2024年12月14日雅思考试题阅读回忆及答案

　　2024年12月14日雅思考试已经结束, 那这次考试阅读都考了哪些内容呢？本文为大家整理了2024年12月14日雅思考试题阅读回忆及答案，希望对大家的备考有所帮助。

　　 阅读

　　一、 考试概述：

　　本场考试三篇全新，难度高。第一篇考语言文字的发展，难度不低;第二篇主题是一艘船，难度一般;第三篇是常考的生态环境类全球变暖，算是第三篇里比较友好的主题。

　　二、具体题目分析：

　　Passage One：

　　n 文章题材：说明文(语言与文化)

　　n 文章题目：语言文字符号发展

　　n 文章难度：★★★

　　n 题型及数量：填空+判断

　　Language diversity

　　One of the most influential ideas in the study of languages is that of universal grammar (UG). Put forward by Noam Chomsky in the 1960s, it is widely interpreted as meaning that all languages are basically the same, and that the human brain is born language-ready, with an in-built programme that is able to interpret the common rules underlying any mother tongue. For five decades this idea prevailed, and influenced work in linguistics, psychology and cognitive science. To understand language, it implied, you must sweep aside the huge diversity of languages, and find their common human core.

　　Since the theory of UG was proposed, linguists have identified many universal language rules. However, there are almost always exceptions. It was once believed, for example, that if a language had syllables[1] that begin with a vowel and end with a consonant (VC), it would also have syllables that begin with a consonant and end with a vowel (CV). This universal lasted until 1999, when linguists showed that Arrernte, spoken by Indigenous Australians from the area around Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, has VC syllables but no CV syllables.

　　Other non-universal universals describe the basic rules of putting words together. Take the rule that every language contains four basic word classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Work in the past two decades has shown that several languages lack an open adverb class, which means that new adverbs cannot be readily formed, unlike in English where you can turn any adjective into an adverb, for example ‘soft’ into ‘softly’. Others, such as Lao, spoken in Laos, have no adjectives at all. More controversially, some linguists argue that a few languages, such as Straits Salish, spoken by indigenous people from north-western regions of North America, do not even have distinct nouns or verbs. Instead, they have a single class of words to include events, objects and qualities.

　　Even apparently indisputable universals have been found lacking. This includes recursion, or the ability to infinitely place one grammatical unit inside a similar unit, such as ‘Jack thinks that Mary thinks that ... the bus will be on time’. It is widely considered to be the most essential characteristic of human language, one that sets it apart from the communications of all other animals. Yet Dan Everett at Illinois State University recently published controversial work showing that Amazonian Piraha does not have this quality.

　　But what if the very diversity of languages is the key to understanding human communication? Linguists Nicholas Evans of the Australian National University in Canberra, and Stephen Levinson of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, believe that languages do not share a common set of rules. Instead, they say, their sheer variety is a defining feature of human communication - something not seen in other animals. While there is no doubt that human thinking influences the form that language takes, if Evans and Levinson are correct, language in turn shapes our brains. This suggests that humans are more diverse than we thought, with our brains having differences depending on the language environment in which we grew up. And that leads to a disturbing conclusion: every time a language becomes extinct, humanity loses an important piece of diversity.

　　If languages do not obey a single set of shared rules, then how are they created? ‘Instead of universals. you get standard engineering solutions that languages adopt again and again, and then you get outliers.' says Evans. He and Levinson argue that this is because any given language is a complex system shaped by many factors, including culture, genetics and history. There- are no absolutely universal traits of language, they say, only tendencies. And it is a mix of strong and weak tendencies that characterises the ‘bio-cultural’ mix that we call language.

　　According to the two linguists, the strong tendencies explain why many languages display common patterns. A variety of factors tend to push language in a similar direction, such as the structure of the brain, the biology of speech, and the efficiencies of communication. Widely shared linguistic elements may also be ones that build on a particularly human kind of reasoning. For example, the fact that before we learn to speak we perceive the world as a place full of things causing actions (agents) and things having actions done to them (patients) explains why most languages deploy these grammatical categories.

　　Weak tendencies, in contrast, are explained by the idiosyncrasies of different languages. Evans and Levinson argue that many aspects of the particular natural history of a population may affect its language. For instance, Andy Butcher at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, has observed that indigenous Australian children have by far the highest incidence of chronic middle-ear infection of any population on the planet, and that most indigenous Australian languages lack many sounds that are common in other languages, but which are hard to hear with a middle-ear infection. Whether this condition has shaped the sound systems of these languages is unknown, says Evans, but it is important to consider the idea.

　　Levinson and Evans are not the first to question the theory of universal grammar, but no one has summarised these ideas quite as persuasively, and given them as much reach. As a result, their arguments have generated widespread enthusiasm, particularly among those linguists who are tired of trying to squeeze their findings into the straitjacket of ‘absolute universals’. To some, it is the final nail in UG’s coffin. Michael Tomasello, co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has been a long-standing critic of the idea that all languages conform to a set of rules. ‘Universal grammar is dead,’ he says.

　　[1] a unit of sound

　　Questions 1-6

　　Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 3?

　　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 In the final decades of the twentieth century, a single theory of language learning was dominant.

　　2 The majority of UG rules proposed by linguists do apply to all human languages.

　　3 There is disagreement amongst linguists about an aspect of Straits Salish grammar.

　　4 The search for new universal language rules has largely ended.

　　5 If Evans and Levinson are right, people develop in the same way no matter what language they speak.

　　6 The loss of any single language might have implications for the human race.

　　Questions 7-11

　　Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

　　7 Which of the following views about language are held by Evans and Levinson?

　　A Each of the world’s languages develops independently.

　　B The differences between languages outweigh the similarities.

　　C Only a few language features are universal.

　　D Each language is influenced by the characteristics of other languages.

　　8 According to Evans and Levinson, apparent similarities between languages could be due to

　　A close social contact.

　　B faulty analysis.

　　C shared modes of perception.

　　D narrow descriptive systems.

　　9 In the eighth paragraph, what does the reference to a middle-ear infection serve as?

　　A A justification for something.

　　B A contrast with something.

　　C The possible cause of something.

　　D The likely result of something.

　　10 What does the writer suggest about Evans’ and Levinson’s theory of language development?

　　A It had not been previously considered.

　　B It is presented in a convincing way.

　　C It has been largely rejected by other linguists.

　　D It is not supported by the evidence.

　　11 Which of the following best describes the writer’s purpose?

　　A To describe progress in the field of cognitive science.

　　B To defend a long-held view of language learning.

　　C To identify the similarities between particular languages.

　　D To outline opposing views concerning the nature of language.

　　Questions 12-14

　　Complete each sentence with the correct ending, A-E, below.

　　Write the correct letter, A-E.

　　12 The Arrernte language breaks a ‘rule’ concerning

　　13 The Lao language has been identified as lacking

　　14 It has now been suggested that Amazonia Piraha does not have

　　A words of a certain grammatical type.

　　B a sequence of sounds predicted by UG.

　　C words which can have more than one meaning.

　　D the language feature regarded as the most basic.

　　E sentences beyond a specified length.

　　参考答案

　　1. YES

　　2. NO

　　3. YES

　　4. NOT GIVEN

　　5. NO

　　6. YES

　　7. A

　　8. C

　　9. C

　　10. B

　　11. D

　　12. B

　　13. A

　　14. D

　　*本文话题与实考都是语言类相关，但是文章和题目与考试有出入，仅供各位考生复习使用~

　　可参考真题：剑桥15—TEST4 Passage2 Silbo Gomero - the Whistle 'Language' of the Canary Islands

　　Passage Two：

　　n 文章题材：说明文(交通与旅行)

　　n 文章题目：一艘船

　　n 文章难度：★★★

　　n 题型及数量：多选+填空+特征匹配

　　n 题目及答案：待补充

　　可参考真题：剑13—TEST4 Passage1 Cutty Sark: the Fastest Sailing Ship of all Time

　　Passage Three：

　　n 文章题材：议论文(生态环境类)

　　n 文章题目：全球变暖

　　n 文章难度：★★★★

　　n 题型及数量：单选+填空+判断题

　　n 题目及答案：

　　Global Warming

　　Day after day we hear about how anthropogenic development is causing global warming. According to an increasingly vocal minority, however, we should be asking ourselves how much of this is media hype cud how much is based on real evidence. It seems, as so often is the ease, that it depends on which expert you listen to, or which statistics you study. Yes, It is true that there is a mass of evidence to indicate that the world is getting wanner, with one of the world’s leading weather predictors stating that air temperatures have frown an increase of just under half a degree Celsius since the beginning of the twentieth century. And while this may not sound like anything worth losing sleep over, the interna­tional press would have us believe that the consequences could be devastating. Other ex­perts, however, are of the opinion that what we are seeing is just part of a natural upward and downward swing flint has always been part of the cycle of global weather. An analysis of the views of major meteorologists in the United States showed that less than 20% of them believed that any change in temperature over the lust hundred years was our own fault – the rest attributed it to natural cyclical changes.

　　There is, of course, no denying that we are still at a very early stage in understanding weather. The effects of such variables as rainfall, cloud formation, the seas and oceans, gases such as methane and ozone, or even solar energy are still not really understood, and therefore the predictions that we make using them cannot always be relied on. Dr. James Hansen, in 19BH, was predicting that the likely effects of global warming would be a raising of world temperature which would have disastrous consequences for mankind: “a strong cause arid effect relationship between the current climate and human alteration of the at­mosphere”. He has now gone on record as stating that using artificial models of climate as a way of predicting change is all but impossible. In fact, he now believes that, rather than getting hotter, our planet is getting greener as a result of the carbon dioxide increase, with the prospect of increasing vegetation In areas which in recent history have been frozen wastelands.

　　In fact, there is some evidence to suggest that as our computer-based weather models have become more sophisticated, the predicted rises In temperature have been cut back. In addition, if we Look at the much reported rise in global temperature over the last century, a close analysis reveals that the lion’s share of that increase, almost three quarters in total, occurred before man began to “poison” his world with industrial processes anti the accompanying greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of the twentieth century.

　　So should we pay any attention to those stories that scream out at us from billboards and television news headlines, claiming that man, with his inexhaustible dependence on oil-based machinery and ever more sophisticated forms of transport is creating a nightmare level of greenhouse gas emissions, poisoning his environment and ripping open the ozone layer? Doubters point to scientific evidence, which can prove that, of all the greenhouse gases, only two percent come From man-made sources, the rest resulting from natural emissions. Who, then, to believe: the environmentalist exhorting us to leave the car at home, to buy re-usable products packaged in recycled paper and to plant trees in our back yard? Or the sceptics, including, of course, a lot of big businesses who have most to lose, when they tell us that we are making a mountain out of a molehill? And my own opinion? The jury’s still out as for as I am concerned!

　　Questions 1-5

　　1) The author …

　　A believes that man is causing global warming

　　B believes that global warming is a natural process

　　C is sure what the causes of global warming are

　　D does not say what he believes the causes of global warming are

　　2) As to the cause of global warming, the author believes that …

　　A occasionally the fact depend on who you are talking to

　　B the facts always depend on who you are talking to

　　C often the fact depend on which expert you listen to

　　D you should not speak to experts

　　3) More than 80% of the top meteorologists in the United States are of the opinion that.. .

　　A global warming should make us lose sleep

　　B global warming is not the result oil natural cyclical changes, but man-made

　　C the consequences of global warming will be deviating

　　D global warming is not man-made, but the result of natural cyclical changes

　　4) Our understanding of weather…

　　A leads to reliable predictions

　　B Is variable

　　C cannot be denied

　　D is not very developed yet

　　5) Currently, Dr. James Hansen’s beliefs include the fact that …

　　A It is nearly Impossible to predict weather change using artificial models

　　B the consequences of global warming would be disastrous for in mankind

　　C there Is a significant link between the climate now, mid man’s changing of the atmosphere

　　D Earth is getting colder

　　Questions 6-11

　　Do the statements below agree with the information in Reading Passage? In Boxes 6-11, write:

　　Yes if the statement agrees with the information in the passage

　　No if the statement contradicts the information in the passage

　　Not Given if there ls no information about the statement in the passage

　　6 At the same time that computer-based weather models have become more sophisticated, weather forecasters have become more expert.

　　7 Most of the increase In global temperature happened in the second half of the twentieth century.

　　8 The media wants us to blame ourselves for global warming.

　　9 The media encourages the public to use environmentally friendly vehicles, such as electric cars to combat global warming.

　　10 Environmentalists are very effective at persuading people to be kind to the environment.

　　11 Many big businesses are on the side of the skeptics as regards the cause of global warming.

　　Questions 12 and 13

　　Complete the sentences below. Use NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each blank space. Write your answers in Boxes 12 and 13 on your answer sheet.

　　12) As well as planting trees and not driving, the environmentalist would like us to choose products that are wrapped __________ and can be used more than once.

　　13) Big businesses would have us believe that we are making too much fuss about global warming, because they have __________.

　　Question 14

　　Choose the appropriate letter A-D and write it in Box 14 on your answer sheet

　　14) Which of these is the best title for this text?

　　A. Global Warming is for real

　　B. Global warming – media hype or a genuine threat?

　　C. Weather changes over the last 100 years

　　D. Global Warming – the greatest threat to mankind

　　参考答案

　　1. D

　　2. C

　　3. D

　　4. D

　　5. A

　　6. NOT GIVEN

　　7. NO

　　8. YES

　　9. NOT GIVEN

　　10. NOT GIVEN

　　11. YES

　　12. in recycled paper

　　13. most to lose

　　14. B

　　*本文话题与实考都是全球变暖相关，但是文章和题目与考试有出入，仅供各位考生复习使用~

　　可参考真题：剑桥19—TEST3 Passage2 The global importance of wetlands

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