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2 . Dogs have a kind of sensor at the end of their nose that helps them recognize small changes in temperature when other animals are nearby. The scientists say the discovery can help researchers better understand how some animals identify their prey (猎物).
The scientists reported that the wet skin surface at the end of a dog’s nose is full of nerve endings. “Dogs are able to sense the thermal radiation (热辐射) coming from warm bodies or weak thermal radiation and they can also direct their behavior according to this signal”, wrote the researchers. “We tested whether we can find an area in the brain that shows higher activity if they are exposed to a warmer object.” Brain imaging tests showed increased brain activity when dogs were shown objects that were warmer than their environment.
The study had two sets of experiments. In one, researchers used weak thermal radiation to train three dogs. In the other, 13 dogs were given brain imaging tests to see how the brain reacted if they recognized weak thermal radiation. Researchers were careful to note that all the animals were privately owned. The owners gave “informed permission for their dogs to be used in the study”.
Researchers noted, “It is possible that other animals own a similar sense and that adds a new chapter to the story of prey-predator (捕食者) relationships.” They wrote that in the gray wolf, the closest wild relative of dogs, “the ability to sense the radiation from warm bodies would be advantageous for such predators”.
1. What helps dogs sense other animals nearby?| A．The small change in temperature. |
| B．The higher activity in their brain. |
| C．The nerve endings at the end of their noses. |
| D．The close relations with gray wolves. |
| A．To find out if dogs have thermal radiation. |
| B．To find out how dogs get away from danger. |
| C．To find out the relations between dogs and wolves. |
| D．To measure the dogs’ reaction to other warmer objects. |
| A．In a travel magazine. | B．In a science report. |
| C．In an advertisement. | D．In a health report. |
1. Where did the woman find the bug at first?
| A．On the wall. | B．On the floor. | C．On her desk. |
| A．Lovely. | B．Scary. | C．Helpful. |
| A．30%. | B．40%. | C．75%. |
4 . Fire ants dig tunnels efficiently by only a small percentage of the group doing most of the work. Free-loaders just sit around while their hard-working colleagues get things done. But might freeloaders actually be necessary for society to function efficiently? The answer could be yes.
Fire ants are highly social organisms. So, Goldman, a physicist at Georgia Tech, and his colleagues wanted to know how individual ants knew what to do without a central leader issuing orders. To find out, Goldman's team labeled individual fire ants with paint and then watched them dig their narrow tunnels —barely wide enough for two workers. Turns out, just 30 percent of the ants did 70 percent of the labor. “I was surprised that we ended up with so few workers actually doing the work at any one time. ” A quarter of the ants never even entered the tunnel. Others crawled inside, but left without digging single grain of dirt. These idling behaviors ensured the tunnels did not get clogged with insect traffic, which would make the construction process stop.
And when the scientists removed the five hardest working ants from the colony, others immediately jumped in to compensate (补偿) — with no reduction in the group's productivity. It seems that it doesn’t matter which ants are working or freeloading at a given time, as long as there is some division of labor to keep the tunnels flowing smoothly. The findings are in the journal Science.
The study could have implications for robotics. Imagine groups of robots sent to search rubble (碎石) for disaster survivors. Or nanobots (纳米机器人) coursing through our bodies to diagnose illness and deliver targeted medical treatment. Such robot groups will need to avoid getting jammed up in tight spaces. It might be necessary to program them so some just sit back and watch their comrades work.
1. How do fire ants get the work done when digging tunnels?| A．Only the leaders do most of the work. |
| B．They all work under the order of one leader. |
| C．They all cooperate together to do the work efficiently. |
| D．Individual fire ants know their tasks and work efficiently. |
| A．crowded | B．transported |
| C．organized | D．covered |
| A．The ants will have no idea what to do. |
| B．Other ants will take their place and do the work. |
| C．The tunnels will get blocked and the work will stop. |
| D．The leader will compensate them and give them food as the reward. |
| A．fire ants are the most diligent insects. |
| B．scientists may diagnose illness more easily. |
| C．people may feel happy when they watch their colleagues do nothing. |
| D．scientists can deal with robotics better when coming to specific programs. |
5 . You have to praise the smoothness（顺畅） of ants on the move. No matter how many of them are going toward a place, there's never a hold-up. A new research paper shows how ants keep traffic flowing by changing their behavior to meet changing conditions.
For their experiments, researchers from the University of Toulouse focused on Argentine ants, animals that often move from colony（群落） to colony depending on where the food is. Making use of Argentine ants' talent for fast travel, the researchers built bridges connecting their colonies. The bridges were different in width from a fifth to three-quarters of an inch. The colonies, too, were of different sizes, ranging from 400 to more than 25,000 ants.
Then the researchers sat back and monitored the traffic. To their surprise, even when those narrower bridges were full of ants, there were no "traffic accidents". "When the number of ants on the bridge increased, ants seemed to be able to understand the situation and adjusted（调整） their speed accordingly to avoid making the traffic flow stop. "the authors note. "Moreover, ants avoided entering a busy road and made sure that the bridge was never too packed to cross.”
The lesson for humans? The traffic problem may lie in our inability to adjust our driving habits for the good of the whole. Driving is fun when there are few cars on the road. Then the traffic moves very slowly. And yet, some impatient driver still acts like he's alone on the road.
The research suggests that projects, like the ever-widening of highways, may never free us from traffic jams. As long as we drive along with our own habits, no matter how many other people are on the road, we'll always end up in a traffic jam. Indeed, less space may actually be a good thing. It leaves less room for individual choice and forces us to take a page from the driving book of ants.
1. What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?| A．The results of the experiments. | B．The purpose of the experiments |
| C．The preparation of the experiments. | D．The requirements of the experiments |
| A．watch and check. | B．seek and improve |
| C．design and plan | D．discuss and practise |
| A．Is widening highways a solution? |
| B．Why don't ants need traffic lights? |
| C．Can we learn safe driving from ants? |
| D．What can ants teach us about traffic jams? |
Brave Dog wasn’t always his name. In the beginning his name was just Stray Dog(流浪狗).
I saw him for the first time one evening when Mattie and I went to milk the cows. He was all dusty coat and skinny-ribbed(皮包骨头的), hardly worth a second glance. But Mattie made a beeline for him, reaching out to pet him, “What a pretty dog!” The dog looked unsure, as if he weren’t used to being spoken to kindly. I grabbed Mattie’s arm. “Keep away from that stray dog,” I told her. “You know how dad feels about stray dogs.” “Don’t call him Stray Dog,” said Mattie. “He’s a pretty dog.” The dog licked (舔) her face and put a paw on her shoulder. Mattie threw her arms around his neck. “I’m keeping him,” she declared, “I’m calling him Pretty Dog.”
To Mattie, his name was Pretty Dog. She talked to him, played with him and fed him secretly. He responded by following her like a shadow when no one else was around. To the rest of us, his name was Stray Dog. We did everything we could to chase him away, but he kept coming back. One cold winter day, Dad set off to go ice fishing. Mattie had begged to go, but Dad said no. “You’ll keep complaining about cold,” he said, “I want to do some serious fishing.”
Dad came home a few hours later. “Get some fine ones,” he shouted from the porch(门廊). “Come to see!” Ma and I came out. “Where’s Mattie?”Dad asked. Ma and I looked at each other in confusion, both thinking Mattie was with the other. Then, Ma strode to the closet. “Her coat and boots are gone.” Ma turned to Dad with troubled eyes, “Maybe she went after you.” Worry lines creased(弄皱) Dad’s face. “She never came to the lake. Come on; we need to find her.”
注意:
1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2. 至少使用5个短文中标有下划线的关键词语；
3. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；
4. 续写完成后，请用下划线标出你所使用的关键词语。
Paragraph 1:
On the road we found Mattie’s boot prints following Dad’s big ones.
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Paragraph 2:
Suddenly some barks(犬吠) came from the distance.
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| A．Playing. | B．Sleeping. | C．Eating. |
8 . If you grew up watching the kid’s television channel Nickelodeon, you will probably understand that there is nothing greater than enjoying its special bright green slime ( 水晶泥). The week of May 11, astronauts (宇航员) aboard the International Space Station(ISS) joined the slime.
Nickelodeon sent two kilos of its green slime into space in the summer of 2019. The Slime in Space project’s idea was to create an educational trip for teachers to use in class. The green slime was also used to guide astronauts through a series of experiments that were designed to learn more about how slime acts in microgravity.
Researchers from Portland State University(PSU) were excited to design the experiments for the project. Mark Weislogel and his partner designed eight shows for NASA astronauts and European Space Agency astronaut aboard to perform.
If you’re wondering what we could hope to learn from sending slime into space, the answer lies in its very name. Slime is slimy. This is because it is a liquid that is thicker than liquids like water. This makes slime act in unexpected ways in the microgravity of the ISS. Improving our understanding of how thicker liquids act in space may help us improve the design of systems that something were designed with Earth’s gravity in mind.
“Interestingly, we consider liquid on Earth as that takes the shape of its container,” Koch tells CNN. “Water just turns into a ball in microgravity, so we’ve had to have a new understanding of different kinds of matter in space. This experiment shows how microgravity can help us understand things on Earth, especially the things we take for granted.”
1. In paragraph one, Nickelodeon is mentioned .| A．to introduce the topic | B．to attract the kids |
| C．to make advertisements | D．to share a TV show |
| A．Because they get students interested in space. |
| B．Because slime takes the shape of its container. |
| C．Because slime is popular with kids in the TV show. |
| D．Because they help us understand how slime acts in space. |
| A．Puzzled. | B．Worried. | C．Uninterested. | D．Positive. |
| A．Microgravity makes a difference to matters. |
| B．Astronauts join the slime in space for science. |
| C．Kids join the slime so as to become astronauts. |
| D．Experiments are designed with slimy slime. |
9 . Sea urchins (海胆) are small creatures, but what’s really remarkable about them is that they eat anything that happens to float by. They have really sharp teeth they use to rid rocks of algae (海澡), which makes them pretty valuable especially in places like Hawaii where algae are threatening the coral reefs. In the summer of 2019, 500,000 of them were used to deal with the algae.
The problem started when non-native algae were introduced to the ecosystem of Kane’ohe Bay in the 1970s. Because they had no enemies, they ended up taking over the bay, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). The algae blocked sunlight from reaching the coral, which in turn affected the local fish because they changed the chemistry of the water.
That's when the NMFS turned to sea urchins that loved to devour the algae. But they had to grow to the size of a cherry tomato before they could be used. Since 2011, sea urchins have been grown and used to handle the algae problem. Some of the funds are available due to an unfortunate incident.
In 2005, a ship was grounded on a shallow reef near Kane’ohe Bay. When the ship was removed, 20 acres of reefs have been damaged. When there is environmental damage, the NMFS and other agencies receive funds from the wrongdoers and the funds are used to restore the damage. Some funds were spent on other projects like the sea urchins.When they are large enough, divers carefully place them on the reef.
Algae isn’t the only thing that threatens the coral reefs. Climate change and the effects of fishing and tourism in the area also endanger the coral reefs. But turning to sea urchins instead of man-made solutions seems like the best way to go.
1. Why are sea urchins regarded as outstanding creatures?| A．They are tiny but have teeth. | B．They can keep the ocean clean. |
| C．They are useful in removing algae. | D．They grow on coral reefs with algae. |
| A．They helped the coral reefs to survive. | B．They spread to every corner of the bay. |
| C．They didn’t fit in with the new surroundings. | D．They fought against other species to get food. |
| A．Eat. | B．Block. | C．Tease. | D．Attract. |
| A．Relying on humans’ solutions. | B．Banning fishing and tourism. |
| C．Employing divers to handle algae. | D．Letting nature take care of nature. |
Every day people throw away a lot of household garbage – paper, cans, kitchen waste, used batteries and glass
People in cities, like Beijing and Shanghai, are required to sort garbage into four categories - kitchen waste, dangerous waste,
