劍橋ket閱讀：California Condors Shocking Re

California Condor’s Shocking Recovery

California condors are North America’s largest birds, with wind-length of up to 3 meters. In the 1980s, electrical lines an d lead poisoning(鉛中毒) nearly drove them to dying out. Now, electric shock training and medical treatment are helping to rescue these big birds.

In the late 1980s, the last few condors were taken from the wild, and there are now more than 150 flying over California and nearby Arizona, Utah and Baja in Mexico.

Electrical lines have been killing them off. “As they go in to rest for the night, they just don’t see the power lines,” says Bruce Rideout of San Diego Zoo. Their wings can bridge the gap between lines, resulting in electrocution(電死) if they touch two lines at once.

Lead poisonous has proved more difficult to deal with. When condors eat dead bodies of other animals containing lead, they absorb large quantities of lead. This affects their nervous systems and ability to produce baby birds, and can lead to kidney(腎) failures and death. So condors with high levels of lead are sent to Los Angeles Zoo, where they are treated with calcium EDTA, a chemical that removes lead from the blood over several days. This work is starting to pay off. The annual death rate for adult condors has dropped from 38% in 2000 to 5.4% in 2011.

Rideout’s team thinks that the California condors’ average survival time in the wild is now just under eight years. “Although these measures are not effective forever, they are vital for now,” he says. “They are truly good birds that are worth every effort we put into recovering them. ”

63. California condors attract researchers’ interest because they

A. are active at night

B. had to be bred in the wild

C. are found on in California

D. almost died out in the 1980s

64. Researchers have found electrical lines are----

A. blocking condors’ journey home

B. big killers of California condors

C. rest places for condors at night

D. used to keep condors away

65. According to Paragraph 5 , lead poisoning()

A. makes condors too nervous to fly

B. has little effect on condors’ kidneys

C. can hardly be gotten rid of form condors’ blood

D. makes it different for condors to produce baby birds

66. The passage shows that()

A. the average survival time of condors is satisfactory

B. Rideout’s research interest lies in electric engineering

C. the efforts to protect condors have brought good results

D. researchers have found the final answers to the problem

解析

這篇文章是一篇夾敘夾議的帖子，從美國(guó)禿鷹的現(xiàn)狀講述了科學(xué)家為此發(fā)起的救援運(yùn)動(dòng)，并取得了現(xiàn)階段的成效。

63 題 細(xì)節(jié)題 正確答案如下：D

第三段第一行：“as they go in to rest for the light ”得知 A 錯(cuò)誤的選擇；文章第二段第一行“the last few condors were..”得知 B 錯(cuò)誤的選擇；從文章第一段的第一句得知 C 錯(cuò)誤的選擇；文章第一段“in the 1980s, electrical lines and...dying out”得知 D 正確的答案是選擇。

64 題 細(xì)節(jié)題 正確答案如下：B

第三段文章第一行提到“electrical lines have been killing them off”得知 B 正確的答案是選擇。第二句由文章三段“as they go in to rest for the night...power lines”得知 A，C 選項(xiàng)錯(cuò)誤。從四段得知是“tall poles teach the birds to stay clear of electrical lines”

65 題 推斷題 正確答案如下：D

第五段第二句“第五段”This affects their nervous systems and ability to produce baby birds,...death”可知 D 選項(xiàng)正確，B 選項(xiàng)錯(cuò)誤。由五段第三句“so condors with...over several days”得知 C 選項(xiàng)錯(cuò)誤，A 選項(xiàng)隨意編造。

66 題 推斷題 正確答案如下：C

在最后一段的第二句中“although these measures are not effective forever, they are vital for now”可以推斷出來 C 為了正確答案，D 選項(xiàng)錯(cuò)誤。根據(jù)本段第一句推斷出來 A 由整篇文章推斷出錯(cuò)誤的選項(xiàng)。 Rideout’s research team 有兩種方法可以使用，不只是 electric engineering，因此 B 選項(xiàng)錯(cuò)誤。