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1、READING PASSAGE 1You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.Our conception of time depends on the way we measure itA According to archaeological evidence, at least 5,000 years ago, and long before the advent of the Roman Empire, the Babylonians be
2、gan to measure time, introducing calendars to co-ordinate munal activities, to plan the shipment of goods and, in particular, to regulate planting and harvesting. They based their calendars on three natural cycles: the solar day, marked by the successive periods of light and darkness as the earth ro
3、tates on its a*is; the lunar month, following the phases of the moon as it orbits the earth; and the solar year, defined by the changing seasons that acpany our planets revolution around the sun.B Before the invention of artificial light, the moon had greater social impact. And, for those living nea
4、r the equator in particular, its wa*ing and waning was more conspicuous than the passing of the seasons. Hence, the calendars that were developed at the lower latitudes were influenced more by the lunar cycle than by the solar year. In more northern climes, however, where seasonal agriculture was pr
5、actised, the solar year became more crucial. As the Roman Empire e*panded northward, it organised its activity chart for the most part around the solar year.C Centuries before the Roman Empire, the Egyptians had formulated a municipal calendar having 12 months of 30 days, with five days added to app
6、ro*imate the solar year. Each period of ten days was marked by the appearance of special groups of stars called decans. At the rise of the star Sirius just before sunrise, which occurred around the all-important annual flooding of the Nile, 12 decans could be seen spanning the heavens. The cosmic si
7、gnificance the Egyptians placed in the 12 decans led them to develop a system in which each interval of darkness (and later, each interval of daylight) was divided into a dozen equal parts. These periods became known as temporal hours because their duration varied according to the changing length of
8、 days and nights with the passing of the seasons. Summer hours were long, winter ones short; only at the spring and autumn equino*eswere the hours of daylight and darkness equal. Temporal hours, which were first adopted by the Greeks and then the Romans, who disseminated them through Europe, remaine
9、d in use for more than 2,500 years.D In order to track temporal hours during the day, inventors created sundials, which indicate time by the length or direction of the suns shadow. The sundials counterpart, the water clock, was designed to measure temporal hours at night. One of the first water cloc
10、ks was a basin with a small hole near the bottom through which the water dripped out. The falling water level denoted the passing hour as it dipped below hour lines inscribed on the inner surface. Although these devices performed satisfactorily around the Mediterranean, they could not always be depe
11、nded on in the cloudy and often freezing weather of northern Europe.E The advent of the mechanical clock meant that although it could be adjusted to maintain temporal hours, it was naturally suited to keeping equal ones. With these, however, arose the question of when to begin counting, and so, in t
12、he early 14th century, a number of systems evolved. The schemes that divided the day into 24 equal parts varied according to the start of the count: Italian hours began at sunset, Babylonian hours at sunrise, astronomical hours at midday and great clock hours, used for some large public clocks in Ge
13、rmany, at midnight. Eventually these were superseded by small clock, or French, hours, which split the day into two 12-hour periods mencing at midnight.F The earliest recorded weight-driven mechanical clock was built in 1283 in Bedfordshire in England. The revolutionary aspect of this new timekeeper
14、 was neither the descending weight that provided its motive force nor the gear wheels (which had been around for at least 1,300 years) that transferred the power; it was the part called the escapement. In the early 1400s came the invention of the coiled spring or fusee which maintained constant forc
15、e to the gear wheels of the timekeeper despite the changing tension of its mainspring. By the 16th century, a pendulum clock had been devised, but the pendulum swung in a large arc and thus was not very efficient.G To address this, a variation on the original escapement was invented in 1670, in Engl
16、and. It was called the anchor escapement, which was a lever-based device shaped like a ships anchor. The motion of a pendulum rocks this device so that it catches and then releases each tooth of the escape wheel, in turn allowing it to turn a precise amount. Unlike the original form used in early pe
17、ndulum clocks, the anchor escapement permitted the pendulum to travel in a very small arc. Moreover, this invention allowed the use of a long pendulum which could beat once a second and thus led to the development of a new floor-standing case design, which became known as the grandfather clock.H Tod
18、ay, highly accurate timekeeping instruments set the beat for most electronic devices. Nearly all puters contain a quartz-crystal clock to regulate their operation. Moreover, not only do time signals beamed down from Global Positioning System satellites calibrate the functions of precision navigation
19、 equipment, they do so as well for mobile phones, instant stock-trading systems and nationwide power-distribution grids. So integral have these time-based technologies bee to day-to-day e*istence that our dependency on them is recognised only when they fail to work.Questions 1-4Reading Passage 1 has
20、 eight paragraphs, A-H.Which paragraph contains the following informationWrite the correct letter, A-H, in bo*es 1-4 on your answer sheet.1 a description of an early timekeeping invention affected by cold temperatures2 an e*planation of the importance of geography in the development of the calendar
21、in farming munities3 a description of the origins of the pendulum clock4 details of the simultaneous efforts of different societies to calculate time using uniform hoursQuestions 5-8Look at the following events (Questions 5-8) and the list of nationalities below.Match each event with the correct nat
22、ionality, A-F.Write the correct letter, A-F, in bo*es 5-8 on your answer sheet.5 They devised a civil calendar in which the months were equal in length.6 They divided the day into two equal halves.7 They developed a new cabinet shape for a type of timekeeper.8 They created a calendar to organise pub
23、lic events and work schedules.List of NationalitiesABabyloniansBEgyptiansCGreeksDEnglish EGermansFrench Label the diagram below.Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.Write your answers in bo*es 9-13 on your answer sheet.READING PASSAGE 2You should spend about 20 minutes on Q
24、uestions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 on the following pages.Questions 14-19Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A-G.Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A and C-G from the list below.Write the correct number, i-*, in bo*es 14-19 on your answer sheet.List of Headingsi Disobeyi
25、ng FAA regulationsii Aviation disaster prompts actioniii Two coincidental developmentsiv Setting altitude zonesv An oversimplified viewvi Controlling pilots licencesvii Defining airspace categoriesviii Setting rules to weather conditionsi* Taking off safely* First steps towards ATC14 Paragraph AE*am
26、ple AnswerParagraph B *15 Paragraph C16 Paragraph D17 Paragraph E18 Paragraph F19 Paragraph GA An accident that occurred in the skies over the Grand Canyon in 1956 resulted in the establishment of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to regulate and oversee the operation of aircraft in the skie
27、s over the United States, which were being quite congested. The resulting structure of air traffic control has greatly increased the safety of flight in the United States, and similar air traffic control procedures are also in place over much of the rest of the world.B Rudimentary air traffic contro
28、l (ATC) e*isted well before the Grand Canyon disaster. As early as the 1920s, the earliest air traffic controllers manually guided aircraft in the vicinity of the airports, using lights and flags, while beacons and flashing lights were placed along cross-country routes to establish the earliest airw
29、ays. However, this purely visual system was useless in bad weather, and, by the 1930s, radio munication was ing into use for ATC. The first region to have something appro*imating todays ATC was New York City, with other major metropolitan areas following soon after.C In the 1940s, ATC centres could
30、and did take advantage of the newly developed radar and improved radio munication brought about by the Second World War, but the system remained rudimentary. It was only after the creation of the FAA that, full-scale regulation of Americas airspace took place, and this was fortuitous, for the advent
31、 of the jet engine suddenly resulted in a large number of very fast planes, reducing pilots margin of error and practically demanding some set of rules to keep everyone well separated and operating safely in the air.D Many people think that ATC consists of a row of controllers sitting in front of th
32、eir radar screens at the nations airports, telling arriving and departing traffic what to do. This is a very inplete part of the picture. The FAA realised that the airspace over the United States would at any time have many different kinds of planes, flying for many different purposes, in a variety
33、of weather conditions, and the same kind of structure was needed to acmodate all of them.E To meet this challenge, the following elements were put into effect. First, ATC e*tends over virtually the entire United States. In general, from 365m above the ground and higher, the entire country is blanket
34、ed by controlled airspace. In certain areas, mainly near airports, controlled airspace e*tends down to 215m above the ground, and, in the immediate vicinity of an airport, all the way down to the surface. Controlled airspace is that airspace in which FAA regulations apply. Elsewhere, in uncontrolled
35、 airspace, pilots are bound by fewer regulations. In this way, the recreational pilot who simply wishes to go flying for a while without all the restrictions imposed by the FAA has only to stay in uncontrolled airspace, below 365m, while the pilot who does want the protection afforded by ATC can eas
36、ily enter the controlled airspace.F The FAA then recognised two types of operating environments. In good meteorological conditions, flying would be permitted under Visual Flight Rules (VFR), which suggests a strong reliance on visual cues to maintain an acceptable level of safety.Poor visibility nec
37、essitated a set of Instrumental Flight Rules (IFR), under which the pilot relied on altitude and navigational information provided by the planes instrument panel to fly safely. On a clear day, a pilot in controlled airspace can choose a VFR or IFR flight plan, and the FAA regulations were devised in
38、 a way which acmodates both VFR and IFR operations in the same airspace. However, a pilot can only choose to fly IFR if they possess an instrument rating which is above and beyond the basic pilots license that must also be held.G Controlled airspace is divided into several different types, designate
39、d by letters of the alphabet. Uncontrolled airspace is designated Class F, while controlled airspace below 5,490m above sea level and not in the vicinity of an airport is Class E. All airspace above 5,490m is designated Class A. The reason for the division of Class E and Class A airspace stems from
40、the type of planes operating in them. Generally, Class E airspace is where one finds general aviation aircraft (few of which can climb above 5,490m anyway), and mercial turboprop aircraft. Above 5,490m is the realm of the heavy jets, since jet engines operate more efficiently at higher altitudes. Th
41、e difference between Class E and A airspace is that in Class A, all operations are IFR, and pilots must be instrument-rated, that is, skilled and licensed in aircraft instrumentation. This is because ATC control of the entire space is essential. Three other types of airspace, Classes D, C and B, gov
42、ern the vicinity of airports. These correspond roughly to small municipal, medium-sized metropolitan and major metropolitan airports respectively, and enpass an increasingly rigorous set of regulations. For e*ample, all a VFR pilot has to do to enter Class C airspace is establish two-way radio conta
43、ct with ATC. No e*plicit permission from ATC to enter is needed, although the pilot must continue to obey all regulations governing VFR flight. To enter Class B airspace, such as on approach to a major metropolitan airport, an e*plicit ATC clearance is required. The private pilot who cruises without
44、 permission into this airspace risks losing their license.Questions 20-26Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 2In bo*es 20-26 on your answer sheet, writeTRUE if the statement agrees with the informationFALSE if the statement contradicts the informationNOT G
45、IVEN if there is no information on this20 The FAA was created as a result of the introduction of the jet engine.21 Air Traffic Control started after the Grand Canyon crash in 1956.22 Beacons and flashing lights are still used by ATC today.23 Some improvements were made in radio munication during Wor
46、ld War II.24 Class F airspace is airspace which is below 365m and not near airports.25 All aircraft in Class E airspace must use IFR.26 A pilot entering Class C airspace is flying over an average-sized city.READING PASSAGE 3You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Rea
47、ding Passage 3 below.Can human beings municate by thought alone For more than a century the issue of telepathy has divided the scientific munity, and even today it still sparks bitter controversy among top academicsSince the 1970s, parapsychologists at leading universities and research institutes ar
48、ound the world have risked the derision of sceptical colleagues by putting the various claims for telepathy to the test in dozens of rigorous scientific studies. The results and their implications are dividing even the researchers who uncovered them.Some researchers say the results constitute pelling evidence that telepathy is genuine. Other parapsychologists believe the field is on the brink of co
