Do we really know what dinosaurs looked like? Of course we do. We see them everywhere, not only in museums, but also in movies, magazines, and even in the toys we get from McDonald’s.
Since the days of early cinema, dinosaurs have captured our imaginations. They are often shown as scaly (有麟的) beasts with sharp horns (角) and crocodile-like bellies (肚子).
But the big screen dinosaurs are “a leap from what we know”, Mark Norell, who studies dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, told Discover magazine.
The reality of drawing dinosaurs for movie studios, magazines, or museums is that the artist often only has half of a skeleton to work with. Many existing and newly-discovered dinosaurs do not have a complete skeleton, which makes it difficult to tell what they looked like.
And even with a complete skeleton, there is a lot of room for interpretation. (诠释)
“Look at an elephant’s trunk (象鼻) and ears,” Jason Brougham, a dinosaur sculptor (雕塑师) at the American Museum of Natural History, told Discover magazine. “It’s impossible to guess those features by only looking at the skeleton.”
Researchers suggest that the dinosaurs of old could have had trunks like an elephant or even red necks like a turkey. They could have had colorful spots, stripes (条纹), and other interesting patterns on their bodies, just like snakes. Yet, with only a few fossilized (形成化石的) bones to study, it is impossible to know for sure.
Remember the cruel and quick-running velociraptors (速龙) in the US film Jurassic Park? Now experts believe that they were much smaller than in the movies, about the size of a large chicken, the BBC has reported.
Since the 1990s, some well-preserved dinosaur fossils have been found in China’s Liaoning province. Thanks to that, we have known for a while that one group of dinosaurs was covered in feathers. And thanks to the recent discovery of a feathered plant-eating species in Russia, many scientists now believe more dinosaurs than we previously thought had feathers, much like a chicken.
Also, in 2007, scientists confirmed that the closest living relative of T-Rex, the most feared and famous of all the dinosaurs, is a chicken.
Now, who are you calling “chicken”?
What is the main message of the first four paragraphs?

A．A description of what dinosaurs usually look like in artwork or on the big screen.

B．Why dinosaurs are so popular that we can see their images everywhere.

C．The images of dinosaurs that we see are created purely out of our imaginations.

D．Dinosaurs didn’t look exactly like what we see in artwork or on the big screen.

Jason Brougham used the elephant as an example to show that ______.

A．some dinosaurs actually looked a little like ancient elephants

B．drawing a dinosaur takes much longer than people think

C．it is hard to know certain features of dinosaurs just by studying their fossils and skeletons

D．a dinosaur sculptor’s main job is to find out about the dinosaurs’ missing features

Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the article?

A．Dinosaurs used to have red necks and thick feathers.

B．Most dinosaurs are much smaller than we previously thought.

C．The chicken has been proven to be the closest living relative to the dinosaur.

D．Fossils are still our main source of knowledge about dinosaurs.

The author mainly makes his point by ______.

A．making contrasts	B．giving examples
C．quoting（引用） numbers	D．describing movie scenes

Why it is difficult to tell what dinosaurs looked like?

A．Many existing and newly—discovered dinosaurs do not have a complete skeleton

B．Researchers can’t agree with each other

C．Dinosaurs in early films have captured our imaginations.

D．No well-preserved dinosaur fossils are found

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