IELTS雅思閱讀實戰:Biomimetics

 

  IELTS Reading Subtest   Part I   Reading Passage 1   You should spend about 20 minutes on

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  IELTS Reading Subtest

  Part I

  Reading Passage 1

  You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-14 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.

  Questions 1-6

  Reaidng Passage 1 has seven sections A-G

  Choose the most suitable headings for sections A-D and F-G from the the list of headings below .

  Write the appropriate numbers i-x in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.

  i The possible application of artifical lateral lines in the future

  ii The two tests on the artifical version of a fishy sense organ

  iii The features of artificial lateral-line system in Dr. Liu‘s tests

  iv The origin of human inspration for inventions from the nature

  v The importance of series of flow sensors for survival of fish

  vi The impact of natural lateral line system on modern society

  vii The great invention of artificial lateral-line system in biology

  viii Advantage of hair sensors over heating filaments in the test

  ix Superiority of natural lateral-line system to the artifical one

  x The direction-guiding function of natural lateral-line system

  1 Section A

  2 Seciton B

  3 Seciton C

  4 Seciton D

  Example Answer

  Section E ii

  5 Section F

  6 Section G

  Lateral Thinking

  Section A

  Inventors have long tried to copy nature. Most though have looked to the skies and the land rather than the sea for inspiration. And even when they have attempted to imitate marine life they have tended to consider it through mammalian eyes. Submarines for example use the familiar human senses of sight and sound to build images of their surroundings.

  Section B

  But that is not the way that fish do it. Although fish can see and hear they also rely a lot on a series of flow sensors strung along the sides of their bodies. These sensors are known as the lateral-line system. To navigate like a fish it would help to sense like one. And in research just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Chang Liu of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his colleagues describe the first attempts to do so.

  Section C

  A natural lateral-line system consists of about 100 sense cells that run from the gills to the tail on each side of the fish. The cells detect subtle water movements and from the different times that the individual cells are stimulated by these movements the fish's brain is able to reconstruct an image of what caused them in the first place. Blind a shoaling fish such as a herring and it can still follow its mates. Cut its lateral lines and it rapidly gets lost.

  Section D

  Dr Liu's artificial lateral line was somewhat shorter than a natural one. It consisted of 16 tiny flow sensors rather than 100. The sensors themselves contained heated filaments and worked by recording how quickly the heat was lost. The faster that water moved past a filament the quicker the filament lost heat. The output from the sensors was fed into a computer that had been programmed to try to work out what was going on in a simplified version of the way that a fish brain would.

  Section E

  First the researchers tested whether their system could locate the small pulsing movement caused by a vibrating ball. Not only was the pattern of recordings along the artificial lateral line similar to the pattern recorded from the nerve cells of a real fish but the computer could also decipher it to follow the source of the pulse as it moved along different paths.

  The next test was whether the array could detect vortices left in the wake of escaping prey. The “prey” in this case was a cylinder with water flowing around it. This time the artificial lateral-line system could work out the general direction of the source and identify the pattern of the vortices. Much like weather vanes in whirlwinds some sensors in a vortex receive water flowing one way while those on the other side find it flows in the opposite direction. Those in the middle are left unruffled in the eye of the storm.

  Section F

  Having proved his point Dr Liu is now trying to design sensors that work more like the sense cells in a real lateral line. Instead of heated filaments these sensors have artificial hairs. The hairs flutter in moving water as flags do in moving air and the way in which they flutter contains information about the direction and speed of the water moving past them. This principle should allow the team to build more sensitive arrays. Heating filaments in water causes bubbles to form so turning the power up too much stops them working. Hair sensors do not suffer from the same upper limit.

  Section G

  Artificial lateral lines would have many applications. The most obvious would be in submarines both manned and unmanned. In the case of military submarines they would have the advantage over sonar of being passive. Sending out a ping is a dead giveaway—literally so in time of war. And merely listening for sound cannot detect stationary threats. A lateral-line system could. The vortices thrown off by water moving past even a stationary object would be visible to it.

  Dr Liu also speculates about using lateral lines to detect air-movements. That could lead to some far less obvious applications such as a lateral line-enabled iPod that automatically pumps up the volume in response to the onrushing air of an underground train or similar big noisy object. That would indeed be an inventive brush with nature.

  Questions 7-12

  Do the following statemets reflect the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 1

  In Boxes 7-12 on your answer sheet write

  TRUE if the statemenht reflets the claims of the writer

  FALSE if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer

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

  7 Inventors have long counted on the skies and the land rather than the sea to provide new ideas for their inventions.

  8 Unlike submarine fish uses the familiar human senses of sight and sound to build images of their surroundings.

  9 The cells in the natural lateral-line system can detect water movements which are not immediately noticeable.

  10 Like any other shoaling fish a small blind salman can still follow its mates without losing its way in water.

  11 The most obvious application of the artificial lateral lines would be only in human-operated submarines in the future.

  12 An artifical lateral-line system could detect the existence of the vortices caused by water passing even a motionless object.

  Questions 13-14

  Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in boxes 13-14 on your answe sheet.

  13 According to the information in the text which of the following statements describes the relationship between speed and amount of heat lost in Dr.Liu‘s artificial lateral-line system

  A When the water moved at a faster pace it took longer time for the heated filaments to lose their heat.

  B If the water moved very slowly past a heated filament the filament would lose its heat fairly rapidly.

  C The speed of water moving past a heated filament was in direct proportion to the amount of heat it lost.

  D The speed of water moving past a heated filament was inversely proportional to the amount of heat it lost .

  14 According to the information in the text which of the following statements is NOT the charateristics of the natural lateral-line system in Dr.Liu‘s tests on the artifical version of a fishy sense organ

  A The purppose of the first test was to investigate whether the system could locate the small pulsing movement caused by a vibrating ball.

  B The first test demonstrated that the pattern recorded from both the artificla lateral-line system and the nerve cells of a real fish was similar.

  C The next test intended to explore whether the artificial system could identify the general direction of the source and the pattern of the vortices.

  D The second test showed that the vortices flew in the same direction on both sides of the sensors but with different pattern in the middle area.

  Part II

  Notes to Reading Passage 1

  1. Lateral

  (adj.側面的;橫(向)的。

  lateral thinking

  側向/橫向思維模式:一種通過使用自己的想像力,而不是憑藉邏輯分析或其它傳統的思維模式來思考起先不明顯的解決問題之辦法。

  2. sensor.

  n. 感測器;靈敏元件。

  flow sensor 流量感測器。

  3. proceedings

  n. (複數)記錄,紀要,學報,年報;彙編。

  本詞在文章裡的意思為國家科學院年報,科學文獻彙編

  4. stimulate

  v 刺激,激勵。

  e.g. Alcohol stimulates the action of the heart. 酒刺激心臟的活動。

  Exercise stimulates the flow of blood. 體操促進血液流動。

  5. shoaling

  n. 淺灘,沙洲,魚群。

  shoaling fish 淺水魚。

  6. herring

  n. 青魚, .

  a red herring 熏青魚 .

  7. filaments

  n. 細絲,燈絲。

  8. feed

  v. 送料,加水; .供給(with);加進(原料)

  本詞在文章裡的意思為把資料登錄電腦

  9. pulsing

  n. 脈衝調製,脈衝的產生,動。

  air pulsing氣動脈衝,脈衝運動。

  10. decipher

  v. 譯解(密碼等)。

  11. array

  n. 排列,編隊,軍隊。

  本詞在文章裡的意思為感測器方陣,感測器組合元件

  12. vortices (單數) vortex (複數)

  n. 樓主

  12. vortices (單數) vortex (複數)

  n. 旋渦,旋風,渦流。

  13. wake

  n.(船後的)航跡,尾波,(飛機後面的)尾流,尾波。

  in the wake 接踵而至;在之後。

  e.g. The truck left clouds of dust in its wake.車後揚起了一陣塵土。

  the psychic trauma in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attack.

  9-11恐怖襲擊之後產生于人們的心理創傷。

  14. cylinder

  n. 圓筒,圓柱體,汽缸,柱面。

  本詞在文章裡的意思為由於周圍旋渦而形成的水柱

  15. vane

  n . 風向標,風環;(螺旋槳的)翼,葉片。

  16. whirlwind .

  n. 旋風,旋流;旋渦。

  17. unruffled

  adj. 不起皺的,不騷動的,不混亂的,安靜的。

  本詞在文章裡的意思為那些置於旋渦中間,風眼周圍的感測器保持不動狀態

  18. eye of storm

  風吹來的方向,風眼,風的中心。

  19. flutter

  v. 振翅;飄動,鼓翼。

  e.g. The flag fluttered in the wind.旗幟在風中飄揚。

  20. turn up

  把聲音開大;把力量加大。

  21. ping

  n. 子彈飛過空中的聲音,砰砰聲。

  22. dead

  adj. 突然的,絕對的,完全的。

  e.g. a dead certainty絕對確實。

  23. giveaway

  n. 洩漏機密。

  本詞在文章裡的意思為無意中發出的任何形式的聲音都會洩露軍情或軍事秘密

  24. stationary

  adj. .固定的;不動的。

  25. ipod

  iPod =Inductive Potential Divider 電感性電位分壓器;蘋果牌 MP3/4 媒體播放機。

  本詞在文章裡的意思為安裝有橫向系統的MP3/4能夠根據地鐵火車或類似體積大,噪音高的物體高速運動時產生的氣流的大小來自動提高(放聲)音量

  26. pump up

  v. 抽空,抽幹,注滿,打滿,加足馬力。

  e.g. He pumped up his tires. 他給車胎打足了氣。

  27. onrushing

  adj. 洶湧奔流的,風馳電掣般的(氣流)。

  28. brush

  n.(常與with連用)小衝突,小的遭遇戰。

  e.g. a brush with the police與員警發生的小衝突。

  本詞在文章裡的意思為與大自然的一次較量,對大自然形成的挑戰

  Part III Keys to the Questions 1-14 1. iv

  Explanation

  See the first two sentences in Section A “Inventors have long tried to copy nature. Most though have looked to the skies and the land rather than the sea for inspiration”

  2. v

  Explanation

  See the first sentence in the Section B “Although fish can see and hear they also rely a lot on a series of flow sensors strung along the sides of their bodies.”

  3. x

  Explanation

  See the first two sentences in Section C “The cells detect subtle water movements and from the different times that the individual cells are stimulated by these movements the fish's brain is able to reconstruct an image of what caused them in the first place.”

  4. iii

  Explanation

  See the first two sentences in Section D“Dr Liu's artificial lateral line was somewhat shorter than a natural one…The sensors themselves contained heated filaments and worked by recording how quickly the heat was lost”

  5. viii

  Explanation

  See the sentences in Section F “Instead of heated filaments these sensors have artificial hairs… Heating filaments in water causes bubbles to form so turning the power up too much stops them working. Hair sensors do not suffer from the same upper limit”

  6. i

  Explanation

  See the first sentence in each paragrph of Section G“Artificial lateral lines would have many applications. Dr Liu also speculates about using lateral lines to detect air-movements”

  7. TRUE

  Explanation

  See the first two sentences in Section A“Inventors have long tried to copy nature. Most though have looked to the skies and the land rather than the sea for inspiration”

  8. FALSE

  Explanation

  See the last sentence in Section A “Submarines for example use the familiar human senses of sight and sound to build images of their surroundings”

  9. TRUE

  Explanation See the second sentence in Section C“The cells detect subtle water movements.”

  10. NOT GIVEN

  Explanation

  See the last two sentences in Section C “Blind a shoaling fish such as a herring and it can still follow its mates. Cut its lateral lines and it rapidly gets lost”

  11. FALSE

  Explanation

  See the first two sentences in Section G “Artificial lateral lines would have many applications.The most obvious would be in submarinesboth manned and unmanned.”

  12. TRUE

  Explanation

  See the last two sentences in Section G “A lateral-line system could. The vortices thrown off by water moving past even a stationary object would be visible to it.”

  13 .C

  Explanation

  See the fourth sentence in Section D “The faster that water moved past a filament the quicker the filament lost heat.”

  14 D

  Explanation See the last two sentences in the first paragraph of Section E “A lateral-line system could. The vortices thrown off by water moving past even a stationary object would be visible to it.”

  此練習,由北京語言大學雅思培訓中心教師劉連娣改編自英國的週刊《經濟學人》。

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