1 . Clementine seemed to be missing apiece from her life’s puzzle for most of her life. Dropped off as a 3-year-old homeless dog near New Orleans, the dog stayed in the shelter for four months before being moved to Texas.
While living at an adoption center in Texas, the dog was adopted out twice to different families. Sadly, neither of those adoptions were successful. It turned out Clementine didn’t get along with smaller pets, and she had too much energy for the second family.
Meanwhile, Captain Robert Moree wanted to add a fire dog to the station. He’d just read a study about how dogs help firefighter scope with the pressure of their jobs, and he was eager to give the study a real life trial run! With the permission of the chief and other firefighters, he and a few colleagues visited the shelter. As soon as they met Clementine, they were smitten!
“They introduced us to Clementine,” Captain Moree recalled. “She started to like us, and we liked her instantly. Later that day, my driver, Bryan Wallen, and I decided to get her.”
Captain Moree officially adopted Clementine, but she definitely belonged to every person in the firehouse. She loved to hug the firefighters in between calls, and she was always nearby whenever anyone was preparing food. “She rides on the truck when we go out on calls” said Captain Moree. “She not only makes the station feel more like home during our 24-hour shifts but also keeps us excited to come to the station.”
Clementine has made such an amazing journey from a homeless dog to a hero dog. She was named Dog of the Year at the 2022 ASPCA Humane Awards!
1. Why did Clementine fail to stay in the second family?| A．She liked fire. | B．She was too active. | C．She ate too much. | D．She hated other pets. |
| A．moved | B．puzzled | C．attracted | D．surprised |
| A．Help put out fires. | B．Guard the firehouse. |
| C．Stay excited day and night | D．Reduce stress of firefighters. |
| A．She risked her life as a fire dog. |
| B．She has got many important awards. |
| C．She did an excellent job as a fire dog. |
| D．She remained homeless in her whole life. |
2 . Raccoons are arguably the most successful urban carnivore (食肉动物) in North America. They maintain large populations in most U.S. cities and are certainly just as common in Chicago, though actual population estimates are unknown. Almost anyone who has spent time outdoors at night has likely seen one, and they are quite difficult to confuse with anything else — their fat bodies, and mask-like facial markings, make them quite distinctive, and even perhaps charming.
A typical urban raccoon is able to eat virtually anything. Their diet includes earthworms, carrion, plant matter, cat food, and all kind of discarded human food waste. Raccoons are probably the most advanced wildlife which can dive our dustbins. Their paws (爪子) are quite dexterous and enable them to access closed garbage dustbins. Raccoons are also capable climbers and can be found on the top of fences and in trees. While they are typically solitary, they are willing to tolerate crowds of other raccoons if high quality food resources are present. They give birth once and sometimes twice a year in late spring and make use of a wide variety of den (巢穴) sites, including hollow trees, chimneys, etc. Because they make dens in a variety of human structures, raccoons can be a source of human-wildlife conflict, through direct confrontation with humans, property damage caused by their activities, and, perhaps most critically, through the transmission of disease. Leptospirosis, canine distemper, raccoon roundworm, and rabies are the most important zoonotic (人畜共患的) diseases carried by raccoons. Rabies in particular has had a massive effect on raccoon populations and caused a public health attention, to the point where use of vaccine have been attempted in some cities.
In most cases where raccoons are reported by the public, no management action is necessary. Large packs of raccoons, such as those often sighted along the lakeshore path, likely suggest a large artificial food source, such as people deliberately feeding raccoons on unchecked garbage. These large gatherings present a high disease risk and people should be strongly discouraged from feeding raccoons or leaving food outside for them. In cases where there is evidence of disease, individual raccoons will need to be trapped and killed.
1. What do we know about raccoons from the first paragraph?| A．They are unknown in Chicago. | B．They are easily recognized. |
| C．They tend to attack people at night. | D．They are declining in population. |
| A．skillful | B．mysterious | C．invisible | D．abnormal |
| A．share food | B．be in crowd |
| C．live separately | D．hide high quality food |
| A．People are encouraged to feed raccoons. |
| B．Raccoons are killed as food source for people. |
| C．Immediate measures are adopted when raccoons are found. |
| D．Extreme actions may be taken to deal with racoons carrying disease. |
3 . The population of rare Atlantic puffins in Maine, US, took a hit this year, as the number of chicks to survive a tough summer collapsed. The state's coastal bays and the Gulf of Maine are among the fastest warming large water bodies on the planet, making the puffins' fate a test-case for how climate change could disrupt marine ecosystems worldwide.
The little clown-colored birds faced a complex of challenges: nests were flooded by some of the heaviest rains in a hundred years, exposing chicks to cold and predators. It was tough for young puffins, who were being brought up in caves along the island's shores. And their parents had a hard time finding herring (鲱鱼) and other North Atlantic prey they usually dive for, which scientists think may have swum to cooler waters too deep or far-off for the birds. The adult puffins flew farther than usual to find food. Scientists say this limited their time to keep baby puffins warm in their nests. They did find and bring to the nests a lot of butterfish, but the thing is that butterfish are too big for young puffins to swallow.
The director of the National Audubon Society's Seabird Institute, Don Lyons, says puffins provide a unique window on global warming, on how even small shifts in the range or timing of any one species' occurrence can influence the fate of many others. "Working with puffins in Maine, we're seeing the harbingers (预兆) of climate change every day," he said. "I tend to think of puffins as a group of researchers. They're going out and sampling our marine ecosystem all summer, many times a day. And the way we learn from them is watching what fish they bring back and how well they are able to raise baby coffins. ... They're really telling us to be concerned, you know, to pay attention."
Lyons says that with good management of herring and other fisheries that the puffins depend on, the birds should be able to hang on. Puffins can live up to 30 years and this means it won’t be too terrible if they meet only a bad year. He adds, though, that their future in Maine may depend on just how often those bad years keep rolling in.
1. The phrase “took a hit” (in the 1st paragraph) probably mean “________”.| A．suffer heavy losses | B．escape bad fortune |
| C．increase on a large-scale | D．decline moderately |
| A．Puffins’ nests are open to the attack of their predators. |
| B．Baby puffins are not adequately fed. |
| C．Puffins’ prey prefers to stay in warm waters. |
| D．Butterfish are not the appropriate food for baby puffins. |
| A．puffins are helping human to maintain marine ecosystem |
| B．we can tell the marine ecosystem from what puffins do |
| C．puffins are more capable of diving for their prey |
| D．it’s interesting for researchers to work with puffins |
| A．the control of puffins’ population |
| B．prohibition of fishing herring and other fish |
| C．puffins’ abilities to adapt to different marine ecosystem |
| D．the frequency of the continuous occurrence of bad year |
4 . Dogs have facial expressions to use on humans
Scientists have discovered that dogs produce more facial movement when a human is paying attention to them—including making their eyes appear bigger—than when they
This new research goes
“Facial expression is often seen as
The research joins a number of studies exploring the extraordinary relationship between humans and their dogs, including some research that suggests that dogs understand not only words spoken by humans—but also the tone of voice.
A study published
The recordings were then examined by the team frame by frame
“The research tells us that their facial expressions are probably responsive to humans—not just to other dogs,” said Waller. He also said that it told us something about how domestication had shaped dogs, and
| A．are being ignored | B．have been ignored | C．were ignored | D．will be ignored |
| A．beyond | B．within | C．against | D．without |
| A．anything | B．something | C．that | D．whatever |
| A．to depend | B．depended | C．having depended | D．depending |
| A．on | B．by | C．for | D．in |
| A．whether | B．unless | C．either | D．when |
| A．determined | B．to determine | C．determining | D．to have determined |
| A．or | B．than | C．not | D．as |
| A．that | B．why | C．whether | D．where |
| A．could | B．can | C．would | D．will |
