نمونه ای از تست Reading آکادمیک در آیلتس
IELTS Academic Reading test sample
ACADEMIC READING PRACTICE TEST 4
READING PASSAGE 1 Questions 1 - 14
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1 – 14 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.
Questions 1 - 6
Reading Passage 1 has 7 paragraphs (A – G).
From the list of headings below choose the most suitable headings for paragraphs B – G.
Write the appropriate number (i – xi) in boxes 1 – 6 on your answer sheet.
NB There are more headings than paragraphs, so you will not use them all.
Example Answer
Paragraph A iv
i Factory Closures
ii The Human Cost
iii The Tragedy of State Mismanagement
iv A Warning to the World
v European Techniques
vi Destructive Trawling Technology
vii Lessons to be Learned
viii The Demise of the Northern Cod
ix Canadian Fishing Limits
x The Breaking of Agreements
xi Foreign Over-fishing
1 Paragraph B
2 Paragraph C
3 Paragraph D
4 Paragraph E
5 Paragraph F
6 Paragraph G
COD IN TROUBLE
A
In
1992, the devastating collapse of the cod stocks off the East coast of
Newfoundland forced the Canadian government to take drastic measures and
close the fishery. Over 40,000 people lost their jobs, communities are
still struggling to recover and the marine ecosystem is still in a state
of collapse. The disintegration of this vital fishery sounded a warning
bell to governments around the world who were shocked that a relatively
sophisticated, scientifically based fisheries management program, not
unlike their own, could have gone so wrong. The Canadian government
ignored warnings that their fleets were employing destructive fishing
practices and refused to significantly reduce quotas citing the loss of
jobs as too great a concern.
B
In
the 1950s Canadian and US east coast waters provided an annual 100,000
tons in cod catches rising to 800,000 by 1970. This over fishing led to a
catch of only 300,000 tons by 1975. Canada and the US reacted by
passing legislation to extend their national jurisdictions over marine
living resources out to 200 nautical miles and catches naturally
declined to 139,000 tons in 1980. However the Canadian fishing industry
took over and restarted the over fishing and catches rose again until,
from 1985, it was the Canadians who were landing more than 250,000 tons
of northern cod annually. This exploitation ravaged the stocks and by
1990 the catch was so low (29,000 tons) that in 1992 (121⁄2000 tons)
Canada had to ban all fishing in east coast waters. In a fishery that
had for over a century yielded a quarter-million ton catches, there
remained a biomass of less than 1700 tons and the fisheries department
also predicted that, even with an immediate recovery, stocks need at
least 15 years before they would be healthy enough to withstand previous
levels of fishing.
C
The
devastating fishing came from massive investment poured into
constructing huge “draggers”. Draggers haul enormous nets held open by a
combination of huge steel plates and heavy chains and rollers that
plough the ocean bottom. They drag up anything in the way, inflicting
immense damage, destroying critical habitat and contributing to the
destabilization of the northern cod ecosystem. The draggers targeted
huge aggregations of cod while they were spawning, a time when the fish
population is highly vulnerable to capture. Excessive trawling on
spawning stocks became highly disruptive to the spawning process and
ecosystem. In addition, the trawling activity resulted in a physical
dispersion of eggs leading to a higher fertilization failure. Physical
and chemical damage to larvae caused by the trawling action also reduced
their chances of survival. These draggers are now banned forever from
Canadian waters.
D
Canadian
media often cite excessive fishing by overseas fleets, primarily driven
by the capitalist ethic, as the primary cause of the fishing out of the
north Atlantic cod stocks. Many nations took fish off the coast of
Newfoundland and all used deep-sea trawlers, and many often blatantly
exceeded established catch quotas and treaty agreements. There can be
little doubt that non North American fishing was a contributing factor
in the cod stock collapse, and that the capitalist dynamics that were at
work in Canada were all too similar for the foreign vessels and
companies. But all of the blame cannot be put there, no matter how easy
it is to do, as it does not account for the management of the resources.
E
Who
was to blame? As the exploitation of the Newfoundland fishery was so
predominantly guided by the government, we can argue that a fishery is
not a private area, as the fisher lacks management rights normally
associated with property and common property. The state had appropriated
the property, and made all of the management decisions. Fishermen get
told who can fish, what they can fish, and essentially, what to do with
the fish once it is caught. In this regard then, when a resource such as
the Newfoundland fishery collapses, it is more a tragedy of government
negligence than a tragedy of the general public.
F
Following
the ‘92 ban on northern cod fishing and most other species, an
estimated 30 thousand people that had already lost their jobs after the
1992 Northern Cod moratorium took effect, were joined by an additional
12,000 fishermen and plant workers. With more than forty thousand people
out of jobs, Newfoundland became an economic disaster area, as
processing plants shut down, and vessels from the smallest dory to the
monster draggers were made idle or sold overseas at bargain prices.
Several hundred Newfoundland communities were devastated.
G
Europeans
need only look across the North Atlantic to see what could be in store
for their cod fishery. In Canada they were too busy with making plans,
setting expansive goals, and then allocating fish, and lots of it,
instead of making sound business plans to match fishing with the limited
availability of the resource. Cod populations in European waters are
now so depleted that scientists have recently warned that “all fisheries
in this area that target cod should be closed.” The Canadian calamity
demonstrates that we now have the technological capability to find and
annihilate every commercial fish stock, in any ocean and do irreparable
damage to entire ecosystems in the process. In Canada’s case, a two
billion dollar recovery bill may only be a part of the total long-term
costs. The costs to individuals and desperate communities now deprived
of meaningful and sustainable employment is staggering.
