consistent with predictions of climate. For the great block of
the map – that stretching between 35-50N and 0-20E – the CRU has reliable
temperature records dating back to 1781. Using as a baseline the average summer
temperature recorded between 1961 and 1990, departures from the temperature
norm, or ‘anomalies’: over the area as a whole can easily be plotted. As the
graph shows, such as the variability of our climate that over the past 200
years, there have been at least half a dozen anomalies, in terms of excess
temperature – the peaks on the graph denoting very hot years – approaching, or
even exceeding, 20°C. But there has been nothing remotely like 2003 when the
anomaly is nearly four degrees.
E
“This
is quite remarkable,” Professor Jones told The Independent. “It’s very unusual
in a statistical sense. If this series had a normal statistical distribution,
you wouldn’t get this number. There turn period “how often it could be expected
to recur” would be something like one in a thou-sand years. If we look at an
excess above the average of nearly four degrees, then perhaps nearly three
degrees of that is natural variability, because we’ve seen that in past
summers. But the final degree of it is likely to be due to global warming,
caused by human actions.
F
The
summer of 2003 has, in a sense, been one that climate scientists have long been
expecting. Until now, the warming has been manifesting itself mainly in winters
that have been less cold than in summers that have been much hotter. Last week,
the United Nations predicted that winters were warming so quickly that winter
sports would die out in Europe’s lower-level ski resorts. But sooner or later
the unprecedentedly hot summer was bound to come, and this year it did.
G
One
of the most dramatic features of the summer was the hot nights, especially in
the first half of August. In Paris, the temperature never dropped below 230°C
(73.40°F) at all between 7 and 14 August, and the city recorded its
warmest-ever night on 11-12 August, when the mercury did not drop below 25.50°C
(77.90°F). Germany recorded its warmest-ever night at Weinbiet in the Rhine
valley with the lowest figure of 27.60°C (80.60°F) on 13 August, and similar
record-breaking night-time temperatures were recorded in Switzerland and Italy.
H
The
15,000 excess deaths in France during August, compared with previous years,
have been related to the high night-time temperatures. The number gradually
increased during the first 12 days of the month, peaking at about 2,000 per day
on the night of 12-13 August, the fell off dramatically after 14 August when
the minimum temperatures fell by about 50C. The elderly were most affected,
with a 70 per cent increase in mortality rate in those aged 75-94.
I
For
Britain, the year as a whole is likely to be the warmest ever recorded, but
despite the high-temperature record on 10 August, the summer itself – defined
as the June, July and August period – still comes behind 1976 and 1955, when
there were long periods of intense heat. At the moment, the year is on course
to be the third-hottest ever in the global temperature record, which goes back
to 1856, behind 1988 and 2002 but when all the records for October, November
and December are collated, it might move into second place, Professor Jones
said. The 10 hottest years in the record have all now occurred since 1990.
Professor Jones is in no doubt about the astonishing nature of the European
summer of 2003. “The temperatures recorded were out of all proportion to the
previous record,” he said. “It was the warmest summer in the past 500 years and
probably way beyond what it was enormously exceptional.”
J
His
colleagues at the University of East Anglia’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change
Research are now planning a special study of it. “It was a summer that has not:
been experienced before, either in terms of the temperature extremes that were
reached, or the range and diversity of the impacts of the extreme heat,” said
the centre’s executive director, Professor Mike Hulme. “It will certainly have
left its mark on a number of countries, as to how they think and plan for
climate change in the future, much as the 2000 floods have revolutionised the
way the Government is thinking about flooding in the UK. “The 2003 heatwave
will have similar repercussions across Europe.”
Questions 14-19
Do
the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?
In boxes 14-19 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE
if the statement is true
FALSE
if the statement is false
NOT
GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage
14 The
average summer temperature in 2003 is approximately four degrees higher than
that of the past.
15 Jones
believes the temperature statistic is within the normal range.
16 The
human factor is one of the reasons that caused the hot summer.
17 In
a large city, people usually measure temperature twice a day.
18 Global
warming has an obvious effect of warmer winter instead of hotter summer before
2003.
19 New
ski resorts are to be built on a high-altitude spot.
Questions 20-21
Answer
the questions below using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS AND/OR NUMBERS from
the passage for each answer.
Write
your answers in boxes 20-21 on your answer sheet.
20 What
are the two hottest years in Britain besides 2003?
21 What
will affect UK government policies besides climate change according to Hulme?
Questions 22-26
Complete
the summary below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage.
Write
your answers in boxes 22-26 on your answer sheet
In
the summer of 2003, thousands of extra death occurred in the country of 22……………………..
Moreover, world-widely, the third record of hottest summer date from 23………………………….,
after the year of 24………………………….. According to Jones, all the 10 hottest
years happened from 25……………………….. However, the summer of 2003 was at the
peak of the previous 26………………………… years, perhaps even more.
Question 27
Choose
the correct letter A, B, C or D
Write your answer in box 27 on your answer sheet.
27 Which
one can be best served as the title of this passage in the following options?
A
Global Warming effect
B
Global Warming in Europe
C
The Effects of hot temperature
D
Hottest summer in Europe
READING
PASSAGE 3
You
should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28-40 which are based on
Reading Passage 3 below.
E-training
A
E-learning
is the unifying term to describe the fields of online learning, web-based
training, and technology-delivered instruction, which can be a great benefit to
corporate e-learning. IBM, for instance, claims that the institution of its
e-training program, Basic Blue, whose purpose is to train new managers, saved
the company in the range of $200 million in 1999. Cutting the travel expenses
required to bring employees and instructors to a central classroom account for
the lion’s share of the savings. With an online course, employees can learn
from any Internet-connected PC, anywhere in the world. Ernst and Young reduced
training costs by 35 percent while improving consistency and scalability.
B
In
addition to generally positive economic benefits, other advantages such as
convenience, standardized delivery, self-paced learning, and a variety of
available content, have made e-learning a high priority for many corporations.
E-learning is widely believed to offer flexible “any time, any place” learning.
The claim for “any place” is valid in principle and is a great development.
Many people can engage with rich learning materials that simply were not
possible in a paper of broadcast distance learning era. For teaching specific
information and skills, e-training holds great promise. It can be especially
effective at helping employees prepare for IT certification programs.
E-learning also seems to effectively address topics such as sexual harassment
education’, safety training and management training – all areas where a clear
set of objectives can be identified. Ultimately, training experts recommend a
“blended” approach that combines both online and in-person training as the
instruction requires. E-learning is not an end-all solution. But if it helps
decrease costs and windowless classrooms filled with snoring students, it
definitely has its advantages.
C
Much
of the discussion about implementing e-learning has focused on the technology,
but as Driscoll and others have reminded us, e-learning is not just about the
technology, but also many human factors. As any capable manager knows, teaching
employees new skills is critical to a smoothly run business. Having said that,
however, the traditional route of classroom instruction runs the risk of being
expensive, slow and, oftentimes, ineffective. Perhaps the classroom’s greatest
disadvantage is the fact that it takes employees out of their jobs. Every
minute an employee is sitting in a classroom training session is a minute
they’re not out on the floor working. It now looks as if there is a way to
circumvent these traditional training drawbacks. E-training promises more
effective teaching techniques by integrating audio, video, animation, text and
interactive materials with the intent of teaching each student at his or her
own pace. In addition to higher performance results, there are other immediate
benefits to students such as increased time on task, higher levels of
motivation, and reduced test anxiety for many learners.
D
On
the other hand, nobody said E-training technology would be cheap. E-training
service providers, on the average, charge from $10,000 to $60,000 to develop
one hour of online instruction. This price varies depending on the complexity
of the training topic and the media used. HTML pages are a little cheaper to
develop while streaming-video presentations or flash animations cost more.
Course content is just the starting place for the cost. A complete e-learning
solution also includes the technology platform (the computers, applications and
network connections that are used to deliver the courses). This technology
platform, known as a learning management system (LMS), can either be installed
onsite or outsourced. Add to that cost the necessary investments in network
bandwidth to deliver multimedia courses, and you’re left holding one heck of a
bill. For the LMS infrastructure and a dozen or so online courses, costs can
top $500,000 in the first year. These kinds of costs mean that custom
e-training is, for the time being, an option only for large organizations. For
those companies that have a large enough staff, the e-training concept pays for
itself. Aware of this fact, large companies are investing heavily in online
training. Today, over half of the 400-plus courses that Rockwell Collins offers
are delivered instantly to its clients in an e-learning format, a change that
has reduced its annual training costs by 40%. Many other success stories exist.
E
E-learning
isn’t expected to replace the classroom entirely. For one thing, bandwidth
limitations are still an issue in presenting multimedia over the Internet.
Furthermore, e-training isn’t suited to every mode of instruction or topic. For
instance, it’s rather ineffective imparting cultural values or building teams.
If your company has a unique corporate culture is would be difficult to convey
that to first-time employees through a computer monitor. Group training
sessions are more ideal for these purposes. In addition, there is a perceived
loss of research time because of the work involved in developing and teaching
online classes. Professor Wallin estimated that it required between 500 and
1,000 person-hours, that is, Wallin-hours, to keep the course at the
appropriate level of currency and usefulness. (Distance learning instructors
often need technical skills, no matter how advanced the courseware system.)
That amounts to between a quarter and half of a person-year. Finally, teaching
materials require computer literacy and access to equipment. Any e-Learning
system involves basic equipment and a minimum level of computer knowledge in
order to perform the tasks required by the system. A student that does not
possess these skills, or have access to these tools, cannot succeed in an
e-Learning program.
F
While
few people debate the obvious advantages of e-learning, systematic research is
needed to confirm that learners are actually acquiring and using the skills
that are being taught online, and that e-learning is the best way to achieve
the outcomes in a corporate environment. Nowadays, a go-between style of Blended
learning, which refers to a mixing of different learning environments,
is gaining popularity. It combines traditional face-to-face classroom methods
with more modern computer-mediated activities. According to its proponents, the
strategy creates a more integrated approach for both instructors and learners.
Formerly, technology-based materials played a supporting role in face-to-face
instruction. Through a blended learning approach, technology will be more
important.
Questions 28-33
The
reading passage has six paragraphs, A-F
Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A-F from the list below.
Write the correct number, i-xi, in boxes 28-33 on your answer
sheet.
List
of Headings
i
overview of the benefits for application of E-training
ii
IBM’s successful choice of training
iii
Future directions and a new style of teaching
iv
learners’ achievement and advanced teaching materials
v
limitations when E-training compares with traditional class
vi
multimedia over the Internet can be a solution
vii
technology can be a huge financial burden
viii
the distance learners outperformed the traditional university learners
worldwide
ix
other advantages besides economic consideration
x
Training offered to help people learn using computers
28 Paragraph
A
29 Paragraph
B
30 Paragraph
C
31 Paragraph
D
32 Paragraph
E
33 Paragraph
F
Questions 34-37
The
reading Passage has six paragraphs A-F
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-F, in boxes 35-37 on your answer
sheet.
34 Projected
Basic Blue in IBM achieved great success.
35 E-learning
wins as a priority for many corporations as its flexibility.
36 The
combination of traditional and e-training environments may prevail.
37 Example
of fast electronic delivery for a company’s products to its customers.
Questions 38-40
Choose THREE correct
letters, among A-E
Write your answers in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.
A
Technical facilities are hardly obtained.
B
Presenting multimedia over the Internet is restricted due to the
bandwidth limit.
C
It is ineffective imparting a unique corporate value to fresh employees.
D
Employees need to block a long time leaving their position attending
training.
E
More preparation time is needed to keep the course at a suitable level.
ANSWERS
1. E
2. B
3. G
4. F
5. D
6. FALSE
7. TRUE
8. NOT GIVEN
9. FALSE
10. NOT GIVEN
11. TRUE
12. D
13. B
14. TRUE
15. FALSE
16. TRUE
17. NOT GIVEN
18. TRUE
19. NOT GIVEN
20. 1976 and 1995
21. 2000 floods
22. France
23. 1856
24. 1998 and 2002
25. 1990
26. 500
27. D
28. i
29. ix
30. iv
31. vii
32. v
33. iii
34. A
35. B
36. F
37. D
38. B
39. C
40. E
){kind=link}
0 Comments