题目内容
Longer Lives for Wild Elephants
Most people think of zoos as safe places for animals, where struggles such as difficulty finding food and avoiding predators don't exist. Without such problems, animals in zoos should live to a ripe old age.
But that may not be true for the largest land animals on Earth. Scientists have known that elephants in zoos often suffer from poor health. They develop diseases, joint problems and behavior changes. Sometimes, they even become unable to have babies.
To learn more about how captivity(监禁) affects elephants, a team of international scientists compared the life spans of female elephants born in zoos with female elephants living outdoors in their native lands. Zoos keep detailed records of all the animals in their care, documenting factors such as birth dates, illnesses, weight and death. These records made it possible for the researchers to analyze 40 years of data on 800 African and Asian elephants in zoos across Europe. The scientists compared the life spans of the zoo-born elephants with the life spans of thousands of female wild elephants in Africa and Asian elephants that work in logging camps(伐木场), over approximately the same time period.
The team found that female African elephants born in zoos lived an average of 16.9 years. Their wild counterparts who died of natural causes lived an average of 56 years——more than three times as long. Female Asian elephants followed a similar pattern. In zoos, they lived 18.9 years, while those in the logging camps lived 41.7 years.
Scientists don't yet know why wild elephants seem to live so much better than their zoo-raised counterparts. Georgia Mason, a biologist at the University of Guelph in Canada who led the study, thinks stress and obesity(肥胖) may be to blame. Zoo elephants don't get the same kind of exercise they would in the wild, and most are very fat. Elephant social lives are also much different in zoos than in the wild, where they live in large herds and family groups.
Another finding from the study showed that Asian elephants born in zoos were more likely to die early than Asian elephants captured in the wild and brought to zoos. Mason suggests stress in the mothers in zoos might cause them to have babies that are less likely to survive.
The study raises some questions about acquiring more elephants to keep in zoos. While some threatened and endangered species living in zoos reproduce successfully and maintain healthy populations, that doesn't appear to be the case with elephants.
72. According to the first two paragraphs, unlike other zoo animals, zoo elephants _______ .
A. have difficulty eating food. B. 1ive to a ripe old age.
C. are not afraid of predators. D. develop health problems.
73. Which of the following about the international scientists' research on the life spans of elephants is NOT true? (See paragraph 3)?
A. They compared zoo elephants with wild elephants.
B. They kept detailed records of all the elephants in their care.
C. They analyzed the records of the elephants kept in zoos.
D. The zoo-born elephants they studied are kept in European zoos.
74. What do the scientists find in their research?
A. Female elephants live longer than male elephants.
B. Female zoo elephants live longer than their wild counterparts.
C. Female zoo elephants die much earlier than their wild counterparts.
D. Elephants in zoos and those in the wild enjoy the same long life spans.
75. Which of the following does the author suggest in the last paragraph?
A. It may not be a wise policy to keep elephants in the zoo.
B. Elephants are no longer an endangered species.
C. Zoo-born elephants should be looked after more carefully.
D. Zoos should keep more animals except elephants.
DBCA
阅读快车系列答案In the early 1950s, researchers found that people scored lower on intelligence tests if they spoke more than one language. Research in the sixties found the opposite. Bilingual people scored higher than monolinguals, people who speak only one language. So which is it?
Researchers presented their newest studies last month at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The latest evidence shows that being bilingual does not necessarily make people smarter. But researcher Ellen Bialystok says it probably does make you better at certain skills.
Ellen Bialystok said, “Imagine driving down the highway. There’re many things that could capture your attention and you really need to be able to monitor all of them. Why would bilingualism make you any better at that?”
And the answer, she says, is that bilingual people are often better at controlling their attention — a function called the executive control system.
Ms. Bialystok is a psychology professor at York University in Toronto, Canada. She says the best method to measure the executive control system is called the Stroop Test. A person is shown words in different colors. The person has to ignore the word but say the color. The problem is that the words are all names of colors.
Ellen Bialystok said, “So you would have the word blue written in red, but you have to say red. But blue is so salient(显著的), it’s just lighting up all these circuits(电路) in your brain, and you really want to say blue. So you need a mechanism(机制) to override that so that you can say red. That’s the executive control system.”
Her work shows that bilingual people continually practice this function. They have to, because both languages are active in their brain at the same time. They need to suppress(抑制) one to be able to speak in the other.
This mental exercise might help in other ways, too. Researchers say bilingual children are better able to separate a word from its meaning, and more likely to have friends from different cultures. Bilingual adults are often four to five years later than others in developing dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.
1.What’s the best title of the text?
A. Bilingual People, Smarter
B. Monolingual People, Smarter
C. Bilingual People, Longer Lives
D. Bilingual People, Better at Some Skills
2.The underlined word “override” in Paragraph 6 probably means ____.
A. pay attention to B. take no notice of
C. take an interest in D. take care of
3.In the Stroop Test, supposing you have the word yellow written in white, you will have to say ____.
A. white B. yellow C. blue D. red
4.Which group of people can most likely pass the Stroop Test?
A. People who can speak only Chinese.
B. People who can speak only Japanese.
C. People who can speak more than one language.
D. People who can speak only English.
5.Which of the following statements is FALSE according to the text?
A. A bilingual child is better at separating a word from its meaning.
B. A bilingual child can more easily make friends with a foreign child.
C. Bilingual people are more able to monitor several things at the same time.
D. It’s not possible for bilingual people to develop Alzheimer’s disease.