直击考场 | 雅思机考时代全面开启！高频旧题《The Dingo Debate》解析上线

一. 题型概览与“平行阅读法”准备

CD Australian mammals generally reproduce much more slowly than rabbits, cats and foxes - and adaption to prevent overpopulation in the arid environment, where food can be scarce and unreliable - and populations decline because they can’t grow fast enough to replace animals killed by the predators. Johnson says dingoes are the solution to this problem because they keep cat and fox populations under control. Besides regularly eating the smaller predators, dingoes will kill them simply to lessen competition. Dingo packs live in large, stable territories and generally have only one fertile, which limits their rate of increase. In the 4,000 years that dingoes have been Australia, they have contributed to few, if any, extinctions, Johnsons says.

E Reaching out from a desolate spot where three states meet, for 2,500 km in either direction, is the world’s longest fence, two metres high and stretching from the coast in Queensland to the Great Australian Bight in South Australia; it is there to keep dingoes out of southeast, the fence separates the main types of livestock found in Australia. To the northwest of the fence, cattle predominate; to the southwest, sheep fill the landscape. In fact, Australia is a land dominated by these animals - 25 million cattle, 100 million sheep and just over 20 million people.

F While there is no argument that dingoes will prey on sheep if given the chance, they don’t hunt cattle once the calves are much past two or three weeks old, according to McKechnie. And a study in Queensland suggests that dingoes don’t even prey heavily on the newborn calves unless their staple prey disappears due to deteriorating conditions like drought. This study, co-authored by Lee Alien of the Robert Wicks Research Centre in Queensland, suggests that the aggressive baiting programs used against dingoes may actually be counter-productive for graziers. When dingoes are removed from an area by baiting m the area is recolonized by younger, more solitary dingoes. These animals aren’t capable of going after the large prey like kangaroos, so they turn to calves. In their study, some of the highest rates of calf predation occurred in areas that had been baited.

G Mark Clifford, general manager of a firm that manages over 200,000 head of cattle, is not convinced by Allen’s assertion. Clifford says, ‘It’s obvious if we drop or loosen control on dingoes, we are going to lose more calves.’ He doesn’t believe that dingoes will go after kangaroos when calves are around. Nor is he persuaded of dingoes’ supposed ecological benefits, saying he is not convinced that they manage to catch cats that often, believing they are more likely to catch small native animals instead.

H McKechnie agrees that dingoes kill the wallabies (small native animals) that compete with his cattle for food, but points out that in parts of Westers Australia, there are no fixes, and not very many cats. He doesn’t see how relaxing controls on dingoes in his area will improve the ecological balance. Johnson sees a need for a change in philosophy on the part of graziers. ‘There might be a number of different ways of thinking through dingo management in cattle country,’ he says. ‘At the moment, though, that hasn’t got through to graziers. There’s still just on prescription, and that is to bait as widely as possible.’

Questions 14-20
Reading Passage has eight sections, A-H.
Which sections contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-H, in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
14. a description of a barrier designed to stop dingoes, which also divides two kinds of non-natives animals
15. how dingoes ensure that ril species do not dominate
16. a reference to a widespread non-native species that other animals feed on
17. a mention of the dingo’s arril in Australia
18. research which has proved that dingoes have resorted to eating young livestock
19. a description of a method used to kill dingoes
20. the way that the structure of dingo groups affects how quickly their numbers grow

Questions 21-23
Look at the following statements (Questions 8-10) and the list of people below.
Match each statement with the correct person, A, B, c or D.
Write the correct letter, A, B, C or D, in boxes 8-10 on your answer sheet.
21. Dingoes tend to hunt native animals rather than hunting other non-native predators.
22. The presence of dingoes puts the income of some people at risk.
23. Dingoes have had little impact on the dying out of animal species in Australia.

List of People
A. Stuart McKechnie 
B. Chris Johnson 
C. Lee Allen
D. Mark Clifford

Questions 24-26
Complete the sentences below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet.
24. The dingo replaced the 11.           as the main predatory animal in Australia.
25. Foxes and cats are more likely to hunt native animals when there are fewer 12.          
26. Australian animals reproduce at a slow rate as a natural way of avoiding 13.         

三. 完整答案汇总   

14：E 
15：D 
16：C 
17：B 
18：F 
19：A 
20：D 
21：D 
22：A 
23：B 
24：Tasmanian tiger 
25：rabbits
26 : overpopulation        

四. 核心考点词& 同义替换

考题关键词-原文对应词-替换方式
barrier（屏障）-fence (同义词) 
ril species（竞争物种）-cats and foxes / smaller predators(具体化) 
widespread（广泛分布）-covered most of the mainland (抽象→具体)
arril (抵达)introduced (同义)
young livestock（幼畜）-calves (上下义)
method used to kill（捕杀方法）-baiting / poisoned (原词复现)
structure of groups（群体结构）- packs / territories / one fertile (特征描述) 
income / livelihoods（收入/生计)-livelihoods are threatened (同义替换)
extinctions（灭绝-dying out (同义替换)
prevent（预防) -prevent / avoid (同义替换)

学术高频词速记:
feral (野生的，指野猫野狗)
arid (干旱的，形容澳洲环境)
abundance (丰富，指猎物充足)
dwindling (逐渐减少的，指种群数量)
predator / prey (捕食者/ 猎物)           

五. 备考总结与方法建议