剑桥雅思7阅读：Test3雅思阅读PASSAGE 1真题+答案+解析

　　REA DING

　　READING PASSAGE 1

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

　　Ant Intelligence

　　When we think of intelligent

　　However, in ants there is no

　　members of the animal

　　cultural transmission -

　　kingdom, the creatures that

　　everything must be encoded

　　spring immediately to mind

　　in the genes - whereas in

　　are apes and monkeys. But

　　humans the opposite is

　　in fact the social lives of

　　true. Only basic instincts are

　　some members of the insect

　　carried in the genes of a

　　kingdom are sufficiently

　　newborn baby, other skills

　　complex to suggest more

　　being learned from others in

　　than a hint of intelligence.

　　the community as the child

　　Among these, the world of the ant has come

　　grows up. It may seem that this cultural

　　in for considerable scrutiny lately, and the

　　continuity gives us a huge advantage over

　　idea that ants demonstrate sparks of

　　ants. They have never mastered fire nor

　　cognition has certainly not been rejected by

　　progressed.' Their fungus farming and aphid

　　those involved in these investigations.

　　herding crafts are sophisticated when

　　Ants store food, repel attackers and use

　　compared to the agricultural skills of

　　chemical signals to contact one another in

　　humans five thousand years ago but have

　　case of attack. Such chemical

　　been totally overtaken by modern human

　　communication can be compared to the

　　agribusiness.

　　human use of visual and auditory channels

　　Or have they? The farming methods of ants

　　(as in religious chants, advertising images

　　are at least sustainable. They do not ruin

　　and jingles, political slogans and martial

　　environments or use enormous amounts of

　　music) to arouse and propagate moods and

　　energy. Moreover, recent evidence suggests

　　attitudes. The biologist Lewis Thomas wrote,

　　that the crop farming of ants may be more

　　Ants are so much like human beings as to

　　sophisticated and adaptable than was

　　be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise thought.

　　aphids* as livestock, launch armies to war,

　　Ants were farmers fifty million years before

　　use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse

　　humans were. Ants can't digest the cellulose

　　enemies, capture slaves, engage in child

　　in leaves - but some fungi can. The ants

　　labour, exchange information ceaselessly.

　　therefore cultivate these fungi in their nests,

　　They do everything but watch television.'

　　bringing them leaves to feed on, and then

　　use them as a source of food. Farmer antsexisted in something like their present formsecrete antibiotics to control other fungi that more than seventy million years ago. Besidemight act as 'weeds', and spread waste to

　　this, prehistoric man looks technologically

　　fertilise the crop.

　　primitive. Is this then some kind of

　　It was once thought that the fungus that

　　intelligence, albeit of a different kind?

　　ants cultivate was a single type that they

　　Research conducted at Oxford, Sussex and

　　had propagated, essentially unchanged from Zürich Universities has shown that whenthe distant past. Not so. Ulrich Mueller of

　　desert ants return from a foraging trip, they

　　Maryland and his colleagues genetically

　　navigate by integrating bearings and

　　screened 862 different types of fungi taken

　　distances, which they continuously update in

　　from ants' nests. These turned out to be

　　their heads. They combine the evidence of

　　highly diverse: it seems that ants are

　　visual landmarks with a mental library of

　　continually domesticating new species. Even local directions, all within a framework whichmore impressively, DNA analysis of the fungi is consulted and updated. So ants can learnsuggests that the ants improve or modify the too.

　　fungi by regularly swapping and sharing

　　And in a twelve-year programme of work,

　　strains with neighbouring ant colonies.

　　Ryabko and Reznikova have found evidence

　　Whereas prehistoric man had no exposure to that ants can transmit very complex

　　urban lifestyles -- the forcing house of

　　messages. Scouts who had located food in a

　　intelligence - the evidence suggests that

　　maze returned to mobilise their foraging

　　ants have lived in urban settings for close on teams. They engaged in contact sessions, ata hundred million years, developing and

　　the end of which the scout was removed in

　　maintaining underground cities of

　　order to observe what her team might do.

　　specialised chambers and tunnels.

　　Often the foragers proceeded to the exact

　　When we survey Mexico City, Tokyo, Los

　　spot in the maze where the food had been.

　　Angeles, we are amazed at what has been

　　Elaborate precautions were taken to prevent

　　accomplished by humans. Yet Hoelldobler

　　the foraging team using odour clues.

　　and Wilson's magnificent work for ant lovers,

　　Discussion now centres on whether the route

　　The Ants, describes a supercolony of the ant

　　through the maze is communicated as a 'left-

　　Formica yessensis on the ishikari Coast of

　　right' sequence of turns or as a 'compass

　　Hokkaido. This 'megalopolis' was reported to

　　bearing and distance' message.

　　be composed of 360 million workers and a

　　During the course of this exhaustive study,

　　million queens living in 4 ,500

　　Reznikova has grown so attached to her

　　interconnected nests across a territory of

　　laboratory ants that she feels she knows

　　2.7 square kilometres.

　　them as individuals - even without the paint

　　Such enduring and intricately meshed levels

　　spots used to mark them. It's no surprise

　　of technical achievement outstrip by far

　　that Edward Wilson, in his essay, 'In the

　　anything achieved by our distant ancestors.

　　company of ants', advises readers who askwhat to do with the ants in their kitchen to:

　　We hail as masterpieces the cave paintings

　　'Watch where you step. Be careful of little

　　in southern France and elsewhere, dating

　　lives.'

　　back some 20,000 years. Ant societies

　　TEST 3 PASSAGE 1 参考译文：

　　蚂蚁智能

　　每当我们想到动物界的智能成员时，头脑中立刻出现的会是猿和猴子。事实上，在昆虫界，某些成员社会生活的复杂程度显示出了相当程度的智能。其中蚂蚁世界就在最近成了主要的观察对象蚂蚁显示出认知力的观点也得到了研究人员的肯定。

　　蚂蚁储存食物，反击外敌，在攻击时用化学信号互相联系。此类化学信号交流可与人类使用视觉和听觉途径(如圣歌、广告形象、铃声、政治标语以及军乐)来激发情绪和传递理念的行为相媲美。生物学家 Lewis Thomas写道：“蚂蚁和人类是如此的相似，都让我们觉得自愧不如。它们培育真菌，把蚜虫作为家畜来饲养，调配军队作战，用化学气雾发出替告和迷惑敌人，俘虏奴隶，忙于育婴，不停地交流信息。除了不看电视它们什么都做。”

　　然而，蚂蚁的世界里没有文化的传播——所有的技能都必须存储在基因里——而人类的情况却恰恰相反。人类新生儿的基因里只有基本的本能，其他技能则是在成长过程中从社会其他成员身上学习所得。看起来这种文化传承使我们与蚂蚁相比具有巨大的优势。它们从未掌握用火技术，也不知发展为何物，它们培育真菌、饲养蚜虫的技术和五千年前的人类农耕技术相比还算成熟，但却被人类现代的农业综合企业远远超越。

　　那么蚂蚁真的被人类超越了么?蚂蚁的农耕方式至少是可持续性的。它们不会破坏环境，也不需要使用大量能源。而且，最近的证据表明，蚂蚁的农耕方式可能比过去我们所认为的还要成熟和灵活。

　　蚂蚁早于人类5000万年就已成为农夫。它们不能消化叶子中的纤维素，但是某些真菌可以。因此蚂蚁在巢穴里培育这些真菌，让它们以叶子为食，而真菌则成为蚂蚁的食物来源。蚂蚁农夫们分泌抗生素去控制其他可能成为“杂草”的真菌，还会播撒废料来给作物施肥。

　　曾经有观点认为蚂蚁培育的真菌只是它们繁殖的单一品种，长久以来都没有本质的改变。其实不然。马里兰州的Ulrich Mueller和他的同事们就从蚂蚁巢穴中从基因方面筛选出了862种不同种类的真菌。这些真菌品种多样——看来蚂蚁在不断培育新的真菌品种。让人更加印象深刻的是，对真菌的DNA分析表明， 蚂蚁通过频繁地和周边蚂蚁群体的交换和共享来改进或更新菌种。

　　史前人类没有机会接触城市化的生活方式——这一孕育智能的温床。而证据表明，蚂蚁已经在城市环境中生存了将近一亿年了，建造并维持着由特殊的洞穴和隧道构成的地下城市。

　　当我们考察墨西哥城、东京和洛杉矶时，都会惊叹人类的伟大成就。然而，Hoelldobler和Wilson在为蚂蚁爱好者创作的巨著《蚂蚁》中，描述了日本北海道石狩湾的石狩红蚁所建造的超级蚁群。据称，在这个包含了4500个纵横交错的巣穴、幅员达2. 7平方公里的“巨大城市”中，生活着3. 6亿只工蚁和100万只蚁后。

　　如此坚固，复杂的网状技术成就远远超越了我们的远古祖先所取得的任何成就。人们在法国南部或者其他地方欣赏那些两万年前的岩画杰作的时候对祖先的成就肃然起敬。而蚂蚁的社会形态早在7000多万年前就已经和现在相差无几。此外，史前人类的技术看上去很原始。那么，和当时的蚂蚁社会相比，这还能算是另外一种形式的智能吗?

　　在牛津大学、苏赛克斯大学以及苏黎世大学所作的研究表明，沙漠蚁在觅食归巢途中，会结合它们脑中不断更新的方向和距离资料来做导向。它们会将可见的地标与记忆库中的区域方向结合来分门别类储存，并不断地使用和更新。因此蚂蚁也具备学习能力。

　　在12年研究过程中，Ryabko和Reznikova找到了证据，证明蚂蚁能够传递复杂的信息。侦察蚁在迷宫中找到食物后返回去通知觅食队伍。研究人员干涉了蚂蚁交流的过程，在最后把侦察蚁弄走，看蚂蚁团队会有什么反应。通常觅食队伍会还是能够继续行进到迷宫中食物的确切位置。而在此之前，研究人员已经做了精密的预防措施，防止蚁群通过气味来传递信息。现在讨论的焦点是，蚂蚁在迷宫中行进路线的传递是通过一连串的左转、右转信息还是通过指南针式的方向和距离引导来完成的。

　　在这次全面的研究过程中，Reznikova全身心地投入到她实验室的蚂蚁身上，她感觉己认识每一只蚂蚁——即使它们身上没有记号。无怪乎Edward Wilson在他的论文《与蚂蚁相伴》中，建议那些询问如何处理厨房中蚂蚁的读者：“注意脚下，珍惜小生命。”

　　师资点题剑桥雅思7阅读解析：

　　READING PASSAGE 1

　　文章结构

　　体 裁：说明文

　　主 题：蚂蚁的智慧

　　段落概括

　　A概述研究发现蚂蚁具备智慧火花。

　　B蚂蚁智慧的具体表现。

　　C蚂蚁与人类的文明传承对比及农业方式问题。

　　D蚂蚁农业方式的优势。

　　E具体说明蚂蚁种植真菌农业方式

　　F蚂蚁种植真菌种类多样，并不断改进和发展。

　　G蚂蚁的城市生活方式。

　　H蚂蚁建造特大蚂蚁城。

　　I蚂蚁耐力惊人，以社会形式存在的历史悠久。

　　J蚂蚁具备学习能力，会不断更新大脑资料。

　　K蚂蚁具备传递复杂信息的能力，侦査蚁与觅食队的具体协作。

　　LReznikova与研究的蚂蚁建立紧密联系，Wilson提醒人们爱护蚂蚁。