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[email protected]) 1 TĂNG TỪ VỰNG IELTS READING SỬ DỤNG CAMBRIDGE IELTS 7 BY NGOCBACH TEST 1 Reading passage 1 Let’s go bats A. Bats have a problem: how to find their way around in the dark. They hunt at night and cannot use light to help them find prey and avoid obstacles. You might say that this is a problem of their own making, one that they could avoid simply by changing their habits and hunting by day. But the daytime economy is already heavily exploited by other creatures such as birds. Given that there is a living to be made at night, and given that alternative daytime trades are thoroughly occupied, natural selection has favoured bats that make a go of the night-hunting trade. It is probable that the nocturnal trades go way back in the ancestry of all mammals. In the time when the dinosaurs dominated the daytime economy, our mammalian ancestors probably only managed to survive at all because they found ways of scraping a living at night. Only after the mysterious mass extinction of the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago were our ancestors able to emerge into the daylight in any substantial numbers. B. Bats have an engineering problem: how to find their way and find their prey in the absence of light. Obviously, the night-flying insects that they prey on must find their way about somehow. Deep-sea fish and whales have little or no light by day or by night. Fish and dolphins that live in extremely muddy water cannot see because, although there is light, it is obstructed and scattered by the dirt in the water. Plenty of other modern animals make their living in conditions where seeing is difficult or impossible. C. Given the questions of how to manoeuvre in the dark what solutions might an engineer consider? The first one that might occur to him is to manufacture light, to use a lantern or a searchlight. Fireflies and some fish (usually with the obstacle (n): something that blocks one’s way. of one’s own making: the mistake of someone. change one’s habit: to switch something that is done regularly to another activity the daytime economy: food availability and hunting activity given that...: provided that to make a living: to do gather enough resources in order to sustain daily life favour something (v): to prioritize something make a go of something: to be successful in something it is probable that: having high chances to happen dominate (v): to rule over something scrap a living: to barely provide oneself with necessities mass extinction: the disappearance of species on a very large scale emerge (v): to appear substantial numbers: to be considerable in figures an engineering problem: a technical issue in the absence of something: to lack of something face this difficulty: to deal with challenge obstruct something (v): to block something scatter something (v): to drop things over a wide area with no specific arrangement
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[email protected]) 2 help of bacteria) have the power to manufacture their own light, but the process seems to consume a large amount of energy. Fireflies use their light for attracting mates. This doesn't require a prohibitive amount of energy: a male’s tiny pinprick of light can be seen by a female from some distance on a dark night, since her eyes are exposed directly to the light source itself. However, using light to find one's own way around requires vastly more energy, since the eyes have to detect the tiny fraction of the light that bounces off each part of the scene. The light source must therefore be immensely brighter if it is to be used as a headlight to illuminate the path, than if it is to be used as a signal to others. In any event, whether or not the reason is the energy expense, it seems to be the case that, with the possible exception of some weird deep-sea fish, no animal apart from man uses manufactured light to find its way about. D. What else might the engineer think of? Well, blind humans sometimes seem to have an uncanny sense of obstacles in their path. It has been given the name 'facial vision’, because blind people have reported that it feels a bit like the sense of touch, on the face. One report tells of a totally blind boy who could ride his tricycle at good speed round the block near his home, using facial vision. Experiments showed that, in fact, facial vision is nothing to do with touch or the front of the face, although the sensation may be referred to the front of the face, like the referred pain in a phantom limb. The sensation of facial vision, it turns out, really goes in through the ears. Blind people, without even being aware of the fact, are actually using echoes of their own footsteps and of other sounds, to sense the presence of obstacles. Before this was discovered, engineers had already built instruments to exploit the principle, for example to measure the depth of the sea under a ship. After this technique had been invented, it was only a matter of time before weapons designers adapted it for the detection of submarines. Both sides in the Second World War relied heavily on these devices, under such codenames as Asdic (British) and Sonar (American), as well as Radar (American) or RDF (British), which uses radio echoes rather than sound echoes. manoeuvre (v): to move occur to someone (v): to happen to somebody manufacture light: to create a source of light a lantern (n): a type of light source put inside a transparent container, usually with handle at the top a searchlight (n): light with high intensity, can point at different directions with the help of: having the assistance of a prohibitive amount of energy: a great deal of power a tiny pinprick of light: a small amount of light be exposed to something: to come in contact with something vastly (adv): very much detect (v): to discover something bounce off: to reflect immensely (adv): extremely illuminate (v): to lighten, brighten with the exception of something: excluding something apart from: except for an uncanny sense of something: a strange feeling about something uncanny (adj): bizarre, strange tricycle (n): a vehicle similar to a bicycle but with two wheels at the back and one at the front nothing to do with something: to have no connection with something sensation (n): feeling phantom: describing something that is part of one’s imagination but is not real (phantom limb (n): referring to a medical condition, when pain can still be felt in amputated, missing limbs) turn out: to happen
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[email protected]) 3 E. The Sonar and Radar pioneers didn't know it then, but all the world now knows that bats, or rather natural selection working on bats, had perfected the system tens of millions of years earlier; and their 'radar' achieves feats of detection and navigation that would strike an engineer dumb with admiration. It is technically incorrect to talk about bat 'radar', since they do not use radio waves. It is sonar. But the underlying mathematical theories of radar and sonar are very similar and much of our scientific understanding of the details of what bats are doing has come from applying radar theory to them. The American zoologist Donald Griffin, who was largely responsible for the discovery of sonar in bats, coined the term 'echolocation' to cover both sonar and radar, whether used by animals or by human instruments. to be aware of something: to acknowledge something echo (n): sounds reflected after hitting a surface exploit the principle: to put a basic idea into use for one’s own good it was a matter of time: time was the only concern rely on something: to depend on something sonar (n): a technique using sounds for underwater navigation and communication radar (n): a system applying radio waves in detecting objects pioneer (n): the first person to do something perfect the system: to make the system flawless achieve a feat: to make an achievement navigation (n): the act of planning which way to go strike someone dumb: to silence someone the underlying ... theory: the basic theory responsible for something: to have the duty of taking care of something coin the term: to create new words or expressions echolocation: a technique which uses echo to locate things Reading passage 2 Making every drop count A. The history of human civilisation is entwined with the history of the ways we have learned to manipulate water resources. As towns gradually expanded, water was brought from increasingly remote sources, leading human civilisation: the most advanced stage of society be entwined with something: to be twisted together or around something manipulate (v): control, regulate sophisticated efforts: action that is complicated
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[email protected]) 4 to sophisticated engineering efforts such as dams and aqueducts. At the height of the Roman Empire, nine major systems, with an innovative layout of pipes and well-built sewers, supplied the occupants of Rome with as much water per person as is provided in many parts of the industrial world today. B. During the industrial revolution and population explosion of the 19th and 20th centuries, the demand for water rose dramatically. Unprecedented construction of tens of thousands of monumental engineering projects designed to control floods, protect clean water supplies, and provide water for irrigation and hydropower brought great benefits to hundreds of millions of people. Food production has kept pace with soaring populations mainly because of the expansion of artificial irrigation systems that make possible the growth of 40% of the world’s food. Nearly one fifth of all the electricity generated worldwide is produced by turbines spun by the power of falling water. C. Yet there is a dark side to this picture: despite our progress, half of the world’s population still suffers, with water services inferior to those available to the ancient Greeks and Romans. As the United Nations report on access to water reiterated in November 2001, more than one billion people lack access to clean drinking water; some two and a half billion do not have adequate sanitation services. Preventable water- related diseases kill an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 children every day, and the latest evidence suggests that we are falling behind in efforts to solve these problems. D. The consequences of our water policies extend beyond jeopardising human health. Tens of millions of people have been forced to move from their homes - often with little warning or compensation - to make way for the reservoirs behind dams. More than 20 % of all freshwater fish species are now threatened or endangered because dams and water withdrawals have destroyed the free-flowing river ecosystems where they thrive. Certain irrigation practices degrade soil quality and reduce agricultural productivity. Groundwater aquifers are being pumped down faster than they are dam (n): a wall built perpendicular to a river, to control its flow aqueduct (n): a system which directs the flow of water at the height of something: at the pinnacle of something innovative layout: a new, more modern way of arrangement supply someone with something: to purvey something to somebody industrial world: society focusing on developing industries industrial revolution: a significant change, leading to the development of industries population explosion: a rapid, sudden increase in the number of people living in a specific place the demand for something: a need for something unprecedented (adj): have never happened before monumental projects: a large plan irrigation (n): the act of watering for the growth of plants hydropower (n): energy generated through the movement of turbines, which are accelerated by the flow of water to bring great benefits to: to have significant advantages food production: the process of transforming raw ingredients into edible products keep pace with: to catch up with soaring populations: a skyrocketing population artificial irrigation systems: systems made by men, which supply water to crops artificial (adj): man-made to generate (v): to create, produce there is a dark side to this picture: the unfavourable aspect of a situation
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