2016年11月5日雅思阅读真题+题目+答案：Chinese Yellow Citrus Ant For Biological Control

2016年11月5日雅思阅读真题+题目+答案：Chinese Yellow Citrus Ant For Biological Control

A In 1476, the farmers of Berne in Switzerland decided, according to this story,there was only one way to rid their fields of the cutworms(糖蛾) attacking their crops. They took the pests to court. The worms were tried, found guilty and excommunicated by the archbishop(大主教). In China, farmers had a more practical approach to pest control. Rather than rely on divine intervention(神学的调停), they put their faith in frogs, ducks and ants. Frogs and ducks were encouraged to snap up (吃下) the pests in the paddies(稻田) and the occasional plague of locusts(蝗虫). But the notion of biological control began with an ant. More specifically, the story says, it started with the predatory yellow citrus ( 柑橘) ant Oecophylla smaragdina, which has been polishing off (打败)pests in the orange groves of southern China for at least 1700 years. The yellow citrus ant (黄橘蚁)is a type of weaver ant, which binds leaves and twigs with silk to form a neat, tent-like nest. In the beginning, farmers made do with the odd ants' nest here and there. But it wasn't long before growing demand led to the development of a thriving trade in nests and a new type of agriculture-ant farming.

B For an insect that bites, the yellow citrus ant is remarkably popular. Even by ant standards, Oecophylla smaragdina is a fearsome predator. It's big, runs fast and has a powerful nip - painful to humans but lethal to many of the insects that plague the orange groves of Guangdong and Guangxi in southern China. And for at least 17 centuries. Chinese orange growers have harnessed these six-legged killing machines to keep their fruit groves healthy and productive. The story explains that citrus fruits evolved in the Far East and the Chinese discovered the delights of their flesh early on.As the ancestral home of oranges, lemons and pomelos, China also has the greatest diversity of citrus pests. And the trees that produce the sweetest fruits, the mandarins-or kan-attract a host of plant-eating insects, from black ants and sap-sucking mealy bugs to leaf-devouring caterpillars(毛毛虫) . With so many enemies, fruit growers clearly had to have some way of protecting their orchards.

C The West did not discover the Chinese orange growers' secret weapon until the early 20th century. At the time, Florida was suffering an epidemic of citrus canker （柑橘溃疡） and in 1915 Walter Swingle, a plant physiologist working for the US Department of Agriculture, was, the story says, sent to China in search of varieties of orange that were resistant to the disease. Swingle spent some time studying the citrus orchards around Guangzhou, and there he came across the story of the cultivated ant. These ants, he was told, were "grown" by the people of a small village nearby who sold them to the orange growers by the nestful（一整窝的）.

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Questions 14-18

Use the information in the passage to match the year (listed A-G) with correct description below. Write the appropriate letters A-G in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.

NB you may use any letter more than once

A 1888

B 1476

C 1915

D 1700

E 1130

F 304 AD

G 1950

14 First record of ant against pests written.

15 WS studied ant intervention method in China.

16 First case of orange crops rescued by insect in western world.

17 Chinese farmers start to choose chemical method.

18 A book wrote mentioned ways to trap ants.

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