In the eyes of dog lovers, the dog is man’s best friend. But for much wildlife, loose dogs may be a dangerous enemy, according to a study by a biologist from Utah State University in the US.
Based on much existing research and their own case studies, Julie Young of Utah State University and four other scientists conclude that loose dogs may represent a huge danger to wildlife, especially endangered species, by hunting down or worrying them and by spreading diseases. They also found that dogs, their worldwide numbers around 500 million, can cause more damage to wildlife and livestock(牲畜) than wolves and other enemies of these animals.
Young gave examples from the US state of Idaho, where research showed the presence of dogs reducing some deer populations. On the Navajo American Indians’ reservation in northeastern Arizona, packs of loose dogs are chasing livestock. They have killed populations of small animals such as rabbits and act as a disease carrier for rabies(狂犬病) among people and other animals, she said. Loose dogs also were to blame for distemper outbreak leading to a die-off of endangered black-footed ferrets in northwestern Wyoming in the 1980s.
The phenomenon is not just limited to US; it’s a global problen. Julie Young once studied three endangered species in central Asia: wild sheep, gazelles and antelope. The rate of injury and death to these animals by loose dogs was very high. In another case, Young found that dogs, not wolves, as originally suspected, were responsible for a large number of livestock killings in the mountainous Basq
ue country between Spain and France.
Authors of the new study said the problem is likely to worsen as communities expand. Then how to deal with it?
Indeed, in many countries, leash(拴狗的皮带) laws permit punishment of dog owners whose pets chase wildlife. But lawbreakers are rarely punished because the police lack both people and money.
Young has low-cost solutions to the problem for dog lovers, though. They include public dog-training programs and vaccinating (预防接种) dogs against rabies and other illnesses.What is the main point of Julie Young’s study?
A. Many species are endangered because they are killed by loose dogs.
B. Wild dogs are immune to many diseases.
C
. Wolves are still the greatest enemy of livestock.
D. Loose dogs pose a great danger to wildlife.Which of the following statements about loose dogs is TRUE according to the research?
| A．There are around 500 million loose dogs around the world. |
| B．The black-footed ferrets in northwestern Wyoming were once the main food source of local loose dogs. |
| C．The problem caused by loose dogs is the most serious in the US. |
| D．People used to think that wolves, rather than loose dogs killed livestock in the Basque country. |
Which of the following is among Julie Young’s solutions to the trouble caused by loose dogs?
| A．More strict leash laws |
| B．Public dog-training programs. |
| C．Vaccinating people against rabies and other illnesses. |
| D．More support from the police. |
What is the main point of the article?
| A．A global disaster caused by loose dogs. |
| B．What makes the dog man’s greatest friend. |
| C．The problem of loose dogs and the possible solutions. |
D．The dan ger of the increasing numbers of dogs. |
How much rain has fallen on the earth in the past? Man has not always kept weather records. Because scientists need a way to learn about past rainfall, they study the tree rings.
A tree’s trunk (树干) keeps growing year by year. Under its bark (树皮), a tree adds a layer of new wood each year it lives. If you look at a tree stump, you can see the layers. They are called annual ring (年轮).
On some trees, all of the rings are of the same width. But the ponderosa(美国黄松) that grows in the American southwest have rings in different withes. The soil in he southwest is dry. The pines depend on rainfall for water. In a year of good rainfall, they form wide rings. In a dry year, they form narrow ones.
Scientists do not have to cut down a pine to study its rings. With a special tool, they remove a narrow piece of wood from the trunk without harming the tree. Then they look at the width of each ring to see how much rain fell in the year it formed.
Some pines are hundreds of years old and have hundreds of rings. These rings are from an annual record o0f past rainfall in the southwest.We could infer from the passage that ______.
| A．a tree grows faster when it has a lot of water |
| B．scientists cut down trees to study tree rings |
| C．pine trees form rings of he same width every year |
| D．the ponderosa grows in he southeast |
A tree grows a new layer of wood _____.
| A．each week | B．whenever it rains | C．every year | D．every season |
On the whole, the passage is about _____.
| A．why the tree trunks grow bigger |
| B．why scientists study tree rings |
| C．trees that lived hundreds of years ago |
| D．the ponderosa in the US |
The scientists _____ to know how much rain fell in a certain area in the past.
| A．climbed up the tree | B．moved the pine tree |
| C．removed a piece of wood | D．studied the width of the tree rings |
Which of he following is true according to the passage?
| A．Young trees have fewer annual rings than old one. |
| B．The trunk of a tree never changes in size. |
| C．Trees in the southwest do not need rain. |
| D．Soil in the southwest is fit for the growth of trees. |
This dictionary tells you about English words and how to use them in reading, writing and speaking English. It not only gives the meaning of words, it can also help you with spelling, word building, grammar and pronunciation.
To use your dictionary correctly, you will find two spellings for this word. “Colour” is used in British English, while “color” is used in American English. When there are differences between British and American spelling, the dictionary shows it with the word “BrE” for British English and “AmE” for American English.
The dictionary also helps you pronounce words correctly. If you turn to the inside back face, you will see all the phonetic letters (音标 ) with some words to show you how they are pronounced. Just look at the inside back cover when you're not sure how to say a word.
The most important reason for using a dictionary is to find out the meaning of a word — its definition.
In this dictionary, the definitions have been written using only 2, 000 words. This means that the definitions of even the most difficult words are simple and easy to understand.________ of the words in the dictionary have two spellings.
| A．All | B．Some | C．Few | D．One |
What is the main reason for us to use a dictionary？
| A．To read the word correctly. |
| B．To write the word out. |
| C．To know the meaning of the word. |
| D．To find the difference between British English and American English. |
The phonetic letters helps you ________ each word correctly.
| A．say | B．write | C．understand | D．know |
The Chinese meaning of “definition” here is________.
| A．词性 | B．词条 | C．词义 | D．词库 |
How many words are there in this dictionary?
| A．Two thousand. | B．One thousand. | C．One hundred. | D．We don't know. |
Sometimes children do not do what their parents tell them to do. When this happens, a parent tries to help the child to do the right thing. When this does not work, the parent usually punishes the child.
There are many things that a parent can do. One thing that people have done is to spank (打屁股) the child. When a parent spanks a child, they will use their hand or a hard object to strike them on their bottom. This is meant to show the child that they have done something wrong.
One parent remembers being spanked when he was a child. His parents used a wooden spoon. When he spanked his own children with his hand, he saw that he put a red mark on his child’s leg. He never did that again.
One problem with spanking is that it teaches the child to hit someone when they do not like what the other person is doing. Another problem with spanking is that the parent is usually angry and can hit the child too hard. Sometimes parents will use spanking for everything and not try other ways to get the child to do the right thing.
Many parents are not sure what to do instead of spanking. Some people think that their religion（宗教）tells them that spanking is okay. Some think that the law lets them do it. The courts say that parents have the right to teach their children how to behave.
Other things should be tried before a parent decides to spank a child. Telling the child exactly what is wanted from them can be one thing. Giving a child more than one choice is another thing that can be tried. Getting down to the child’s level and taking a more child-friendly approach can help as well.According to the passage, when children do something wrong, one thing that parents usually do to punish them is to ________.
| A．strike them on the bottom | B．try to help them do the right thing |
| C．teach them what to do | D．take them to court |
Which of the following is NOT the problem caused by spanking?
| A．It teaches the child to hit others when they offend him or her. |
| B．The parent may get angry and hit the child too hard. |
| C．Sometimes parents may use spanking for everything. |
| D．It makes parents try other ways to make the child do right. |
Which of the following can best describe the writer’s attitude towards spanking?
| A．favorable (赞同的) | B．indifferent (不关心) | C．interested | D．unfavorable |
From this passage, we can conclude that ________.
| A．Good children always do the right thing. |
| B．Parents should try their best to avoid spanking their children. |
| C．Parents have no choice but to spank their children when they do something wrong. |
| D．Children can have more than one choice to avoid being spanked. |
When I asked my daughter which item she would keep; the phone, the car, the cooker, the computer, the TV, or her boyfriend, she said “the phone”. Personally, I could do without the phone entirely, which makes me unusual. Because the telephone is changing our lives more than any other piece of technology.
Point 1 The telephone creates the need to communicate, in the same way that more roads create more traffic. My daughter comes home from school at 4:00 pm and then spends an hour on the phone talking to the very people she has been at school with all day. If the phone did not exist, would she have anything to talk about?
Point 2 The mobile phone means that we are never alone. “The mobile saved my life,” says Crystal Johnstone. She had an accident in her Volvo on the A45 between Otley and Skipton. Trapped inside, she managed to make the call that brought the ambulance(救护车) to her rescue.
Point 3 The mobile removes our secret. It allows marketing manager of Haba Deutsch, Carl Nicolaisen, to ring his sales staff all round the world at any time of day to ask where they are , where they are going, and how their last meeting went.
Point 4 The telephone separates us. Antonella Bramante in Rome says, “We worked in separate offices but I could see him through the window. It was easy to get his number. We were so near——but we didn’t meet for the first two weeks!”
Point 5 The telephone allows us to reach out beyond our own lives. Today we can talk to several complete strangers simultaneously ( 同时地) on chat lines (at least my daughter does. I wouldn’t know what to talk about). We can talk across the world. We can even talk to astronauts (if you know any) while they’re space-walking. And, with the phone line hooked up to the computer, we can access(存取) the Internet, the biggest library on Earth. How do you understand Point 1 —The telephone creates the need to communicate ？
| A．People don’t communicate without telephone. |
| B．People communicate because of the creating of the telephone. |
| C．People communicate more since telephone has been created. |
| D．People communicate more because of more traffic. |
Which of the following best shows people’s attitude towards mobile phones?
| A．Mobile phones help people deal with the emergency. |
| B．Mobile phones bring convenience as well as little secret to people. |
| C．Mobile phones are so important and should be encouraged. |
| D．Mobile phones are part of people’s life. |
Which points do you think support the idea that phones improve people’s life?
a. Point 1. b. Point2. c. Point3. d. Point 4. e. Point 5.
| A．c, d | B．a, e | C．a, c | D．b, e |
It is possible to talk to several complete strangers simultaneously through.
| A．the TV screen | B．a fax machine |
| C．the phone line hooked up to the computer | D．a microphone |
The best heading for the passage is .
| A．Phone Power | B．Kinds of Phone |
| C．How to Use Phones | D．Advantage of Phones |
Is it true that cats have nine lives? One 4-year-old American cat named Sugar definitely seems to have more than one. Sugar fell from the 19th floor of her owner’s home in Boston last month and was only hurt a little on her chest.
“This story isn’t much of a surprise,” said Jake Socha, a scientist at Virginia Tech University, US, in an interview with the BBC. “There have been lots of records of these cats surviving.”
Back in 1987, scientists studied 132 cats. All of them had been brought to a vet’s clinic in New York after falling from tall buildings. Around 90 percent of these cats were alive after their fall and only 37 percent had been seriously injured.
“Being able to survive falls is a critical thing for animals that live in trees, and cats are one of them,” said Socha.
Cats have developed special body structures to survive accidental falls. Their legs are muscular. This can protect their bones from breaking, Professor Andrew Biewener from Harvard University told the BBC. Cats can also spread out their legs like a parachute to reduce their falling speed, he said.
The strange part, according to scientists, is that cats have a better chance of survival if they fall from higher than seven stories. This is because cats have a good sense of which way is down. They can twist their bodies as they fall to make sure they land on their feet. A higher fall means more time for the cat to change its body position.
However, you should not throw your cat out of the window to see how this works. Most pet cats are overweight nowadays. They are not fit enough to change their position in midair, warned Steve Dale, an American cat behavior scientist.
“This cat (Sugar) was lucky,” Dale said. In fact, most cats would suffer serious lung damage, a broken leg or a broken jaw or teeth damage, he said. What can we learn from Paragraph 3?
| A．Cats really do have nine lives. |
| B．Many cats can survive falls. |
| C．Cats are the softest animals in the world. |
| D．More than half of the cats that fall from high places end up badly injured. |
What does the underlined word “critical” mean in the context?
| A．Important. | B．Easy. | C．Challenging. | D．Serious. |
Why can cats survive falls according to the article?
a. They have a hidden parachute in their bodies.
b. Their legs have developed in a way that protects their bones from breaking.
c. They can land on their feet.
d. They can twist their bodies to reduce the speed at which they are falling.
| A．a, b | B．b, c | C．c, d | D．b, d |
Which of the following statements is TRUE?
| A．A pet cat that falls out of a tall building is not really at risk. |
| B．Sugar was lucky that she was only injured in the leg. |
| C．Cats are confused as to which way is down when they are in midair. |
| D．A cat that falls from the fourth story of a building is more likely to die than one that falls from the 10th story. |