2024年3月18日发(作者：方好慕)
剑桥雅思11雅思阅读Test2passage2原文+题目+答案解析
－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
－－
雅思给大家带来了剑11雅思阅读Test2passage2原文+题目+答案解析，更多真题
解析，请点击：剑桥雅思11阅读解析
先来了解一下剑11雅思阅读Test2passage2原文:
What destroyed the civilisation of Easter Island?
A Easter Island, or Rapu Nui as it is known locally, is home to several hundred
ancient human statues ?— the moai. After this remote Pacific island was settled by
the Polynesians, it remained isolated for centuries. All the energy and resources
that went into the moai — some of which are ten metres tall and weigh over 7,000
kilos —came from the island itself. Yet when Dutch explorers landed in 1722, they
met a Stone Age culture. The moai were carved with stone tools, then transported
for many kilometres, without the use of animals or wheels, to massive stone
platforms. The identity of the moai builders was in doubt until well into the
twentieth century. Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer,
thought the statues had been created by pre-lnca peoples from Peru. Bestselling
Swiss author Erich von Daniken believed they were built by stranded
extraterrestrials. Modern science —linguistic, archaeological and genetic evidence
— has definitively proved the moai builders were Polynesians, but not how they
moved their creations. Local folklore maintains that the statues walked, while
researchers have tended to assume the ancestors dragged the statues somehow,
using ropes and logs.
B When the Europeans arrived, Rapa Nui was grassland, with only a few
scrawny trees. In the 1970s and 1980s, though, researchers found pollen preserved
in lake sediments, which proved the island had been covered in lush palm forests
for thousands of years. Only after the Polynesians arrived did those forests
disappear. US scientist Jared Diamond believes that the Rapanui people —
descendants of Polynesian settlers —wrecked their own environment. They had
unfortunately settled on an extremely fragile island — dry, cool, and too remote to
be properly fertilised by windblown volcanic ash. When the islanders cleared the
forests for firewood and farming, the forests didn’t grow back. As trees became
scarce and they could no longer construct wooden canoes for fishing, they ate
birds. Soil erosion decreased their crop yields. Before Europeans arrived, the
Rapanui had descended into civil war and cannibalism, he maintains. The collapse
of their isolated civilisation, Diamond writes, is a ‘worst-case scenario for what
may lie ahead of us in our own future’.
C The moai, he thinks, accelerated the self-destruction. Diamond interprets
them as power displays by rival chieftains who, trapped on a remote little island,
lacked other ways of asserting their dominance. They competed by building ever
bigger figures. Diamond thinks they laid the moai on wooden sledges, hauled over
log rails, but that required both a lot of wood and a lot of people. To feed the
people, even more land had to be cleared. When the wood was gone and civil war
began, the islanders began toppling the moai. By the nineteenth century none
were standing.
D Archaeologists Terry Hunt of the University of Hawaii and Carl Lipo of
California State University agree that Easter Island lost its lush forests and that it
was an
‘ecological catastrophe’— but they believe the islanders themselves
weren’t to blame. And the moai certainly weren’t. Archaeological excavations
indicate that the Rapanui went to heroic efforts to protect the resources of their
wind-lashed, infertile fields. They built thousands of circular stone windbreaks and
gardened inside them, and used broken volcanic rocks to keep the soil moist. In
short, Hunt and Lipo argue, the prehistoric Rapanui were pioneers of sustainable
farming.
E Hunt and Lipo contend that moai-building was an activity that helped keep
the peace between islanders. They also believe that moving the moai required few
people and no wood, because they were walked upright. On that issue, Hunt and
Lipo say, archaeological evidence backs up Rapanui folklore. Recent experiments
indicate that as few as 18 people could, with three strong ropes and a bit of
practice, easily manoeuvre a 1,000 kg moai replica a few hundred metres. The
figures’ fat bellies tilted them forward, and a D-shaped base allowed handlers to
roll and rock them side to side.
F Moreover, Hunt and Lipo are convinced that the settlers were not wholly
responsible for the loss of the island’s trees. Archaeological finds of nuts from the
extinct Easter Island palm show tiny grooves, made by the teeth of Polynesian rats.
The rats arrived along with the settlers, and in just a few years, Hunt and Lipo
calculate, they would have overrun the island. They would have prevented the
reseeding of the slow-growing palm trees and thereby doomed Rapa Nui’s forest,
even without the settlers’campaign of deforestation. No doubt the rats ate birds’
eggs too. Hunt and Lipo also see no evidence that Rapanui civilisation collapsed
when the palm forest did. They think its population grew rapidly and then
remained more or less stable until the arrival of the Europeans, who introduced
deadly diseases to which islanders had no immunity. Then in the nineteenth
century slave traders decimated the population, which shrivelled to 111 people by
1877.
G Hunt and Lipo’s vision, therefore, is one of an island populated by peaceful
and ingenious moai builders and careful stewards of the land, rather than by
reckless destroyers ruining their own environment and society. ‘Rather than a
case of abject failure, Rapu Nui is an unlikely story of success’, they claim.
Whichever is the case, there are surely some valuable lessons which the world at
large can learn from the story of Rapa Nui.
剑11雅思阅读Test2passage2题目:
Questions 14-20
Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A-G.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings
below.
Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
感谢阅读，欢迎大家下载使用！
2024年3月18日发(作者：方好慕)
剑桥雅思11雅思阅读Test2passage2原文+题目+答案解析
－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
－－
雅思给大家带来了剑11雅思阅读Test2passage2原文+题目+答案解析，更多真题
解析，请点击：剑桥雅思11阅读解析
先来了解一下剑11雅思阅读Test2passage2原文:
What destroyed the civilisation of Easter Island?
A Easter Island, or Rapu Nui as it is known locally, is home to several hundred
ancient human statues ?— the moai. After this remote Pacific island was settled by
the Polynesians, it remained isolated for centuries. All the energy and resources
that went into the moai — some of which are ten metres tall and weigh over 7,000
kilos —came from the island itself. Yet when Dutch explorers landed in 1722, they
met a Stone Age culture. The moai were carved with stone tools, then transported
for many kilometres, without the use of animals or wheels, to massive stone
platforms. The identity of the moai builders was in doubt until well into the
twentieth century. Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer,
thought the statues had been created by pre-lnca peoples from Peru. Bestselling
Swiss author Erich von Daniken believed they were built by stranded
extraterrestrials. Modern science —linguistic, archaeological and genetic evidence
— has definitively proved the moai builders were Polynesians, but not how they
moved their creations. Local folklore maintains that the statues walked, while
researchers have tended to assume the ancestors dragged the statues somehow,
using ropes and logs.
B When the Europeans arrived, Rapa Nui was grassland, with only a few
scrawny trees. In the 1970s and 1980s, though, researchers found pollen preserved
in lake sediments, which proved the island had been covered in lush palm forests
for thousands of years. Only after the Polynesians arrived did those forests
disappear. US scientist Jared Diamond believes that the Rapanui people —
descendants of Polynesian settlers —wrecked their own environment. They had
unfortunately settled on an extremely fragile island — dry, cool, and too remote to
be properly fertilised by windblown volcanic ash. When the islanders cleared the
forests for firewood and farming, the forests didn’t grow back. As trees became
scarce and they could no longer construct wooden canoes for fishing, they ate
birds. Soil erosion decreased their crop yields. Before Europeans arrived, the
Rapanui had descended into civil war and cannibalism, he maintains. The collapse
of their isolated civilisation, Diamond writes, is a ‘worst-case scenario for what
may lie ahead of us in our own future’.
C The moai, he thinks, accelerated the self-destruction. Diamond interprets
them as power displays by rival chieftains who, trapped on a remote little island,
lacked other ways of asserting their dominance. They competed by building ever
bigger figures. Diamond thinks they laid the moai on wooden sledges, hauled over
log rails, but that required both a lot of wood and a lot of people. To feed the
people, even more land had to be cleared. When the wood was gone and civil war
began, the islanders began toppling the moai. By the nineteenth century none
were standing.
D Archaeologists Terry Hunt of the University of Hawaii and Carl Lipo of
California State University agree that Easter Island lost its lush forests and that it
was an
‘ecological catastrophe’— but they believe the islanders themselves
weren’t to blame. And the moai certainly weren’t. Archaeological excavations
indicate that the Rapanui went to heroic efforts to protect the resources of their
wind-lashed, infertile fields. They built thousands of circular stone windbreaks and
gardened inside them, and used broken volcanic rocks to keep the soil moist. In
short, Hunt and Lipo argue, the prehistoric Rapanui were pioneers of sustainable
farming.
E Hunt and Lipo contend that moai-building was an activity that helped keep
the peace between islanders. They also believe that moving the moai required few
people and no wood, because they were walked upright. On that issue, Hunt and
Lipo say, archaeological evidence backs up Rapanui folklore. Recent experiments
indicate that as few as 18 people could, with three strong ropes and a bit of
practice, easily manoeuvre a 1,000 kg moai replica a few hundred metres. The
figures’ fat bellies tilted them forward, and a D-shaped base allowed handlers to
roll and rock them side to side.
F Moreover, Hunt and Lipo are convinced that the settlers were not wholly
responsible for the loss of the island’s trees. Archaeological finds of nuts from the
extinct Easter Island palm show tiny grooves, made by the teeth of Polynesian rats.
The rats arrived along with the settlers, and in just a few years, Hunt and Lipo
calculate, they would have overrun the island. They would have prevented the
reseeding of the slow-growing palm trees and thereby doomed Rapa Nui’s forest,
even without the settlers’campaign of deforestation. No doubt the rats ate birds’
eggs too. Hunt and Lipo also see no evidence that Rapanui civilisation collapsed
when the palm forest did. They think its population grew rapidly and then
remained more or less stable until the arrival of the Europeans, who introduced
deadly diseases to which islanders had no immunity. Then in the nineteenth
century slave traders decimated the population, which shrivelled to 111 people by
1877.
G Hunt and Lipo’s vision, therefore, is one of an island populated by peaceful
and ingenious moai builders and careful stewards of the land, rather than by
reckless destroyers ruining their own environment and society. ‘Rather than a
case of abject failure, Rapu Nui is an unlikely story of success’, they claim.
Whichever is the case, there are surely some valuable lessons which the world at
large can learn from the story of Rapa Nui.
剑11雅思阅读Test2passage2题目:
Questions 14-20
Reading Passage 2 has seven paragraphs, A-G.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings
below.
Write the correct number, i-ix, in boxes 14-20 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
感谢阅读，欢迎大家下载使用！