6 . The World Needs Zoos

ZOOS play an important role in the world for conservation and education. They are particularly important for endangered species. Many animals are critically endangered and may go extinct in the wild, but in zoos, they are going strong. Many others are already extinct in the wild and only survive thanks to populations kept in captivity (圈养). Even those critical of zoos often recognize that it is better to have species preserved somewhere than lose them altogether.       1    

Take the ring-tailed lemur (环尾狐猴) of Madagascar for example. This animal is almost ubiquitous in zoos as they breed well in captivity and the public are fond of them. However, despite their high numbers in collections around the world, they are the most threatened mammalian group on the planet. A recent survey suggests that up to 95 percent of the wild populations have been lost since 2000.     2     One bad year or a new disease could wipe out those that are left.

Such trends are not isolated. The giraffe is another very common species in zoos. Unlike the lemurs, giraffes are widespread in the countries across much of sub-Saharan Africa. Yet giraffe populations have gone down by a third in the last thirty years. While less dramatic than the drop in lemur numbers, this is obviously a major loss and again, whole populations (which some scientists think are of unique subspecies) are on the verge of extinction.

    3     Ongoing and future issues from climate change can have unexpected effects on wildlife. It will become more difficult for conservationists to predict which species might be at risk. As it is, experts are struggling to continue monitoring the species that are already known to be vulnerable, so it is easy to see why common species might be overlooked. People might not take a great local loss seriously on the assumption that these animals are heavily populated elsewhere.

There will, I suspect, always be resistance to the argument for keeping animals in captivity and I will not defend the zoos that are bad and in desperate need of improvement or closure.     4     If even common species can lose a huge percentage of their populations in a few years, it may be too late to save them with even the best breeding programs or conservation efforts in the wild.

A．So we can see many endangered animals living in zoos.

B．This is a trend that is only likely to continue.

C．This means that the remaining individuals are at serious risk.

D．In fact, species that are common can also come under serious threat before people realize it.

E．But unfortunately that is not always the case.

F．But if we wish to keep any real measure of biodiversity on the planet, we may have to lean on zoos far more than many realize.

7 . Modern medicine’s ability to keep us alive makes it tempting to think human evolution may have stopped. But if we look at the rate of our DNA’s evolution, we can see that human evolution hasn’t stopped – it may even be happening faster than before.

Evolution is a gradual change to the DNA of a species over many generations. It can occur by natural selection, when certain traits created by genetic changes help an organism survive or reproduce. Such genes are thus more likely to be passed on to the next generation, so they increase in frequency in a population. Gradually, these changes and their associated traits become more common among the whole group.

By looking at global studies of our DNA, we can see evidence that natural selection has recently made changes and continues to do so. Though modern healthcare disrupts a key driving force of evolution by keeping some people alive longer, in countries without access to good healthcare, populations are continuing to evolve. Survivors of infectious disease outbreaks drive natural selection by giving their genetic resistance to offspring. Our DNA shows evidence for recent selection for resistance of killer diseases like Lassa fever and malaria. Selection in response to malaria remains in regions where the disease remains common.

Humans are also adapting to their environment. Gene change allowing humans to live at high altitudes have become more common in populations in Tibet, Ethiopia, and the Andes. The spread of genetic changes in Tibet is possibly the fastest evolutionary change in humans, occurring over the past 3,000 years. This rapid increase in frequency of a mutated gene that increases blood oxygen content gives locals a survival advantage in higher altitudes, resulting in more surviving children.

Diet is another source for adaptations. Studies show that natural selection favoring a change allowing adults to produce lactase – the enzyme (酶) that breaks down milk sugars – is why some groups of people can digest milk. Over 80 per cent of northwest Europeans can, but in parts of East Asia, where milk is much less commonly drunk, an inability to digest lactose is the norm. Like high altitude adaptation, selection to digest milk has evolved more than once in humans and may be the strongest kind of recent selection.

Yet, despite these changes, natural selection only affects about 8 per cent of our genome. But scientists can’t explain why some genes are evolving much faster than others. We measure the speed of gene evolution by comparing human DNA with that of other species. One fast-evolving gene is human accelerated region 1 (HAR1), which is needed during brain development. A random section of human DNA is on average more than 98 per cent identical to the chimp comparator, but HAR1 is so fast evolving that it’s only around 85 per cent similar. Though scientists can see these changes are happening – and how quickly – we still don’t fully understand why fast evolution happens to some genes but not others.

1. Which of the following statements may the author agree with?

A．Evolution occurs among several people overnight.

B．Genes may change and some are beneficial to people’s lives.

C．Evolution is done when the whole population possesses a certain gene.

D．The changed genes leading to higher survival rates are chosen deliberately.

2. The underlined word “disrupts” in paragraph 3 can be best replaced by________.

A．explains

B．causes

C．upsets

D．heals

3. The author illustrates humans’ ongoing evolution with the following examples EXCEPT that__________.

A．some people can resist infectious diseases like malaria

B．children in Tibet tolerate living environments with thin air

C．northwestern Europeans digest lactose better than East Asians

D．the human gene HAR1 resembles that of a chimp to a lesser extent

4. Which of the following may serve as the title?

A．What Is Natural Selection?

B．Are Humans Still Evolving?

C．Why Will Certain Genes Evolve?

D．How Do Mutated Genes Function?

8 . Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

What historical site impresses you most? I’ve always been fascinated by the pyramids in Egypt. A few years ago I braved a long queue and climbed through a narrow passage to reach the main chamber deep inside one of them. Like millions of other tourists, I marveled (赞叹) at stone-walled rooms full of the magic of this ancient civilization.

    1     Take Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings for example. It lay untouched for more than 3,000 years until the British archaeologist Howard Carter uncovered it in 1922. Now more than 1,000 people a day walk through it.

But as more and more people visit, the temperature and humidity inside the tomb change. As a result, the beautifully decorated plaster is coming away from the rock.

    2     Specialists have recorded every detail of Tutankhamun’s tomb and used the data to recreate it.

Adam Lowe from the organization behind the project says the copy is identical (完全相同的) to the original. He believes visitors will want to become part of the force that protects it rather than a force that is leading to its destruction. So they won’t mind seeing a replica (复制品).

But for historian Tom Holland, a copy is still a copy.     3     He says it was built by people who believed in the world of the spirits, the dead and the supernatural. You don’t have to believe in a god or gods to feel a place is consecrated (使圣化) and has a particular quality that can’t be reproduced.

What about you?     4    

A．But popularity might be the.destruction of such archaeological treasures.

B．Would you visit a replica of a monument rather than the original to help preserve it?

C．He believes that although preservation is important, there is something unique about places like Tutankhamun’s tomb.

D．In order to preserve its heritage (文化遗产), a replica of the monument is being opened about 1 kilometer away from the actual burial site.

E．He considers it urgent to preserve such incomparable ancient sites as Tutankhamun’s tomb.

F．However, wars and natural disasters have put many archaeological sites at risk.

9 . Communication technologies are far from equal when it comes to conveying the truth. The first study to compare honesty across a range of communication media has found that people are twice as likely to tell lies in phone conversations as they are in emails. The fact that emails are automatically recorded — and can come back to haunt (困扰) you — appears to be the key to the finding.

Jeff Hancock of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, asked 80 students to keep a communication diary for a week. In it they noted the number of conversations or email exchanges they had lasting more than 10 minutes, and confessed to how many lies they told. Hancock then worked out the number of lies per conversation for each medium. He found that lies made up 14 per cent of emails, 21 per cent of instant messages, 27 per cent of face-to-face interactions and an astonishing 37 per cent: of phone calls.

His results to be presented at the conference on human-computer interaction in Vienna, Austria, in April, have surprised psychologists. Some expected emailers to be the biggest liars, reasoning that because deception makes people uncomfortable, the detachment (非直接接触) of emailing would make it easier to lie. Others expected people to lie more in face-to-face exchanges because we are most practiced at that form of communication.

But Hancock says it is also crucial whether a conversation is being recorded and could be reread, and whether it occurs in real time. People appear to be afraid to lie when they know the communication could later be used to hold them to account, he says. This is why fewer lies appear in email than on the phone.

People are also more likely to lie in real time—in an instant message or phone call, say— than if they have time to think of a response, says Hancock. He found many lies are spontaneous (脱口而出的) responses to an unexpected demand, such as: “Do you like my dress?”

Hancock hopes his research will help companies work out the best ways for their employees to communicate. For instance, the phone might be the best medium for sales where employees are encouraged to stretch the truth. But, given his result, work assessment where honesty is a priority, might be best done using email.

1. What does the phrase “to stretch the truth” in the last paragraph mean?

A．to tell the truth	B．to understate something
C．to overestimate something	D．to deceive people

2. Why are people more honest when using email?

A．Because it takes more time to think than to speak.

B．Because lies in emails may do harm to their credit.

C．Because of the detachment of emailing.

D．Because they are practiced to be more honest in emailing.

3. Which of the following is contrary to people’s common beliefs?

A．Emails contain more lies than other communication media.

B．Face-to-face communication contains more lies.

C．Face-to-face communication contains more lies because it is not recorded.

D．Deception makes people uncomfortable, which reduces mistakes in phone calls.

4. What is Hancocks’ tips for communication?

A．Honesty is always the best policy.

B．Employees should choose suitable media for different communication purposes.

C．If honesty is important, employees should choose face-to-face talk.

D．Employees should be honest with their clients, their bosses and their rivals.

10 . Before the age of the smartphone, photographers had to learn how to use high-tech cameras and photographic techniques. Today, with the huge range of camera apps on our smartphones, we’re all good amateur photographers, since the quality of smartphone images now nearly equals that of digital cameras.

The new ease of photography has given us a tremendous appetite for capturing the magical and the ordinary. We are obsessed with documenting everyday moments, whether it’s a shot of our breakfast, our cat or the cat’s breakfast. Even photo journalists are experimenting with mobile phones because their near invisibility makes it easier to capture unguarded moments.

In the past, magazines published unforgettable photos of important people and global events that captured our imaginations. These photos had the power to change public opinion and even the course of history. But if there are fewer memorable images today, it’s not because there are fewer good images. It’s because there are so many, and no one image gets to be special for long.

As people everywhere embrace photography and the media make use of citizen journalists, professional standards appear to be shifting. Before digital images, most people trusted photographs to accurately reflect reality. Today, images can be altered in ways the naked eye might never notice. Photojournalists are trained to accurately represent what they witness. Yet any image can be altered to create an “improved” picture of reality. The average viewer is left with no way to assess the accuracy of an image except through trust in a news organization or photographer.

The question of the accuracy of images gets even trickier when photojournalists start experimenting with camera apps-- like Hipstamatic or Instagram --- which encourage the use of filters （滤镜）. Images can be colored, brightened, faded, and scratched to make photographs more artistic, or to give them an antique look. Photographers using camera apps to cover wars and conflicts have created powerful images--- but also controversy. Critics worry that antique-looking photographs romanticize war, while distancing us from those who fight in them.

Yet photography has always been more subjective than we assume. Each picture is a result of a series of decisions-- where to stand, what lens to use, what to leave in and what to leave out of the frame. Does altering photographs with camera app filters make them less true? There’s something powerful and exciting about the experiment the digital age has forced upon us. These new tools make it easier to tell our own stories--- and they give others the power to do the same. Many members of the media get stuck on the same stories, focusing on elections, governments, wars, and disasters, and in the process, miss out on the less dramatic images of daily life that can be as revealing.

Who knows? Our obsession with documentation and constantly being connected could lead to a dramatic change in our way of being. Perhaps we are witnessing the development of a universal visual language, one that could change the way we relate to each other and the world. Of course, as with any language, there will be those who produce poetry and those who make shopping lists.

1. According to the author, there are fewer memorable photographs today because_________.

A．the quality of many images is still poor

B．there are so many good images these days

C．traditional media refuse to allow amateur photos

D．most images are not appealing to a global audience

2. The author put the word “ improved” in quotation marks in order to _________.

A．indicate it’s a word cited from another source

B．stress that the picture of reality is greatly improved

C．draw audience attention to a word worth considering

D．show it’s arguable whether the picture is truly improved

3. Which of the statements does the author most likely agree with?

A．The daily life pictures are very expressive themselves.

B．Photographs of the digital age are more subjective than before.

C．Photos altered by filters of camera apps are too subjective to be true.

D．Many members of the media value daily life images over major social events.

4. What may be the best title for the passage?

A．Camera Apps Bury Authenticity

B．Photography Redefined: A Visual Language

C．Smartphone: Killer of Professional Photography

D．The Shifting Standards of Professional Photography