【题目】

I used to think ants knew what they were doing. The ones marching across my kitchen counter looked so confident; I just figured they had a plan, knew where they were going and what needed to be done. How else could ants organize highways, build elaborate nests, launch impressive attacks, and do all the other things ants do?

Turns out I was wrong. Ants aren’t clever little engineers, architects, or soldiers after all --- at least not as individuals. When it comes to deciding what to do next, most ants don’t have a clue. “If you watch an ant try to accomplish something, you’ll be impressed by how awkward it is,” says Deborah M. Gordon, a biologist at Stanford University.

“Ants aren’t smart,” Gordon says. “Ant colonies are.” A colony can solve problems unthinkable for individual ants, such as finding the shortest path to the best food source, assigning workers to different tasks, or defending a territory from neighbors. As individuals, ants might be tiny dummies, but as colonies they respond quickly and effectively to their environment. They do it with something called collective intelligence.

Where this intelligence comes from raises an essential question in nature: How do the simple actions of individual ants add up to the complex behavior of a group? How do hundreds of honey-bees make a critical decision about their hive (蜂巢)if many of them disagree? The collective abilities of such animals --- one of which grasps the big picture, but each of which contributes to the group’s success --- seem miraculous even to the biologists who know them best. Yet during the past few decades, researchers have come up with fascinating insights.

1The author’s former false impression about ants is that he thought them to be _______.

A. smart B. awkward C. elaborate D. creative

2Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A. Ants will function as a single body once a decision is made by the commander.

B. Ants are the only species which developed collective intelligence.

C. The ant queen plays a role in managing ant workers besides laying eggs.

D. An individual ant can’t comprehend the whole process of a big movement.

3The paragraph following the passage will most probably deal with _______.

A. where we can observe such fantastic behavior of ants

B. which is the leading ant in charge of the action

C. how the collective intelligence works

D. what inspiration can be drawn from the collective abilities

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