1 . Fishy Weather Conditions
Laj amanu, Australia, is a dry little town, sitting right on the edge of the Tanami desert. Can you imagine how surprised people were when live fish rained down on them from a dark gray cloud. It happens that there are similar cases in England and Honduras.
How do clouds make fishy? The simple answer is that they don’t. There is a particular weather phenomenon (现象) called a waterspout. A waterspout is just like a tornado (龙卷风), only it forms above oceans, lakes, or rivers. Like a tornado, a waterspout moves in a circle at high speeds. When it moves above the water, it tends to carry the fish with it, as well as frogs or other small plants or animals.
Scientists couldn’t work it out at first. To make matters stranger still, the fish in Honduras were very much alive when they rained down to the ground, but they were all blind. In England and Australia, it rained fish and snakes, and none were blind. It was difficult to puzzle out, but the blind fish gave them a place to start.
Scientists knew that some fish that lived in deep, underground caves with no light sources often lost their eyesight. So when blind fish rained down on Honduras, scientists began to connect some clues (线索，提示). Clearly, these particular fish were pulled from an underground water source by force.
It has rained fish on every continent, and each time, people have tried in various ways to explain this strange phenomenon. Historically, villagers thought the “fishes from the heavens” might be answers to prayers (祈祷) for food. Others suggested that floods overran river banks and oceans, leaving the fish on the city streets. No scientist had actually seen the rain as it occurred, only the fish left on the ground. But in 1990, a National Geographic team happened to be in Honduras when the Rain of Fishes began. They recorded what was happening and made history by finally proving that the fish really did fall from the sky.
This huge breakthrough wasn’t just a spot of good luck. It changed thousands of years of myths (虚构的事；谬论) and legends into true stories and provided scientific explanations for how fish came to live in deep caves. It explained ancient cave paintings and cast (投射光线) new light on how species have spread over time. It turned out to be a lot more than just a little fishy weather.
1. According to the passage, a waterspout ________.
| A．can make animals blind |
| B．is difficult to catch on film |
| C．can carry items (物品) with it |
| D．is a dangerous sea creature |
2. The blind fish made the scientists start to think that ________.
| A．raining fish was a warning of natural disasters |
| B．animals changed to match their environments |
| C．the weather system differed from place to place |
| D．the waterspout theory seemed more possible |
3. The first sentence in the last paragraph probably suggests that ________.
| A．waterspouts came to be a center of scientific research |
| B．the scientists were fortunate to have made their discoveries |
| C．hard work went into determining the cause for the raining fish |
| D．the scientists relied heavily on unusual events to drive their studies |
4. The author writes the passage to ________.
| A．explain what caused the fishy weather |
| B．describe the magic phenomenon |
| C．persuade people to protect the environment |
| D．encourage people to do scientific research |
