P1 澳洲史前人类研究

P2 19世纪的冰块贸易

P3 白蚁巢穴研究

 

朗阁名师丰爽点评

1. 本次考试难度中等。

2. 整体分析：涉及社会（P1）商业（P2）及动物（P3）

3. 主要题型：在刻板印象中难度最高的P3这次反而是相对简单的，题型全部为填空题，包括简答题，flow chart填空和diagram填空。这再次提醒考生在考试前应先大致浏览全部题型，决定好做题顺序，以尽可能避免不必要的失分。P1中开头的8个人名观点配对可能会让一些考生感到棘手（人名多处出现），而P2中则出现考察篇章的最难题型之一List of Headings（本月第二次）。

4. P1澳洲史前人类研究（2014年旧题）

文章大意：

澳大利亚Mungo湖周围发现的史前人类残骸引起了科学家之间的讨论。不同的教授对于人类起源的地理位置，时间以及原因有不同看法，彼此质疑方法论和结论。

部分参考答案：

1-8人名理论配对题（有NB）

1. He was searching for ancient lakes and came across the charred remains of Mungo Lady, who had been cremated. 选：A

2. Professor who hold a skeptical attitude towards reliability for DNA analysis on some fossils. 选：E

3. Professor whose determination of the age of Mungo Man to be much younger than the former result which is older than the 62,000 years. 选：A

4. Determining the age of Mungo Man has little to do with controversy for the origins of Australians. 选：B

5.Research group who recovered a biological proof of first Noanderthal found in Europe. 选：C

6. A supporter of the idea that Australia’s megafauna was extinct due to the hunting by the ancient human beings. 选：D

7. Instead of keep arguing a single source origin, multi-regional explanation has been raised. 选：B

8. Climate change rather than prehistoric human activities resulted in megafauna’s extinction. 选：A

9-14 TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN:

9. The Lake Mungo remains offer the archaeologists the evidence of graphic illustration of human activities around. TRUE

10. In Lake Mungo remains, weapons were found used by the Mungo. NOT GIVEN

11. Mungo Man is one of the oldest known archaeological evidence in the world of cultural sophistication such as a burying ritual. TRUE

12. Mungo Man and woman’s skeletons were uncovered in the same year. FALSE

13. There is controversy among Scientists about the origin of the oldest Homosapiens. TRUE

14. Out of Africa supporters have critisised Australian professors for using outmoded research method. NOT GIVEN

参考文章：

Fifty thousand years ago, a lush landscape greeted the first Australians making their way towards the south-east of the continent. Temperatures were cooler than now. Megafauna - giant prehistoric animals such as marsupial lions, goannas and the rhinoceros-sized diprotodon - were abundant. And the freshwater lakes of the Willandra district in western NSW were brimming with fish. But change was coming. By the time the people living at Lake Mungo ceremoniously buried two of their dead, 40,000 years ago, water levels had begun to drop.

The comprehensive study of 25 different sediment layers at Mungo - a collaboration between four universities, the CSIRO, and NSW National Parks and Wildlife and led by Bowler - concludes that both graves are 40,000 years old.

This is much younger than the 62,000 years Mungo Man was attributed with in 1999 by a team led by Professor Alan Thorne, of the Australian National University. Because Thorne is the country's leading opponent of the Out of Africa theory - that modern humans evolved in Africa about 100,000 years ago and then spread around the globe - the revision of Mungo Man's age has refocused attention on academic disputes about mankind's origins.

Dr Tim Flannery, a proponent of the controversial theory that Australia's megafauna was wiped out 46,000 years ago in a "blitzkrieg" of hunting by the arriving people, also claims the new Mungo dates support this view.

For Bowler, however, these debates are irritating speculative distractions from the study's main findings. At 40,000 years old, Mungo Man and Mungo Lady remain Australia's oldest human burials and the earliest evidence on Earth of cultural sophistication, he says. Modern humans had not even reached North America by this time. In Europe, they were just starting to live alongside the Neanderthals.

"At Lake Mungo we have a cameo of people reacting to environmental change. It is one of the great stories of the peoples of the world."

THE modern day story of the science of Mungo also has its fair share of rivalry. In its 1999 study, Thorne's team used three techniques to date Mungo Man at 62,000 years old, and it stands by its figure. It dated bone, teeth enamel and some sand.

Bowler has strongly challenged the results ever since. Dating human bones is "notoriously unreliable", he says. As well, the sand sample Thorne's group dated was taken hundreds of metres from the burial site. "You don't have to be a gravedigger ... to realise the age of the sand is not the same as the age of the grave," says Bowler. He says his team's results are based on careful geological field work that was crosschecked between four laboratories, while Thorne's team was "locked in a laboratory in Canberra and virtually misinterpreted the field evidence".

Thorne counters that Bowler's team used one dating technique, while his used three. Best practice is to have at least two methods produce the same result. A Thorne team member, Professor Rainer, says the fact that the latest results were consistent between laboratories doesn't mean they are absolutely correct. "We now have two data sets that are contradictory. I do not have a plausible explanation."

Two years ago Thorne made world headlines with a study of Mungo Man's DNA that he claimed supported his idea that modern humans evolved from archaic humans in several places around the world, rather than striding out of Africa a relatively short time ago.

Now, however, Thorne says the age of Mungo Man is irrelevant to this origins debate. Recent fossils finds show modern humans were in China 110,000 years ago. "So he has got a long time to turn up in Australia. It doesn't matter if he is 40,000 or 60,000 years old."

5.P2 19世纪的冰块贸易（新）

文章大意：

谈到冰块贸易的起源与发展。19世纪初，新英格兰商人将冰块运往加勒比群岛，制作成冰屋，寄望于将其出售给富有的欧洲贵族。后来这门生意渐渐做大，扩展到古巴和美国南部。到19世纪三四十年代时，冰块贸易已经远渡重洋，运往英国，印度，中国，澳大利亚等。冰块贸易于19世纪末达到巅峰，美国的冰块产业规模庞大，而挪威每年依靠人工湖网络出口一百万吨冰块。

部分参考答案：

21-22）多选：

21）A

22)E

23-26)

23)unstable

24)India

25)Oslo

26)railway

6.P3 白蚁巢穴研究

文章大意：介绍了termites巢穴的种种功能；澳洲白蚁巢穴的构造及与其生活习性之间的关系；非洲和亚洲白蚁巢穴的特点。

部分参考答案：

29)magnetic termites

30)humid atmosphere

33)gaseous exchange

34)chimneys flue

35)permanent water table

36)insulating

37)fluid

38)cement

39)mud

40)head

 

考试分析和预测

1. 本次考试出乎很多同学意料的是大量填空小题型的考察（集中于P3），如图表填空和完成句子等。这提示同学们备考时必须将每种题型的特点和技巧进行掌握，不可怠惰。填空题找准定位词，分析好句子成分以及利用好顺序原则是关键，此外还需注意字数限制。P1的人名理论配对题和判断题难度中等，都属于比较容易定位的题型，但是相对来说，人名理论配对题所要阅读的内容比较多，对学生句子理解的要求比较高，建议后做，先把好定位好阅读的是非无判断题完成，再做人名理论配对题。而P2则是本次考试中题型最难的，涉及到LOH小标题配对，比较耗时间，适合最后做。
2. 下场考试的话题可能有关社会科学类、科技类、人物类。
3. 重点浏览14,16年机经。
4. 预警小题型：段落信息配对

 

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