雅思不懂單字也能閱讀

Reading IELTS articles is hard because there are a lot of complex or unusual phrases.
1. Read the article once. Look at the highlighted words phrases in yellow. Try to match them with the choices under each paragraph. Note: the word form may be different! This is a close meaning to help your reading comprehension.

2. Read the article again. This time try to answer the comprehension questions the end.

3. Exploit the article. Don’t just do the questions and move on! There is a lot of language in an article you can use to develop. Notice how these phrases were used. Write them out again in your own sentences in a summary of the article.

You can print the original article here.

Thaliaceans and the carbon cycle
The jelly cycle
May 21st 2009
From The Economist print edition

A hitherto unknown way of burying carbon at the bottom of the sea

Swim or sink
A
IN 2006 Mario Lebrato and Daniel Jones of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, England, were using a remotely operated deep-sea vehicle to study the sea floor near an oil pipeline off Côte d’Ivoire. What they found surprised them. It was a thaliacean graveyard. And its discovery throws into question1 the received wisdom about2 one important aspect of climate change, namely how much carbon from the atmosphere ends up at the bottom of the sea.
1.
A) challenges
B) criticizes
C) changes
2.
A) what people are told
B) what most people believe
C) what wise people think
B
Despite their unfamiliarity to most people, thaliaceans (a colony of which is pictured) are abundant creatures in many parts of the ocean. Their bodies are transparent and gelatinous3, like those of jellyfish. They are not jellyfish, though. They are actually chordates—in other words, part of the same group of animals as humans, even though they do not have backbones. The thaliacean graveyard off Côte d’Ivoire came as a surprise because not much was known at the time about what happens to animals with gelatinous bodies, whether chordates or jellyfish, after they have died. And it set Mr Lebrato and Dr Jones thinking4, because if thaliaceans are falling to the bottom of the sea in large numbers, they might be taking a lot of carbon with them5.
3.
A) solid and rigid
B) milky and firm
C) clear and squishy
4.
A) started … thinking
B) encouraged … to think
C) stopped … from thinking
5.
A) encouraging carbon to move to the sea floor
B) carrying the carbon in their dead bodies to the sea floor
C) preventing the carbon from reaching the sea floor
C
Until then gelatinous animals had largely been ignored by researchers studying the carbon cycle (the way that element moves through land, sea, air and living creatures) because gelatinous bodies were thought to contain a lot of water and thus relatively little carbon6. However, as Mr Lebrato and Dr Jones report in Limnology and Oceanography, when they analysed thaliacean tissues7 they found that the creatures were one-third carbon by weight. That was much more than they expected. Jellyfish, by comparison, are 10% carbon, and diatoms (single-celled algae that are common in plankton) 20%. It also helps explain why thaliaceans are so dense8—and thus sink so quickly after they die.
6.
A) very little carbon
B) a similar amount of carbon as water
C) not much carbon compared to the amount of water
7.
A) bones
B) the liquids in the body
C) skin, flesh etc.
8.
A) heavy
B) firm
C) common
D
Hitherto9 it was assumed that the main way carbon gets from the top to the bottom of the ocean was as part of dead planktonic algae sinking to the seabed. But the discovery of just how carbon-rich10 and prone to11 sinking thaliaceans are may change that assumption. Because they gather by the billion in feeding swarms around the world (they eat single-celled algae), the amount of carbon thaliaceans are taking to the bottom of the sea is by no means trivial12, according to Mr Lebrato. He admits it is difficult to make accurate comparisons, because the research is still in its infancy13. But he estimates that the “jelly pump”, as he refers to it, sinks almost twice as much carbon as algae do.
9.
A) Before this
B) Recently
C) A long time ago
10.
A) no carbon
B) some carbon
C) lots of carbon
11.
A) rarely
B) sometimes
C) tends to
12.
A) it is small
B) it is significant
C) it is large
13.
A) beginning
B) mature
C) old news
E
The question is, does that carbon stay down once it has arrived? That is unclear. The one sure way14 of keeping carbon on the seabed is in the form of calcium carbonate, the main ingredient of most animal shells. But thaliaceans have no shells. Nevertheless, some thaliaceans get buried before they have completely decomposed, and other researchers have found evidence that dead jellyfish sometimes accumulate15 in trenches without much decomposition, so perhaps thaliaceans do, too.
14.
A) One of several methods
B) We can’t be sure which method
C) There is only one 100% method
15.
A) fall apart
B) grow in amount
C) stay in one piece
F
Even if the carbon is not permanently buried, the lack of mixing16 between deep and shallow water in the ocean means that it is likely to stay down there for a long time—something that will have to be added to computer models of how the climate works. The carbon cycle has thus acquired another epicycle, and become even more complicated to understand than it was.
16.
A) it never combines
B) it often mixes
C) it is mostly separate
Copyright © 2009 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

Comprehension Questions

Note: These are not IELTS style questions. They are just to check your understanding of each paragraph. Answers are below.

Paragraph A
Q1. How has the discovery changed scientists’ theories on climate change?

Paragraph B
Q2. How are thaliaceans different from Jellyfish?
Q3. Before the discovery of the graveyard, what did scientists probably believe about the numbers of thaliaceans?

Paragraph C
Q4. Why hadn’t climate change scientists previously thought about thaliaceans?

Paragraph D
Q5. How did scientists used to believe carbon was transported to the bottom of the sea?
Q6. Compared to algae, to what extent do thaliaceans affect the carbon cycle?

Paragraph E
Q7. Is there evidence that the carbon from thaliaceans remains on the sea floor?

Paragraph F
Q8. Why is it clear that more carbon is stored in the ocean than previously thought?
Q9. After this discovery, what do scientists know about the carbon cycle?


Vocabulary Guessing Answers
1 A
2 B
3 C
4 A
5 B
6 C
7 C
8 A
9 A
10 C
11 C
12 B
13 A
14 C
15 B
16 C


Reading comprehension answers
1 They have to re-calculate how much carbon from the atmosphere is stored on the sea floor.
2 They have backbones.
3 That their numbers were small.
4 That their bodies contained mainly water and very little carbon.
5 That it was carried down to the sea floor by the bodies of dead planktonic algae.
6 They affect it twice as much because they carry twice as much carbon to the bottom of the sea.
7 No. But scientists guess that it does because they have found the buried bodies of jellyfish, which still haven’t decomposed.          
8 Because even if the bodes of thaliaceans do decompose in the water. Deep water usually stays separate from shallow water, and therefore it is not released into the atmosphere.
9 It is more than they previously thought.

I hope this helps!
Please let me know what you think of this exercise. Email me or comment.

【學員Mandy 推薦】最佳選擇

我是個忙碌的上班族，在穩定的工作之餘，又想替自己的職涯技能上添上幾分色彩，在渡過豐富的大學生活中，我準備好了基本專業的技能，但卻沒有帶走我應具備的語言能力，於是我開始尋覓，直到我遇見了流利，不可諱言，在我踏進門口僅接著面對英文檢測血淋淋的分級能力測驗的時候,真的很想鑽個洞躲起來或逃跑，但這一切都是為了能讓學員在適當的級別學習必然的前置作業，所以還是必須去面對。

 

完成能力分級後上課的情況，雖然只經歷的半年學程，但我對流利是給予肯定

 

強大的師資，活潑的教學方式，引導學員開口說話，帥氣的老師（這一點絕對是行銷重要的一環無誤）

 

在課堂與上班時間不衝突的情況下，我想不到任何理由不繼續在流利修行，

 

所以客倌們，如果您還在猶豫不前，不妨先來試聽，也許會有意想不到的收獲唷！

 

投資自己，大步邁進人生勝利組！

雅思寫作技巧：Task 1常見的錯誤

1. Common Mistake 常見的錯誤

In Task 1 in the IELTS writing section, many students write sentences like
有很多人會寫出錯誤的句子如下：
 (a) The landfill percentage of garbage in Malaysia is 30%.
 Or, (b) 10 percentage garbage in Malaysia is in landfill.
(Look at the Pie chart to undersand the sentences)

Correct Answers
正確的句子應該如下；

(a) Landfill accounts for 30% of garbage in Malaysia.
(b) 10 percent of garbage in Malaysia is in landfill.

2. Tip 技巧

Many students write have problems with percent and percentage.
In the chart below, look at Malaysia and Landfill. The number is 30%.

The correct sentence should be:

      A) Landfill accounts for 30 percent of garbage in Malaysia.

or  B) In Malaysia, 30 percent of garbage is in landfill.

In (A), if you want to percent in the object position you need to use the verb account for or makes up.

So, when can I use percentage?
Well, percentage is used for comparing. We can talk about that another time.

3. Practice 練習

Add words and numbers to complete the sentences about the chart.
1. In the UK, __________________________ is disposed.
2. In the USA, landfill __________________________ garbage.
3. __________________________ is recycled in Malaysia.

You can put your answers in the comments below.
www.academy.com.tw/ielts

雅思作文：圖表題示範解答

Task 1 Writing Sample Answer – Smoking in Britain (2)

分析

Line Chart                                   線型圖

Comparing men and women         比較男女

Talking about a “gap”                   注意差距的分析

Identifying key points                    把重要的時間點定義出來

Sample Answer                            作答舉例

The line chart compares the smoking rate for British men and women from 1948 to 2007.

Most interestingly, although smoking was much more popular among men than women at the start of the period (65% and 40% respectively), by 2007 they were nearly identical (approximately 27% and 25% respectively). In other words, the gap between both groups narrowed considerably.

There are two other points of interest. First, despite a small rise in popularity in the 50s, men tended to smoke less over the time. In contrast, after falling to about 35% in 1955, more women suddenly began to smoke. Their smoking rate continued to increase until peaking at around 43% in 1972.

The second point is the dramatic decline in the popularity of smoking from 1972. After this point, the percentage of male and female smokers plunged, with both dropping to around 30% by 1990.

In conclusion, despite the temporary rise in the popularity of smoking among women, it can clearly be seen that the percentage of smokers of both sexes dropped significantly over the period. In addition, the gap between both groups narrowed considerably.

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