______ birds use their feathers for flight, s...

______ birds use their feathers for flight, some of their feathers are for other purposes.

A. Once　　         B. If　　                 C. Although　　         D. Because

高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析

Feathers are not just for flight. They keep birds warm, and attract mates. And for one Australian bird, feathers even help produce an important sound—an alarm.

“People had long noticed these birds produced these loud sounds.” Trevor Murray, a researcher at the Australian National University said. “My supervisor Rob Magrath and May Hingee thought they were used as an alarm. So they did some playbacks and they could show quite strongly that if you play back these sounds to other birds, they flee straightaway. So I was really interested in how they produce the sound, whether it is actually a signal, and whether it’s a reliable signal.”

The team focused their experiment on specific feathers in the pigeon’s wing. “We were able to target the eighth primary feather, which is unusually narrow. And then we also removed, on different sets of birds, those neighboring feathers, the ninth primary feather and the seventh primary feather. And we were able to see when the eighth primary feather was missing, the high note had completely disappeared. So the eighth primary feather produced that high note and the ninth primary feather actually produced the low note.”

And if the birds are fleeing from danger, they produce a louder and higher sound than they do during a normal takeoff. The study is in the journal Current Biology.

Murray and his colleagues did another experiment where they used the recordings they made to observe the reactions of other pigeons. “We were able to see the unusual eighth primary feather was important for signaling the alarm. When that eighth primary feather was missing, they very rarely responded. They almost never fled. Whereas when the ninth primary produces the sound, they fled just as much as to normal alarms. This shows us this unusual primary feather is important for signaling alarm.”

That makes birds of a feather flee together.

1.What does the underlined word “they” in Paragraph 2 refer to?

A. The birds　　 B. Rob and May

C. The feathers　　 D. The loud sounds

2.What did Rob Magrath and May Hingee find out about the birds?

A. They fly away as a group.　　 B. They produce different notes.

C. They send alarms with feathers.　　 D. They attract mates with feathers.

3.Why did the team remove different feathers?

A. To record the notes they produce.　　 B. To keep the pigeons stay in cages

C. To compare their width and length.　　 D. To observe other pigeons’ reactions.

4.According to Murray and his colleagues, why does the unusual feathers matter most?

A. It keeps the pigeons warm　　 B. It responds to alarms

C. It helps birds fly more quickly　　 D. It sounds alarms of danger.

高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

Birds have been observed to sleep while in flight for the first time ever. Because of some flights that can often last several days, weeks, or even longer, some sea birds have long been thought of being able to fall fully asleep while “on the wing”, though it was not proven.

Now researchers say they have evidence which shows birds can sleep in flight. Scientists from Max Planck Institute used a sample of 15 adult female frigate birds (军舰鸟) to test the sleep patterns. Each bird had a small electroencephalogram (EEG脑电图) sensor fitted to record changes in the animals’ brain activity as they flew for up to 10 days and over 3,000 kilometres.

The readings showed that during flight the birds could sleep using one hemisphere of the brain, or both together. It was known that frigate birds could sleep with one “half” of the brain, which allows them to keep one eye open and “connected” to the awake half.

According to the research, it is sleeping technique used by birds for finding directions. “Frigatebirds sleep mostly while circling in rising air and keep the eye connected to the awake hemisphere facing the direction of flight, suggesting that they watch where they are going,” says the study.

Despite the ability to fall “fully” asleep, the birds were found to do it less in the air compared to one land. They slept “very little and less deeply while in flight. This suggests that though it is possible, falling totally asleep is not very good during flight which will need the bird’s attention.

The researchers said the short sleep could be serving as “power naps” to keep the birds going until they return to land. Further study could help us understand why lack of sleep affects humans so badly.

1.The phrase “on the wing” in the first paragraph may mean __________.

A. flying.　　 B. fighting.

C. sleeping.　　 D. thinking.

2.How do the sleeping birds find the directions?

A. They sleep less when they are circling in rising air.

B. They keep one eye connected to the awake part.

C. They pay special attention to the way.

D. They have a good sleep before they start flying.

3.What is the best title of the text?

A. A Study on Birds in Flight　　 B. Flying Birds’ Brain Activity

C. Birds Can Sleep in Flight　　 D. Sleep With Half of the Brain

高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

I have to remind myself that some birds are not meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you ________ knows it was an offence to lock them up does feel happy.

A. that            B. who            C. where

高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析

When many people see birds cleaning their feathers, they attribute it to vanity on the part of the bird. But, in reality, what they are doing is maintaining their wings, the instruments that they depend on for safe flight. If a bird’s wings are not in perfect condition, the bird either won’t be able to fly or won’t be able to control its flight. That is why after a long flight and even throughout the day, you will see them cleaning their feathers.

Most birds, if they get a chance, will take a bath at least once a day. They do this to get rid of the dust that has accumulated in their feathers throughout their flight s during the day. In dry or desert areas, birds will not always be able to find water in which to bath, but they still need to clean their feathers. What many birds will do is to take dust baths. They will roll around in dust until it covers their feathers. They will stand up, shaking the dust out, and then clean their feathers with their beaks (鸟嘴) as usual.

Baths are important for another reason. During the course of the day and night, many parasites (寄生虫) are attracted to birds. Bugs, mites, fleas and so on will try to reach birds and suck from their blood. Daily baths help to keep the parasites to a minimum.

Some birds, especially those that spend a lot of time in or around water, have skin glands (皮肤腺) that produce oil. After bathing, these birds will squeeze the glands to spread the oil over their wings to keep them free of water.

If you are a bird lover and have bird houses in your yard, it can be good to go to the extra step, providing a bird bath. Once the birds in your neighborhood discover it, you will be surprised at how popular it becomes as they periodically stop by to take their daily bath.

1.What’s the passage mainly about?

2.What does the underlined part in Para 1 probably mean?

3.According to Para 3, birds’ feather cleaning _____.

4.In the last paragraph, the author further reminds us that _____ .

高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

When different species of birds flock (聚集) together, their flight formations are determined by social dynamics both between and within species.

New research from the Universities of Cambridge and Exeter reveals for the first time that, contrary to current models used to explain the movement of flocks, the differences between bird species and social relationships between individuals play a critical role in determining the dynamics of mixed-species flocks.

The unified(群集) behaviour of bird flocks has puzzled scientists for hundreds of years. One naturalist from the turn of the century even suggested telepathy(心灵感应)may be involved. There have since been more logical explanations, including mathematical models that show that repeated interactions among individuals following simple rules can generate coordinated (协同的)group movements. However, these models usually rely on the assumption that individuals within groups are identical and interact independently, which may not reflect reality.

Jolle Jolles, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology and author of the paper, said：“Spectacular collective behaviour can be found in a large range of animal species, and we now know that often these complex coordinated group movements may be the result of individuals following simple rules. However, rarely are the individual characteristics and social relationships within them taken into account. Our research highlights that these striking displays of group behaviour are much more complex.”

By analysing high-resolution photographs of mixed flocks of rooks and jackdaws (both from the corvid family), the researchers found that rather than individuals interacting in a consistent fashion throughout the flock, interactions depended on social dynamics between the different species as well as relationships within a species.

The researchers discovered that birds prefer to fly close to members of their own species, and that the larger and more dominant rooks take the lead by flying near the front of flocks. Additionally, the lifelong, monogamous(一妻一夫制的)pair bonds that are characteristic of both species seem to be reflected in flight, as birds often fly particularly close to a single, same-species partner.

Dr Alex Thornton, principal investigator of the Cambridge Jackdaw Project, now at the University of Exeter and author of the paper, said: “Together, our findings demonstrate that to understand the structure of groups — such as bird flocks — we need to consider the characteristics and relationships of the individuals within them.”

1.The underlined word “generate” means ______.

A. set down　　　　　　　　 B. take away

C. bring about　　　　　　 D. give up

2.According to Jolle Jolles, what are seldom considered about coordinated group movement?

A. Individual characteristics and social relationship between them

B. Repeated interactions among individuals and social dynamics

C. Telepathy and social relationship between them

D. The structure of groups and the varieties of species

3.Birds may prefer to fly the closest to _____ .

A. the largest one 　　　 B. the most dynamic one

C. the lifelong partner D. the friendly partner

4.What is the main idea of the passage?

A. How birds interact in simple rules.

B. How birds of different feathers flock together.

C. Why birds show preference to flocking.

D. Why birds display the characteristics.

高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

To help make up for sleep lost during marathon night flights, migrating( 迁徙 ) birds take hundreds of power nap(小睡) during the day, each lasting a few seconds.

Every autumn, Swainson’s thrushes(画眉) fly up to 3,000 miles from their breeding grounds in northern Canada and Alaska to winter in Central and South America. Come spring, the birds make the long trip back.

The birds fly mostly at night and often for long hours at a time, leaving little time for sleep. So to get through these tiresome periods, thrushes, during autumn and spring when the birds are normally migrating, change their sleep patterns, staying awake at night and resting during day. But instead of sleeping for a long period at a time, the birds took several naps a day, each one lasting only 9 seconds on average.

The thrushes also mixed up their shut-eye sessions with two other forms of sleep. In one, called unilateral eye closure, or UEC, the birds rested one eye and one half of their brains while their other eye and half brain remained open and active, protecting them from danger.

The birds also occasionally slipped into another state, one that any college student who has ever been stuck in a boring lecture can relate to. Called drownsiness( 睡 意 ), this state is characterized by a partial shutting of both eyes that still allows for some visual processing.

“In terms of quality, drowsiness may be less useful than normal sleep, but it may also be safer.” said Fuchs.

What’s interesting is that even animals should make up for sleep loss. That a need for sleep cannot be lost even in these birds means the importance of sleep for many, if not all, animals, not to mention human.

1.What would be the best title for the text?

A. Migrating Birds Travel for Long Hours

B. Migrating Need Help

C. How Birds Migrate during Autumn

D. Migrating Birds Take Many Daily Power Naps

2.According to the text, when having drowsiness, the thrushes______.

A. will rest one eye and the other active

B. will often sleep during day

C. will still be careful with the possible dangers

D. will not see anything in front of them

3.What can we learn from the text?

A. Sleep is important for human being.

B. Animals need sleep to rest.

C. Migrating birds need sleep only during day.

D. College students often have drowsiness in fall.

高三英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析

Birds are the only animals with feathers, although some other animals, such as insects and bats, also have wings．Nearly all birds can fly, and even flightless birds, such as ostriches （鸵鸟）, penguins, evolved from flying ancestors．

Birds are found worldwide in many habitats．They can fly over some of the highest mountains on earth as well as both of the earth’s poles, dive through water to depths of more than 250m, and occupy habitats with the most extreme climates on the planet, including arctic tundra （冻土地带） and the Sahara Desert．Certain kinds of seabirds are commonly seen over the open ocean thousands of kilometers from the nearest land, but all birds must come ashore to raise their young．

Highly developed animals, birds are sensitive and responsive, colorful and graceful, with habits that excite interest and inquiry．People have long been fascinated by birds, in part because birds are found in the same habitats in which humans live．And like people, most species of birds are active during daylight hours．Humans find inspiration in birds’ capacity for flight and in their musical calls．Humans also find birds useful---their flesh and eggs for food, their feathers for warmth, and their companionship．Perhaps a key basis for our friendliness with birds is the similarity of our sensory worlds: Both birds and humans rely more heavily on hearing and color vision than on smell．Birds are useful indicators of the quality of the environment, because the health of bird populations mirrors the health of our environment．The rapid decline in birds populations and the accelerating extinction rates of birds in the world’s forests, grassland, wetlands, and islands are therefore reasons for great concern．

1.Which of the following would be the best title of the text?

A．Animals with Feathers and Wings

Our friendliness with birds

C．An introduction to Birds

D．Bird’s life

2.What does the second paragraph mainly tell us ?

A．Bird’s friendship              Bird’s habitats

C．Bird’s raising                 D．Bird’s environment

3.Which of following is NOT true according to the passage ?

A．Bird’s flying abilities and musical calls inspire humans greatly．

Birds live in the same surroundings in which humans live．

C．Both birds and humans rely more heavily on hearing and smell than on color vision．

D．Bird’s flesh and eggs for food, bird’s feathers for warmth, and their companionship are useful to us．

4.From the text it may imply but NOT state that __________．

A．the environment is being damaged seriously

if you want to raise birds, you should pay attention to environment

C．the environment affects the human beings

D．bird populations decrease rapidly

高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

Birds use vocalizations to attract mates, defend territories, and recognize fellow members of their species. But while we know a lot about how variations in vocalizations play out between populations of songbirds, it's far less clear how this variation affects birds such as penguins in which calls are inherited (遗传). A new study from The Auk: Ornithological Advances examines differences in the calls of Little Penguins from four colonies in Australia-night-time birds for whom vocalizations are more important than visual signals-and finds that differences in habitat, rather than geographic isolation (隔离) or other factors, seem to be the key driver of variation in the sounds these birds use to communicate.

Diane Colombelli-Negrel and Rachel Smale of Australia's Flinders University recorded calls from four Little Penguin populations across a small area of South Australia, one of which had previously been shown to have slight genetic differences from the other three, and used playback experiments to test penguins ability to distinguish between calls from different colonies.They found that agonistic calls, which are used in pair displays and aggressive situations, varied among the four populations, and that the calls' characteristics appeared to depend on small-scale differences in the habitat where the penguins lived. However, birds did not discriminate between calls originating from different colonies, which suggests that agonistic calls don't seem to play a role in isolating the two different genetic groups.

Penguins living in open habitats produced lower-frequency calls than those living in habitats with thicker vegetation-the opposite of the trend typically observed in songbirds. The authors think that agonistic calls may be subject to different selective pressures because they're used in close encounters with other birds rather than to communicate across distances, and could also be influenced by variation in the noise level of wind and surf.

“I was excited to find that in seabirds, as most of our knowledge in this area comes from studies on songbirds," says Colombelli-Negrel. "This new research suggests that many factors influence call variation in birds, which also depends on the function of the calls. This study highlights that many questions remain and that studies need to investigate more than one factor in conjunction with the function of the calls to fully understand call variation in seabirds.”

“This work tells an interesting story of vocal diversification in Little Penguins, and gives insight into how individual and micro-scale variation effects behavior," according to Stony Brook University's Heather Lynch, an expert on penguin calls who was not involved in the study. "Non-vocal-learning birds are relatively understudied in terms of vocalizations, and it is great to see penguin vocalizations being studied in such a way."

1.What does the new study find?

A.Penguins are born with their calls.

B.Penguins communicate by various calls.

C.Penguins' calls are influenced by their habitat.

D.Penguins' calls can help isolate genetic groups.

2.What are the findings based on?

A.The test of penguins' responses to recorded calls.

B.The data collected from penguins across Australia.

C.Controlled experiments on penguins and songbirds.

D.Similarities between the calls of penguins and songbirds.

3.From the passage we can learn that　　　　 .

A.open-space songbirds tend to lower their calls

B.environmental noises may affect penguins' calls

C.birds use agonistic calls in distant communication

D.songbirds' agonistic calls vary little between species

4.We can infer from Colombelli-Negrel's words that researchers　　　　 .

A.will keep track of penguins to preserve them

B.have investigated a lot in penguins' calls before

C.will have a broader look at differences in penguins' calls

D.have determined the function of various calls in penguins

高三英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析

When it comes to social behaviour，mammals are in a league of their own.Some birds may form pairs，or even cooperate to hunt，but the complexity (复杂性) of their relationships can hardly compare to those within a school of dolphins，a herd of elephants or a group of humans.What makes mammalian social groups different from a flock of starlings or a shoal of fish，is that in many cases the individuals could recognize each other.Although we may think that　 all elephants look pretty much the same，we can easily tell individuals of our own species apart and it has become clear through studies that the same is true of other species.Dolphins have their own signature whistles that act like “names”，and elephants can recognize and greet other individuals they have known but not seen for many years.This is something that only a few species of birds appear to be able to do.

Mammals in complex social groups not only recognize each other as individuals，but also they remember a lot of information about that individual.Social groups often rely on this memory—such as knowing who is dominant to whom，who is related to whom，and who has done what to whom in the past.It’s like remembering who you have lent money to or done a favour for，and who hasn’t repaid that money or has talked about you behind your back.You have to learn who to trust，who your friends are，and who to watch out for.

All this remembering goes on in a particular part of the brain called the neocortex (大脑皮层)．If you compare the size of a mammal’s social group with the size of this part of the brain，you will find they are remarkably closely related.This area seems to take a long time to develop fully and animals in which it is very large take a very　 long time to grow up to adulthood.During this time，the youngster has to learn all the rules of social behaviour in their group and to piece together all　 the relationships between the group members：Knowledge that will be needed to avoid getting into trouble.

1.What is special about a mammalian social group according to the passage?

A．All the individuals cooperate to hunt.

B．The individuals can communicate with each other.

C．The individuals can recognize each other.

D．The individuals form closer relationship.

2.The passage suggests that elephants________.

A．are cleverer than dolphins

B．can recognize other species

C．may mistake a member for another

D．have good memories

3. Animals whose area of the neocortex is large________.

A．will have a long period of time before they become adults

B．will spend a shorter time learning the necessary knowledge

C．will learn the necessary knowledge much more easily

D．will have more difficulty in growing up as adults

4. If the neocortex is larger，the animals________.

A．can live a longer life

B．have a smaller social group

C．have a larger social group

D．have a greater body size

高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析