题目内容

 Birds don’t need lessons in building nests. Fish don’t need coaching to learn how to swim. All animals have instincts. They’re born with natural abilities to do certain things. Wild animals also learn by copying their parents and practicing. And pets learn through training.[来源:学#科#网]

But instincts and training aren’t the only keys to animals’ behavior. Scientists say animals’ thoughts and feelings also influence their actions. Animals often make choices, plans, and sensible changes. They can help others and solve problems. Some even make and use tools!

If animals could talk, what would they say about their thoughts and feelings? A gorilla (大猩猩) born in captivity (关在笼子里) has helped answer that question. Koko, a gorilla, was taught to use sign language. She has learned hundreds of words!

Koko once had a pet cat she named All Ball. “Koko love Ball,” she signed. “Soft good cat.” One time, she blamed the cat for biting her by signing “You bad dirty toilet!” When her pet died, Koko cried. “Sad for sleeping cat,” she signed.

Koko calls herself “fine animal gorilla”. She uses sign language to argue, joke, and ask and answer questions.

“Most animals can’t use words to tell us their thoughts,” says Dr. Jonathan Balcombe. “But Koko shows us that animals have their own ideas and feelings.” Dr. Balcombe is a scientist at the Humane Society of the United States. He says there’s even more to discover about animals through field studies. In field studies, people watch animals in their natural environment.

“Scientists who study animals’ natural behaviors learn how animals live and think,” Balcombe says. “That knowledge can help others respect every animal who shares the planet with us.”

1.The underlined word “instincts” in Paragraph 1 probably refers to the ability that ________.

A. animals copy their parents                      B. animals learn by practicing

C. animals are born with                            D. animals learn through training

2.The example of Koko shows that ________.

A. an animal likes to have its own pet    B. an animal can learn to speak through training

C. an animal has the natural ability to speak   D. an animal can speak its mind

3.According to Balcombe, learning how animals live and think can ________.

A. help people care for animals                   B. teach animals to use words

C. train animals to use tools                        D. train animals to be cleverer

4.What might be the best title for the passage?

A. Raising animals as pets                          B. Understanding animals

C. Training animals to speak                       D. Protecting animals from danger

 

【答案】

 

1.C

2.D 

3.A

4.B

【解析】略

 

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“Birds are not as loyal to their partners as you might think, with divorce, child abandonment and remarriage a common part of birds’ life,” a new book has shown. Author and biology professor Bridge Stutchbury, dispels the love-bird belief that birds pair up for life. “In terms of the top 10 beliefs about birds, the lasting pair bonds that we think about, do occur in some birds, but in most of the little songbirds that we studied, no,” the professor from York University in Toronto said. The divorce rate among greater flamingos is 99 percent.

Stutchbury’s book, The Private Lives of Birds, based on 20 years of research from radio filming and DNA testing shows male Acadian flycatchers fertilize(使受孕) females far away from their home nests, “ The main discovery is that so many birds do divorce for what humans would describe as selfish reasons,” Professor Stutchbury said. She noted that females may seek out males that are more colorful and better singers, or look to “step up in the world” and move to areas that are safer and have more food. “Females are looking for the highest quality male so that their children will be of high quality,” she added.

Professor Stutchbury said shorter summers may drive females to leave their nests before their young are fully grown up so they can quickly find new mates(配偶) and lay more eggs, leaving the males to feed the hungry chicks on their own.

Males can double their success in producing children by fertilizing neighboring females, but only “mates” care for the young, and some are none the wiser. “  They can’t tell when the egg comes out and whether it’s theirs or not,” She said. “They have no way to know.”

Divorce is surprisingly common among birds, and most live with one partner for only a few months or years. Divorce rates range from 99 percent in the greater flamingo to zero in the wandering albatross(信天翁).

What does the underline word “dispels” mean?

A. States                      B. Doubts             C. Confirms          D. Removes

The book The Private Lives of Birds_____.

A. shows the kind of male birds females seek out.             

B. indicates the wandering albatross is the most faithful.

C. is based on Professor Stutchbury’s 20 years’ research.

D. suggests that female birds select males near their home.

According to the passage, we can infer that________.

A. young birds’ quality depends on their feather.

B. some male birds care for others’ young as their own.

C. female birds go to find males as soon as autumn comes.

D. female birds are responsible for feeding the hungry babies.

What is the passage mainly about?

A. A book about love-birds.

B. Birds’ living habits and love life

C. The fact that birds don’t love their mates forever.

D. The factors that influence birds to look for another mate.

Why don’t birds get lost on their long migratory (迁居的) flights? Scientists have puzzled over this question for many years. Now they’re beginning to fill in the blanks.

Not long ago, experiments showed that birds rely on the sun to guide them during daylight hours. But what about birds that fly mainly by night? Tests with artificial stars have proved conclusively that certain night-flying birds are able to follow the stars in their long-distance flights.

One such bird, a warbler(鸣禽) , had spent its lifetime in a cage and had never flown under a natural sky. Yet it showed an inborn ability to use the stars for guidance. The bird’s cage was placed under an artificial star-filled sky at migration time. The bird tried to fly in the same direction as that taken by his outdoor cousins. Any change in the direction of the make-be-live stars caused a change in the direction of his flight. Scientists think that warblers, when flying in daylight, use the sun for guidance. But the stars are apparently their main means of navigation (导航). What do they do when the stars are hidden by clouds? Apparently, they find their way by such landmarks as mountain ranges, coast lines, and river courses. But when it’s too dark to see these, the warblers circle helplessly, unable to get their direction.

1.The reasons why birds don’t get lost on migratory flights__________.

A.have been known to scientists for many years

B.are known by everyone

C.have only recently been discovered

D.will probably remain a mystery

2.Warblers migrate__________.

A.from North America to South America

B.using what is apparently an inborn navigational ability

C.only once during their lifetime

D.when they are freed from their cages

3.When the stars are hidden by clouds, warblers find their way by__________ .

A.an artificial star

B.some landmarks

C.their inborn ability

D.A and B

4.This article is a good example of the way scientists__________ .

A.discover workable answers to universal questions by studying particular cases(特别案例)

B.jump to conclusions

C.find a law and then investigate(调查)

D.are disappointed by the habits of animals

 

Birds don’t need lessons in building nests. Fish don’t need coaching to learn how to swim. All animals have instincts. They’re born with natural abilities to do certain things. Wild animals also learn by copying their parents and practicing. And pets learn through training.

But instincts and training aren’t the only keys to animals’ behavior. Scientists say animals’ thoughts and feelings also influence their actions. Animals often make choices, plans, and sensible changes. They can help others and solve problems. Some even make and use tools!

If animals could talk, what would they say about their thoughts and feelings? A gorilla (大猩猩) born in captivity (关在笼子里) has helped answer that question. Koko, a gorilla, was taught to use sign language . She has learned hundreds of words!

Koko once had a pet cat she named All Ball. “Koko love Ball,” she signed. “Soft good cat.” One time, she blamed the cat for biting her by signing “You bad dirty toilet!” When her pet died, Koko cried. “Sad for sleeping cat,” she signed.

Koko calls herself  “fine animal gorilla”. She uses sign language to argue, joke, and ask and answer questions.

“Most animals can’t use words to tell us their thoughts,” says Dr. Jonathan Balcombe. “But Koko shows us that animals have their own ideas and feelings.” Dr. Balcombe is a scientist at the Humane Society of the United States. He says there’s even more to discover about animals through field studies. In field studies, people watch animals in their natural environment.

“Scientists who study animals’ natural behaviors learn how animals live and think,” Balcombe says. “That knowledge can help others respect every animal who shares the planet with us.”

1.The underlined word “instincts” in the first paragraph probably refers to the ability that _____.

A. animals copy their parents   B. animals learn by practicing

C. animals are born with       D. animals learn through training

2.

3.

4.

 

You know that pearls grow inside oysters(牡蛎), but would you ever think to look for diamonds inside an ostrich(鸵鸟)? Well, a hunter once shot an ostrich and discovered, to his great surprise, that the big bird had swallowed a bunch of diamonds. How could such a strange thing happen?

  Like many other birds, the ostrich swallows small stones that stay inside its “gizzard”. The gizzard is a bird’s second stomach. It is where the food is ground up. The small stones help to grind up the food so it can be digested. The small stones do the chewing because birds don’t have teeth. In that case of the ostrich with the diamonds, the bird simply had expensive taste in rocks. It used the diamonds to digest its dinner.

  Diamonds and stones aren’t all that an ostrich will swallow. If there are no stones around, it will eat just about anything. Sadly for ostriches in zoos, this can be a fatal habit. The tendency to swallow anything it sees has caused the death of many an ostrich. Cruel or careless people often throw things into the bird’s living space. They throw keys, coins, and even large objects such as horseshoes. The ostrich swallows them without hesitation. Coins can be the worst. Inside the ostrich they wear down to a razor-sharp edge. They will cut open the bird’s gizzard from the inside. When one young zoo ostrich died, 484 coins weighing more than eight pounds were found in its gizzard.

1.

Which of the following best expresses the main idea of the passage?

A. Birds often eat strange and funny things.

B. Ostriches will swallow anything to help them digest food.

C. One ostrich died with 484 coins in its gizzard.

D. Ostriches are often hurt by cruel or careless people.

2.

The ostrich is not smart enough to ______.

  A. digest its own food                                                B. eat only diamonds

  C. avoid eating harmful objects                              D. escape from the zoo

3.

The sentence “the small stones do the chewing” makes rocks seem as though they were ______.

  A. important                                                                 B. alive

  C. dangerous                                                                D. uncomfortable

4.

he word “fatal” in the third paragraph is another word for “______”.

  A. foolish                         B. careless                          C. deadly                    D. cruel

 

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