ACADEMIC READING PRACTICE TEST 3
READING PASSAGE 1 Questions 1 - 14
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1 – 14 which are bad on Reading Passage 1 below.
Cleaning up The Thames
The River Thames, which was biologically “dead” as recently as the 1960s, is now the cleanest metropolitan river in the world, according to the Thames Water Company. The company says that thanks to major investment in better wage treatment in London and the Thames Valley, the river that flows through the United Kingdom capital and the Thames Estuary into the North Sea is cleaner now than it has been for 130 years. The Fisheries Department, who are responsible for monitoring fish levels in the River Thames, has reported that the river has again become the home to 115 species of fish including a bass, flounder, salmon, smelt, and shad. Recently, a porpoi was spotted cavorting in the river near central London.
But things were not always so rosy. In the 1950s, wer outflows and industrial effluent had killed the ri
ver. It was starved of oxygen and could no longer support aquatic life. Until the early 1970s, if you fell into the Thames you would have had to be rushed to hospital to get your stomach pumped. A clean-up operation began in the 1960s. Several Parliamentary Committees and Royal Commissions were t up, and, over time, legislation has been introduced that put the onus on polluters - effluent-producing premis and business - to dispo of waste responsibly. In 1964 the Greater London Council (GLC) began work on greatly enlarged wage works, which were completed in 1974.
The Thames clean up is not over though. It is still going on, and it involves many disparate arms of government and a wide range of non-government stakeholder groups, all reprenting a necessary aspect of the task. In London’s ca, the urban and non-urban London boroughs that flank the river’s cour each has its own reasons for keeping “their” river nice. And if their own reasons do not hold out a sufficiently attractive carrot, the government also wields a compelling stick. The 2000 Local Government Act requires each local borough to “prepare a community strategy for promoting or improving the economic, social and environmental well-being of their area.” And if your area includes a stretch of river, that means a sustainable river development strategy.
Further legislation aimed at improving and sustaining the river’s viability has been propod. There is now legislation that protects the River Thames, either specifically or as part of a general environm
ental clau, in the Local Government Act, the London Acts, and the law that created the post of the mayor of London. And the are only the tip of an iceberg that includes industrial, public health and environmental protection regulations. The result is a wide range of bodies officially charged, in one way or another, with maintaining the Thames as a public amenity. For example, Transport for London - the agency responsible for transport in the capital - plays a role in regulating river u and river urs. They now are responsible forcontrolling the effluents and rubbish coming from craft using the Thames. This is done by officers on official vesls regularly inspectiing craft and doing spot checks. Another example is how Thames Water (TW) has now been charged to reduce the amount of litter that finds its way into the tidal river and its tributaries. TW’s environment and quality manager, Dr. Peter Spillett, said: “This project will build on our investment which has dramatically improved the water quality of the river. London should not be spoiled by litter which belongs in the bin not the river.” Thousands of tons of rubbish end up in the river each year, from badly stored waste, people throwing
litter off boats, and rubbish in the street being blown or washed into the river. Once litter hits the water it becomes too heavy to be blown away again and therefore the rivers act as a sink in the system. While the Port of London already collects up to 3,000 tons of solid waste from the tideway e
very year, Thames Water now plans to introduce a new device to capture more rubbish floating down the river. It consists of a huge cage that sits in the flow of water and gathers the passing rubbish. Moored just offshore in front of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, south-east London, the device is expected to capture up to 20 tons of floating litter each year. If washed out to a, this rubbish can kill marine mammals, fish and birds. This machine, known as the Rubbish Muncher, is hoped to be the first of many, as the TW is now looking for sponsors to pay for more cages elwhere along the Thames. Monitoring of the cleanliness of the River Thames in the past was the responsibility of a welter of agencies - British Waterways, Port of London Authority, the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Commission, Thames Water – as well as academic departments and national and local environment groups. If something was not right, someone was bound to call foul and hold somebody to account, whether it was the local authority, an individual polluter or any of the many public and private ctor bodies that bore a share of the responsibility for maintaining the River Thames as a public amenity. Although they will all still have their part to play, there is now a central department in the Environment Agency, which has the remit of monitoring the Thames. This centralisation of accountability will, it is hoped, lead to more efficient control and enforcement.
Source: US Water News 2000 Questions 1 - 6
Some of the actions taken to clean up the River Thames are listed below.
The writer gives the actions as examples of things that have been done by various agencies connected with the River Thames.梦到好多虫子
Match each action with the agency responsible for doing it.
Write the appropriate letters (A - G) in boxes 1 - 6 on your answer sheet.
Actions to Clean up the River Thames
A Operating the Rubbish Muncher
B Creating Community Strategies
C Monitoring the Cleanliness of the River Thames
D Monitoring Fish Levels
E Collecting Solid Waste from the Tideway
画画步骤F Creating Enlarged Sewage Works
关于台风的作文G Controlling the River Thames’ Traffic
1
The Environment Agency 2
Transport for London 3
The Greater London Council 4
Thames Water 5
Port of London 6
Local Boroughs
Questions 7 - 14
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer of the reading passage on Cleaning up the Thames ?
In Boxes 7 - 14 write:
彼此拼音
YES if the statement agrees with the writer
NO if the statement doesn’t agree with the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this 7
The Thames is now cleaner that it was in 1900.8
Swimming in the Thames now pos no health hazards.9
It is now mainly the responsibility of tho who pollute the Thames to clean their waste up.10
All local London boroughs are now partly responsible for keeping the Thames clean.11
Transport for London now employs a type of River Police to enforce control of their
regulations.12
Rubbish Munchers are now situated at various locations on the Thames.13
Previously no one department had overall responsibility or control for monitoring the
cleanliness of the Thames.14 British Waterways will no longer have any part in keeping the Thames clean.
READING PASSAGE 2 Questions 15 - 27
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 15 – 27 which are bad on Reading Passage 2 on the following pages.
If it weren’t for nicotine, people wouldn’t smoke tobacco. Why? Becau of the more than 4000 chemicals in tobacco smoke, nicotine is the primary one that acts on the brain, altering people’s moods, appetites and alertness in ways they find pleasant and beneficial. Unfortunately, as it is widely known, nicotine has a dark side: it is highly addictive. Once smokers become hooked on it, they must get their fix of it regularly, sometimes veral dozen times a day. Cigarette smoke contains 43 known carcinogens, which means that long-term smoking can amount to a death ntence. In the US alone, 420,000 Americans die every year from tobacco-related illness.
Breaking nicotine addiction is not easy. Each year, nearly 35 million people make a concerted effort t
o quit smoking. Sadly, less than 7 percent succeed in abstaining for more than a year; most start smoking again within days. So what is nicotine and how does it insinuate itlf into the smoker’s brain and very being?奥特曼简笔画图片>论道竹叶青
The nicotine found in tobacco is a potent drug and smokers, and even some scientists,高速公路etc
say it offers certain benefits. One is enhance performance. One study found that non-smokers given dos of nicotine typed about 5 percent faster than they did without it. To greater or lesr degrees, urs also say nicotine helps them to maintain concentration, reduce anxiety, relieve pain, and even dampen their appetites (thus helping in weight control). Unfortunately, nicotine can also produce deleterious effects beyond addiction. At high dos, as are achieved from tobacco products, it can cau high blood pressure, distress in the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems and an increa in susceptibility to izures and hypothermia.
First isolated as a compound in 1828, in its pure form nicotine is a clear liquid that turns brown when burned and smells like tobacco when expod to air. It is found in veral species of plants, including tobacco and, perhaps surprisingly, in tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplant (though in extremely low quantities that are pharmacologically insignificant for humans).
As simple as it looks, the cigarette is highly engineered nicotine delivery device. For instance, when tobacco rearchers found that much of the nicotine in a cigarette wasn’t relead when burned but rather remained chemically bound within the tobacco leaf, they began adding substances such as ammonia to cigarette tobacco to relea more nicotine. Ammonia helps
keep nicotine in its basic form, which is more readily vaporid by the inten heat of the burning cigarette than the acidic form. Most cigarettes for sale in the US today contain 10 milligrams
or more of nicotine. By inhaling smoke from a lighted cigarette, the average smoker takes 1 or
诗经取名女孩2 milligrams of vaporid nicotine per cigarette. Today we know that only a miniscule amount
of nicotine is needed to fuel addiction. Rearch shows that manufacturers would have to cut nicotine levels in a typical cigarette by 95% to forestall its power to addict. When a smoker puffs on a lighted cigarette, smoke, including vaporid nicotine, is drawn into the mouth. The skin and lining of the mouth immediately absorb some nicotine, but the remainder flows straight down into the lungs, where it easily diffus into the blood vesls lining the lung walls. The blood vesls carry the nicotine to the heart, which then pumps it directly to the brain. While most of the effects a smoker eks occur in the brain, the heart takes a hit as well. Studies have shown that a smoker’s first cigar
ette of the day can increa his or her heart rate by 10 to 20 beats a minute. Scientists have found that a smoked substance reaches the brain more quickly than one swallowed, snorted (such as cocaine powder) or even injected. Indeed, a nicotine molecule inhaled in smoke will reach the brain within 10 conds. The nicotine travels through blood vesls, which branch out
into capillaries within the brain. Capillaries normally carry nutrients but they readily accommodate nicotine molecules as well. Once inside the brain, nicotine, like most addictive drugs, triggers the relea of chemicals associated with euphoria and pleasure.
Just as it moves rapidly from the lungs into the bloodstream, nicotine also easily diffus through capillary walls. It then migrates to the spaces surrounding neurones – ganglion cells that transmit nerve impuls throughout the nervous system. The impuls are the basis for our thoughts, feelings, and moods. To transmit nerve impuls to its neighbour, a neurone releas chemical mesngers known as neurotransmitters. Like nicotine molecules, the neurotransmitters drift into the so-called synaptic space between neurones, ready to latch onto the receiving neurone and thus deliver a chemical “message” that triggers an electrical impul.
The neurotransmitters bind onto receptors on the surface of the recipient neurone. This opens chann
els in the cell surface through which enter ions, or charged atoms, of sodium. This generates a current across the membrane of the receiving cell, which completes delivery of the “message”. An accomplished mimic, nicotine competes with the neurotransmitters to bind to the receptors. It wins and, like the vanquished chemical, opens ion channels that let sodium ions into the cell. But there’s a lot more nicotine around than the original transmitter, so a much larger current spreads across the membrane. This bigger current caus incread electrical impuls to travel along certain neurones. With repeated smoking, the neurones adapt to this incread electrical activity, and the smoker becomes dependent on the nicotine.
Questions 15 - 21
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer of Reading
Passage 2?
In Boxes 15 - 21 write:
YES if the statement agrees with the writer
NO if the statement doesn’t agree with the writer
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
15 Although nicotine is probably the well-known chemical in cigarettes, it is not nessarily the
one that changes the psyche of the smoker when cigarettes are smoked.
16 In spite of the difficulties, according to the text more than thirty-five million people a
year give up smoking.
17 It has been shown that nicotine in cigarettes can improve people’s abillities to perform some
actions more quickly.
18 Added ammonia in cigarettes allows smokers to inhale more nicotine.
19 Snorted substances reach the brain faster than injected substances.
