题目内容
Plants can’t communicate by moving or making sounds, as most animals do. Instead, plants produce volatile compounds, chemicals that easily change from a liquid to a gas .A flower’s sweet smell, for example, comes from volatile compounds that the plant produces to attract insects such as bugs and bees.
Plants can also detect volatile compounds produced by other plants. A tree under attack by hungry insects, for instance, may give off volatile compounds that let other trees know about the attack, In response, the other trees may send off chemicals to keep the bugs away- or even chemicals that attract the bugs’ natural enemies.
Now scientists have created a quick way to understand what plants are saying: a chemical sensor(传感器) called an electronic nose. The “e-nose” can tell compounds that crop plants make when they’re attacked. Scientists say the e-nose could help quickly detest whether plants are being eaten by insects, But today the only way to detect such insects is to visually inspect individual plants. This is a challenging task for managers of greenhouses, enclosed gardens that can house thousands of plants.
The research team worked with an e-nose that recognizes volatile compounds. Inside the device, 13 sensors chemically react with volatile compounds. Based on these interactions, the e-nose gives off electronic signals that the scientists analyze using computer software.
To test the nose, the team presented it with healthy leaves from cucumber, pepper and tomato plants, all common greenhouse crops. Then the scientists collected samples of air around damaged leaves from each type of crop. These plants had been damaged by insects, or by scientists who made holes in the leaves with a hole punch (打孔器).
The e-nose, it turns out, could identify healthy cucumber, pepper and tomato plants based on the volatile compounds they produce. It could also identify tomato leaves that had been damaged. But even more impressive, the device could tell which type of damage by insects or with a hole punch had been done to the tomato leaves.
With some fine tuning, a device like the e-nose could one day be used in greenhouses to quickly spot harmful bugs, the researchers say. A device like this could also be used to identify fruits that are perfectly ripe and ready to pick and eat, says Natalia Dudareve, a biochemist at Purdue University in
49. We learn from the text that plants communicate with each other by______.
A. making some sounds B. waving their leaves
C. producing some chemicals D. sending out electronic signals
50. What did the scientists do to find out if the e-nose worked?
A. They presented it with all common crops..
B. They fixed 13 sensors inside the device.
C. They collected different damaged leaves.
D. They made tests on damaged and healthy leaves.
51. According to the writer, the most amazing thing about the e nose is that it can ______.
A. pick out ripe fruits
B. spot the insects quickly
C. distinguish different damages to the leaves
D. recognize unhealthy tomato leaves
52. We can infer from the last paragraph that the e-nose_____.
A. is unable to tell the smell of flowers
B. is not yet used in greenhouses
C. is designed by scientists at Purdue
D. is helpful in killing harmful insects
49. C。 ks5u
解析：细节判断题。由Instead, plants produce volatile compounds, chemicals that easily change from a liquid to a gas可以知道答案。 ks5u
50. D。 ks5u
解析：推理判断题。由第五段话可以知道在测试e-nose 的时候既有healthy leaves也有damaged leaves。所以答案为:D。 ks5u
51. C。 ks5u
解析：细节判断题。由倒数第二段话最后两行可以知道答案。 ks5u
52. B。 ks5u
解析：推理判断题。由最后一段最后一句可以知道答案：Hopefully, scientists believe, the device could bring large benefits to greenhouse managers in the near future。 ks5u
ks5u
“If you talk to the plants, they will grow faster and the effect is even better if you’re a woman.” Researchers at Royal Horticultural Society carried out an experiment to find that the voice of a woman gardener makes plants grow faster.
The experiment lasted a month and by the end of the study scientists managed to discover that tomato plants grew up two inches taller when women gardeners talked to them instead of male.
Sarah Darwin was the one making the plants the best growth. Her voice was the most “inspiring” for plants than those of nine other gardeners when reading a passage from The Origin of Species. The great-great-granddaughter of the famous botanist （植物学家）Charles Darwin found that her plant grew about two inches taller than the plant of the best male gardener.
Colin Crosbie, Garden Superintendent at RHS, said that the finding cannot yet be explained.He says that women have a greater range of pitch and tone（音高和音色）which might have a certain effect on the sound waves that reach the plant. “Sound waves are an environmental effect just like rain or light ,”said Mr Grosbie.
The study began in April at RHS Garden Wisley in Survey. Scientists started with open auditions(听力) for the people who were asked to record passages from John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer's Night Dream and Darwin's The Origin of Species.
Afterwards researchers selected a number of different voices and played them to 10 tomato plants during a period of a month. Each plant had headphones connected to it. Through the headphones the sound waves could hit the plants. It was discovered that plants that “listened” to female voices grew taller by an inch in comparison to plants that heard male voices.
1.What does the passage talk about?
A. Plants enjoy men’s voices than women’s.
B. A science experiment in a museum.
C. Voice’s influence on plant growing.
D. Strange findings at Royal Horticultural Society.
2.What does the underlined sentence in paragraph 4 mean?
A. Plants need sound as well as rain and light.
B. Sound is basic for the plant to grow.
C. Sound has a good effect as rain or light does.
D. Plants can’t live without sound, rain or light.
3.What can we learn from the passage?
A. The experiment ended in May.
B. Scientist can explain the findings clearly.
C. Plants enjoy listening to the passages from famous works.
D. The findings are of great importance to human beings.