大家都知道雅思考试由听力、口语、阅读和写作四个部分组成，为了便于大家更好的对雅思进行备考，本文为大家带来了雅思阅读理解题目及答案解析，大家可以对以下雅思阅读题目进行练习，练习结束后可以参照答案解析了解自己的做题情况。
Ant Intelligence
When we think of intelligent members of the animal kingdom, the creatures that spring immediately to mind are apes and monkeys. But in fact the social lives of some members of the insect kingdom are sufficiently complex to suggest more than a hint of intelligence. Among these, the world of the ant has come in for considerable scrutiny lately, and the idea that ants demonstrate sparks of cognition has certainly not been rejected by those involved in these investigations.
Ants store food, repel attackers and use chemical signals to contact one another in case of attack. Such chemical communication can be compared to the human use of visual and auditory channels (as in religious chants, advertising images and jingles, political slogans and martial music) to arouse and propagate moods and attitudes. The biologist Lewis Thomas wrote, ‘Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids* as livestock, launch armies to war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, capture slaves, engage in child labour, exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television.’
However, in ants there is no cultural transmission — everything must be encoded in the genes — whereas in humans the opposite is true. Only basic instincts are carried in the genes of a newborn baby, other skills being learned from others in the community as the child grows up. It may seem that this cultural continuity gives us a huge advantage over ants. They have never mastered fire nor progressed. Their fungus farming and aphid herding crafts are sophisticated when compared to the agricultural skills of humans five thousand years ago but have been totally overtaken by modern human agribusiness.
Or have they? The farming methods of ants are at least sustainable. They do not ruin environments or use enormous amounts of energy. Moreover, recent evidence suggests that the crop farming of ants may be more sophisticated and adaptable than was thought.
Ants were farmers fifty million years before humans were. Ants can’t digest the cellulose in leaves — but some fungi can. The ants therefore cultivate these fungi in their nests, bringing them leaves to feed on, and then use them as a source of food. Farmer ants secrete antibiotics to control other fungi that might act as ‘weeds’, and spread waste to fertilise the crop.
It was once thought that the fungus that ants cultivate was a single type that they had propagated, essentially unchanged from the distant past. Not so. Ulrich Mueller of Maryland and his colleagues genetically screened 862 different types of fungi taken from ants’ nests. These turned out to be highly diverse: it seems that ants are continually domesticating new species. Even more impressively, DNA analysis of the fungi suggests that the ants improve or modify the fungi by regularly swapping and sharing strains with neighbouring ant colonies.
Whereas prehistoric man had no exposure to urban lifestyles — the forcing house of intelligence — the evidence suggests that ants have lived in urban settings for close on a hundred million years, developing and maintaining underground cities of specialised chambers and tunnels.
When we survey Mexico City, Tokyo, Los Angeles, we are amazed at what has been accomplished by humans. Yet Hoelldobler and Wilson’s magnificent work for ant lovers, The Ants, describes a supercolony of the ant Formica yessensis on the Ishikari Coast of Hokkaido. This ‘megalopolis’ was reported to be composed of 360 million workers and a million queens living in 4,500 interconnected nests across a territory of 2.7 square kilometres.
Such enduring and intricately meshed levels of technical achievement outstrip by far anything achieved by our distant ancestors. We hail as masterpieces the cave paintings in southern France and elsewhere, dating back some 20,000 years. Ant societies existed in something like their present form more than seventy million years ago. Beside this, prehistoric man looks technologically primitive. Is this then some kind of intelligence, albeit of a different kind?
Research conducted at Oxford, Sussex and Zurich Universities has shown that when desert ants return from a foraging trip, they navigate by integrating bearings and distances, which they continuously update in their heads. They combine the evidence of visual landmarks with a mental library of local directions, all within a framework which is consulted and updated. So ants can learn too.
And in a twelve-year programme of work, Ryabko and Reznikova have found evidence that ants can transmit very complex messages. Scouts who had located food in a maze returned to mobilise their foraging teams. They engaged in contact sessions, at the end of which the scout was removed in order to observe what her team might do. Often the foragers proceeded to the exact spot in the maze where the food had been. Elaborate precautions were taken to prevent the foraging team using odour clues. Discussion now centres on whether the route through the maze is communicated as a ‘left-right’ sequence of turns or as a ‘compass bearing and distance’ message.
During the course of this exhaustive study, Reznikova has grown so attached to her laboratory ants that she feels she knows them as individuals — even without the paint spots used to mark them. It’s no surprise that Edward Wilson, in his essay, ‘In the company of ants’, advises readers who ask what to do with the ants in their kitchen to: ‘Watch where you step. Be careful of little lives.’
Questions 1-6
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
1 Ants use the same channels of communication as humans do.
2 City life is one factor that encourages the development of intelligence.
3 Ants can build large cities more quickly than humans do.
4 Some ants can find their way by making calculations based on distance and position.
5 In one experiment, foraging teams were able to use their sense of smell to find food.
6 The essay, ‘In the company of ants’, explores ant communication.
Questions 7-13
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-O, below.
Write the correct letter, A-O, in boxes 7-13 on your answer sheet.
Ants as farmers
Ants have sophisticated methods of farming, including herding livestock and growing crops, which are in many ways similar to those used in human agriculture. The ants cultivate a large number of different species of edible fungi which convert 7..............into a form which they can digest. They use their own natural 8..............as weed-killers and also use unwanted materials as 9.............. . Genetic analysis shows they constantly upgrade these fungi by developing new species and by 10..............species with neighbouring ant colonies. In fact, the farming methods of ants could be said to be more advanced than human agribusiness, since they use 11..............methods, they do not affect the 12..............and do not waste 13.............. .
A aphids B agricultural C cellulose D exchanging
E energy F fertilizers G food H fungi
I growing J interbreeding K natural L other speces
M secretions N sustainable O environment
以下是该篇阅读文章的答案解析：
Question 1
答案：FALSE
关键词：channels, communication, humans
定位原文: 第2段第2、3句: “Such chemical communication can be… Ants are so much like …”
解题思路: 此题可以通过定位词迅速定位第2段的这两句话。两句话中都只是说明蚂蚁的生物行为与人类非常相似，而题目中则说是“相同”，与原文相悖，因此答案很明显应该是 FALSE 。
Question 2
答案：TRUE
关键词：city life, intelligence
定位原文: 第7段第1句: “Whereas prehistoric man had …” 此题的定位比较有难度，定位词并未以原形出现。但若根据顺序原则由第3题的定位段落(第8段)向前查找会比较容易。
解题思路: 文章与题目出现同义转换：urban life — city life; forcing house — encourages
该题的解题关键在于是否能正确理解文中短语forcing house的含义，它的含义为“温床”， 与题中解题关键字：encourages完全吻合。因此此题答案为TRUE。
Question 3
答案： NOT GIVEN
关键词：build large cities
定位原文: 第8段第1句: “...we’re amazed at what has been accomplished by humans.”
第9段第1句: “Such enduring and intricately meshed levels…”
解题思路: 文章第8段提到了人类建造城市的例子，第9段指出蚂蚁的技术远远超过我们的祖先，但是文章并未提到蚂蚁和人类的建造速度，也未对此作任何的比较。此题属于典型的文章未提及型题目，因此应该选择NOT GIVEN。
Question 4
答案：TRUE
关键词：distance and position
定位原文: 第10段第1句: “...they navigate by integrating bearings and distances...”它们通过整合方向和距离来导航。
解题思路: 此题通过定位词可以迅速定位到第10段该句，且该句含义与题目一致。 文章与题目出现同义转换：find their way — navigate; making calculations — integrating; bearings — position. 因此此题答案为TRUE。
Question 5
答案：FALSE
关键词：foraging teams
定位原文: 第11段倒数第2句: “Elaborate precautions were…”
解题思路: 此题利用定位词很容易定位，且文中定位处出现prevent...using odour clues，其含义为防止使用气味线索，而题干中的解题要点为蚂蚁使用嗅觉寻找食物。很明显，此题题干与原文内容相悖，因此答案为FALSE。
Question 6
答案：NOT GIVEN
关键词： “In the company of ants”
定位原文: 末段最后1句：“...in his essay, ‘In the company of ants’, advises …”
解题思路: 此题定位非常容易。在定位句中，作者仅仅强调了需要将蚂蚁视为有智能的生命来对待，对于题干中的解题点“蚂蚁的信息交流”是否进行研究并未提及。此题属于典型的“题干信息文章部分提及”，因此此题答案为NOT GIVEN。
Question 7
答案： C
关键词：cultivate, they can digest
定位原文: 第5段第2、3句：“Ants can’t digest… The ants therefore…”
解题思路:此题通过在定位段落第5段中扫描定位词，可以将其定位在第2、3句，其含义为“蚂蚁不能消化叶子中的纤维素，但是一些真菌可以。因此蚂蚁在自己的巢中培养这些真菌”。题干中此题应填一个名词，且根据其后信息判断出该名词在经过转变后能被蚂蚁消化，于是可以直接选出答案C。
Question 8
答案： M
关键词：weed-killers
定位原文: 第5段最后1句: “Farmer ants secrete antibiotics…”
解题思路: 按照顺序原则在第7题后扫描定位词可以迅速定位。通过阅读此空之后的题干信息可推出所填单词应为名词，且其行为为kill weeds;通过扫描定位句，其中满足条件的词为antibiotics，但在词库中并未出现，此时只能选出其上下义词，即为选项M。
Question 9
答案：F
关键词： unwanted materials
定位原文: 第5段最后1句: “...and spread waste to fertilise the crop.”
解题思路: 此题在文中定位紧接着上一题。通过题干中空格之前的信息可以判断出所填词为复数名词，且其等价于unwanted materials。在文中定位处找到其对应词waste,且其作用为fertilise the crop;在题目所给词库中的复数名词里进行快速扫描，答案只能为F。
Question 10
答案：D
关键词：new species, neighbouring ant colonies
定位原文: 第6段最后1句: “…the ants improve or modify …”
解题思路: 通过分析空格判断出所填词应为v+ing形式(and前后结构相同)，在文中定位句中对应词为swapping and sharing (交换和分享);在题目所给词库中满足v+ing形式的词里进行快速扫描，答案只能为D。
Question 11
答案：N
关键词：agribusiness, methods
定位原文: 第4段第2、3句：“The farming methods ... They do not ruin…”
解题思路: 此题出现了乱序，但是通过扫描定位词还是可以迅速在文中找到对应词。首先是出现在第3段最后1句话中的agribusiness，接下来才是第4段第2句中的farming methods。通过分析题干中空格前后的信息，判定所填单同应为形容词，且其修饰对象为methods;在文中定位处的对应词为 sustainable，对应答案N。
Question 12
答案： O
关键词：affect
定位原文: 第4段第2、3句: “The farming methods... They do not ruin…”
解题思路:由于空格之前为动词，所以应回原文找寻该动词或其同义词;在文中定位处对应词为ruin, 所以答案为其后单词environment，即O选项
Question 13
答案： E
关键词：waste
定位原文: 第4段第2、3句: “The farming methods ... They do not ruin…”
解题思路: 文中定位处对应词为use enormous amounts of，所以答案为其后单词energy，即E选项。
以上是雅思阅读理解题目及答案解析，希望能够对大家有帮助。