| Reading Passage 2 | |
| Title: | 会唱歌的鸟 |
| Question types: | Heading, summary, sentence completion |
| 文章内容回顾 | 主要讲了几种鸟类和哺乳动物。讲鸟的声音的新用处，与人的声音进行对比。 |
| 英文原文阅读 |
Why birds sing A Red-eyed Vireo sings more than 20,000 songs a day. A Pileated Woodpecker drums on a tree at 15 beats per second. A Wilson's Snipe dives through the air, the feathers on its wings vibrating to produce a winnowing sound, hu-hu-hu...Why? Birds put a lot of effort into singing, drumming, winnowing, and otherwise displaying. They are trying to impress mates and proclaim territories.Songs are often loud and repetitive, so they tend to be noticed more than other bird sounds. One observer commented that a Winter Wren sings "with remarkable vehemence," as if he were "trying to burst [his] lungs." This tiny songster weighs just one-third of an ounce, but it sings with 10 times the power of a crowing rooster, per unit weight. Birds may sing their songs thousands of times throughout the day. Dickcissels may spend as much as 70 percent of the day singing while establishing territories and courting females.Some birds have large repertoires--the Brown Thrasher can sing as many as 2,000 distinct songs. Other species, such as the Henslow’s Sparrow, seem to have only one song. In North America, we hear mostly males singing, because they typically take the lead in defending territories and attracting mates. However, especially in the tropics, some species sing duets involving both the male and female.Courtship serenades How do scientists know why birds sing? Experiments with recorded songs have shown that birds sing to attract mates. House Wren songs broadcast near nest boxes will attract female House Wrens, for example. Female birds may also judge the quality of a male's song when selecting a mate. Some studies have shown that males with extra food on their territories are the most persistent singers, and in some species, the most persistent singers attract females the soonest.Playback experiments have also shown that songs are important in defending a territory. For example, male House Wrens respond aggressively to the recording of another male's song, sometimes even attacking the loudspeaker. In other tests, researchers temporarily removed male birds from their territories but played songs through speakers on some of the territories. Neighboring males were less likely to invade territories from which songs were broadcast, showing that song means "Keep out!" to other birds.Song is not the only "keep out" signal that birds use. Although Northern Mockingbirds sing complex songs on their territories during the breeding season, they use only a loud chuck sound to declare their winter feeding territory. Some warblers also use just a simple call note on their winter feeding territory.Singing on the wing Some birds sing while in flight, especially species that nest in open areas such as grasslands or the Arctic tundra. Male Western Sandpipers arrive in Alaska several days before the females and make frequent display flights over their territories as they utter their flight song. Some display flights last up to five minutes and cover the sandpiper's territory. Others are rapid flights low over the tundra, followed by an abrupt ascent. |
| 题型难度分析 | 据考生回顾，本篇文章的三个题目都较好做，很好定位。 |
题型技巧分析 |
Heading题型做题步骤： 1. 读题目要求，注意是将heading前的序号写在答题卡上 2. 划去Example项，在Lists of headings中将例子的标题划去，同时将对应段落在文章中划去，以免做题时重复找 3. 在给出的标题中划出关键词，以名词为主 4. 读文章段落，主要读段首和段尾，找出主题句 5. 将段落主题句和标题相比较，选出答案 注意事项： 1. 在找主题句的时候，段首不一定是段落的第一句，很多时候尤其是第二段及以后的段落，第一句往往是对上一段的概况，第二句第三句才是主题句 2. 如果本段有however, but等转折词汇以及also, although等，主题句即作者的中心在其后面 3. 如果某段中重复出现标题中的某个关键词，也可以判定此段的标题即是含有这个关键词的标题 |
| 剑桥雅思推荐原文练习 | 剑3 Test4 Passage1 |