Question

    Ants know when an earthquake is about to strike, researchers have discovered. Their behavior changes significantly prior to the quake and they resume normal functioning only a day after it. Gabriele Berberich of the University Duisburg-Essen in Germany presented these findings on Thursday at the European Geosciences Union annual meeting in Vienna according to LiveScience.

Berberich and her colleagues discovered that red wood ants preferred to build their colonies right along active faults in Germany. They counted 15,000 mounds （土堆)）lining the faults. These faults are the places where the earth violently bursts in earthquakes.

Using a special camera that tracked changes in activity. Berberich and her colleagues tracked the ants round the clock for three years, 2016 to 2019. They found that the ants' behavior changed only when the quake was over magnitude （级数）2. There were 10 earthquakes between magnitude 2.0 and 3.2 during this period, and many smaller ones. Humans can also sense quakes of over magnitude 2 only.

According to Berberich, normal ant activity consists of going about collecting food etc,during the day and resting in the night But before an earthquake, the ants didn't go back to their mound in the night and moved around outside it. This strange and abnormal behavior continued till a day after the earthquake, Berberich told a news conference, according to Livescience.

How do ants know an earthquake is coming? Berberich suggested that they could either be picking up changing gas emissions or noting tiny changes in the Earth's magnetic fields （磁场）. "Red wood ants have special cells which can detect changes in carbon dioxide levels. They also have special cells for detecting electromagnetic fields." she said. Berberich and her colleagues are planning to continue the research in areas where there are more and bigger earthquakes

1.What's the meaning of the underlined word "resume" in Paragraph 1?

A.Form. B.Avoid.

C.Recover. D.Improve.

2.What's the function of the first paragraph?

A.To lead to the main topic. B.To describe a new species of ant,

C.To introduce a famous researcher D.To tell how to predict an earthquake.

3.What happens to the ants before an earthquake?

A.They have no appetite. B.They are too excited to rest.

C.They get lost on their way home. D.They refuse to go inside their nests.

4.What can we conclude from the last paragraph?

A.Ants can only detect smaller earthquakes.

B.The result of the research is completely reliable.

C.Ants may have two ways to predict earthquakes.

D.Researchers don't know how ants predict earthquakes.

Answer

1.C

2.A

3.D

4.C

【解析】

本文为说明文。文章通过对红木蚁的追踪研究发现，蚂蚁能预测地震的发生。

1.词义猜测题。根据倒数第二段“This strange and abnormal behavior continued till a day after the earthquake” 这种奇怪和反常的行为一直持续到地震后的一天。所以研究人员发现，蚂蚁知道地震何时来袭。他们的行为在地震前发生了很大的变化，那么在震后很快就 “恢复” 正常了。故可推断出“resume”的意思为“恢复”。故选C。

2.推理判断题。文章第一段“Ants know when an earthquake is about to strike, researchers have discovered”提出了蚂蚁能预测地震的发生。接着在第二段一直到最后一段叙述了Berberich和她的同事对红木蚁的追踪研究，得出了红木蚁是如何知道地震的来临。因此可推断出第一段是为了引出下文的主题。故选A。

3.细节理解题题。第四段“But before an earthquake, the ants didn't go back to their mound in the night and moved around outside it. This strange and abnormal behavior continued till a day after the earthquake,” 但在地震前，蚂蚁晚上没有回到自己的土堆（巢穴），而是在巢穴外活动。此处的their “mound”是指蚂蚁的“nests（巢穴）”，由此可知，蚂蚁在震前没有进入它们的巢，故选D。

4.推理判断题。根据最后一段How do ants know an earthquake is coming? Berberich suggested that they could either be picking up changing gas emissions or noting tiny changes in the Earth's magnetic fields （磁场）. "Red wood ants have special cells which can detect changes in carbon dioxide levels. They also have special cells for detecting electromagnetic fields." 蚂蚁如何知道地震即将来临? Berberich指出他们要么是在监测不断变化的气体排放，要么是注意到地球磁场的微小变化。“红木蚁有特殊的细胞，可以检测二氧化碳含量的变化。他们也有特殊的细胞来探测电磁场。”由此判断出， 蚂蚁可能有两种方法来预测地震，即检测二氧化碳的变化和探测电磁场。故选C。