雅思阅读练习题(4)

雅思阅读练习题(4)

本文为大家收集整理了雅思阅读练习题。雅思阅读备考中，同学们需要选择一些难度恰当的练习题来练习并检测自己的复习效果。

1 NEELIE KROES, the European Union's competition commissioner, did not mince her words when reporting on Europe's energy markets on Wednesday January 10th. Europe's energy firms have failed to invest in networks and so customers are suffering. Those “vertically integrated”energy companies such as Electricitéde France (EDF) or Germany's E.ON, widely dubbed as “national champions”, are effectively behaving like local monopolies. Shy of competition, eager for artificially high prices, they are helping to block the efficient generation, transmission and distribution of energy on the continent.

2 Energy prices vary wildly across Europe. Ms Kroes wants to see cheaper energy, and intends to push suppliers to divest their distribution network and to get them to invest more in transportation systems so that more energy—in the form of gas, or electricity, for example—can flow easily over borders. It is remarkably hard, for example, for gas-poor Germany to import from the neighbouring, gas-rich Netherlands. Companies that dominate national markets have, so far, had little

interest in improving the interconnections which would mean lower prices for consumers across the continent.

3 Ms Kroes, of course, will struggle to get her way. The European Commission, which on the same day presented its recommendation for improving EU energy policy, also wants to see the unbundling of ownership, the legal separation of energy suppliers and transporters, something that the integrated energy companies and interested governments, notably in France and Germany, are bound to oppose ferociously.

4 Complicating the matter is an argument over the security of energy supply in Europe. Much has been made of the risk for western Europe of depending too heavily on Russian exports of gas. Russia under Vladimir Putin is prone to using energy exports as a blunt tool of foreign policy, especially when trying to bully countries in its hinterland. Last year Russia interrupted gas deliveries to Ukraine, affecting supplies in central and western Europe too. This week it blocked oil exports passing via Belarus to Europe, though that spat was soon resolved.

5 The risk is that concerns about security of supply may be used spuriously by those in Europe who oppose the sort of liberalisation encouraged by Ms Kroes. The likes of E.ON and EDF may claim that only

protected national champions are able to secure supply, by striking long-term deals with powerful foreign suppliers. The Commission disagrees. Such deals are too often politically motivated and far from transparent. Protection has been tried for long enough and evidently has not worked for the internal market, nor have these companies secured the best deals for consumers from the Russians.

6 In contrast, the Commission's new policy proposes, ideally, a break-up of these companies into suppliers and distributors. (As a second best solution, especially for France and Germany, it recommends the management of the networks by a third party.) Properly independent managers of Europe's energy networks would have a strong incentive to build interconnecting pipelines and power lines across borders. For the gas market another means of ensuring competition and security would be finding a more diverse range of suppliers, for example by building more terminals for the import of liquified natural gas. It would also be likely to mean lower prices, if the example of liberalised Britain over the past ten years is anything to go by.

7 Whether any of this is likely to happen soon, however, is another matter. The Commission is also calling for European governments to agree on a common effort to reduce carbon emissions by at least 20% by

2020 (compared with 1990 levels). If America is willing to play ball, the Commission proposes to reduce emissions by as much as 30%. Achieving either target would mean promoting cleaner cars, a more effective emissions-trading system for Europe, wider use of public transport and a sharp increase in the use of renewable sources of energy, like wind and solar power. All that is laudable enough, but will also require political horse-trading as governments—Europe's leaders are due to meet in March to discuss the various energy proposals—try to avoid commitments that may hurt domestic energy companies or make European firms less competitive than rivals in America, Asia and elsewhere.

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2015年雅思阅读模拟试题及答案解析三

Time to cool it 1 REFRIGERATORS are the epitome of clunky technology： solid， reliable and just a little bit dull. They have not changed much over the past century， but then they have not needed to. They are based on a robust and effective idea--draw heat from the thing you want to cool by evaporating a liquid next to it， and then dump that heat by pumping the vapour elsewhere and condensing it. This method of pumping heat from one place to another served mankind well when refrigerators' main jobs were preserving food and， as air conditioners， cooling buildings. Today's high-tech world， however， demands high-tech refrigeration. Heat pumps are no longer up to the job. The search is on for something to replace them. 2 One set of candidates are known as paraelectric materials. These act like batteries when they undergo a temperature change： attach electrodes to them and they generate a current. This effect is used in infra-red cameras. An array of tiny pieces of paraelectric material can sense the heat radiated by， for example， a person， and the pattern of the array's electrical outputs can then be used to construct an image. But until recently no one had bothered much with the inverse of this process. That inverse exists， however. Apply an appropriate current to a paraelectric material and it will cool down. 3 Someone who is looking at this inverse effect is Alex Mischenko， of Cambridge University. Using commercially available paraelectric film， he and his colleagues have generated temperature drops five times bigger than any previously recorded. That may be enough to change the phenomenon from a laboratory curiosity to something with commercial applications. 4 As to what those applications might be， Dr Mischenko is still a little hazy. He has， nevertheless， set up a company to pursue them. He foresees putting his discovery to use in more efficient domestic fridges and air conditioners. The real money， though， may be in cooling computers. 5 Gadgets containing microprocessors have been getting hotter for a long time. One consequence of Moore's Law， which describes the doubling of the number of transistors on a chip every 18 months， is that the amount of heat produced doubles as well. In fact， it more than doubles， because besides increasing in number，the components are getting faster. Heat is released every time a logical operation is performed inside a microprocessor， so the faster the processor is， the more heat it generates. Doubling the frequency quadruples the heat output. And the frequency has doubled a lot. The first Pentium chips sold by Dr Moore's company，Intel， in 1993， ran at 60m cycles a second. The Pentium 4--the last "single-core" desktop processor--clocked up 3.2 billion cycles a second. 6 Disposing of this heat is a big obstruction to further miniaturisation and higher speeds. The innards of a desktop computer commonly hit 80℃. At 85℃， they

2014年雅思阅读模拟试题及答案解析（6）

1. A European spacecraft took off today to spearhead the search for another "Earth" among the stars. 2. The Corot space telescope blasted off aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan shortly after 2.20pm. 3. Corot， short for convection rotation and planetary transits， is the first instrument capable of finding small rocky planets beyond the solar system. Any such planet situated in the right orbit stands a good chance of having liquid water on its surface， and quite possibly life， although a leading scientist involved in the project said it was unlikely to find "any little green men". 4. Developed by the French space agency， CNES， and partnered by the European Space Agency (ESA)， Austria， Belgium， Germany， Brazil and Spain， Corot will monitor around 120，000 stars with its 27cm telescope from a polar orbit 514 miles above the Earth. Over two and a half years， it will focus on five to six different areas of the sky， measuring the brightness of about 10，000 stars every 512 seconds. 5. "At the present moment we are hoping to find out more about the nature of planets around stars which are potential habitats. We are looking at habitable planets， not inhabited planets. We are not going to find any little green men，" Professor Ian Roxburgh， an ESA scientist who has been involved with Corot since its inception， told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. 6. Prof Roxburgh said it was hoped Corot would find "rocky planets that could develop an atmosphere and， if they are the right distance from their parent star，they could have water". 7. To search for planets， the telescope will look for the dimming of starlight caused when an object passes in front of a star， known as a "transit". Although it will take more sophisticated space telescopes planned in the next 10 years to confirm the presence of an Earth-like planet with oxygen and liquid water， Corot will let scientists know where to point their lenses.

雅思阅读模拟试题-音乐

雅思阅读模拟试题:音乐 Background music may seem harmless, but it can have a powerful effect on those who hear it. Recorded background music first found its way into factories, shop and restaurants in the US. But it soon spread to other arts of the world. Now it is becoming increasingly difficult to go shopping or eat a meal without listening to music. To begin with, “ muzak ” (音乐广播网) was intended simply to create a soothing (安慰) atmosphere. Recently, however, it’s become big business –thanks in part to recent research. Dr. Ronald Milliman, an American marketing expert, has shown that music can boost sales or increase factory production by as much as a third. But, it has to be light music. A fast one has no effect at all on sales. Slow music can increase receipts by 38%. This is probably because shoppers slow down and have more opportunity to spot items they like to buy. Yet, slow music isn’t always answered. https://www.sodocs.net/doc/6710188669.html,liman found, for example, that in restaurants slow music meant customers took longer to eat their meals, which reduced overall sales. So restaurants owners might be well advised to play up-tempo music to keep the customers moving – unless of course, the resulting indigestion leads to complaints! ( )1. The reason why background music is so popular is that ______. A. it can have a powerful effect on those who hear it B. it can help to create a soothing atmosphere C. it can boost sales or increase factory production everywhere D. it can make customers eat their meals quickly ( )2. Background music means ________. A. light music that customers enjoy most B. fast music that makes people move fast C. slow music that can make customers enjoy their meals D. the music you are listening to while you are doing something ( )3. Restaurant owners complain about background music because ______. A. it results in indigestion B. it increases their sales C. it keeps customers moving D. it decreases their sales ( )4. The word “ up-tempo music” probably means_____. A.slow music B.fast music C.light music D.classical music

雅思阅读模拟试题及答案解析(2)

雅思阅读模拟试题及答案解析（2）

Next Year Marks the EU's 50th Anniversary of the Treaty A. 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. B. 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，’s improvement in economic growth will have its impact in ， though the recovery may be ebbing by then. C. 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 1997， 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. D. In 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

雅思阅读练习题及答案

雅思阅读练习题及答案 ★Next Year Marks the EU's 50th Anniversary of the Treaty A. After a period of introversion and stunned self-disbelief, continental European governments will recover their enthusiasm for pan-European institution-building in 2007. Whether the European public will welcome a return to what voters in two countries had rejected so short a time before is another matter. B. 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 2006 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. C. 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

2019年雅思阅读模拟试题：流程图题(1)

2019年雅思阅读模拟试题：流程图题(1) BAKELITE The birth of modern plastics In 1907, Leo Hendrick Baekeland, a Belgian scientist working in New York, discovered and patented a revolutionary new synthetic material. His invention, which he named 'Bakelite,’was of enormous technological importance, and effectively launched the modern plastics industry. The term 'plastic' comes from the Greek plassein, meaning 'to mould'. Some plastics are derived from natural sources, some are semi-synthetic (the result of chemical action on a natural substance), and some are entirely synthetic, that is, chemically engineered from the constituents of coal or oil. Some are 'thermoplastic', which means that, like candlewax, they melt when heated and can then be reshaped. Others are 'thermosetting'： like eggs, they cannot revert to their original viscous state, and their shape is thus fixed for ever. Bakelite had the distinction of being the first totally synthetic thermosetting plastic. The history of today's plastics begins with the discovery of a series of semi-synthetic thermoplastic materials in the mid-nineteenth century. The impetus behind the development of these early plastics was generated by a number of factors—immense technological progress in the domain of chemistry, coupled with wider cultural changes, and the pragmatic need to find acceptable substitutes for dwindling supplies of 'luxury' materials such as tortoiseshell and ivory.

雅思阅读模拟试卷

ACADEMIC READING 60 minutes READING PASSAGE 1 You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below. Striking Back at Lightning With Lasers 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 EPR!. 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 ionization 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

2017年雅思考试阅读练习试题附答案

2017年雅思考试阅读练习试题附答案 人的知识和人的力量这两件东西是结合为一体的;工作的失败都起于对因果关系的无知。以下是小编为大家搜索整理2017年雅思考试阅读练习试题附答案，希望能给大家带来帮助!更多精彩内容请及时关注我们应届毕业生考试网! Volatility Kills You should spend about 20 minutes on Question 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage below. A Despite gun battles in the capital of Chad, rioting in Kenya and galloping inflation in Zimbabwe, the economics of sub-Saharan Africa arc, as a whole, in better shape than they were a few years ago. The World Bank has reported recently that this part of the continent experienced a respectable growth rate of 5.6 percent in 2006 and a higher rate from 1995 to 2005 than in previous decades. The bank has given a cautious assessment that the region may have reached a turning point. An overriding question for developmental economists remains whether the upswing will continue so Africans can grow their way out of a poverty that relegates some 40 percent of the nearly 744 million in that region to living on less than a dollar a day. The optimism, when inspected more closely, may be short-lived because of the persistence of a devastating pattern of economic volatility that has lingered for decades. B “In reality, African countries grow as fast as Asian countries and other developing countries during the good times, but afterward they see growth collapses,” comments Jorge Arbache, a senior World Bank economist. “How to prevent collapses may be as important as promoting growth.” If these collapses had not occurred, he observes, the level of gross domestic product for each citizen of the 48 nations of sub-Saharan Africa would have been a third higher. C The prerequisite to prevent the next crash are not in place, according to a World Bank study issued in January. Is Africa's Recent Growth Robust? The growth period that began in 1995, driven by a commodities boom spurred in particular by demand from China, may not be sustainable, because the economic fundamentals—new investment and the ability to stave off inflation, among other factors—are absent. The region lacks the necessary infrastructure that would encourage investors to look to Africa to find the next Bengaluru (Bangalore) or Shenzhen, a November report from the bank concludes. For sub-Saharan countries rich in oil and other resources, a boom period may even undermine efforts to institute sound economic practices. From 1996 to 2005, with growth accelerating, measures of governance—factors such as political stability, rule of law, and control of corruption—actually worsened, especially for countries endowed with abundant mineral resources, the January report notes. D Perhaps the most incisive analysis of the volatility question comes from Paul Collier, a longtime specialist in African economics at the University of Oxford and author of the recent book The Bottom Billion. He advocates a range of options that the U.S. and other nations could adopt when formulating policy toward African countries. They include revamped trade measures, better-apportioned aid and sustained military intervention in certain instances, to avert what he sees as a rapidly accelerating divergence of the world’s poorest, primarily in Africa, from the rest

雅思阅读模拟试题精选

雅思阅读模拟试题精选

雅思阅读模拟试题精选 1. Washing， brushing and varnishing fossils — all standard conservation treatments used by many fossil hunters and museum curators alike —vastly reduces the chances of recovering ancient DNA. 2. Instead， excavators should be handling at least some of their bounty with gloves， and freezing samples as they are found， dirt and all， concludes a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences today. 3. Although many palaeontologists know anecdotally that this is the best way to up the odds of extracting good DNA， Eva-Maria Geigl of the Jacques Monod Institute in Paris， France， and her colleagues have now shown just how important conservation practices can be. This information， they say， needs to be hammered home among the