1 . Animal rescuer and cinematographer Douglas Thron’s passion for animals began when he was a little kid and he started rescuing orphaned baby animals. When he grew up, he worked as a cinematographer for shows like Discovery Channel’s “Shark Wee”. But Thron said a fire in California “pushed” him to rescue animals, using his cinematography skills well.
At the time, Thron was working as a cinematographer filming a man who was rescuing cats after the fire using an infrared (使用红外线的) handheld camera. The camera uses heat to detect the animals at night. Thron and the man talked about how incredible it would be to put one on a drone (无人机) to detect animals easily. “The animals’ body temperature will flash on the screen and you can pick them out among the rubble (瓦砾),” explains Thron.
The first animal Thron ever rescued was a dog in the Bahamas after a category 5 hurricane hit there. Thron tested out putting an infrared scope on a drone and found the dog exactly in the middle of the huge rubble pile where hundreds of houses had been destroyed. “I flew the drone over and I found him. I was able to rescue him,” he says.
“My dream is to one day have a large animal rescue farm where I can train others on flying drones and make infrared drones as popular for rescuing animals as helicopters are for rescuing people after a disaster,” he says.
1. Which of the following best describes little Thron?A.Lonely. | B.Optimistic. | C.Sympathetic. | D.Generous. |
A.A heater. | B.An infrared camera. |
C.A flashlight. | D.A temperature detector. |
A.The dog was reunited with its family. | B.Douglas was injured during the rescue. |
C.The Bahamas was hit by the strongest flood. | D.Douglas’ infrared drone test was a success. |
A.Infrared drones in animal rescue will be popular. |
B.More and more people are willing to fly drones. |
C.Helicopters will be widely used in rescuing animals. |
D.Infrared drones will replace helicopters in disaster relief. |
1. What did Jason think of Karen’s food?
A.Delicious. | B.Unhealthy. | C.Terrible. |
A.Observe the bees. |
B.Have some ice cream. |
C.Study English slang. |
4 . A huge section of the Milne Ice Shelf, located on Ellesmere Island in the northern Canada, collapsed into the Arctic Ocean, according to the Canadian Ice Service. This created an “ice island” which is about 30 square miles in size. As a comparison, Manhattan Island is about 23 square miles.
“Entire cities are that size. These are big pieces of ice,” Luke Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa who was part of the research team studying the ice shelf, told Reuters. “This was the largest remaining intact (完整的) ice shelf, and it’s collapsed, basically. ”
The Canadian Ice Service said on Twitter that “above-normal air temperatures, offshore winds and open water in front of the ice shelf are all part of the recipe for the ice shelf to break up.” A huge section of the Milne Ice Shelf has collapsed into the Arctic Ocean, producing a 30-square-mile ice island.
The ice shelf has now been reduced in area by about 43%. An ice shelf is a thick slab of ice, attached to a coastline and extending out over the ocean, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. “Some shelves have existed for thousands of years,” the center said.
So what’s going on up there? Though the planet is warming worldwide due to climate change, the Arctic has been warming at a rate twice that of the rest of the world. This summer has been particularly warm: Arctic sea ice melted to its lowest July level on record and in June, a town in Siberia soared (急升) to 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, believed to be a record high for the Arctic.
“When I first visited those ice caps, they seemed like such a permanent fixture of the landscape,” Mark Serreze, director of the NSIDC and geographer at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said in a statement. “To watch them die in less than 40 years just blows me away.”
1. Why does the author mention Manhattan Island in Paragraph 1?A.To stress that Manhattan Island is vital for Canada. |
B.To introduce where Manhattan Island locates. |
C.To say the great collapse is terrible. |
D.To compare two different places. |
A.Its location. |
B.Its huge body. |
C.Special intact form. |
D.Higher air temperatures. |
A.Arctic sea ice melted to its lowest in June. |
B.Climate change brings about great changes. |
C.The earth is warming because of the loss of ice shelf. |
D.The Arctic warms more slowly than the rest of the world. |
A.Shocked. | B.Humorous. |
C.Scientific. | D.Neutral. |