雅思阅读实战模拟试题（二）

　　Write your answers in boxes 10-14 on your answer sheet.

　　The standard view assumes that the opposing pressures of gravity and nuclear fusions hold the temperature …10…in the sun's interior, but the slight changes in the earth's …11…alter the temperature on the earth and cause ice ages every 100,000 years.A British scientist, however, challenges this view by claiming that the internal solar magnetic …12…can induce the temperature oscillations in the sun's interior.The sun's core temperature oscillates around its average temperature in …13…lasting either 100,000 or 41,000 years.And the …14…interactions within the sun's magnetic field could flip the fluctuations from one cycle length to the other, which explains why the ice ages changed frequency a million years ago.

　　Answer keys and explanations:

　　1.E

　　See the sentences in paragraph 1(There's a dimmer switch inside the sun that causes its brightness to rise and fall on timescales of around 100,000 years - exactly the same period as between ice ages on Earth.So says a physicist who has created a computer model of our star's core.) and para.2 (Robert Ehrlich of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, modelled the effect of temperature fluctuations in the sun's interior.)

　　2.A B

　　See para.3：?i style='mso-bidi-font-style：normal'>Grandpierre and a collaborator, Gábor ágoston, calculated that magnetic fields in the sun's core could produce small instabilities in the solar plasma.

　　3.C

　　See para.8：Edwards believes the small changes in solar heating produced by Milankovitch cycles are then amplified by feedback mechanisms on Earth.

　　4.D

　　See para.11：Nigel Weiss, a solar physicist at the University of Cambridge, is far from convinced.He describes Ehrlich's claims as "utterly implausible".

　　5.False

　　See para.5：for the past million years, ice ages have occurred roughly every 100,000 years.Before that, they occurred roughly every 41,000 years.

　　6.False

　　See para.7："In Milankovitch, there is certainly no good idea why the frequency should change from one to another," ...Nor is the transition problem the only one the Milankovitch theory faces.

　　7.Not Given

　　See para.8：if sea ice begins to form because of a slight cooling, carbon dioxide?is locked into the ice.That weakens the greenhouse effect.(The passage doesn抰 mention anything about locking Co2 into ice artificially.)

　　8.True

　　See para.9：there is no lack of such mechanisms."If you add their effects together, there is more than enough feedback to make Milankovitch work,"?"The problem now is identifying which mechanisms are at work." This is why scientists like Edwards are not yet ready to give up on the current theory.

　　9.True

　　See the sentences in para.9 (According to Edwards, 卙e says."I can't see any way of testing [Ehrlich's] idea to see where we are in the temperature oscillation.") and para.10 (Ehrlich concedes this."If there is a way to test this theory on the sun, I can't think of one that is practical).

　　10.constant

　　See para.2：According to the standard view, the temperature of the sun's core is held constant by the opposing pressures of gravity and nuclear fusion.

　　11.orbit

　　See para.6：Most scientists believe that the ice ages are the result of subtle changes in Earth's orbit, 匛arth's orbit gradually changes shape from a circle to a slight ellipse and back again roughly every 100,000 years.

　　12.instabilities

　　See para.3：?i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>magnetic fields in the sun's core could produce small instabilities in the solar plasma.These instabilities would induce localised oscillations in temperature.

　　13.cycles

　　See para.4：…allow the sun's core temperature to oscillate around its average temperature of 13.6 million kelvin in cycles lasting either 100,000 or 41,000 years.

　　14.random

　　See para.4：Ehrlich says that random interactions within the sun's magnetic field could flip the fluctuations from one cycle length to the other.

★How a Frenchman is reviving McDonald's in Europe

　　A. When Denis Hennequin took over as the European boss of McDonald's in January 2004, the world's biggest restaurant chain was showing signs of recovery in America and Australia, but sales in Europe were sluggish or declining. One exception was France, where Mr Hennequin had done a sterling job as head of the group's French subsidiary to sell more Big Macs to his compatriots. His task was to replicate this success in all 41 of the European countries where anti-globalisers' favourite enemy operates.

　　B.So far Mr Hennequin is doing well. Last year European sales increased by 5.8% and the number of customers by 3.4%, the best annual results in nearly 15 years. Europe accounted for 36% of the group's profits and for 28% of its sales. December was an especially good month as customers took to seasonal menu offerings in France and Britain, and to a promotion in Germany based on the game of Monopoly.

　　C.Mr Hennequin's recipe for revival is to be more open about his company's operations, to be “locally relevant”, and to improve the experience of visiting his 6,400 restaurants. McDonald's is blamed for making people fat, exploiting workers, treating animals cruelly, polluting the environment and simply for being American. Mr Hennequin says he wants to engage in a dialogue with the public to address these concerns.

　　D.He introduced “open door” visitor days in each country which became hugely popular. In Poland alone some 50,000 visitors came to McDonald's through the visitors' programme last year. The Nutrition Information Initiative, launched last year, put detailed labels on McDonald's packaging with data on calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates and salt content. The details are also printed on tray-liners.

　　E.Mr Hennequin also wants people to know that “McJobs”, the low-paid menial jobs at McDonald's restaurants, are much better than people think. But some of his efforts have backfired: last year he sparked a controversy with the introduction of a “McPassport” that allows McDonald's employees to work anywhere in the European Union. Politicians accused the firm of a ploy to make cheap labour from eastern Europe more easily available to McDonald's managers across the continent.

　　F.To stay in touch with local needs and preferences, McDonald's employs local bosses as much as possible. A Russian is running McDonald's in Russia, though a Serb is in charge of Germany. The group buys mainly from local suppliers. Four-fifths of its supplies in France come from local farmers, for example. (Some of the French farmers who campaigned against the company in the late 1990s subsequently discovered that it was, in fact, buying their produce.) And it hires celebrities such as Heidi Klum, a German model, as local brand ambassadors.

　　G.In his previous job Mr Hennequin established a “design studio” in France to spruce up his company's drab restaurants and adapt the interior to local tastes. The studio is now masterminding improvements everywhere in Europe. He also set up a “food studio”, where cooks devise new recipes in response to local trends.

　　H.Given France's reputation as the most anti-American country in Europe, it seems odd that McDonald's revival in Europe is being led by a Frenchman, using ideas cooked up in the French market. But France is in fact the company's most profitable market after America. The market where McDonald's is weakest in Europe is not France, but Britain.

　　I.“Fixing Britain should be his priority,” says David Palmer, a restaurant analyst at UBS. Almost two-thirds of the 1,214 McDonald's restaurants in Britain are company-owned, compared with 40% in Europe and 15% in America. The company suffers from the volatility of sales at its own restaurants, but can rely on steady income from franchisees. So it should sell as many underperforming outlets as possible, says Mr Palmer.

　　J.M.Mark Wiltamuth, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, estimates that European company-owned restaurants' margins will increase slightly to 16.4% in 2007. This is still less than in the late 1990s and below America's 18-19% today. But it is much better than before Mr Hennequin's reign. He is already being tipped as the first European candidate for the group's top job in Illinois. Nobody would call that a McJob.