考试日期：

2013年6月8日（本次考试解析题源来自于澳洲悉尼考场）

Reading Passage 1

Title:

Indoor Air Pollution

Question types:

Short Answer

Summary

TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN

文章内容回顾

本篇文章为新文章，首次出现在雅思考试中。

内容：室内污染的一大来源为做饭产生的空气污染。

建议参考：

剑桥真题5：The truth about environment

了解污染类话题的背景词汇。

剑桥真题9：The history of the tortoise

本篇真题的三个题型与本次考试的这一篇高度相似，建议参考解题规划。

原文拓展阅读1：DEVELOPMENT REPORT - Breathing Easier: The Art of Stove Making

More than three billion people are at risk from indoor air pollution because of the heating or cooking fuels they use. Most live in Africa, India and China. They use biomass fuels like wood, crop waste, animal waste or coal. These solid fuels may be the least costly fuels available. But they are also a major cause of health problems and death.

For more than thirty years, the Aprovecho Research Center has been designing cleaner, low-cost cooking stoves for the developing world. Dean Still is the director of the group which is based in the United States. He notes a World Health Organization estimate that more than one and a half million people a year die from breathing smoke from solid fuels.

DEAN STILL: "And half of the people on planet Earth every day use wood or biomass for cooking. These are the people on Earth who have less money, and the richer people use oil and gas. It's been estimated that wood is running out more quickly than oil and gas. And so it is very important for the poorer people to have very efficient stoves that protect their forests and that protect their health."

Every year Aprovecho holds a "stove camp" at its testing station in Cottage Grove, Oregon. Engineers, inventors, students and others come together to design and test different methods and materials for improving stoves.

Over the years, the group has made stoves using mud, bricks, sheet metal, clay, ceramics and old oil drums. Most of the stoves look like large, deep cooking pots. They have an opening at the bottom for the fire and a place on top to put a pot.

In the late nineteen seventies, Aprovecho produced a popular stove called the Lorena. The Lorena was very good at reducing smoke and warming homes. But new tests years later found that it was not very efficient. The Lorena used twice as much wood as an open fire, and took much longer to heat food.

Since then, Dean Still says they have experimented with countless other designs.

DEAN STILL: "Our goal is to make a very inexpensive stove -- let's say five dollars -- that makes very, very little smoke, so it's safe for health, diminishes global warming and diminishes deforestation. And so it's an ongoing problem to work on."

Aprovecho has now partnered with a stove manufacturer in China. The company is making Aprovecho's first mass produced stoves. They are said to use forty to fifty percent less wood than an open fire, and produce fifty to seventy-five percent less smoke. A company called StoveTec is selling them through its Web site for less than ten dollars. Dean Still says that more than one hundred thousand have been sold so far.

原文拓展阅读2：Indoor Pollution from Cooking Fires Kills 1.5 Million People Annually

More than half the world’s population—about 3 billion people—cook their meals with wood, dung, coal and other solid fuels over open fires or on primitive stoves inside their homes, and that simple act is killing 1.5 million people every year, according to a report by the World Health Organization.

Indoor Pollution Kills Millions Every Year

Cooking with solid fuels on open fires or traditional stoves creates high levels of indoor air pollution, which is a major risk factor for pneumonia among children and chronic respiratory disease among adults. Indoor smoke contains many pollutants that can damage health, such carbon monoxide and particulate pollution levels that may be 20 times higher than accepted guidelines.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), indoor air pollution is responsible for 2.7 percent of the global burden of disease, and pneumonia accounts for the deaths of two million children every year. In 2002, cooking with solid fuels was responsible for nearly 800,000 deaths among children and more than 500,000 deaths among women.

Cleaner Fuels, Modern Stoves

The solution is to help low-income families and developing countries switch to better stoves that burn liquefied petroleum gas, biogas, or other cleaner fuels. Switching from a traditional stove to an improved stove substantially reduces indoor smoke and immediately creates a healthier environment.

"Making cleaner fuels and improved stoves available to millions of poor people in developing countries will reduce child mortality and improve women's health," said Dr LEE Jong-wook, WHO Director-General, in a press release announcing the report. "In addition to the health gains, household energy programs can help lift families out of poverty and accelerate development progress."

Low Investment for Big Health and Economic Benefits

On average, it would cost as little as $6 for families to install stoves that are better ventilated and more fuel-efficient. Halving the number of people worldwide still cooking with solid fuels by 2015 would cost $13 billion, but the economic benefit would be $91 billion annually, largely owing to reduced illness, fewer deaths, shorter cooking times, and less time spent collecting firewood and other fuel. With more time available, the report says, children would do better in school, while their mothers could engage in childcare, agriculture or other income-generating activities to help break the cycle of poverty.

Making improved stoves available to half of those still burning biomass fuels and coal on traditional stoves also would save $34 billion in fuel expenditures every year, and generate an annual economic return of $105 billion over a 10-year period.

About 90 percent of the costs of switching to better stoves and cleaner fuels would be borne by families that installed the new stoves, but investments in new technologies, local businesses, and micro-credit systems to help with financing also would be required to carry out the plan.

Direct Cause and Effect

The report demonstrates that if 100 million more homes were using liquefied petroleum gas or other cleaner fuels for cooking, then 473 million fewer people would be exposed to harmful indoor air pollution, and respiratory diseases would cause 282,000 fewer deaths each year.

"It is a travesty that 1.5 million lives a year—many of those of children whose lives have not even started—are snuffed out every year because of needless exposure to indoor smoke," said Dr Maria Neira, WHO's Director for Public Health and Environment. “We have simple, affordable solutions; let us ensure that they reach the people who can benefit from—and live by—using them.”

建议关注题型：

填空类，主要考察考生的细节定位能力和词汇短语搭配的掌握力度，解题时应该从段落主体决定细节的角度出发，通过理解每段的主题句把握段落中细节内容的走向，进一步进行二次定位，从而更好的对此类题目做出解答。

难度分析

虽然本篇文章话题较新，但是从其分类来看，属于背景专业涉及非常少的环保类话题，环保话题作为日常媒体常规性内容，在雅思考试的其余几门中也较易出现，因此考生不会存在文章理解上的困难。同时文后配备的题型均带有出题的顺序性，非常简单，正常发挥即可获得比较理想的正确率。

Reading Passage 2

Title:

Bird Migration （鸟类迁徙）

Question types:

Identifying Information

Matching/（或Classify，内容为鸟的分类配对应特征）

Summary

文章内容回顾

本文为经典话题中的经典，往年机经对应：

20120510，20100731 鸟的迁徙 Migration of birds

20070303，20050910 鸟类定位和导航 Orientation of birds

建议参考：

剑桥真题7：Let’s go bats

了解动物以及其生活中导航寻路相关词汇和背景知识，以及类似生物周期学文章中对于同种生物特性普遍举例和对应出题的规律。

往期真题详细参考（20120510）：

题型：List of Headings & Multiple Choices & Sentence Completion

文章内容及相关答案：

文章先讲鸟有很多的characteristics, 使它们可以随便迁徙. 然后又讲到鸟类迁徙的主要原因是找食物, 但是仍然有些疑问, 比如为什么它们总是飞那么远呢?其实途径的很多地方是可以居住的. 然后讲到鸟很善于辨别方向, 像那个***鸟下蛋在别人家的窝里, 没有parents教, 它自己都会去迁徙. 后来又讲到鸟类在晚上迁徙比较好, 可以躲天敌, 也可以防止脱水, 气压状况又smooth适合飞行. 有人还是说鸟在夜里迁徙还是会迷路然后死掉的, 但是这个观点是错的, 是因为有wind的指导.

List of Headings:

1.鸟类适合迁徙身体上的一些特征.

2.迁徙的主要原因.

3.unexplained rejection.

4.success without teaching.

5.how to find the way.

6.选择合适的时间迁徙.

7.large bird和wind.

Multiple Choices:

选两个关于鸟类迁徙的正确说法.

A.travel more distance than they need

B.need less water at night

Sentence Completion:

1.parental

2.predators

3.visible

4.lost

难度分析

面对经典话题一再重现在雅思阅读考试中的实际情况，很多考生同学喜欢强行去记忆具体的文章内容和具体每道题目的答案，这种行为并不可取。首先由于雅思纸质试卷的特殊考试性质，每次考试的机经从学术角度都无法保证百分百的客观，偶有微小的误差在所难免。其次强行背诵的行为不仅耗时耗力，而且收效往往不佳，谁也无法保证考生们花了大力气背诵的内容就一定再次被考察到。其实一个话题成为经典，可以简单的认知为这是一个学术研究上的热点，会有很多专业文章出现在各类相关报刊杂志以及网站，从而增大了它被雅思出题委员会选中成卷的几率。因此，更合理的做法是稍稍积累相对应的背景词汇（鸟类，导航，迁徙，生物周期学phenology），再参照类似的剑桥真题辅以练习，安排好个人的解题路线。

Reading Passage 3

Title:

Psychology of New Product Adoption（新产品接受研究）

Question types:

Multiple Choice

Complete each sentence with the correct ending（句子配对）

YES/NO/NOT GIVEN

文章内容回顾

商业营销类话题

往期真题详细参考（20101120）：

题型：四选一Multiple Choice (5); Matching; T / F / NG

文章内容：

关于经济学相对优势的问题。内容有讲到企业与创新，并分析了一些消费者心理，同有各路专家出来给出解释。印象比较深刻的观点是说消费者会拿商品和自己已有的物品比较进行主观判断，而且总体上购买欲是比较消极的。有俩实验：

一个是让两组人分别扮演买者和卖者，对一批咖啡杯进行估价，卖者永远比买者估价高出一倍左右。

另一个是三组小朋友，一组可以任意选择被告知价格差不多的咖啡杯和瑞士巧克力，第二组有咖啡杯但他们可以选择用自己的咖啡杯去换巧克力，第三组有巧克力但可以选择用自己的巧克力换咖啡杯。结果已经有咖啡杯或巧克力的人，只有10%左右愿意拿手头的东西换新的。
于是各路专家继续解释。

原文拓展阅读：Understanding the Psychology of New-ProductAdoption

More than a century ago, Ralph Waldo Emerson is reported to have said, “If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.” If only marketing innovations were that simple.

In today’s hypercompetitive marketplace, companies that successfully introduce new products are more likely to flourish than those that don’t. Businesses spend billions of dollars making better “mousetraps” only to find consumers roundly rejecting them. Studies show that new products fail at the stunning rate of between 40% and 90%, depending on the category, and the odds haven’t changed much in the past 25 years. In the U.S. packaged goods industry, for instance, companies introduce 30,000 products every year, but 70% to 90% of them don’t stay on store shelves for more than 12 months. Most innovative products—those that create new product categories or revolutionize old ones—are also unsuccessful. According to one study, 47% of first movers have failed, meaning that approximately half the companies that pioneered new product categories later pulled out of those businesses.

Consider three high-profile innovations whose performances have fallen far short of expectations:

Webvan spent more than $1 billion to create an online grocery business, only to declare bankruptcy in July 2001 after failing to attract as many customers as it thought it would.

In spite of gaining the support of Apple’s Steve Jobs, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and many high-profile investors, Segway sold a mere 6,000 scooters in the 18 months after its launch—a far cry from the 50,000 to 100,000 units projected.

Although TiVo’s digital video recorder (DVR) has garnered rave reviews since the late 1990s from both industry experts and product adopters, the company had amassed $600 million in operating losses by 2005 because demand trailed expectations.

After the fact, experts and novices alike tend to dismiss unsuccessful innovations as bad ideas that were destined to fail. But surely that’s too simple an explanation. If these innovations are so misguided, why isn’t it obvious before the fact? Webvan was backed by seasoned retailers, executives, and investment bankers, but it was nonetheless a spectacular failure. While the Segway and TiVo stories have yet to play out fully, both company executives and industry analysts were far more optimistic about those innovations than they should have been.

Why do consumers fail to buy innovative products even when they offer distinct improvements over existing ones? Why do companies invariably have more faith in new products than is warranted? Few would question the objective advantages of many innovations over existing alternatives, but that’s often not enough for them to succeed. To understand why new products fail to live up to companies’ expectations, we must delve into the psychology of behavior change. This article presents a behavioral framework that explains why so many products fail and outlines some actions that companies can take to improve their chances of success.

New products often require consumers to change their behavior. As companies know,those behavior changes entail costs. Consumers incur transaction costs, such as the activation fees they have to pay when they switch from one cellular service provider to another.They also bear learning costs, such as when they shift from manual to automatic automo-bile transmissions. People sustain obsolescence costs, too. For example, when they switch from VCRs to DVD players, their video-tape collections become useless. All of these are economic switching costs that most companies routinely anticipate. What businesses don’t take into account,however, are the psychological costs associated with behavior change. Many products fail be-cause of a universal, but largely ignored, psychological bias: People irrationally over value benefits they currently possess relative to those they don’t. The bias leads consumers to value the advantages of products they own more than the benefits of new ones. It also leads executives to value the benefits of innovations they’ve developed over the advantages of in-cumbent products. That leads to a clash in perspectives: Executives, who irrationally overvalue their innovations, must predict the buying behavior of consumers, who irrationally overvalue existing alternatives. The results are often disastrous:Consumers reject new products that would make them better off, while executives are at a loss to anticipate failure. This double-edged bias is the curse of innovation.