相似题推荐
【推荐1】If you ever get the impression that your dog can "tell" whether you look content or annoyed, you may be onto something. Dogs may indeed be able to distinguish between happy and angry human faces, according to a new study
Researchers trained a group of 11 dogs to distinguish between images（图像）of the same person making either a happy or an angry face. During the training stage, each dog was shown only the upper half or the lower half of the person's face. The researchers then tested the dogs' ability to distinguish between human facial expressions by showing them the other half of the person's face on images totally different from the ones used in training. The researchers found that the dogs were able to pick the angry or happy face by touching a picture of it with their noses more often than one would expect by random chance.
The new study focused on whether dogs can_________.
| A．distinguish shapes | B．make sense of human faces |
| C．feel happy or angry | D．communicate with each other |
【推荐2】Gray wolves once were seen here and there in the Yellowstone area and much of the continental United States, but they were gradually displaced by human development. By the 1920s, wolves had practically disappeared from the Yellowstone area. They went farther north into the deep forests of Canada, where there were fewer humans around.
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What does the underlined word “displaced” in paragraph 2 mean?
| A．Tested. | B．Separated. |
| C．Forced out. | D．Tracked down. |
【推荐3】
Making use of the wind, the water or, for more than half of all plant species, animals, plants disperse (散播) seeds far and wide. Frugivores — animals such as gibbons that feed on the fleshy fruits of plants — eat and then excrete (排泄) seeds away from the original tree. The African savanna elephant can carry seeds up to a record-breaking distance of 65 kilometres. This ability to shift geographical ranges will be crucial to plants when it comes to surviving climate change. However, just like all gibbon species, the African savanna elephant is endangered, its population down by 60 percent over the past 50 years.
Researchers in Denmark and the USA have published a new study into how the loss of seed-dispersing animals could affect the resilience (恢复力) of forests and other natural ecosystems. According to their research, this loss has already reduced the ability of plants to move in pace with climate change by 60 percent, and in some areas by as much as 95 percent.
Evan Fricke, lead author of the study, explains that in order to reach these results, they pulled together existing data from all previous studies and used machine learning to develop models that could estimate the seed dispersal potential of any animal, even ones that are now extinct.
The researchers found that, historically, the decline of seed-dispersing animals has had the greatest influence on plants across the temperate (温带的) regions of North and South America, Europe and southern Australia. “Our temperate ecosystems have lost a lot of the natural seed-dispersal function that they would have had.” explains Fricke, referring to large mammals that were once widespread in these regions.
Nevertheless, the poor conservation status of many seed-dispersing tropical animals puts plants in regions such as Southeast Asia and Madagascar most at risk today. Without the preservation of such animals, global seed dispersal could decline by a further 15 percent. “The direct implication of this decline is that many plant species will be unable to keep pace with a changing climate,” says Fricke. “That means the potential loss not only of plant biodiversity but of the ecosystem functions that those plants provide.”
As wildlife is lost, plants can no longer adapt and survive and forests become less sustainable, which reduces the amount of carbon they can store. They also lose their ability to support wildlife. Whole ecosystems are disrupted. The conclusion, Fricke says, is clear: we must conserve currently endangered species and restore the populations of important seed dispersers. “Independent of climate change, rewilding has the potential to benefit our ecosystems, but in a changing climate, it has the added benefit of increasing the climate resilience of those ecosystems,” he says.
Which would be the best title of the passage?
| A．The Resilience of Ecosystems |
| B．The Conservation of Seed-dispersing Animals |
| C．Animals That Spread Seeds Are Essential — And Under Threat |
| D．Animals That Spread Seeds Are Endangered — And Well Protected |
【推荐1】When the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) began last Friday, Steve and Janet Kistler of Hart County, Kentucky, joined in. They’ve done so every year since the now-global tradition began 25 years ago.
For Moira Dalibor, who teaches math at a school, this was the first count. She led a group of students and parents to an arboretum (植物园) for an exercise in data-gathering. They were among hundreds of thousands of people around the world counting and recording over four days. Last year, about 385,000 people from 192 countries took part in the GBBC.
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This is how it works: Participants watch birds, whether that means looking out of the window for 15 minutes or taking a longer trip to a nature area. Organizers recommend the Merlin bird ID app to distinguish birds by size, shape, song or other characteristics. Many participants also carry field guides and binoculars (双筒望远镜) along with their phones. They then enter the findings into the eBird app. Those numbers help researchers track the ups and downs of various species, which then help determine the direction of conservation efforts.
Dalibor prepared her classes with information about local species and practiced with the Merlin app. The kids recorded bird sightings with pencils and drawing boards, and parent volunteers entered those numbers on phones.
1. Why did Dalibor lead her students to an arboretum?| A．To do exercise for health. | B．To observe different plants. |
| C．To practice their math skills. | D．To collect information about birds. |
| A．To record their findings. | B．To identify different birds. |
| C．To help determine the birds’ habitat. | D．To track the ups and downs of various species. |
【推荐2】As Covid-19 spread through the United States in the spring of 2020, previously busy cities fell silent. A new study shows that the dip in noise in the early months of the pandemic (大流行病) led to an increased abundance of birds in cities.
The flock to cities ranged “from birds like hawks and eagles all the way down to small songbirds and even hummingbirds” says Michael Schrimpf, study co-author and postdoctoral flow at the University of Manitoba’s Natural Resources Institute.
What does the underlined word “dip” in Paragraph 1 mean?
| A．Decrease. | B．Increase. | C．Effect. | D．Change. |
【推荐3】In some cases, it’s not so much the treatment of the animals on set in the studio that has activists worried; it’s the off-set training and living conditions that are raising concerns. And there are questions about the films made outside the States, which sometimes are not monitored as closely as productions filmed in the Sates.
What can we infer from the last paragraph about animal actors?
| A．They may be badly treated. | B．They should take further training. |
| C．They could be traded illegally. | D．They would lose popularity. |
【推荐1】“Our research shows a significant link between air pollution and diabetes globally,” said Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, the study’s senior author and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Washington. “We found an increased risk, even at low levels of air pollution currently considered safe by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the World Health Organization (WHO). This is important because many industry lobbying (游说) groups argue that current levels are too stringent and should be relaxed. Evidence shows that current levels are still not sufficiently safe and need to be tightened.”
What does the underlined word “stringent” in paragraph 3 mean?| A．Strict. | B．Slight. |
| C．Bright. | D．Ordinary. |
| 80%赞同 | 1.降低环境污染的程度；2.降低农业生产成本。 |
| 20%反对 | 目前有机食物不能满足市场需求。 |
| 你的看法 | …… |
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
In recent years, organic farming ________ (popularity), so our class had a discussion about it. ________ (opinion, topic).
80% of students are in favor of it. Firstly, they think organic farming ________ (beneficial, environment) by reducing the level of pollution. Secondly, it reduces the costs of agricultural production. However, 20% of them insist that now organic food ________ (meet, demand), and that there is still a long way for organic farming to provide sufficient food.
In my opinion, we should ________ (attitude, organic farming), and I believe that it will be very mature in the future.
Millions of dollars have been used in developing special chemicals to help dismiss the spills and to clean up the animals, beaches, and land spoiled by the oil. Unfortunately, when many of these chemicals are used, more damage is caused to the environment, especially to lives in the sea.
Of all of today’s environmental disasters, an oil spill may actually be one of the least serious. Although oil is poisonous, it is a natural material. In the end, it breaks down naturally. There are, of course, long-term effects, but it is usually more serious in the short term.
Nature by itself works better than chemical materials, but when there is a spill we demand that governments act immediately with as much hi-tech knowledge as possible. In 1967 the tanker Torrey Canyon sank off the Scilly Isles near the coast of England and spilled 120,000 tones of oil into the ocean. If you go there today, you will find it hard to see any sign that it ever happened.
Governments seem to accept the risk of transporting millions of tons of oil by ship every day so that we can fill up our cars and drive around and cause even more environmental damage. Interestingly, the biggest companies in the world produce cars, and the next biggest supply the gasoline to make them run!
We should be thinking more about reducing our dependency on oil. Governments should be encouraging research into new technologies, such as cars run by solar power(太阳能), electricity, hydrogen, and so on. Much of this research has, in the past, been held back by the oil, gas, and coal.
If the world’s millions of cars were 10% more efficient(高效的) — and the industry could easily produce cars at least twice as efficient — we would need many fewer tankers crossing the oceans each year. If this happened, the risks of oil spills would be reduced, and the air we breathe would be cleaner and fresher, too.
1. What is the passage mainly talking about?
| A．Oil spills pollution. | B．What oil pollution is. |
| C．Oil tanker accidents. | D．How to reduce oil pollution. |
| A．By giving a description. | B．By making an argument. |
| C．By giving an example. | D．By drawing a diagram. |
| A．Transportation depending more on oil. | B．Poisonous oil breaking down naturally. |
| C．Millions of tons of oil spilling into the sea. | D．More environmental damage being caused. |
| A．We should build safer oil tankers in the near future. |
| B．We should develop new technologies to cut oil use. |
| C．Tankers should not be allowed to sail near the coastlines. |
| D．Countries should build more oil pipelines under the sea. |
