IELTS Reading Recent Actual Test 22

READING PASSAGE 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.

Keep a Watchful Eye on the Bridges

A

Most road and rail bridges are only inspected visually, if at all. Every few months, engineers have to clamber over the structure in an attempt to find problems before the bridge shows obvious signs of damage. Technologies developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, and Texas A&M University may replace these surveys with microwave sensors that constantly monitor the condition of bridges.

B

“The device uses microwaves to measure the distance between the sensor and the bridge, much like radar does,” says Albert Migliori, a Los Alamos physicist “Any load on the bridge – such as traffic induces displacements, which change that distance as the bridge moves up and down.” By monitoring these movements over several minutes, the researchers can find out how the bridge resonates. Changes in its behaviour can give an early warning of damage.

C

The Interstate 40 bridge over the Rio Grande river in Albuquerque provided the researchers with a rare opportunity to test their ideas. Chuck Farrar, an engineer at Los Alamos, explains: “The New Mexico authorities decided to raze this bridge and replace it. We were able to mount instruments on it, test it under various load conditions and even inflict damage just before it was demolished.” In the 1960s and 1970s, 2500 similar bridges were built in the US. They have two steel girders supporting the load in each section. Highway experts know that this design is “fracture critical” because a failure in either girder would cause the bridge to fail.

D

After setting up the microwave dish on the ground below the bridge, the Los Alamos team installed conventional accelerometers at several points along the span to measure its motion. They then tested the bridge while traffic roared across it and while subjecting it to pounding from a “shaker”, which delivered precise punches to a specific point on the road.

E

“We then created damage that we hoped would simulate fatigue cracks that can occur in steel girders,” says Farrar. They first cut a slot about 60 centimetres long in the middle of one girder. They then extended the cut until it reached the bottom of the girder and finally they cut across the flange – the bottom of the girder’s “I” shape.

F

The initial, crude analysis of the bridge’s behaviour, based on the frequency at which the bridge resonates, did not indicate that anything was wrong until the flange was damaged. But later the data were reanalysed with algorithms that took into account changes in the mode shapes of the structure – shapes that the structure takes on when excited at a particular frequency. These more sophisticated algorithms, which were developed by Norris Stubbs at Texas A&M University, successfully identified and located the damage caused by the initial cut.

G

“When any structure vibrates, the energy is distributed throughout with some points not moving, while others vibrate strongly at various frequencies,” says Stubbs. “My algorithms use pattern recognition to detect changes in the distribution of this energy.” NASA already uses Stubbs’ method to check the behaviour of the body flap that slows space shuttles down after they land.

H

A commercial system based on the Los Alamos hardware is now available, complete with the Stubbs algorithms, from the Quatro Corporation in Albuquerque for about $100,000. Tim Darling, another Los Alamos physicist working on the microwave interferometer with Migliori, says that as the electronics become cheaper, a microwave inspection system will eventually be applied to most large bridges in the US. “In a decade I would like to see a battery or solar-powered package mounted under each bridge, scanning it every day to detect changes,” he says.

Questions 1-4

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

Write your answers next to 1-4 on your answer sheet.

1   How did the traditional way to prevent damage to the bridges before the invention of the new monitoring system?

A   Bridges have to be tested in every movement on two points.

B   Bridges have to be closely monitored by microwave devices.

C   Bridges have already been monitored by sensors.

D   Bridges have to be frequently inspected by professional workers with naked eyes.

2   How does the new microwave monitors find out the problems of bridges?

A   by changeling the distance between the positions of devices

B   by controlling the traffic flow on the bridges

C   by monitoring the distance caused by traffic between two points

D   by displacement of the several critical parts in the bridges

3   Why did the expert believe there is a problem for the design called “fracture critical”?

A   Engineers failed to apply the newly developed construction materials.

B   There was not enough finance to repair the bridges.

C   The supporting parts of the bridges may crack and cause the bridge to fail.

D   There were bigger traffic load conditions than the designers had anticipated.

4   The defect was not recognized by a basic method in the beginning?

A   until the mid of faces of bridges has fractured.

B   until the damage appears along and down to the flanges.

C   until the points on the road have been punched.

D   until the frequency of resonates appears disordered.

Questions 5-8

Filling the blanks in the diagram labels.

Write the correct answer in the blank spaces next to 5-8 on your answer sheet.

Questions 9-13

The reading Passage has eight paragraphs, A–H.

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter, A-H, in boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet

9   how is the pressure that they have many a great chance to test bridges

10   a ten-year positive change for microwave device

11   the chance they get an honourable contract

12   explanation of the mechanism for the new microwave monitoring to work

13   how is the damage deliberately created by the researchers

READING PASSAGE 2

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26 which are based on Reading Passage 2 below. 

Antarctica and Global Warming

A

If you are an aficionado of the global warming “debate”, you have probably read at one time or another that current trends in the Antarctic show that there is no such thing as global warming. This is, of course, not true. But the Antarctic is a vast region and it can be daunting to piece together the science stories that do get out into the mainstream press into one coherent picture.

B

Antarctica can be divided into three major geographic regions: East Antarctica, West Antarctica, and the Antarctic Peninsula. The Transantarctic Mountains divide the continent into eastern and western regions. The large East Antarctic Ice Sheet flows slowly through most of its interior, until the ice approaches the coast and is channeled through fast-flowing outlet glaciers. The ice sheet surface is high, dry, and very cold. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet, is a faster flowing ice mass that may be vulnerable to rapid change.

C

The Antarctic ice sheets store 90% of the ice on Earth and close to 70% of the planet’s fresh water. The West Antarctic ice sheet contains enough ice to raise sea level between 5 and 6 meters, were this all to melt. The East Antarctic Ice Sheet holds about 10 times more. The relatively warm Antarctic Peninsula supports a series of ice caps and outlet glaciers that together are estimated to contain less than half a meter of sea level equivalent. The continent is surrounded, seasonally, by sea ice that freezes at the ocean surface. Just as in the Arctic, sea ice formation in the Antarctic is important to many parts of the Earth system, including ocean circulation and climate.

D

The climate of Antarctica does not allow extensive vegetation. A combination of freezing temperatures, pure oil quality, lack of moisture, and lack of sunlight inhibit the flourishing of plants. As a result, plant life is limited to mostly mosses and liverworts. The autotrophic community is made up of mostly protists. The flora of the continent largely consists of lichens, bryophytes, algae, and fungi. Growth generally occurs in the summer and only for a few weeks at most.

E

On the other hand, varieties of marine animals exist and rely, directly or indirectly. Antarctic sea life includes penguins, blue whales, orcas, colossal squids and fur seals. The Emperor penguin is the only penguin that breeds during the winter in Antarctica, while the Adélie Penguin breeds farther south than any other penguin. The Rockhopper penguin has distinctive feathers around the eyes, giving the appearance of elaborate eyelashes. King penguins, Chinstrap penguins, and Gentoo Penguins also breed in the Antarctic. The Antarctic fur seal heavily hunted in the 18th and 19th centuries for its pelt by sealers from the United States and the United Kingdom. The Weddell, commander of British sealing expeditions in the Weddell Sea. Antarctic krill, which congregates in large schools, is the keystone species of the ecosystem of the Southern Ocean, and is an important food organism for whales, seals, leopard seals, fur seals, squid, ice-fish, penguins, albatrosses and many other birds.

F

The passing of the Antarctic Conservation Act in the U.S. brought several restrictions to U.S. activity on the continent. The introduction of alien plants or animals can bring a criminal penalty, as the extraction of any indigenous species. The overfishing of krill, which plays a large role in the Antarctic ecosystem, led officials to enact regulations on fishing. The Conservation for the Conversation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), a treaty that came into force in 1980, requires that regulations managing all Southern Ocean fisheries consider potential effects on the entire Antarctic ecosystem. Despite these new acts, unregulated and illegal fishing, particularly of Patagonian toothfish, remains a serious problem. The illegal fishing of toothfish has been increasing, with estimates of 32,000 tons in 2000.

G

Most of Antarctica’s icy mass has so far proven largely impervious to climate change, being situated on solid rock; its deep interior is actually growing in volume as a result of increased precipitation. The Antarctic contribution to sea-level rise has long been uncertain. A recent report by CPOM suggests that Antarctica has provided, at most, a negligible component of observed sea-level rise –indeed a survey of 72% of the Antarctic ice suggest an attributable short-term lowering of global sea levels by 0.08 mm per year. Conversely, a 10 year comparison of the balance between glacier decline and snowfall accumulation found that ice loss had increased 75%. In 2006, Antarctica lost a net 200 billion tones of ice.

H

However, Antarctica’s periphery has been warming up, particularly on the Antarctic Peninsula and in Pine Island Bay, which together are contributing to a rise in sea levels. In 2003 the Larsen-B ice shelf collapsed. Between 28 February and 8 March 2008, about 570 square kilometers of ice from the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Western Antarctica collapsed, putting the remaining 15,000 square kilometers of the ice shelf at risk. The ice is being held back by a “thread” of ice about 6 km wide. According to NASA the most significant Antarctic melting in the past 30 years occurred in 2005, when a mass of ice comparable in size to California briefly melted and refroze; this may have resulted from temperatures rising to as high as 5°C.

I

Indeed, changing weather patterns in the coming years due to such gradual warming of the Earth will affect agricultural-based businesses and communities that most. Agriculture in New South Wales, Australia had reported that 187,240 proprietors and partners and 311,148 employees in agriculture are on the frontline, facing the adverse effects of rising temperature, reduced access to water, higher salinity and frequent and intense droughts and floods. The report, based on research by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), stated that how climate change in the next 50 years will decrease water resources, increase temperatures, reduce are of arable land, cut livestock output and affect crop quality.

J

Penguins, whales and seals in the Antarctic Southern Ocean went hungry also because of the result of global warming. Scientists had warned that the population of krill, at the heart of the food chain, has fallen about 80% since the 1970s. They say the most likely reason for the decline of the shrimp-like crustacean is to do with the sea ice around the Antarctic peninsula, where the air temperature has risen. Krill feed on algae beneath the ice, which also provides shelter. Angus Atkinson, a biologist with the British Antarctic Survey, who led the research, said: “We don’t fully understand how the loss of sea ice here is connected to the warming, but we believe it could be behind the decline in krill”. The team, whose study is published today in Nature, looked at the scientific fishing records of nine countries working in Antarctic, involving a total of nearly 12,000 net hauls from 1926-39 and from 1976-2003.” There is only roughly a fifth of the krill around now that were around in the mid-70s” Dr. Atkinson said.

K

The drop in krill numbers could explain declines in several species of penguin. Scientists had suspected krill stocks were dropping but earlier estimates were based on local surveys.

Questions 14-18

Choose the most suitable heading for paragraphs B-F from the list of heading below.

Write appropriate number (i-ix) in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.

NB   There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use them all.

List of Headings

i        The profile of Antarctic animals

ii       Legal measures taken to protect Antarctic

iii      Ocean farming remain forbidden

iv      Live surroundings for machine animals

v       The flora under extreme conditions

vi      The importance of Antarctic ice

vii     Alert for melting from Antarctic ice sheet

viii    Geographical description

ix      The flourishing of plants in Antarctic

14   Paragraph B

15   Paragraph C

16   Paragraph D

17   Paragraph E

18   Paragraph F

Questions 19-22

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2?

In boxes 19-22 on your answer sheet write

TRUE               if the statement is true

FALSE              if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN    if the information is not given in the passage.

19   West Antarctic ice sheet stores water that is enough to raise sea level 5 to 6 meters globally.

20   According to the author, it is impossible for any vegetation to survive on Antarctica.

21   People should bring outside plants or animals to Antarctica to enrich its ecosystem.

22   The Weddell seal and Antarctic krill are located at pivotal stages of the South Ocean ecosystem.

Questions 23-27

Summary

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

Raising temperatures on earth have caused the alternations of 23 _________ in the coming years, and has certainly changed the way our 24 _________ operate and the society as a whole. CSIRO had warmed us that climate change in this way will decrease our available water, land, livestock and 25 _________ outputs. In the mean time, animals will get 26 _________ due to global warming. The population of krill remains 27 _________% of that in the 1970s.

READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

Travel Books

There are many reasons why individuals have travelled beyond their own societies. Some travellers may have simply desired to satisfy curiosity about the larger world. Until recent times, however, travellers did start their journey for reasons other than mere curiosity. While the travellers’ accounts give much valuable information on these foreign lands and provide a window for the understanding of the local cultures and histories, they are also a mirror to the travellers themselves, for these accounts help them to have a better understanding of themselves.

Records of foreign travel appeared soon after the invention of writing, and fragmentary travel accounts appeared in both Mesopotamia and Egypt in ancient times. After the formation of large, imperial states in the classical world, travel accounts emerged as a prominent literary genre in many lands, and they held especially strong appeal for rulers desiring useful knowledge about their realms. The Greek historian Herodotus reported on his travels in Egypt and Anatolia in researching the history of the Persian wars. The Chinese envoy Zhang Qian described much of central Asia as far west as Bactria (modern-day Afghanistan) on the basis of travels undertaken in the First century BCE while searching for allies for the Han dynasty. Hellenistic and Roman geographers such as Ptolemy, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder relied on their own travels through much of the Mediterranean world as well as reports of other travellers to compile vast compendia of geographical knowledge.

During the post-classical era (about 500 to 1500 CE), trade and pilgrimage j? emerged as major incentives for travel to foreign lands. Muslim merchants sought trading opportunities throughout much of the eastern hemisphere. They described lands, peoples, and commercial products of the Indian Ocean basin from East Africa to Indonesia, and they supplied the First written accounts of societies in sub-Saharan West Africa. While merchants set out in search of trade and profit, devout Muslims travelled as pilgrims to Mecca to make their hajj and visit the holy sites of Islam. Since the prophet Muhammad’s original pilgrimage to Mecca, untold millions of Muslims have followed his example, and thousands of hajj accounts have related their experiences. East Asian travellers were not quite so prominent as Muslims during the postclassical era, but they too followed many of the highways and sea lanes of the eastern hemisphere. Chinese merchants frequently visited South-East Asia and India, occasionally venturing even to East Africa, and devout East Asian Buddhists undertook distant pilgrimages. Between the 5th and 9th centuries CE, hundreds and possibly even thousands of Chinese Buddhists travelled to India to study with Buddhist teachers, collect sacred texts, and visit holy sites. Written accounts recorded the experiences of many pilgrims, such as Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing. Though not so numerous as the Chinese pilgrims, Buddhists from Japan, Korea, and other lands also ventured abroad in the interests of spiritual enlightenment.

Medieval Europeans did not hit the roads in such large numbers as their Muslim and East Asian counterparts during the early part of the post-classical era, although gradually increasing crowds of Christian pilgrims flowed to Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela (in northern Spain), and other sites. After the 12th century, however, merchants, pilgrims, and missionaries from medieval Europe travelled widely and left numerous travel accounts, of which Marco Polo’s description of his travels and sojourn in China is the best known. As they became familiar with the larger world of the eastern hemisphere – and the profitable commercial opportunities that it offered – European peoples worked to find new and more direct routes to Asian and African markets. Their efforts took them not only to all parts of the eastern hemisphere, but eventually to the Americas and Oceania as well.

If Muslim and Chinese peoples dominated travel and travel writing in postclassical times, European explorers, conquerors, merchants, and missionaries took centre stage during the early modern era (about 1500 to 1800 CE). By no means did Muslim and Chinese travel come to a halt in early modern times. But European peoples ventured to the distant corners of the globe, and European printing presses churned out thousands of travel accounts that described foreign lands and peoples for a reading public with an apparently insatiable appetite for news about the larger world. The volume of travel literature was so great that several editors, including Giambattista Ramusio, Richard Hakluyt, Theodore de Bry, and Samuel Purchas, assembled numerous travel accounts and made them available in enormous published collections.

During the 19th century, European travellers made their way to the interior regions of Africa and the Americas, generating a fresh round of travel writing as they did so. Meanwhile, European colonial administrators devoted numerous writings to the societies of their colonial subjects, particularly in Asian and African colonies they established. By mid-century, attention was flowing also in the other direction. Painfully aware of the military and technological prowess of European and Euro-American societies, Asian travellers in particular visited Europe and the United States in hopes of discovering principles useful for the organisation of their own societies. Among the most prominent of these travellers who made extensive use of their overseas observations and experiences in their own writings were the Japanese reformer Fukuzawa Yukichi and the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen.

With the development of inexpensive and reliable means of mass transport, the 20th century witnessed explosions both in the frequency of long-distance travel and in the volume of travel writing. While a great deal of travel took place for reasons of business, administration, diplomacy, pilgrimage, and missionary work, as in ages past, increasingly effective modes of mass transport made it possible for new kinds of travel to flourish. The most distinctive of them was mass tourism, which emerged as a major form of consumption for individuals living in the world’s wealthy societies. Tourism enabled consumers to get away from home to see the sights in Rome, take a cruise through the Caribbean, walk the Great Wall of China, visit some wineries in Bordeaux, or go on safari in Kenya. A peculiar variant of the travel account arose to meet the needs of these tourists: the guidebook, which offered advice on food, lodging, shopping, local customs, and all the sights that visitors should not miss seeing. Tourism has had a massive economic impact throughout the world, but other new forms of travel have also had considerable influence in contemporary times.

Questions 27-28

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

Write your answers in boxes 27-28 on your answer sheet.

27   What were most people travelling for in the early days?

A   Studying their own cultures

B   Business

C   Knowing other people and places better

D   Writing travel books

28   Why did the author say writing travel books is also “a mirror” for travellers themselves?

A   Because travellers record their own experiences.

B   Because travellers reflect upon their own society and life.

C   Because it increases knowledge of foreign cultures.

D   Because it is related to the development of human society.

Questions 29-36

Complete the table on the next page.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from Reading Passage 3 for each answer.

TIME	TRAVELLER	DESTINATION	PURPOSE OF TRAVEL
Classical Greece	Herodotus	Egypt and Anatolia	To gather information for the study of 29 ________
Han Dynasty	Zhang Qian	Central Asia	To seek 30 ________
Roman Empire	Ptolemy, Strabo, Pliny the Elder	Mediterranean	To acquire 31 ________
Post-classical Era (about 500 to 1500 CE)	Muslims	From East Africa to Indonesia, Mecca	For trading and 32 ________
5th to 9th centuries CE	Chinese Buddhists	33 ________	To collect Buddhist texts and for spiritual enlightenment
Early modern era (about 1500 to 1800 CE)	European explorers	New World	To satisfy public curiosity for the New World
During 19th century	Colonial administrators	Asia, Africa	To provide information for the 34 ________ they set up
By mid-century of the 1800s	Sun Yat-sen, Fukuzawa Yukichi	Europe and the United States	To study the 35 ________ of their societies
20th century	People from 36 ________ countries	Mass tourism	Entertainment and pleasure

Questions 37-40

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

Write your answers in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet.

37   Why were the imperial rulers especially interested in these travel stories?

A   Reading travel stories was a popular pastime.

B   The accounts are often truthful rather than fictional.

C   Travel books played an important role in literature.

D   They desired knowledge of their empire.

38   Who were the largest group to record their spiritual trips during the postclassical era?

A   Muslim traders

B   Muslim pilgrims

C   Chinese Buddhists

D   Indian Buddhist teachers

39   During the early modern era, a large number of travel books were published to

A   meet the public’s interest.

B   explore new business opportunities.

C   encourage trips to the new world.

D   record the larger world.

40   What’s the main theme of the passage?

A   The production of travel books

B   The literary status of travel books

C   The historical significance of travel books

D   The development of travel books