Question

    Science is finally beginning to embrace animals who were, for a long time, considered second-class citizens.

As Annie Potts of Canterbury University has noted, chickens distinguish among one hundred chicken faces and recognize familiar individuals even after months of separation. When given problems to solve, they reason: hens trained to pick colored buttons sometimes choose to give up an immediate food reward for a slightly later (and better) one. Healthy hens may aid friends, and mourn when those friends die.

Pigs respond to human symbols. When a research team led by Candace Croney at Penn State University carried wooden blocks marked with X and O symbols around pigs, only the O carriers offered food to the animals. The pigs soon ignored the X carriers in favor of the O’s. Then the team switched from real-life objects to T-shirts printed with X or O symbols. Still, the pigs walked only toward the O-shirted people: they had transferred their knowledge to a two-dimensional format, a not inconsiderable feat of reasoning.

I’ve been guilty of prejudiced expectations, myself. At the start of my career almost four decades ago, I was firmly convinced that monkeys and apes out-think other animals. They’re other primates（灵长目动物）, after all, animals from our own mammalian class. Fairly soon, I came to see that along with our closest living relatives, whales too are masters of cultural learning, and that elephants express profound joy and mourning with their social companions. Long-term studies on these mammals helped to fuel a viewpoint shift in our society: the public no longer so easily accepts monkeys made to undergo painful procedure in laboratories, elephants forced to perform in circuses, and dolphins kept in small tanks at theme parks.

Over time, though, as I began to broaden out even further and explore the inner lives of fish, chickens, pigs, goats, and cows, 1 started to wonder: Will the new science of “food animals” bring an ethical (伦理的) revolution in terms of who we eat? In other words, will our ethics start to catch up with the development of our science?

1.According to Annie Potts, hens’ choice of a later and better reward indicates their ability of ______.

A.interaction B.analysis C.creation D.abstraction

2.The research into pigs shows that pigs ______.

A.learn letter quickly B.have good eyesight

C.can build up a good relationship D.can apply knowledge to new situations

3.What is Paragraph 4 mainly about?

A.The similarities between mammals and humans.

B.The necessity of long-term studies on mammals.

C.A change in people’s attitudes towards animals.

D.A discovery of how mammals express themselves.

4.What is the best title for the passage?

A.The Lifestyles of Food Animals B.Science Reports on Food Animals

C.The Inner Lives of Food Animals D.A Revolution in Food Animals

Answer

1.B

2.D

3.C

4.C

【解析】

这是一篇说明文。文章主要讲述了科学终于开始认真看待那些被认为是二等公民的动物，认为它们具有智能会思考，但也引发了一个新的问题：“食用动物”会不会带来一场伦理革命。

1.细节理解题。由第二段中句子“When given problems to solve, they reason: hens trained to pick colored buttons sometimes choose to give up an immediate food reward for a slightly later (and better) one.”可知，当鸡有问题需要解决时，它们推理：接受过挑选彩色纽扣训练的母鸡有时会选择放弃一份即时的食物奖励，换取稍晚（或更好）的奖励。推理是一种分析过程。故选B项。

2.推理判断题。由第三段句子“the pigs walked only toward the O-shirted people: they had transferred their knowledge to a two-dimensional format, a not inconsiderable feat of reasoning.”可知，猪还是选择朝穿O型衬衫的人走去，表明它们把知识转移到了二维的形式上，所以可以推断出猪可以把知识运用新情况。故选D项。

3.主旨大意题。由第四段最后一句“Long-term studies on these mammals helped to fuel a viewpoint shift in our society: the public no longer so easily accepts monkeys made to undergo painful procedure in laboratories, elephants forced to perform in circuses, and dolphins kept in small tanks at theme parks.”可知，作者认为长期对哺乳动物研究有助于推动社会观点改变——公众不再能接受人类残忍地对待动物，可以得出人对动物态度的变化。故选C项。

4.主旨大意题。由第二段最后两句所讲的“鸡解决问题时，会推理，健康鸡会交朋友和哀悼死去的朋友”、第三段最后一句讲的“猪能把知识运用到新情况上”和第四段讲的“猴子和猿会思考其他动物”等可知，本文探讨的是“食用动物”也是有内在生活的。故选C项。