可以粘贴复制的版本剑桥雅思真题Test.docx

1、可以粘贴复制的版本剑桥雅思真题TestTest 2READINGREADING PASSAGE 1You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.Why pagodasdon,tfall downIn a land swept by typhoons and shaken by earthquakes, how have Japans tallest and seemingly flimsiest old buildings - 500 or so w

2、ooden pagodas - remained standing for centuries? Records show that only two have collapsed during the past 1400 years. Those that have disappeared were destroyed by fire as a result of lightning or civil war. The disastrous Hanshin earthquake in 1995 killed 6,400 people, toppled elevated highways, f

3、lattened office blocks and devastated the port area of Kobe. Yet it left the magnificent five-storey pagoda at the Toji temple in nearby Kyoto unscathed, though it levelled a number of buildings in the neighbourhood.Japanese scholars have been mystified for ages about why these tall, slender buildin

4、gs are so stable. It was only thirty years ago that the building industry felt confident enough to erect office blocks of steel and reinforced concrete that had more than a dozen floors. With its special shock absorbers to dampen the effect of sudden sideways movements from an earthquake, the thirty

5、-six-storey Kasumigaseki building in central Tokyo - Japans first skyscraper - was considered a masterpiece of modern engineering when it was built in 1968.Yet in 826, with only pegs and wedges to keep his wooden structure upright, the master builder Kobodaishi had no hesitation in sending his majes

6、tic Toji pagoda soaring fifty-five metres into the sky - nearly half as high as the Kasumigaseki skyscraper built some eleven centuries later. Clearly, Japanese carpenters of the day knew a few tricks about allowing a building to sway and settle itself rather than fight natures forces. But what sort

7、 of tricks?The multi-storey pagoda came to Japan from China in the sixth century. As in China, they were first introduced with Buddhism and were attached to important temples. The Chinese built their pagodas in brick or stone, with inner staircases, and used them in later centuries mainly as watchto

8、wers. When the pagoda reached Japan, however, its architecture was freely adapted to local conditions - they were built less high, typically five rather than nine storeys, made mainly of wood and the staircase was dispensed with because the Japanese pagoda did not have any practical use but became m

9、ore of an art object. Because of the typhoons that batter Japan in the summer, Japanese builders learned to extend the eaves of buildings further beyond the walls. This prevents rainwater gushing down the walls. Pagodas in China and Korea have nothing like the overhang that is found on pagodas in Ja

10、pan.40 ReadingThe roof of a Japanese temple building can be made to overhang the sides of the structure by fifty per cent or more of the buildings overall width. For the same reason, the builders of Japanese pagodas seem to have further increased their weight by choosing to cover these extended eave

11、s not with the porcelain tiles of many Chinese pagodas but with much heavier earthenware tiles.But this does not totally explain the great resilience of Japanese pagodas. Is the answer that, like a tall pine tree, the Japanese pagoda - with its massive trunk-like central pillar known as shinbashira

12、- simply flexes and sways during a typhoon or earthquake? For centuries, many thought so. But the answer is not so simple because the startling thing is that the shinbashira actually carries no load at all. In fact, in some pagoda designs, it does not even rest on the ground, but is suspended from t

13、he top of the pagoda - hanging loosely down through the middle of the building. The weight of the building is supported entirely by twelve outer and four inner columns.And what is the role of the shinbashira, the central pillar? The best way to understand the shinbashiras role is to watch a video ma

14、de by Shuzo Ishida, a structural engineer at Kyoto Institute of Technology. Mr Ishida, known to his students as Professor Pagoda because of his passion to understand the pagoda, has built a series of models and tested them on a shake-table in his laboratory. In short, the shinbashira was acting like

15、 an enormous stationary pendulum. The ancient craftsmen, apparently without the assistance of very advanced mathematics, seemed to grasp the principles that were, more than a thousand years later, applied in the construction of Japans first skyscraper. What those early craftsmen had found by trial a

16、nd error was that under pressure a pagodas loose stack of floors could be made to slither to and fro independent of one another. Viewed from the side, the pagoda seemed to be doing a snake dance - with each consecutive floor moving in the opposite direction to its neighbours above and below. The shi

17、nbashira, running up through a hole in the centre of the building, constrained individual storeys from moving too far because, after moving a certain distance, they banged into it, transmitting energy away along the column.Another strange feature of the Japanese pagoda is that, because the building

18、tapers, with each successive floor plan being smaller than the one below, none of the vertical pillars that carry the weight of the building is connected to its corresponding pillar above. In other words, a five-storey pagoda contains not even one pillar that travels right up through the building to

19、 carry the structural loads from the top to the bottom. More surprising is the fact that the individual storeys of a Japanese pagoda, unlike their counterparts elsewhere, are not actually connected to each other. They are simply stacked one on top of another like a pile of hats. Interestingly, such

20、a design would not be permitted under current Japanese building regulations.And the extra-wide eaves? Think of them as a tightrope walkers balancing pole. The bigger the mass at each end of the pole, the easier it is for the tightrope walker to maintain his or her balance. The same holds true for a

21、pagoda. With the eaves extending out on all sides like balancing poles, says Mr Ishida, the building responds to even the most powerful jolt of an earthquake with a graceful swaying, never an abrupt shaking. Here again, Japanese master builders of a thousand years ago anticipated concepts of modern

22、structural engineering.Test 2Questions 1-4Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 1?In boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet, writeYES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writerNO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writerNOT GIVEN if it is i

23、mpossible to say what the writer thinks about this1Only two Japanese pagodas have collapsed in 1400 years.2The Hanshin earthquake of 1995 destroyed the pagoda at the Toji temple.3The other buildings near the Toji pagoda had been built in the last 30 years.4The builders of pagodas knew how to absorb

24、some of the power produced by severe weather conditions.Questions 5-10Classify the following as typical ofA both Chinese and Japanese pagodasB only Chinese pagodasC only Japanese pagodasWrite the correct letter, A, B or C, in boxes 5-10 on your answer sheet.5easy interior access to top6tiles on eave

25、s7use as observation post8size of eaves up to half the width of the building9original religious purpose10 floors fitting loosely over each other42 Questions 11-13Choose the correct letter, A, B, Cor D.Write the correct letter in boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet,11 In a Japanese pagoda, the shinbashi

26、raA bears the full weight of the building.B bends under pressure like a tree.C connects the floors with the foundations.D stops the floors moving too far.12 Shuzo Ishida performs experiments in order toA improve skyscraper design.B be able to build new pagodas.C learn about the dynamics of pagodas.D

27、 understand ancient mathematics.13 The storeys of a Japanese pagoda areA linked only by wood.B fastened only to the central pillar.C fitted loosely on top of each other.D joined by special weights.Test 2READING PASSAGE 2You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading

28、 Passage 2 below.The True Cost of FoodlA For more than forty years the cost of food has been rising. It has now reached a point where a growing number of people believe that it is far too high, and that bringing it down will be one of the great challenges of the twenty first century. That cost, howe

29、ver, is not in immediate cash. In the West at least, most food is now far cheaper to buy in relative terms than it was in 1960. The cost is in the collateral damage of the very methods of food production that have made the food cheaper: in the pollution of water, the enervation of soil, the destruct

30、ion of wildlife, the harm to animal welfare and the threat to human health caused by modern industrial agriculture.B First mechanisation, then mass use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, then monocultures, then battery rearing of livestock, and now genetic engineering - the onward march of inte

31、nsive farming has seemed unstoppable in the last half-century, as the yields of produce have soared. But the damage it has caused has been colossal. In Britain, for example, many of our best-loved farmland birds, such as the skylark, the grey partridge, the lapwing and the corn bunting, have vanishe

32、d from huge stretches of countryside, as have even more wild flowers and insects. This is a direct result of the way we have produced our food in the last four decades. Thousands of miles of hedgerows, thousands of ponds, have disappeared from the landscape. The faecal filth of salmon farming has driven wild salmon from many of the sea lochs and rivers of Scotland. Natural soil fertility is dropping in many areas because of continuous industrial fertiliser and pesticide use, while the growth of algae is increasing in lakes because o