考试日期：

2015年3月14日

Reading Passage 1 （旧）

Title:

The history of tea茶叶的历史

Question types:

小标题配对

信息配对

文章大意

A The story of tea began in ancient China over  5,000 years ago. According to the legend, Shen Nung, an early emperor was a  skilled ruler, creative scientist and patron of the arts. His far-sighted  edicts required, among other things, that all drinking water be boiled as a  hygienic precaution. One summer day while visiting a distant region of his  realm, he and the court stopped to rest. In accordance with his ruling, the  servants began to boil water for the court to drink. Dried leaves from the  nearby bush fell into the boiling water, and a brown liquid was infused into  the water. As a scientist, the emperor was interested in the new liquid,  drank some, and found it very refreshing. And so, according to legend, tea  was created.
 B Tea consumption spread throughout the Chinese culture reaching into every  aspect of the society. In 800 A.D. Lu Yu wrote the first definitive book on  tea, the Ch’aChing. This amazing man was orphaned as a child and raised by  scholarly Buddhist monks in one of China’s finest monasteries. Patronized by  the Emperor himself, his work clearly showed the Zen Buddhist philosophy to  which he was exposed as a child. It was this form of tea service that Zen  Buddhist missionaries would later introduce to imperial Japan. The first tea  seeds were brought to Japan by the returning Buddhist priest Yeisei,   who  had  seen  the  value  of  tea   in  China  in  enhancing  religious mediation. As a  result, he is known as the “Father of Tea”in Japan. Because of this early  association, tea in Japan has always been associated with Zen Buddhism. Tea  received almost instant imperial sponsorship and spread rapidly from the  royal court and monasteries to the other sections of Japanese society.

C Tea was elevated to an art form resulting in  the creation of the Japanese Tea Ceremony (“Cha-no-yu”or “the hot water for  tea”). The best description of this complex art form was probably written by  the Irish-Greek journalist historian Lafcadio Hearn, one of the few  foreigners ever to be grantedJapanese citizenship during this era. He wrote  from personal observation, “The
 Tea ceremony requires years of training and practice to graduate in art...yet  the whole of this art, as to its detail, signifies no more than the making  and serving of a cup of tea. The supremely important matter is that the act  be performed in the most perfect, most polite, most graceful, most charming  manner possible”. Sucha purity of form, of expression prompted the creation  of supportive arts and services. A special form of architecture (chaseki)  developed for “tea houses”, based on the duplication (复制) of the simplicity of a forest cottage. The  cultural/artistic hostesses of Japan, the Geishi, began to specialize in the  presentation of the tea ceremony. As more and more people became involved in  the excitement surrounding tea, the purity of the original Zen concept was  lost. The tea ceremony became corrupted, boisterous and highly embellished.  “Tea Tournament “were held among the wealthy where nobles competed among each  other for rich prizes in naming various tea blends. Rewarding winners with  gifts of silk, armor, and jewelry was totally alien to the original Zen  attitude of the ceremony. Three great Zen priests restored tea to its  original place in Japanese society. One of them is Sen-no Rikkyu  (1521-1591)-priest who set the rigid standards for the ceremony, largely used  intact today. Rikyo was successful in influencing the Shogun Toyotomi  Hideyoshi, who became Japan’s greatest patron of the “art oftea”. A brilliant  general, strategist, poet, and artist this unique leader facilitated the  final and complete integration of tea into the pattern of Japanese life. So  complete was this acceptance, that tea was viewed as the ultimate gift, and  warlords paused for tea before battles.
 D While tea was at this high level of development in both Japan and China,  information concerning this then unknown beverage began to filter back to  Europe. Earlier caravan (旅行队) leaders had  mentioned it, but were unclear as to its service format or appearance. (One  reference suggests the leaves be boiled, salted, buttered, and eaten) The  first European to personally encounter tea and write about it was the  Portuguese Jesuit Father Jasper de Cruz in 1560. Portugal, with her  technologically advanced navy, had been successful in gaining the first right  of trade with China. It was as a missionary on that first commercial mission  that Father de Cruz had tasted tea four years before. The Portuguese  developed a trade route by which they shipped their tea to Lisbon, and then  Dutch ships transported it to France, Holland, and the Baltic countries. (At  that time Holland was politically affiliated with Portugal. When this  alliance was altered in 1602, Holland, with her excellent navy, entered into  full Pacific trade in her own right.)
 E Because of the success of the Dutch navy in the Pacific, tea became very  fashionable in the Dutch capital, the Hague. This was due in part to the high  cost of the tea (over $100 per pound) which immediately made it the domain of  the wealthy.

F Slowly, as the amount of tea imported  increased, the price fell as the volume of sale expanded.
 Initially it was available to the public in apothecaries  along with  such rare and new spices as ginger and sugar, and by 1675 it  was  available  in  common food shops throughout Holland. As the  consumption of tea increased dramatically in Dutch society, doctors and  university authorities argued back and forth as to the negative and/or  positive benefits of tea. Known as “tea heretics”, the public largely ignored  the scholarly debate and continued to enjoy their new beverage though the  controversy lasted from 1635 to roughly 1657. Throughout this period France  and Holland led Europe in the use of tea.
 G As the craze for things oriental swept Europe, tea became part of the way  of life. The social critic Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, the Marquise de Steven  makes the first mention in 1680 0f adding milk to tea. During the same  period, Dutch inns provided the first restaurant service of tea. Tavern  owners would furnish guests with a portable tea set complete with a heating  unit. The independent Dutchman would then prepare tea for himself and his  friends outside in the
 tavern’s garden. Tea remained popular in France for only about fifty years,  being replaced by a stronger preference for wine, chocolate, and exotic  coffees. Great Britain was the last of the three great sea-faring nations to  break into the Chinese and East Indian trade routes. This was due in part to  the unsteady ascension to the throne of the Stuarts and the Cromwellian Civil  War. The first samples of tea reached England between 1652 and 1654. Tea  quickly proved popular enough to replace ale as the national drink of  England. As in Holland, it was the nobility that provided the necessary stamp  of approval and so insured its acceptance. King Charles II had married, while  in exile, the Portuguese Infanta Catherine de Braganza (1662). Charles  himself had grown up in the Dutch capital. As a result, both he and his  Portuguese bride were confirmed tea drinkers. When the monarchy was  re-established, the two rulers brought this foreign tea tradition to England  with them.
 H Imperial Russia was attempting to engage China and Japan in trade at the  same time as the East Indian Company. The Russian interest in tea began as  early as 1618 when the Chinese embassy in Moscow presented several chests of  tea to Czar Alexis. By 1689 the Trade Treaty of Newchinsk established a  common border between Russia and China, allowing caravans to then cross back  and forth freely. Still, the journey was not easy. The trip was 11,000 miles  long and took over sixteen months to complete. The average caravan consisted  of 200 t0 300 camels. As a result of such factors, the cost of tea was  initially prohibitive and available only to the wealthy. By the time  Catherine the Great died (1796), the price had dropped some, and tea was  spreading throughout Russian society.

部分答案

List of heading：

i.  Good or bad of tea
 ii.  Tea ritual
 iii.  Difficulties of import
 iv.  Religious objection of tea
 v.  A chance discovery
 vi.  In and out of fashion
 vii.  A luxury thing
 viii.  A connection between tea and religion
 ix.  Shortage of supply
 x.  News of tea going to new continent

段落A-G答案对应为：1.v 2.viii 3.ii 4.iv 5.vii 6.i 7.vi 8.iii

Matching:

A. France 法国

B. Holland 荷兰

C. Japan 日本

D. China 中国

E. Britain 英国

F. Russia 俄罗斯

G. Portugal 葡萄牙

9. 专为饮茶而设计的房子 C

10. 很短的一段时间过后茶被替代掉了 A

11. 使用动物来运输茶叶 F

12. 尽管有些争议但是饮茶还是十分流行 B

13. 因为统治者的专业知识，茶就此流行 D

难度分析

发明发展史类的文章，难度不高，避免粗心。小标题配对题注意掌握略读文章的方法以及一些带有特殊转折的段落。国家配对题相对简单，方便定位，仔细阅读文章得出答案。

Reading Passage 2 （旧）

Title:

Bestcom 自动电话系统

Question  types:

判断

流程填空

文章大意

A  

“YOUR BATTERY IS NOW FULLY CHARGED,” ANNOUNCED THE LAPTOP COMPUTER to its owner, Donald A. Norman, with  enthusiasm perhaps even a hint of pride?— in its synthetic voice. To be sure,  distractions and multitasking are hardly new to the human condition. “A complicated life, continually interrupted by competing requests for  attention, is as old as procreation,” laughs Ted Selker of the Massachusetts  Institute of Technology Media Lab. But increasingly, it is not just our kids  pulling us three ways at once; it is also a relentless barrage of e-mail,  alerts, alarms, calls, instant messages and automated notifications, none of  them coordinated and all of them oblivious to whether we are busy or even  present. “It’s ridiculous that my own computer can’t figure out whether I’m in front of it, but a public toilet can,” exclaims Roel Vertegaal of Queen’s University in Ontario.

B  

Humanity has  connected itself through roughly three billion networked telephones,  computers, traffic lights—even refrigerators and picture frames—because these things make life more convenient and keep us available  to those we care about. So although we could simply turn off the phones,  close the e-mail program, and shut the office door when it is time for a  meeting or a stretch of

concentrated work,  we usually don’t. We just endure the consequences.

C

Numerous studies  have shown that when people are unexpectedly interrupted, they not only work  less efficiently but also make more mistakes. “It seems to add cumulatively to a feeling  of frustration,” Picard reports, and that stress response makes it hard to regain  focus. It isn’t merely a matter of productivity and the pace of life. For pilots,  drivers, soldiers and doctors, errors of inattention can be downright  dangerous. “If we could just give our computers and phones some understanding of  the limits of human attention and memory, it would make them seem a lot more  thoughtful and courteous,” says Eric Horvitz of Microsoft Research.  Horvitz, Vertegaal, Selker and Picard are among a small but growing number of  researchers trying to teach computers, phones, cars and other gadgets (小配件）to behave less like egocentric oafs (利己主义者的笨人)and more like considerate  colleagues.

D

To do this, the  machines need new skills of three kinds: sensing, reasoning and  communicating. First a system must sense or infer where its owner is and what  he or she is doing. Next it must weigh the value of the messages it wants to  convey against the cost of the disruption. Then it has to choose the best  mode and time to interject. Each of these pushes the limits of computer  science and raises issues of privacy, complexity or reliability.  Nevertheless, “attentive” computing systems have begun appearing in newer Volvos and IBM has  introduced Websphere communications software with a basic busyness sense.  Microsoft has been running extensive in-house tests of a much more  sophisticated system since 2003. Within a few years, companies may be able to  offer every office worker a software version of the personal receptionist  that only corner-suite executives enjoy today. But if such an offer should land  in your inbox, be sure to read the fi ne print before you sign. An attentive  system, by definition, is one that is always watching. That considerate  computer may come to know more about your work habits than you do.

E

Most people aren’t as busy as they think they are, which is why we can usually  tolerate interruptions from our inconsiderate electronic paraphernalia ( 设备）. James Fogarty and Scott E. Hudson of Carnegie Mellon University  recently teamed up with Jennifer Lai of IBM Research to study 10 managers,  researchers and interns at work. They videotaped the subjects and  periodically had them rate their “interruptibility.” The amount of time the workers spent in leave-me-alone mode varied  from person to person and day to day, ranging from 10 to 51 percent. On  average, the subjects wanted to work without interruption about one third of  the time. In studies of Microsoft employees, Horvitz has similarly found that  they typically spend more than 65 percent of their day in a state of low  attention.

F

Today’s phones and computers, which naively ( 天真无邪地) assume that the user is never too busy to take a call, read an  email, or click “OK” on an alert box, thus are probably correct about two thirds of time.  To be useful, then, considerate systems will have to be more than 65 percent  accurate in sensing when their users are near their cognitive limits.  Bestcom/Enhanced Telephony, a Microsoft prototype based on Horvitz’s work, digs a little deeper into each user’s computer to find clues about what they are up to. Microsoft  launched an internal beta test of the system in mid-2003. By last October,  Horvitz says, about 3,800 people were using the system to field their  incoming phone calls.

G

Horvitz himself is  one of those testers, and while we talk in his office in Redmond，Wash., Bestcom silently handles one call after another. First it  checks whether the caller is listed in his address book, the company  directory, or its log of people he has called recently. Triangulating these  sources, it tries to deduce their relationship. Family members, supervisors  and people he called earlier today ring through. Others see a message on  their computer that he is in a meeting and won’t be available until 3 P.M. The system  scans Horvitz’s and the caller’s calendar and offers to reschedule the  call at a time that is open for both. Some callers choose that option; others  leave voice mail. E-mail messages get a similar screening. When Horvitz is  out of the office, Bestcom automatically offers to forward selected callers  to his cellphone— unless his calendar and other evidence suggest that he is in a  meeting.

H

Most large companies  already use computerized phone systems and standard calendar and contact  management software, so tapping into those “sensors” should be straightforward. Not all  employees will like the idea of having a microphone on all the time in their  office, however, nor will everyone want to expose their datebook to some  program they do not ultimately control. Moreover, some managers might be  tempted to equate a “state of low attention” with “goofing off ” and punish those who seem insufficiently  busy.

部分答案

判断

14. 根据Ted Selker所说，办公室内的干扰事项不断影响人类的生产力 Not Given

15. 如果人们被电话或者邮件打扰，他们通常会忍受这种情况而非采取不合作的行为 True

16. 微软公司现在正在调查研究一种软件，该软件是与普通的办公室相兼容的 True

17. 人们对于他们是否忙碌通常有错误的概念 True

18. 调查研究人员表明在办公室内注意力集中的时间段通常只有65% False

19. 先进的电话和电脑系统将会给人们提供即刻接受信息的捷径 NG

流程填空题：

20. clues

21. relationship

22. message

23. reschedule

24. voice mail

25. cellphone

26. meeting

Reading Passage 3 （旧）

Title:

What cookbooks  really teach us厨师手册的秘密

Question types:

填空

段落信息配对

信息配对

文章大意

A. Shelves bend  under their weight of cookery books. Even a medium-sized bookshop contains  many more recipes than one person could hope to cook in a lifetime. Although  the recipes in one book are often similar to those in another, their  presentation varies wildly, from an array of vegetarian cookbooks to  instructions on cooking the food that historical figures might have eaten.  The reason for this abundance is that cookbooks promise to bring about a kind  of domestic transformation for the user. The daily routine can be put to one side  and they liberate the user, if only temporarily. To follow their instructions  is to turn a task which has to be performed every day into an engaging,  romantic process. Cookbooks also provide an opportunity to delve into distant  cultures without having to turn up at an airport to get there.
    B. The first Western cookbook appeared just over 1,600 years  ago. De re coquina (it means 'concerning cookery') is attributed to a Roman  gourmet named Apicius. It is probably a compilation of Roman and Greek recipes,  some or all of them drawn from manuscripts that were later lost. The editor  was sloppy, allowing several duplicated recipes to sneak in. Yet Apices’ book  set the tone of cookery advice in Europe for more than a thousand years. As a  cookbook it is unsatisfactory with very basic instructions. Joseph Veiling, a  chef who translated Apicius in the 1930s, suggested the author had been  obscure on purpose, in case his secrets leaked out.
    C. But a more likely reason is that Apicius's recipes were  written by and for professional cooks, who could follow their shorthand. This  situation continued for hundreds of years. There was no order to cookbooks: a  cake recipe might be followed by a mutton one. But then, they were not  written for careful study. Before the 19th century few educated people cooked  for themselves. The wealthiest employed literate chefs; others presumably  read recipes to their servants. Such cooks would have been capable of  creating dishes from the vaguest of instructions.
    D. The invention of printing might have been expected to lead to  greater clarity but at first the reverse was true. As words acquired  commercial value, plagiarism exploded. Recipes were distorted through  reproduction. A recipe for boiled capon in The Good Huswives Jewell,  printed in 1596, advised the cook to add three or four dates. By 1653, when  the recipe was given by a different author in A Book of Fruits & Flowers,  the cook was told to set the dish aside for three or four days.
    E. The dominant theme in 16th and 17th century cookbooks was  order. Books combined recipes and household advice, on the assumption that a  well-made dish, a well-ordered larder and well- disciplined children were  equally important. Cookbooks thus became a symbol of dependability in chaotic  times. They hardly seem to have been affected by the English civil war or the  revolutions in America and France.
    F. In the 1850s Isabella Beaton published The Book of  Household Management. Like earlier cookery writers she plagiarized  freely, lifting not just recipes but philosophical observations from other  books. If Beaton’s recipes were not wholly new, though, the way in which she  presented them certainly was. She explains when the chief ingredients are  most likely to be in season, how long the dish will take to prepare and even  how much it is likely to cost. Beaton’s recipes were well suited to her  times. Two centuries earlier, an understanding of rural ways had been so  widespread that one writer could advise cooks to heat water until it was a  little hotter than milk comes from a cow. By the 1850s Britain was  industrializing. The growing urban middle class needed details, and Beaton  provided them in full.
    G. In France, cookbooks were fast becoming even more systematic.  Compared with Britain, France had produced few books written for the ordinary  householder by the end of the 19th century. The most celebrated French  cookbooks were written by superstar chefs who had a clear sense of codifying  a unified approach to sophisticated French cooking. The 5,000 recipes in  Auguste Escoffier's Le Guide Culinaire (The Culinary Guide), published in  1902, might as well have been written in stone, given the book's reputation  among French chefs, many of whom still consider it the definitive reference  book.
    H. What Escoffier did for French cooking, Fannie Farmer did for  American home cooking. She not only synthesized American cuisine; she  elevated it to the status of science. 'Progress in civilization has been  accompanied by progress in cookery,' she breezily announced in The Boston  Cooking-School Cook Book, before launching into a collection of recipes that  sometimes resembles a book of chemistry experiments. She was occasionally  over-fussy. She explained that currants should be picked between June 28th  and July 3rd, but not when it is raining. But in the main her book is  reassuringly authoritative. Its recipes are short, with no unnecessary chat  and no unnecessary spices.
    I. In 1950 Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David launched a  revolution in cooking advice in Britain. In some ways Mediterranean Food  recalled even older cookbooks but the smells and noises that filled David's  books were not mere decoration for her recipes. They were the point of her  books. When she began to write, many ingredients were not widely available or  affordable. She understood this, acknowledging in a later edition of one of  her books that 'even if people could not very often make the dishes here  described, it was stimulating to think about them.' David's books were not so  much cooking manuals as guides to the kind of food people might well wish to  eat.

部分答案

填空题

Why are there so  many cookery books?

There are a great  number more cookery books published than is really necessary and it is  their _presentation_______which makes them differ from each other.  There are such large numbers because they offer people an escape from  their ____daily routine___ and some give the user the chance to inform  themselves about other __distant cultures____  .

段落信息配对题

1. cookery books  providing a sense of stability during periods of unrest E

2. details in recipes  being altered as they were passed on D

3. knowledge which  was in danger of disappearing G

4. the negative  effect on cookery books of a new development D

5. a period when  there was no need for cookery books to be precise C

配对题

1. Its recipes were  easy to follow despite the writer’s attention to detail D

2. Its writer may  have deliberately avoided passing on details A

3. It appealed to  ambitious ideas people have about cooking E

4. Its writer used  ideas from other books but added additional related information B

5. It put into ideas  which are still respected today C

List of cookery  books

  A. De  re coquina
    B. The Book of Household Management
    C. Le Guide Culinaire
    D. The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
    E. Mediterranean Food

难度分析

本场考试三篇都是旧题，难度中等；涉及话题历史，科技等社科类话题。建议烤鸭们合理利用机经还原文章，关注题库及剑桥雅思真题中的相关话题文章，扩充自己的背景知识。

题型方面，本场考试涉及的题型较为简单，判断填空配对仍然是本次雅思阅读考试的考查重点，广大烤鸭在备考时一定要强化对高频题型的训练，查漏补缺。