tailieunhanh - IELTS Academic Reading 14

Để đạt thành tích cao trong kì thi sắp tới, các bạn có thể tham khảo IELTS Academic Reading 14 sau đây, nhằm rèn luyện và nâng cao kĩ năng giải đề thi IELTS, nâng cao kiến thức cho bản thân. | IELTS Academic Reading 14 Questions 1-12 You are advised to spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-12 which are based on the following reading passage THE BEAM-OPERATED TRAFFIC SYSTEM The Need for Change The number of people killed each year on the road is more than for all other types of avoidable deaths except for those whose lives are cut short by tobacco use. Yet road deaths are tolerated - so great is our need to travel about swiftly and economically. Oddly modern vehicle engine design - the combustion engine - has remained largely unchanged since it was conceived over 100 years ago. A huge amount of money and effort is being channeled into alternative engine designs the most popular being based around substitute fuels such as heavy water or the electric battery charged by the indirect burning of conventional fuels or by solar power. Nevertheless such innovations will do little to halt the carnage on the road. What is needed is a radical rethinking of the road system itself. Section ii The Beam-Operated Traffic System proposed by a group of Swedish engineers does away with tarred roads and independently controlled vehicles and replaces them with innumerable small carriages suspended from electrified rails along a vast interconnected web of steel beams crisscrossing the skyline. The entire system would be computer-controlled and operate without human intervention. Section iii The most preferable means of propulsion is via electrified rails atop the beams. Although electric transport systems still require fossil fuels to be burnt or dams to be built they add much less to air pollution than the burning of petrol within conventional engines. In addition they help keep polluted air out of cities and restrict it to the point of origin where it can be more easily dealt with. Furthermore electric motors are typically 90 efficient compared to internal combustion engines which are at most 30 efficient. They are also better at accelerating and climbing hills. This .