3.通读全文：看首段——首末句——末段

目的：文章主旨和段落大意

要求：3分钟，读懂大意

Exercise D：Read the following passage within 1 minute and finish the choice.

Animal Talk

Like people, other living creatures can communicate. However, animal communi-cation is sometimes sound communication and sometimes action communication.

A good example of action communication is the honeybee. Scientists have watched the activities of bees for a long time.One bee starts out from a beehive, the bees'home.The bee goes out to look for flowers.It finds flowers and then flies back to the hive.At the hive, the returning bee seems to move around in a dance.Other bees seem to watch.Then these bees fly out of the hive—straight to the same flowers.The first bee has somehow given information to the other bees.The bees communicated through action.

Sound communication is more common among animals. Whales in the ocean seem to‘sing'to one another.Scientists have listened to whale songs with underwater microphones.They know that each whale has its own song.Scientists can recognize some whales by their songs.So far, however, scientists do not understand what the whales are saying.

Many animals—such as wild dogs, gorillas, lions, and tigers—live together in groups like families. The members of the‘family'communicate with one another about proper behavior in the group.Their communication is sometimes a sound, sometimes an action, sometimes both.For example, a young wild dog will lie down in front of an older, more important dog.The young dog is communicating through the action.

Mother lions and tigers make gentle sounds to call their babies. They use other sounds to warn the young animals about danger.The songs of birds also carry messages.In one song they may be calling to their mates.In another song they may be saying，‘This is my garden.Stay out.'

Some animals seem to want to talk to human beings. For example, dolphins in the ocean often swim very close to people.They make high squeaky little sounds to the people.Are they trying to talk?Animals are talking with one another.Perhaps someday we can learn their languages, and we can talk with them too.

The main idea of the timed reading is

A. all creatures make sounds.

B. animals seem to communicate with one another.

C. all communication is sound.

Exercise E：Read the following passage within 1 minute and finish the choice.

Health, Ethics, and Vegetarians

Claire has been a vegetarian for years. She stopped eating meat because of how she felt.As she told her doctor, she always felt tired.Her doctor found that her blood cholesterol was high.Therefore, her doctor suggested that she cut down on meat, especially red meat.Claire decided to‘go all the way.'She bought a vegetarian cookbook and stopped eating meat.She still eats eggs and cheese occasionally now, however, most of her food consists of vegetables, fruits, and grains.Claire balances her diet to get all of the necessary vitamins, minerals, proteins, and carbohydrates.Claire became a vegetarian to improve her health.

Nancy is an animal lover. Nancy grew up on a farm where there were cows and chickens.As she grew older, she started to reduce the amount of meat that she ate.One day she realized that she had stopped eating meat altogether.It had never seemed right to her that animals were raised to be killed for food.

When Aaron was a student, he was on a strict budget the little money that he had for food, he spent on rice, inexpensive vegetables, and spices. He learned to be a very good cook.Now Aaron is a successful engineer, but he still eats simple foods, and no meat.Aaron became a vegetarian from economic necessity；he is a vegetarian today by choice.

Twenty years ago, Kim's doctor told her that she had arthritis.Her bone joints（shoulders, knees, elbows, fingers）were red and sore.Her doctor told her that there was no cure, but that some people felt better if they stopped eating meat, potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, and sugary foods.Kim tried these suggestions, and for twenty years she has avoided arthritis pain.Kim became a vegetarian to control the disease.

Simon is an environmentalist. He knows that the Earth can produce food for many people, but the amount of food is finite（limited）.He knows that the population is increasing rapidly, but land for growing food is not increasing at all.He knows that it takes sixteen kilograms of grain to make one kilogram of meat；he thinks about the fifteen kilograms of grain that are wasted if he eats meat.‘Somewhere，'he says，‘someone is starving, dying from lack of food.How can I enjoy a thick steak?'Simon's ethics—his ideas about what is right and wrong—make him a vegetarian.

The main idea of this reading is that

A. people become vegetarians for different reasons.

B. meat is harmful to one's health.

C. people become vegetarians because they want to be good to animals.

Exercise F：Read the following passage within 1 minute and finish the choice.

More Sensitive Than Machines, More Aware Than People

After every major earthquake there are reports of strange animal behavior. Birds of many kinds have acted strangely before the earthquake.Chickens do not fly up to roost on a pole or branch；they stay on the ground.Pigeons and crows fly in unusual patterns.Canaries and parakeets stop singing in their cages.Normally quiet dogs start to bark；noisy dogs fall silent.Fish that normally stay deep in the water swim near the surface of the water in large schools.Snakes come out of their holes.Is this behavior related to earthquakes?Can scientists use animal behavior to predict earthquakes?

Scientists are not likely to start focusing on animal behavior as a way of predicting earthquakes. There are too many animals and too many ways that they behave.Instead, scientists will look for the causes of these changes in animal behavior.Perhaps people can sense what the birds, the fish, the dogs, and the snakes are sensing（feeling）.

The Kobe earthquake in Japan happened on January 17，1995. A lot of water in that area is bottled for sale.Therefore, there were supplies of dated water in bottles.Scientists studied this water.Between October and January 10，the water showed a sharp increase in chlorine and sulfates.Another study focused on radon in the water.Between October and the end of December, the amount of radon increased fourfold.There was another dramatic increase of radon on January 7.On January 8，the radon level was ten times higher than the October level.Then the radon began to decrease.A week later, disaster struck.Perhaps some animals are sensitive to the changes in these gases.

Just before the Loma Prieta earthquake, seismologist at Stanford University, noted a burst of magnetic noise. Some physicists began experiments with squeezing dry rocks.They found that the rocks generated electricity just as they crumbled.Because earthquakes squeeze rocks, the researchers set up equipment to monitor earthquake-prone zones.Their results seem to support the conclusion that animals sense electric current.

In California, researchers have‘heard'the groans and rumbles of faults for several years. Now they are beginning to understand that a sound from one fault gets‘answers'from other nearby faults.These noises are evidence of changes in the Earth's crust, and geologists may learn to understand their messages.Perhaps animals are able to detect these sounds and know that something is going to happen.The main idea of this reading is that

A. animals have a number of interesting behavior patterns.

B. scientists are trying to find out what animals are sensing before an earthquake.

C. earthquakes may be predicted by different kinds of signals in the Earth.