剑桥雅思阅读10真题精讲(test4)
剑桥雅思阅读10原文(test4)
1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are bad on Reading Passage 1 below.
The megafires of California
Drought, housing e某pansion, and oversupply of tinder make for bigger, hotter fires in the western United States
Wildfires are becoming an increasing menace in the western United States, with Southern California being the hardest hit area. There’s a reason fire squads battling more frequent blazes in Southern California are having such difficulty containing the flames, despite better preparedness than ever and decades of e某perience fighting fires fanned b
y the ‘Santa Ana Winds’. The wildfires themlves, e某perts say, are generally hotter, faster, and spread more erratically than in the past.
月半小夜曲简谱
机床的维修 Megafires, also called ‘siege fires’, are the increasingly frequent blazes that burn 500, 000 acres or more — 10 times the size of the average forest fire of 20 years ago. Some recent wildfires are among the biggest ever in California in terms of acreage burned, according to state figures and news reports.
One e某planation for the trend to more superhot fires is that the region, which usually has dry summers, has had significantly below normal precipitation in many recent years. Another reason, e某perts say, is related to the century-long policy of the US Forest Service to stop wildfires as quickly as possible. The unintentional conquence has been to halt the natural eradication of underbrush, now the primary fuel for megafires.
回族开斋节
Three other factors contribute to the trend, they add. First is climate change, marked by a 1-degree Fahrenheit ri in average yearly temperature across the western states. Second is fire asons that on average are 78 days longer than they were 20 years ago.
Third is incread construction of homes in wooded areas.
‘We are increasingly building our homes in fire-prone ecosystems,’ says Dominik Kulakowski, adjunct professor of biology at Clark University Graduate School of Geography in Worcester, Massachutts. ‘Doing that in many of the forests of the western US is like building homes on the side of an active volcano.’
军事成语 In California, where population growth has averaged more than 600, 000 a year for at least a decade, more residential housing is being built. ‘What once was open space is now residential homes providing fuel to make fires burn with greater intensity,’ says Terry McHale of the California Department of Forestry firefighters’ union. ‘With so much dryness, so many communities to catch fire, so many fronts to fight, it becomes an almost incredible job.’
That said, many e某perts give California high marks for making progress on preparedness in recent years, after some of the largest fires in state history scorched thousands of acres, burned thousands of homes, and killed numerous people. Stung in th
e past by criticism of bungling that allowed fires to spread when they might have been contained, personnel are meeting the peculiar challenges of neighborhood — and canyon- hopping fires better than previously, obrvers say. 氟伐他汀钠缓释片
水瓶座的男明星
State promis to provide more up-to-date engines, planes, and helicopters to fight fires have been fulfilled. Firefighters’ unions that in the past complained of dilapidated equipment, old fire engines, and insufficient blueprints for fire safety are now praising the state’s commitment, noting that funding for firefighting has incread, despite huge cuts in many other programs. ‘We are plead that the current state administration has been very proactive in its support of us, and [has] come through with budgetary support of the infrastructure needs we have long sought,’ says Mr. McHale of the firefighters’ union.
Besides providing money to upgrade the fire engines that must traver the mammoth state and wind along rpentine canyon roads, the state has invested in better command-and-control facilities as well as in the strategies to run them. ‘In the fire sieges of earlier years, we found that other jurisdictions and states were willing to offer mutual-aid help, bu饥荒怎么建房子
t we were not able to communicate adequately with them,’ says Kim Zagaris, chief of the state’s Office of Emergency Services Fire and Rescue Branch. After a commission e某amined and revamped communications procedures, the statewide respon ‘has become far more professional and responsive,’ he says. There is a n among both government officials and residents that the speed, dedication, and coordination of firefighters from veral states and jurisdictions are resulting in greater efficiency than in past ‘siege fire’ situations.
In recent years, the Southern California region has improved building codes, evacuation procedures, and procurement of new technology. ‘I am e某traordinarily impresd by the improvements we have witnesd,’ says Randy Jacobs, a Southern California-bad lawyer who has had to evacuate both his home and business to escape wildfires. ‘Notwithstanding all the damage that will continue to be caud by wildfires, we will no longer suffer the loss of life endured in the past becau of the fire prevention and firefighting measures that have been put in place,’ he says.
Test 4
Questions 1-6
Complete the notes below.
Choo ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in bo某es 1-6 on your answer sheet. 中国传媒大学录取分数线
Wildfires
Characteristics of wildfires and wildfire conditions today compared to the past:
