雅思阅读真题+题目+答案：Beyond the blue line

雅思阅读真题+题目+答案：Beyond the blue line

A

Much of the thrill of venturing to the far side of the world rests on the romance of difference. So one feels a certain sympathy for Captain James Cook on the day in 1778 that he “discovered” Hawaii. Then on his third expedition to the Pacific, the British navigator had explored scores of islands across the breadth of the sea, from lush New Zealand to the lonely wastes of Easter Island. This latest voyage had taken him thousands of miles north from the Society Islands to an archipelago so remote that even the old Polynesians back on Tahiti knew nothing about it. Imagine Cook’s surprise, then, when the natives of Hawaii came paddling out in their canoes and greeted him in a familiar tongue, one he had heard on virtually every mote of inhabited land he had visited. Marveling at the ubiquity of this Pacific language and culture, he later wondered in his journal: “How shall we account for this Nation spreading itself so far over this vast ocean?”

B

That question, and others that flow from it has tantalized inquiring minds for centuries: Who were these amazing seafarers? Where did they come from, starting more than 3,000 years ago? And how could a Neolithic people with simple canoes and no navigation gear manage to find, let alone colonize, hundreds of far-flung island specks scattered across an ocean that spans nearly a third of the globe? Answers have been slow in coming. But now a startling archaeological find on the island of Éfaté, in the Pacific nation of Vanuatu, has revealed an ancient seafaring people, the distant ancestors of today’s Polynesians, taking their first steps into the unknown. The discoveries there have also opened a window into the shadowy world of those early voyagers.

C

“What we have is a first- or second-generation site containing the graves of some of the Pacific’s first explorers,” says Spriggs, professor of archaeology at the Australian National University and co-leader of an international team excavating the site. It came to light only by luck. A backhoe operator, digging up topsoil on the grounds of a derelict coconut plantation, scraped open a grave – the first of dozens in a burial ground some 3,000 years old. It is the oldest cemetery ever found in the Pacific islands, and it harbors the bones of an ancient people archaeologists call the Lapita, a label that derives from a beach in New Caledonia where a landmark cache of their pottery was found in the 1950s.

D

They were daring blue-water adventurers who roved the sea not just as explorers but also as pioneers, bringing along everything they would need to build new lives – their families and livestock, taro seedlings and stone tools. Within the span of a few centuries, the Lapita stretched the boundaries of their world from the jungle-clad volcanoes of Papua New Guinea to the loneliest coral outliers of Tonga, at least 2,000 miles eastward in the Pacific. Along the way they explored millions of square miles of an unknown sea, discovering and colonizing scores of tropical islands never before seen by human eyes: Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Samoa.

It was their descendants, centuries later, who became the great Polynesian navigators we all tend to think of: the Tahitians and Hawaiians, the New Zealand Maori, and the curious people who erected those statues on Easter Island. But it was the Lapita who laid the foundation – who bequeathed to the island the language, customs, and cultures that their more famous descendants carried around the Pacific.

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Questions 1-5

Complete the summary with the list of words A-L below

Write the correct letter A-L in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.

The question, arisen from Captain Cook’s expedition to Hawaii, and others derived from it, has fascinated researchers for a long time. However, a surprising archaeological find on Éfaté began to provide valuable information about the 1 【】. On the excavating site, a 2 【】. Containing 3 【】 of Lapita was uncovered. Later on, various researches and tests have been done to study the ancient people – Lapita and their 4 【】. How could they manage to spread themselves so far over the vast ocean? All that is certain is that they were good at canoeing. And perhaps they could take well advantage of the trade wind. But there is no 5 【】 of it.

A bones    B co-leader    C descendents   D international team  E inquiring minds  F proof     G ancestors    H early seafarers    I pottery     J assumption         K horizons     L grave

Questions 6-9

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

Write your answers in boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet.

6. The chemical tests indicate that

A the elements in one’s teeth varied from childhood to adulthood.

B the isotope signatures of the elements remain the same in different places.

C the result of the study is not fascinating.

D these chemicals can’t conceal one’s origin.

7. The isotope analysis from the Lapita

A exactly locates their birth island.

B reveals that the Lapita found the new place via straits.

C helps researchers to find out answers about the islanders.

D leaves more new questions for anthropologists to answer.

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