Pigeons (鸽子) may be considered mice of the sky, but some scientists have found greater value in these urban birds: the blueprint for a new generation of flying machines.
Birds can transform the shape of their wings by fanning out their feathers or moving them closer together. Those adjustments allow birds to cut through the sky more flexibly than rigid drones (无人机). Now, using new insights into exactly how pigeons ‘joints control the spread of their wing feathers, researchers have built a robotic pigeon. This research paves the way for creating more light aircraft, says Dario Floreano, a roboticist in Switzerland not involved in the work.
“What’s really cool about this robot is that you can make adjustments in a robotic wing that you could never do when studying flight in a bird”, says David Lentink, an engineer and biologist at Stanford University. A controllable robotic pigeon solves that problem. In flight tests, Lentink’s team observed that bending only the fingers of one wing eased the robot into a banked turn-offering the first evidence that birds may sometimes use just their fingers to direct in flight. In a second study, Lentink’s group used their robotic wing design to confirm another insight into bird flight: how gaps are prevented from forming between feathers on extended wings.
This is the best set of robotic wings yet for testing how birds adjust their flight feathers to move through the air, says Tyson Hedrick, a biomechanist. But “there’s plenty of room for improvement.” For instance, a future flying robot could include a shoulder joint to investigate how waving a bird’s wings up and down influences flight, he says.
1.What is the newly-found worth of pigeons?
A.They help study other species.
B.They protect other urban birds.
C.They provide proof of mice’s harm.
D.They inspire a new aircraft.
2.What is Dario Floreano’s attitude to the research?
A.Negative. B.Positive.
C.Neutral. D.Critical.
3.What do the underlined words “that problem” in paragraph 3 refer to?
A.Pigeons in flight can hardly be observed.
B.People can’t make adjustments in birds’ wings.
C.It is difficult for pigeons to make a banked turn.
D.Pigeons fail to control the spread of their wing feathers.
4.Where does the text probably come from?
A.A travel journal.
B.A travel brochure.
C.A science fiction.
D.A science magazine.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题
Pigeons (鸽子) may be considered mice of the sky, but some scientists have found greater value in these urban birds: the blueprint for a new generation of flying machines.
Birds can transform the shape of their wings by fanning out their feathers or moving them closer together. Those adjustments allow birds to cut through the sky more flexibly than rigid drones (无人机). Now, using new insights into exactly how pigeons ‘joints control the spread of their wing feathers, researchers have built a robotic pigeon. This research paves the way for creating more light aircraft, says Dario Floreano, a roboticist in Switzerland not involved in the work.
“What’s really cool about this robot is that you can make adjustments in a robotic wing that you could never do when studying flight in a bird”, says David Lentink, an engineer and biologist at Stanford University. A controllable robotic pigeon solves that problem. In flight tests, Lentink’s team observed that bending only the fingers of one wing eased the robot into a banked turn-offering the first evidence that birds may sometimes use just their fingers to direct in flight. In a second study, Lentink’s group used their robotic wing design to confirm another insight into bird flight: how gaps are prevented from forming between feathers on extended wings.
This is the best set of robotic wings yet for testing how birds adjust their flight feathers to move through the air, says Tyson Hedrick, a biomechanist. But “there’s plenty of room for improvement.” For instance, a future flying robot could include a shoulder joint to investigate how waving a bird’s wings up and down influences flight, he says.
1.What is the newly-found worth of pigeons?
A.They help study other species.
B.They protect other urban birds.
C.They provide proof of mice’s harm.
D.They inspire a new aircraft.
2.What is Dario Floreano’s attitude to the research?
A.Negative. B.Positive.
C.Neutral. D.Critical.
3.What do the underlined words “that problem” in paragraph 3 refer to?
A.Pigeons in flight can hardly be observed.
B.People can’t make adjustments in birds’ wings.
C.It is difficult for pigeons to make a banked turn.
D.Pigeons fail to control the spread of their wing feathers.
4.Where does the text probably come from?
A.A travel journal.
B.A travel brochure.
C.A science fiction.
D.A science magazine.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
Pigeons may only have a brain the size of a thimble (顶针), but it appears that pigeons can categorize and name objects in the same way human children learn new words.
A new study from the University of Iowa has shown that the birds are capable of learning to categorize 128 different photographs into 16 basic categories.
Scientists taught three pigeons to sort out different kinds of dogs or types of shoes, for example by using a particular symbol in exchange for a reward. When they were shown black and white pictures of previously unseen dogs or shoes, the birds were able to correctly match these with the corresponding symbols.
The scientists behind the project say this is a similar approach taken by young children when they are first learning words for objects. However, the researchers said it look their birds around 40 days to perfect the task of learning just 16 categories.
Professor Edward Wasserman, who led the work, said: “Our birds’ rate of learning appears to have been quite slow. Would children learn faster than pigeons? Almost certainly. However, our pigeons came to the experiment with no background knowledge at all. Thus, the more relevant comparison group may be newborn babies, who indeed take 6-9 months to learn their first words.”
Writing in the journal Cognition, the researchers said their experiment was a very simple mirror of the way children are taught words — by their parents pointing to pictures and asking them to name the object.
Pigeons are known to be smarter than many birds. Professor Bob McMurray, who also took part in the study, said the results showed that human learning is not as unique as was previously believed.
He said: “Children are facing a huge task of learning thousands of words without a lot of background knowledge to go on. For a long time, people thought that such learning is special to humans. What this research shows is that the ways in which children solve this huge problem may be shared with many species.
1.What’s the main idea of this passage?
A. Pigeons and young children take a similar approach to learn words.
B. Pigeons are known to be smarter than newborn babies.
C. Pigeons recognize objects in the same way children learn words.
D. Pigeons are unique as they can learn like humans.
2.Why does the writer think newborn babies are the more relevant comparison group?
A. They don’t have any background knowledge.
B. They learn relatively slow.
C. Pigeons and newborn babies learn at a similar speed.
D. Young children are smarter.
3.From the passage, we can learn that ________.
A. learning without background knowledge is unique to humans
B. many species may be able to learn without background knowledge
C. pigeons are able to solve many huge problems
D. pigeons are known to be the smartest birds
4.The passage is intended to ________.
A. introduce pigeons B. prove a fact
C. support an opinion D. report a study
高三英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析
The government has taken some measures to solve the shortage of electricity, but it may be some time __________the situation improves.
A. since B. when C. unless D. before
高三英语单项填空简单题查看答案及解析
The government has taken some measures to solve the shortage of electricity, but it may be some time ________ the situation improves.
A. since B. when C. unless D. before
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
The government has taken some measures to solve the problem of unemployment, but it may be some time ______ the situation becomes better.
A.before B.since C.after D.unless
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
The government has taken some measures to solve the shortage of electricity, but it may be some time ____________ the situation improves.
A.since B.when C.unless D.before
高三英语单项填空简单题查看答案及解析
The government has taken some measures to solve the shortage of electricity , but it may be some time _________the situation improves.
A.since | B.when | C.before | D.unless |
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
The government has taken some measures to solve the shortage of electricity, but it may be some time _________ the situation improves.
A.since B.when C.before D.unless
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
The Best of Friends
The evidence for harmony may not be obvious in some families.But it seems that four out of five young people now get on with their parents,which is the opposite of the popularly-held image(形象) of unhappy teenagers locked in their room after endless family quarrels.
An important new study into teenage attitudes surprisingly shows that their family life is more harmonious than it has ever been in the past.“We were surprised by just how positive today’s young people seem to be about their families,”said one member of the research team.“They’re expected to be rebellious(叛逆的) and selfish but actually they have other things on their minds:they want a car and material goods,and they worry about whether school is serving them well.There’s more negotiation(商议) and discussion between parents and children,and children expect to take part in the family decision-making process.They don’t want to rock the boat.”
So it seems that this generation of parents is much more likely than parents of 30 years ago to treat their children as friends.“My parents are happy to discuss things with me and willing to listen to me,”says 17-year-old Daniel Lazall.“I always tell them when I’m going out clubbing.As long as they know what I’m doing,they’re fine with it.”Susan Crome,who is now 21,agrees.“Looking back on the last 10 years,there was a lot of what you could call negotiation.For example,as long as I’d done all my homework,I could go out on a Saturday night.But I think my grandparents were a lot stricter with my parents than that.”
Maybe this positive view of family life should not be unexpected.It is possible that the idea of teenage rebellion is not rooted in real facts.A researcher comments,“Our surprise that teenagers say they get along well with their parents comes because of a brief period in our social history when teenagers were regarded as different beings.But that idea of rebelling and breaking away from their parents really only happened during that one time in the 1960s when everyone rebelled.The normal situation throughout history has been a smooth change from helping out with the family business to taking it over.”
1.What is the popular image of teenagers today?
A.They worry about school.
B.They dislike living with their parents.
C.They have to be locked in to avoid troubles.
D.They quarrel a lot with other family members.
2.The study shows that teenagers don’t want to _______.
A.share family responsibility
B.cause trouble in their families
C.go boating with their family
D.make family decisions
3.Compared with parents of 30 years ago,today’s parents _______.
A.go to clubs more often with their children
B.are much stricter with their children
C.care less about their children’s life
D.give their children more freedom
4.According to the author,teenage rebellion _______.
A.may be a false belief
B.is common nowadays
C.existed only in the 1960s
D.resulted from changes in families
5.What is the passage mainly about?
A.Negotiation in family. B.Education in family.
C.Harmony in family. D.Teenage trouble in family.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
The Best of Friends
The evidence for harmony may not be obvious in some families. But it seems that four out of five young people now get on with their parents, which is the opposite of the popularly held image(印象)of unhappy teenagers locked in their room after endless family quarrels.
An important new study into teenage attitudes surprisingly shows that their family life is more harmonious than it has ever been in the past.” We were surprised by just how positive today’s young people seen to be about their families,” said one member of the research team.” They’re expected to be rebellious(叛逆的) and selfish but actually they have other things on their minds; they want a car and material goods, and they worry about whether school is serving them well. There’s more negotiation(商议) and discussion between parents and children, and children expect to take part in the family decision-making process. They don’t want to rock the boat.”
So it seems that this generation of parents is much more likely than parents of 30 years ago to treat their children as friends.” My parents are happy to discuss things with me and willing to listen to me,” says 17-years-old Daniel Lazall. ”I always tell them when I’m going out clubbing. As long as they know what I’m doing, they’re fine with it.” Susan Crome, who is now 21,agrees.”Looking back on the last 10 years, there was a lot of what you could call negotiation. For example, as long as I’d done all my homework, I could go out on a Saturday night. But I think my grandparents were a lot stricter with my parents than that.”
Maybe this positive view of family life should not be unexpected. It is possible that the idea of teenagers rebellion is not rooted in real facts. A researcher comments,” Our surprise that teenagers say they get along well with their parents comes because of a brief period in our social history when teenagers were regarded as different beings. But that idea of rebelling and breaking away from their parents really only happened during that one time in the 1960s when everyone rebelled. The normal situation throughout history has been a smooth change from helping out with the family business to taking it over.”
1.What is the popular images of teenagers today?
A. They worry about school
B. They dislike living with their parents
C. They have to be locked in to avoid troubles
D. They quarrel a lot with other family members
2.The study shows that teenagers don’t want to ___
A. share family responsibility B. cause trouble in their families
C. go boating with their family D. make family decisions
3.Compared with parents of 30 years ago, today’s parents___.
A. go to clubs more often with their children
B. are much stricter with their children
C. care less about their children’s life
D. give their children more freedom
4.According to the authour,teenage rebellion____.
A. may be a false belief B. is common nowadays
C. existed only in the 1960s D. resulted from changes in families
5.What is the passage mainly about?
A. Negotiation in family B. Education in family
C. Harmony in family D. Teenage trouble in family
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析