P1 Rural transport plan of ‘Practical action’ 城郊交通规划

　　P2 mammoth kill 猛犸象

　　P3 Lawrence Johnston and Hidcote garden 园艺大师劳伦斯·约翰斯顿

　　朗阁讲师点评

　　1. 本场考试的难度较难。

　　2. 整体分析：涉及社会类(P1)、历史生物类(P2)、人物传记类(P3)。

　　本次考试题型和文章都比较友好。城市交通在剑桥上有类似文章“欧洲的交通系统”，话题熟悉易懂，搭配也是经典的填空加判断。开局十分有利。

　　第二篇猛犸象在***近预测中也命中了，剑桥和机经都有涉及，古生物和灭绝的动物是热门话题。题型设置也很令人安心，平稳过渡到第三篇。

　　第三篇是人物传记类，稍显晦涩，介绍了以为园艺大师，内容主要讲了花园的设计，由于设计师***初手稿丢失导致后期设计师复原困难。之后又找回手稿，但手稿内关于内战时期的一些记载着历史内容的价值比园林价值更高的戏剧性情节。单选题这个拉分项再次出现在第三篇。其余题型是摘要选择题和判断题。

　　如果**第二篇赢得了时间，第三篇也有望的**。

　　3. 部分答案及参考文章：

　　Passage 1：Rural transport plan of ‘Practical action’ 城郊交通规划

　　题型：判断4+句子填空4+流程图5

　　题目及答案：

　　For more than 40 years, Practical Action has worked with poor communities to identify the types of transport that work best, taking into consideration culture, needs and skills. With our technical and practical support, isolated rural communities can design, build and maintain their own solutions.

　　Although the National Development Plan in the transport sector has focused mainly on expanding road networks and bridges, there are still significant constraints in satisfying the needs of poorer communities. Practical Action aims to radically accelerate the improvement in suburban public transport by focusing on the establishment of rural public transport systems, which will introduce alternative transport patterns and Intermediate Means of Transport (IMTs) that complement the connections between impoverished people with road networks and other socioeconomic infrastructures to improve their livelihoods.

　　On the other hand, the improvement of all weathered roads in rural areas (only 30 percent of the rural population have access to this now) and bridges is prohibitive for a country with a small and stagnant economy. In addition, whether or not these interventions are favourable in different geographical contexts relies heavily on environmental, social and economic conditions. The majority of the network is found in the lowland areas of the country. Although a lot of alternative ways fit into addressing transport development of rural communities in the hills, lack of clear government focus and policies, lack of fiscal and economic incentives, lack of adequate technical knowledge and manufacturing capacities have resulted in the under-development of this alternative transport sub-sector including the provision of IMTs.

　　There is a strong link between isolation and poverty. The increasing mobility of low-income people in search of employment requires improved rural public transport. Improved transport system enables poorer people to access markets where they can buy or sell goods for income and make better use of essential services such as health and education. No proper roads or vehicles mean women and children are forced to spend many hours each day attending to their most basic needs, such as collecting water and firewood. This is precious time that could be used to grow crops, care for the family, study, or develop small business ventures to earn more income.

　　Road building

　　It isn’t easy to conceive of the vigorous development of rural communities without an efficient road network. Therefore, the construction of roads is a major priority for many rural communities where daily activities are regarded as huge tasks such as collecting water and going to local markets. Practical Action is aiming at improving rural transport infrastructures through the construction and rehabilitation of short rural roads, small bridges, culverts and other transport-related functions, which is to encourage community-driven development. This means villagers can improve their own lives through better access to markets, health care, education and other economic and social opportunities.

　　Driving forward new ideas

　　Practical Action and the communities we work with are constantly working out new ideas to help poor people. Cycle trailers, for example, have practical commercial uses, helping people carry their goods such as vegetables and charcoal to market for sale. Besides, those on the poverty line can earn a decent income by making, maintaining and operating bicycle taxis. Practical Action’s know-how has enabled Sri Lankan communities to start a bus service and maintain the roads along which it travels. The impact has been remarkable. This quick and affordable service not only puts an end to rural people’s social isolation, but also gives them a reliable way to travel to the nearest town. Practical Action is also an active member of many national and regional networks through which knowledge based on the initiative’s research can also be exchanged and disseminated, and one conspicuous example is the Lanka Organic Agriculture Movement Council (LOAM), a professional organisation that promotes organic agriculture by developing local organic markets in different regions.

　　Sky-scraping transport system

　　For people living in remote mountainous areas, how to get food to market is a major problem. The hills are so steep that it is dangerous to walk down them. Movers can help, but the service is expensive and time-consuming. As a result of such a long journey, the food starts to spoil and becomes worthless. Practical Action has come up with an ingenious solution – an aerial ropeway, used as a safe and efficient way for material, even people. It can be fully or partly powered by either gravitation force or external power. The ropeway consists of two trolleys rolling over support tracks connected to a control cable in the middle, which moves in a traditional flywheel system. The trolley at the top is loaded with goods and can take up to 120 kg. This is pulled down to the station at the bottom, either by the force of gravity or by an external power. The other trolley at the bottom is, therefore, pulled upwards automatically. The external power can be produced by a micro-hydro system if access to an electricity grid is not an option.

　　Bringing people on board

　　Practical Action has developed a two-wheeled iron trailer that can be attached (via a hitch behind the seat) to a bicycle and be used to carry heavy cargo (up to around 200 kg) or even passengers. People can now carry three times as much as before and still pedal the bicycle. The trailers are used for transporting goods by local producers, as ambulances, as shops, and even as mobile libraries. They are made in small village workshops from iron tubing, which is cut, bent, welded and drilled to make the frame and wheels. Sometimes, modifications are also carried out to the trailers at the request of buyers. The two-wheeled ‘ambulance’ is made from moulded metal, with standard rubber-tyred wheels. The ‘bed’ section can be padded with cushions to make the patient comfortable, while the ‘seat’ section allows a family member to attend to the patient during transit. A dedicated bicycle is also needed to pull the ambulance trailer, so that other community members do not need to go without the bicycles they depend on in their daily lives. A joining mechanism allows for easy removal and attachment. In response to user comments, a cover has been designed that can be added to give protection to the patient and attendant in poor weather. Made of treated cotton cloth, the cover is durable and waterproof.

　　Questions 1 - 4

　　Do the following statements agree with the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 1?

　　In boxes 1–4 on your answer sheet, write

　　YES if the statement agrees with the claims of the writer

　　NO if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer

　　NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this

　　1.A slow-growing economy often cannot afford some road networks, especially those that have weathered away.

　　TRUEFALSENOT GIVEN

　　2.Officials in rural communities know how to improve alternative transport technically.

　　3.The primary goal of Practical Action to improve rural transport infrastructures is to increase trade between villages.

　　4.The Lanka Organic Agriculture Movement Council has advanced its projects with deep involvement in Practical Action.

　　Questions 5 - 8

　　Answer the questions below.

　　Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

　　Write your answers in boxes 5–8 on your answer sheet.

　　5 What is the first duty for the development of suburban communities?

　　6 What new method can be used to help the poor deliver their goods directly to market?

　　7 What service has ended the isolation of Sri Lanka’s rural population?

　　8 What solution has been adopted to solve the problem of people living in remote mountain areas getting food to market?Questions 9 - 13

　　Passage 2：mammoth kill 猛犸象

　　题型：摘要题填空+特殊词配对

　　题目及答案：

　　14. hunting

　　15. overkill model

　　16. disease/hyperdisease

　　17. empirical evidence

　　18. climatic instability

　　19. geographical

　　20. younger Dryas event

　　21. A

　　22. B

　　23. A

　　24. B

　　25. B

　　26. C

　　参考文章

　　Mammoth Kill

　　Mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus, proboscideans commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and in northern species, a covering of long hair. They lived from the Ptiocene epoch from around 5 million years ago, into the Hotocene at about 4,500 years ago, and were members of the family Elephantidae, which contains, along with mammoths, the two genera of modern elephants and their ancestors.

　　A Like their modern relatives, mammoths were quite large. The largest known species reached heights in the region of 4m at the shoulder and weights up t0 8 tonnes, while exceptionally large males may have exceeded 12 tonnes. However, most species of mammoth were only about as large as a modern Asian elephant. Both sexes bore tusks. A first, small set appeared at about the age of six months and these were replaced at about 18 months by the permanent set. Growth of the permanent set was at a rate of about l t0 6 inches per year. Based on studies of their close relatives, the modem elephants, mammoths probably had a gestation period of 22 months, resulting in a single calf being born. Their social structure was probably the same as that of African and Asian elephants, with females living in herds headed by a matriarch, whilst hulls lived solitary lives or formed loose groups after sexual maturity.

　　B MEXICO CITY-Although it’s hard to imagine in this age of urban sprawl and automobiles, North America once belonged to mammoths, camels, ground sloths as large as cows, bear-size beavers and other formidable beasts. Some 11,000 years ago, however, these large bodied mammals and others-about 70 species in all-disappeared. Their demise coincided roughly with the arrival of humans in the New World and dramatic climatic change-factors that have inspired several theories about the die-off. Yet despite decades of scientific investigation, the exact cause remains a mystery. Now new findings offer support to one of these controversial hypotheses: that human hunting drove this megafaunal menagerie ( 巨型动物兽群)to extinction. The overkill model emerged in the 1960s, when it was put forth by Paul S. Martin of the University of Arizona. Since then, critics have charged that no evidence exists to support the idea that the first Americans hunted to the extent necessary to cause these extinctions. But at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Mexico City last October, paleoecologist John Alroy of the University of California at Santa Barbara argued that, in fact, hunting-driven extinction is not only plausible, it was unavoidable. He has determined, using a computer simulation that even a very modest amount of hunting would have wiped these animals out.

　　C Assuming an initial human population of 100 people that grew no more than 2 percent annually, Alroy determined that if each band of, say, 50 people killed 15 to 20 large mammals a year, humans could have eliminated the animal populations within 1,000 years. Large mammals in particular would have been vulnerable to the pressure because they have longer gestation periods than smaller mammals and their young require extended care.

　　D Not everyone agrees with Alroy’s assessment. For one, the results depend in part on population-size estimates for the extinct animals-figures that are not necessarily reliable. But a more specific criticism comes from mammalogist Ross D. E. MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, who points out that the relevant archaeological record contains barely a dozen examples of stone points embedded in mammoth bones (and none, it should be noted, are known from other megafaunal remains)-hardly what one might expect if hunting drove these animals to extinction. Furthermore, some of these species had huge ranges the giant Jefferson’s ground sloth, for example, lived as far north as the Yukon and as far south as Mexico which would have made slaughtering them in numbers sufficient to cause their extinction rather implausible, he says.

　　E MacPhee agrees that humans most likely brought about these extinctions (as well as others around the world that coincided with human arrival), but not directly. Rather he suggests that people may have introduced hyperlethal disease, perhaps through their dogs or hitchhiking vermin, which then spread wildly among the immunologically naive species of the New World. As in the overkill model, populations of large mammals would have a harder time recovering. Repeated outbreaks of a hyperdisease could thus quickly drive them to the point of no return. So far MacPhee does not have empirical evidence for the hyperdisease hypothesis, and it won’t be easy to come by: hyperlethal disease would kill far too quickly to leave its signature on the bones themselves. But he hopes that analyses of tissue and DNA from the last mammoths to perish will eventually reveal murderous microbes.

　　F The third explanation for what brought on this North American extinction does not involve human beings. Instead, its proponents blame the loss on the weather. The Pleistocene epoch witnessed considerable climatic instability, explains paleontologist Russell W. Graham of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. As a result, certain habitats disappeared, and species that had once formed communities split apart. For some animals, this change brought opportunity. For much of the megafauna, however, the increasingly homogeneous environment left them with shrinking geographical ranges-a death sentence for large animals, which need large ranges. Although these creatures managed to maintain viable populations through most of the Pleistocene, the final major fluctuation-the so-called Younger Dryas event pushed them over the edge, Graham says. For his part, Alroy is convinced that human hunters demolished the titans of the Ice Age. The overkill model explains everything the disease and climate scenarios explain, he asserts, and makes accurate predictions about which species would eventually go extinct. “Personally, I’m a vegetarian,” he remarks, “and I find all of this kind of gross-but believable.”

　　Passage 3：Lawrence Johnston and Hidcote garden 园艺大师劳伦斯·约翰斯顿

　　题型：单选5+选词填空5+判断4

　　参考答案：

　　27-31 B A D A D

　　32 – 36 D B C G F

　　37 – 40 YES; NO; NOT GIVEN; YES

　　考试建议

　　1. 4月**场考场阅读并不难，开局友好。有利于更多更广地接触雅思真题文章(不局限在剑桥)的考生。重点关注历史类、生物类、科学类、书评类话题。

　　2. 重点浏览2020到2022年机经。