Lesson 06 : Text Insertion Questions¶
Question in Homework 05¶
Question
Naturalists and casual observers alike have been struck by the special relationship between squirrels and acorns (the seeds of oak trees). Ecologists, though, cannot observe these energetic mammals scurrying up and down oak trees and eating and burying acorns without wondering about their complex relationship with trees. Are squirrels dispersers and planters of oak forests or pesky seed predators? The answer is not simple. Squirrels may devour manyacorns, but by storing and failing to recover up to 74 percent of them (as they do when seeds are abundant), these arboreal rodents can also aid regeneration and dispersal of the oaks.
Their destructive powers are well documented. According to one report, squirrels destroyed tens of thousands of fallen acorns from an oak stand on the University of Indiana campus. A professor there estimated that each of the large white oaks had produced between two and eight thousand acorns, but within weeks of seed maturity, hardly could an intact acorn be found among the fallen leaves. Deer, turkeys, wild pigs, and bears also feed heavily on acorns, but do not store them, and are therefore of no benefit to the trees. Flying squirrels, chipmunks, and mice are also unlikely to promote tree dispersal—whose behavior of caching acorns below the leaf litter often promotes successful germination of acorns—and perhaps blue jays, important long-distance dispersers, seem to help oaks spread and reproduce. Among squirrels, though, there is a particularly puzzling behavior pattern. Squirrels pry off the caps of acorns, bite through the shells to get at the nutritious inner kernels, and then discard them half-eaten. The ground under towering oaks is often littered with thousands of half-eaten acorns, each one only bitten from the top. Why would any animal waste so much time and energy and risk exposure to such predators as red-tail hawks only to leave a large part of each acorn uneaten? While research is not conclusive at this point, one thing that is certain is that squirrels do hide some of the uneaten portions, and these acorn halves, many of which contain the seeds, may later germinate.
- Why does the author mention “the University of Indiana campus"?
- A) To provide evidence that intact acorns are hard to find under oak trees.
- B) To indicate a place where squirrels can aid seed dispersal of oaks.
- C) To argue in favor of studies concerning the destructive force of squirrels.
- D) To support the claim that squirrels can do great damage to oak stands.
B) To indicate a place where squirrels can aid seed dispersal of oaks.
文章中提到的是松鼠对橡果的破坏而非橡树的破坏，因此选 B）
Skills¶
Examples¶
Example 01
Native Americans have been popping corn for at least 5000 years, using a variety of different methods. One method of popping corn involved skewering an ear of corn on a stickand roasting it until the kernel popped off the ear. Corn was also popped by cutting the kernel off the cob, throwing them into a fire, and gathering them as they popped out of the fire. In a final method for popping corn, sand and unpopped kernels of corn were mixed together in a cooking pot and heated until the corn popped to the surface of the sand in the pot. (A) This traditional Native American dish was quite a novelty to newcomers to the Americas. (B) Columbus and his sailors found natives in the West Indies wearing popcorn necklaces, and Hernando Cortés described the use of popcorn amulets in the religious ceremonies of the Aztecs. (C) According to legendary depictions of the celebratory meal, Quadequina, the brother of Chief Massasoit, contributed several deerskin bags of popcorn to the celebration. (D)
A century after these early explorers, the Pilgrims at Plymouth may have been introduced to popcorn at the first Thanksgiving dinner.
(C)。由 early explorers，可以对应 (B) 和 (C) 之间的内容。
Example 02
Extinct but already fully marine cetaceans are known from the fossil record. (A) How was the gap between a walking mammal and a swimming whale bridged? (B) Missing until recently were fossils clearly intermediate, or transitional, between land mammals and cetaceans. (C) Very exciting discoveries have finally allowed scientists to reconstruct the most likely origins of cetaceans. (D) In 1979, a team looking for fossils in northern Pakistan found what proved to be the oldest fossil whale.
This is a question that has baffled scientists for ages.
(B)。由之前的问句即可对应 question。
Example 03
Even in this current era of large-scale, intensive research and development, the interrelationships involved in this process are frequently misunderstood. (A) Until the coming of the Industrial Revolution, science and technology evolved for the most part independently of each other. (B) Then as industrialization became increasingly sophisticated, the craft techniques of preindustrial society gradually gave way to a technology based on the systematic application of scientific knowledge and scientific methods. (C) This changeover started slowly and progressed unevenly. (D) The list expanded noticeably after 1870, but even then much of what passed for the application of science was "engineering science" rather than basic science.
Until late in the nineteenth century, only a few industries could use scientific techniques or cared about using them.
(D)。由 "expanded" 以及时间 1870 和 "nineteenth century" 对应可得。
Example 04
Several other types of marine protected areas exist in the United States and other countries. (A) The National Estuarine Research Reserve System, managed by the United States government, includes 23 designated and protected estuaries. (B) Over 100 designated areas exist around the periphery of the Caribbean Sea. (C) Others range from the well-known Australian Great Barrier Reef Marine Park to lesser-known parks in countries such as Thailand and Indonesia, where tourism is placing growing pressures on fragile coral reef systems. (D) As state, national, and international agencies come to recognize the significance of conserving marine biodiversity marine protected areas, whether as sanctuaries, parks, orestuarine reserves, will play an increasingly crucial role in preserving that diversity.
Outside the United States, marine protected-area programs exist as marine parks, reserves, and preserves.
(B)。由 (B) 前面讲的全是与 US 相关的内容，而 (B) 之后 "Caribbean Sea" 讲的是美国之外的内容。
Example 05
Theorists adopting the psychodynamic approach assert that inner conflicts are crucial for understanding human behavior including aggression. Sigmund Freud, for example, maintains that aggressive impulses are inevitable reactions to the bitter frustrations of daily life. Children normally desire to vent belligerent impulses on other people, including their parents, because even the most attentive parents cannot gratify all of their demands instantly. (A) Yet children, also fearing their parents' punishment and the loss of parental love, come to repress most aggressive impulses. (B) The Freudian perspective in a sense, sees us as "steam engines." (C) By holding in ratherthan venting "steam," we set the stage for future explosions. (D) Pent-up aggressive impulses demand outlets. They may be expressed toward parents in indirect ways such as destroying furniture, or they may be expressed toward strangers later in life.
According to Freud, however, impulses that have been repressed continue to exist and demand expression.
(B)。"According to Freud" 与 "Freudian" 对应。
Example 06
Lichens, probably the hardiest of all plants, live where virtually nothing else can-not just on rugged mountain peaks but also on sunbaked desert rocks. (A) They are usually the first life to appear on a mountainside that has been scraped bare by an avalanche. (B) The framework of a lichen is usually a network of minute hairlike fungus that anchors the plant. (C) The other component is an alga (similar to the green film of plant life that grows on stagnant pools) that is distributed throughout the fungus. (D) Being green plants, algae are capable of photo synthesis--that is, using energy from the Sun to manufacture their own food. The fungi are believed to supply water, minerals, and physical support to the partnership.
Unlike other members of the plant kingdom, lichens are actually a partnership between two plants.
(B)。"fungus" 和 "alga" 正好对应 "two plants"。
New Words¶
| Words | Part of Speech | Meaning | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| tribute | n. | 贡品 | pay tribute to 致敬 |
| distribute | n. | 分发 | |
| tributary | n. | 支流 | |
| baffle | v. | 使困惑 | syn. perplex, bewilder, confuse, puzzle |
| enigmatic | adj. | 令人困惑的 | |
| mediate | v. | 调停 | med-/mes- 表示中间 |
| meddle | v. | 干预 | meddle in 干预 syn. intervene, interfere |
| mediocrity | n. | 平凡 | settle for mediocrity/second best 甘于平庸 adj. mediocre |
| median | n. | 中位数 | |
| estuary | n. | 入海口 | adj. estuarine |
| periphery | n. | 边缘 | syn. rim, fringe, verge, edge, brink, margin adj. peripheral (syn. marginal) |
| vulnerable | adj. | 脆弱的 | syn. susceptible, brittle, delicate |
| preservative | n. | 防腐剂 | |
| perserve | n. | 果酱 | |
| impulse | n. | 冲动 | on impulse 一时冲动 im- 表示内部的 -puls- 表示推 |
| propulsion | n. | 推动力 | adj. propulsive |
| repulsive | adj. | 令人反感的 | |
| compulsory | adj. | 强制的 | |
| compulsive | adj. | 难以控制的 | |
| propel | v. | 驱动 | -pel 表示推 adj. propellent/propellant propeller 螺旋桨 |
| impel | v. | 迫使 | |
| expel | v. | 驱逐 | |
| dispel | v. | 消除，驱散 | |
| compel | v. | 迫使 | adj. compelling 令人信服的 |
| repel | v. | 排斥 | adj. repellent 令人厌恶的 |
| repress | v. | 压抑 | -press 表示压 |
| express | v. | 表达 | |
| oppress | v. | 压抑 | op- 表示一而再再而三的 n. oppression adj. oppressive |
| belligerent | adj. | 好战的 | -bel 表示战争 |
| rebel | v. | 反抗 | |
| bellicose | adj. | 好斗的 | syn. antagnostic, contentious, pugnacious, militant |
| antebellum | adj. | 战争前的 | ante- 表示之前 |
| aggressive | adj. | 侵略的 | -gress 表示动 |
| regression | n. | 回归 | |
| retrogress | v. | 退步 | |
| congress | n. | 大会 | syn. convention, convocation, assembly, conference |
| ingress | n. | 入口 | |
| egress | n. | 出口 | |
| introgression | n. | （基因）渗入 | |
| incubate | v. | 孵化 | n. incubation, incubator(孵化器) |
| insulate | v. | 使隔离 | insul- 表示岛 n. insulation, insulator |
| insulin | n. | 胰岛素 | |
| peninsular | adj. | 半岛上的 | |
| insular | adj. | 岛屿的 |