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2024年4月6日的雅思阅读真题：The History of Penci

　　The beginning of the story of pencils started with a lightning, Graphite, the main material forproducing pencil, was discovered in 1564 in Borrowdale in England when a lightning strucka local tree during a thunder. Local people found out that the black substance spotted at theroot of the unlucky tree was different from burning ash of wood. it was soft, thus left markseverywhere. Chemistry was barely out of its infancy at the time, so people mistook it for leadequally black but much heavier, lt was soon put to use by locals in marking their sheep forownership and calculation.

　　Britain turns out to be the major country where mines of graphite can be detected and developed. Even so, the first pencil was invented elsewhere. As graphite is soft, it requires someform of encasement. In ltaly, graphite sticks were initially wrapped in string or sheepskin forstability, becoming perhaps the very first pencil in the world. Then around 1560, an ltaliarcouple made what are likely the first blueprints for the modern, wood-encased carpentrypencil. Their version was a flat, oval, more compact type of pencil. Their concept involved thehollowing out of a stick of juniper wood. Shortly thereafter in 1662, a superior technique wasdiscovered by German people: two wooden halves were carved, a graphite stick inserted, andthe halves then glued together - essentially the same method in use to this day. The news ofthe usefulness of these early pencils spread far and wide, attracting the attention of artists allover the known world.

　　Although graphite core in pencils is still referred to as lead, modern pencils do not contain leadas the "lead" of the pencil is actually a mix of finely ground graphite and clay powders. Thismixture is important because the amount of clay content added to the graphite depends onthe intended pencil hardness, and the amount of time spent on grinding the mixture deter.mines the quality of the lead. The more clay you put.in, the higher hardness the core hasMany pencils across the world, and almost all in Europe, are graded on the European system.This system of naming used B for black and H for hard; a pencil's grade was described by a sequence or successive Hs or Bs such as BB and BBB for successively softer leads, and HH andHHH for successively harder ones. Then the standard writing pencil is graded HB.

　　In England, pencils continue to be made from whole sawn graphite. But with the mass production of pencils, they are getting drastically more popular in many countries with each passingdecade. As demands rise, appetite for graphite soars, According to the United States Geo.logical Survey (USGS), world production of natural graphite in 2012 was 1,100,000 tonnesof which the following major exporters are: China, India, Brazil, North Korea and CanadaHowever, much in contrast with its intellectual application in producing pencils, graphite wasalso widely used in the military,. During the reign of Elizabeth l, Borrowdale graphite was usedas a refractory material to line moulds for cannonballs, resulting in rounder, smoother balls thatcould be fired farther, contributing to the strength of the English navy. This particular depositof graphite was extremely pure and soft, and could easily be broken into sticks. Because of itsmilitary importance, this unique mine and its production were strictly controlled by the Crown.

　　That the United States did not use pencils in the outer space till they spent $1000 to make apencil to use in zero gravity conditions is in fact a fiction. lt is widely known that astronauts inRussia used grease pencils, which don't have breakage problems. But it is also a fact that theircounterparts in the United States used pencils in the outer space before real zero gravity pencilwas invented. They preferred mechanical pencils, which produced fine lines, much clearer thanthe smudgy lines left by the grease pencils that Russians favoured. But the lead tips of thesemechanical pencils broke often. That bit of graphite floating around the space capsule couldget into someone's eye, or even find its way into machinery or electronics, causing an electricalshort or other problems. But despite the fact that the Americans did invent zero gravity pencilslater, they stuck to mechanical pencils for many years.

　　Against the backcloth of a digitalized world, the prospect of pencils seems bleak. in reality, itdoes not. The application of pencils has by now become so widespread that they can be seeneverywhere, such as classrooms, meeting rooms and art rooms, etc. A spectrum of users arelikely to continue to use it into the future: students to do math works, artists to draw on sketchpads, waiters or waitresses to mark on order boards, make-up professionals to apply to facesand architects to produce blue prints, The possibilities seem limitless.

　　参考答案：

　　句子填空题：

　　1. sheep【被农民用来标明他们拥有何种sheep】

　　2. lead【起初被当作一种lead】

　　3. government【被英国government认可在制作炮弹中非常重要】

　　判断题：

　　4. TRUE

　　5. FALSE

　　6. NOT GIVEN

　　7. TRUE

　　8. NOT GIVEN

　　流程图填空题：

　　9. cleaned【…随后cleaned 和脱水  】

　　10. heated【随后棍状物被风干和 heated】

　　11. wax【将其浸入wax中】

　　12. grooves【将棍子放入木板的grooves中】

　　13. varnished【将铅笔varnished或者涂上油漆】

　　以上内容收集于网络，仅供参考~

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