🔥Aluminium: Đề thi thật IELTS READING (IELTS Reading Recent Actual Test) - Kèm đáp án + Giải thích từ vựng

Aluminium
Aluminium is the most plentiful metallic element in the Earth’s crust. Combined with oxygen and hydrogen, it forms bauxite, the ore most commonly mined in order to obtain aluminium. Metallic aluminium was first isolated in 1829 from aluminium chloride, but it was not commercially produced until 1886.

Aluminium is a silvery-white, tough, but lightweight metal. It is a good conductor of electricity as well as being very resistant to atmospheric corrosion and, because of these properties, it has become an important metal. In addition, aluminium alloys combine lightness with strength and, as a result, are used in a great variety of industries. In most countries, the construction industry is the most important consumer, though the car industry is also a major user.

Named after the French district of Les Baux, where it was first discovered in 1821, bauxite is produced by tropical or semitropical weathering of alumina-bearing rocks. It occurs over a variety of rocks as a weathered cover or blanket known as laterite. Because of the way it forms, bauxite deposits are generally very extensive. Bauxite is found on almost every continent, with the largest known economic resources being in Australia and the Republic of Guinea. In terms of ranking, these countries are followed by Brazil, Jamaica, and India. Although the USA, Japan, and Germany are the world’s largest consumers of aluminium, they possess little or no bauxite deposits of their own.

Extraction of aluminium metal takes place in three main stages: the mining of bauxite ore, refining the ore to recover alumina, and the smelting of alumina to produce aluminium. Bauxite is mined by surface methods, in which the topsoil and overburden are removed by bulldozers and scrapers. This is then usually used for re-vegetating the area and returning it to a sometimes better-than-original condition or converting it to agricultural land. The underlying bauxite is mined by front-end loaders, power shovels, or hydraulic excavators. Sometimes, the bauxite is crushed and washed to remove some of the clay and sand waste and then dried in rotary kilns. Other bauxite may just be crushed or dried. The ore is then loaded into trucks, railway cars, or onto conveyor belts and transported to refineries.

In almost all commercial refineries, alumina is extracted from bauxite by the Bayer refining process. The process, devised by Karl Bayer in 1888, consists of four stages: digestion, clarification, precipitation, and calcination. All commercial production of aluminium from alumina is based on the Hall-Heroult smelting process, in which the aluminium and oxygen in the alumina are separated. This is done by passing an electric current through a molten solution of alumina and natural or synthetic cryolite. An inexpensive source of electricity is essential for the economic production of aluminium with this process.

The aluminium industry initiated the development of technology for recycling aluminium-containing material and for setting up drink can collection centres. One of the industry’s main incentives has been the reduced amount of energy it takes to produce one tonne of secondary aluminium compared with one tonne of primary aluminium. This involves a saving of ninety-five percent of the energy required to produce molten aluminium from bauxite.>> Form đăng kí giải đề thi thật IELTS 4 kĩ năng kèm bài giải bộ đề 100 đề PART 2 IELTS SPEAKING quý đang thi (update hàng tuần) từ IELTS TUTOR

Cans are probably the most common aluminium consumer items to be recycled. The life cycle of an aluminium beverage can is just sixty days from “can to can.” In this short time, a beverage can goes from the grocery store shelf to the consumer, and then on to a recycling facility where it can be re-melted into can sheet and reformed into another aluminium beverage can with exactly the same physical characteristics as the original can. Because aluminium can be recycled with no degradation in quality, aluminium cans are the ideal product for a closed-loop approach to recycling.

In the first step of recycling, bales of aluminium cans are shredded into pieces the size of a walnut in a 1,000-horsepower shredder. The shreds are then passed through a separator to remove any steel using magnetism that may have been mixed into the bale. Following the can shredding process, any lacquer or paint on the aluminium is removed by blowing hot air at around 550 degrees Celsius through the shreds on a slowly moving insulated conveyor. The exhaust gases from this process are first passed through an afterburner and are then used to heat incoming process air via a heat exchanger, minimizing the energy requirements of the system. After being de-coated, the aluminium shreds are then fed into melting furnaces containing submerged stirrers that create a vortex in the pool of molten aluminium and drag the shreds quickly down into the melt. This process realizes rapid melting rates and high yields. The molten metal is then transferred into a holding furnace, where it is treated to remove impurities before casting the aluminium.

Ingots are cast by tilting the holding furnace and pouring the molten metal into a casting unit. The metal is treated in a two-stage process to remove any remaining microscopic non-metallic particles and gases, with chemical composition and metal cleanliness tested on each cast. As the metal flows into the moulds, it is chilled by jets of cool water pumped around and through the base of the mould. The aluminium ingot solidifies gradually during the casting process, which takes approximately three hours. The finished 18-ton ingots, each containing approximately 1.5 million used cans, are shipped to a mill for rolling into the sheet from which aluminium can makers subsequently produce new cans. Then the whole process begins again.

Glossary
Overburden - any soil or rock that covers a mineral deposit

Questions 14 – 19
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the text?
In boxes 14 – 19 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. The commercial exploitation of aluminium began almost immediately after it was first isolated.
2. The building industry only uses a small proportion of commercially created aluminium.
3. French scientists were the first to produce aluminium in a commercially successful way.
4. Japan does not mine much of its own bauxite.
5. Bauxite mines are sometimes used for farming after the mining operations have finished.
6. Bauxite often contains other valuable minerals that can be removed before the alumina is extracted.

Questions 20 – 22
Complete the notes below.
Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 20 - 22 on your answer sheet.

The Production of Aluminium

• Alumina is commercially extracted from bauxite within (20) _____________ and is usually done with the four-stage Bayer process.
• The creation of aluminium from alumina is usually done through the Hall-Heroult process, which uses (21) _____________ to separate the oxygen and aluminium in alumina; a cheap (22) _____________ is therefore needed to use this process.

Questions 23 – 26
Complete the flow chart below.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the text for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 23 – 26 on your answer sheet.

• Plentiful

  • Meaning: Nhiều, phong phú.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: Aluminium is the most plentiful metallic element in the Earth’s crust - Nhôm là nguyên tố kim loại phong phú nhất trong lớp vỏ Trái đất.

• Ore

  • Meaning: Quặng.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: It forms bauxite, the ore most commonly mined to obtain aluminium- Nó tạo thành bô-xít, loại quặng thường được khai thác để lấy nhôm.

• Isolated

  • Meaning: Tách ra, cô lập.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: Metallic aluminium was first isolated in 1829 from aluminium chloride- Kim loại nhôm lần đầu tiên được tách ra vào năm 1829 từ nhôm clorua.

• Alloys

  • Meaning: Hợp kim.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: Aluminium alloys combine lightness with strength- Hợp kim nhôm kết hợp giữa tính nhẹ và độ bền.

• Semitropical

  • Meaning: Bán nhiệt đới.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: Bauxite is produced by tropical or semitropical weathering of alumina-bearing rocks- Bô-xít được tạo ra từ sự phong hóa nhiệt đới hoặc bán nhiệt đới của các loại đá chứa alumina.

• Extensive

  • Meaning: Rộng lớn, bao quát.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: Bauxite deposits are generally very extensive- Các mỏ bô-xít thường rất rộng lớn.

• Refining

  • Meaning: Lọc, tinh chế.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: Refining the ore to recover alumina- Tinh chế quặng để thu hồi alumina.

• Smelting

  • Meaning: Nung chảy.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: The smelting of alumina to produce aluminium- Nung chảy alumina để sản xuất nhôm.

• Overburden

  • Meaning: Lớp đất đá phủ trên mỏ khoáng sản.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: The topsoil and overburden are removed by bulldozers and scrapers- Lớp đất trên cùng và lớp đất phủ được loại bỏ bằng máy ủi và máy cạo.

• Re-vegetating

  • Meaning: Tái tạo thảm thực vật.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: The area is returned to a sometimes better than original condition or converted to agricultural land- Khu vực này đôi khi được phục hồi tốt hơn trạng thái ban đầu hoặc chuyển đổi thành đất nông nghiệp.

• Clarification

  • Meaning: Làm sáng tỏ, lọc sạch.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: The process consists of four stages: digestion, clarification, precipitation, and calcination- Quy trình bao gồm bốn giai đoạn: hòa tan, lọc sạch, kết tủa và nung.

• Precipitation

  • Meaning: Sự kết tủa.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: Precipitation is one of the four stages in the Bayer refining process- Kết tủa là một trong bốn giai đoạn của quy trình tinh chế Bayer.

• Recycling

  • Meaning: Tái chế.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: The aluminium industry initiated the development of technology for recycling aluminium-containing material- Ngành công nghiệp nhôm đã khởi xướng phát triển công nghệ tái chế vật liệu chứa nhôm.

• Closed-loop approach

  • Meaning: Quy trình khép kín.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: Aluminium cans are ideal for a closed-loop approach to recycling- Lon nhôm là sản phẩm lý tưởng cho quy trình tái chế khép kín.

• Shredded

  • Meaning: Xé nhỏ, nghiền nhỏ.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: Bales of aluminium cans are shredded into pieces- Các kiện lon nhôm được xé nhỏ thành từng mảnh.

• Afterburner

  • Meaning: Thiết bị đốt sau.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: The exhaust gases from this process are passed through an afterburner- Khí thải từ quá trình này được đưa qua thiết bị đốt sau.

• Holding furnace

  • Meaning: Lò giữ nhiệt.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: The molten metal is transferred into a holding furnace- Kim loại nóng chảy được chuyển vào lò giữ nhiệt.

• Ingots

  • Meaning: Thỏi kim loại.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: The finished 18-ton ingots are shipped to a mill- Các thỏi kim loại 18 tấn đã hoàn thiện được vận chuyển đến nhà máy.

• Degradation

  • Meaning: Sự suy giảm, giảm chất lượng.
  • IELTS TUTOR xét ví dụ từ bài đọc: Aluminium can be recycled with no degradation in quality- Nhôm có thể được tái chế mà không bị suy giảm chất lượng.

• FALSE
• FALSE
• NOT GIVEN
• TRUE
• TRUE
• NOT GIVEN
• refineries
• an electric current
• source of electricity
• separator
• hot air
• high yields
• mill