Question

Fish have ears. Really. They’re quite small and have no opening to the outside world carrying sound through the body. For the past seven years, Simon Thorrold, a university professor, has been examining fish ears, small round ear bones called otoliths.

As fish grow, so do their otoliths. Each day, their otoliths gain a ring of calcium carbonate (碳酸鈣). By looking through a microscope (顯微鏡) and counting these rings, Thorrold can determine the exact age of a young fish. As a fish gets older, its otoliths no longer get daily rings. Instead, they get yearly rings, which can also be counted, giving information about the fish’s age, just like the growth rings of a tree.

Ring counting is nothing new to fish scientists. But Thorold has turned to a new direction. They’re examining the chemical elements (元素) of each otolith ring.

The daily ring gives us the time, but chemistry tells us about the environment in which the fish swam on any given day. These elements tell us about the chemistry of the water that the fish was in. It also says something about water temperature, which determines how much of these elements will gather within each otolith ring.

Thorrold can tell, for example, if a fish spent time in the open ocean before entering the less salty water of coastal areas. He can basically tell where fish are spending their time at any given stage of history.

In the case of the Atlantic croaker, a popular saltwater food fish, Thorrold and his assistant have successfully followed the traveling of young fish from mid-ocean to the coast, a journey of many hundreds of miles.

This is important to managers in the fish industry, who know nearly nothing about the whereabouts of the young fish for most food fish in the ocean. Eager to learn about his technology, fish scientists are now lending Thorrold their ears.

1.What can we learn about fish ears from the text?

A. They are small soft rings.

B. They are not seen from the outside.

C. They are openings only on food fish.

D. They are not used to receive sound.

2.Why does the writer compare the fish to trees?

A. Trees gain a growth ring each day.

B. Trees also have otoliths.

C. Their growth rings are very small.

D. They both have growth rings.

3.Why is it important to study the chemistry of otolith rings?

A. The elements of the otoliths can tell the history of the sea.

B. Chemical contents of otoliths can tell how fast fish can swim.

C. We can know more about fish and their living environment.

D. Scientists can know exactly how old a fish is.

4.How would you understand “fish scientists are now lending their ears”?

A. They are very interested in Thorrold’s research findings.

B. They want to know where they can find fish.

C. They lend their fish for chemical studies.

D. They wonder if Thorrold can find growth rings from their ears.

Answer 1

1.B

2.D

3.C

4.A

【解析】

試題分析：魚兒也有耳朵。它們的耳朵不僅非常小，而且是不外露的。魚兒通過身體來感知聲音，它們的聽覺器官叫做otoliths，otoliths會隨著魚的生長而發(fā)生變化。人們可以通過觀察魚的otoliths來判斷魚的年齡。

1.They’re quite small and have no opening to the outside world carrying sound through the body”可知，魚有耳朵，但魚的耳朵不是外露的，而是通過身體來聽聲音，故選B。

2.Instead, they get yearly rings, which can also be counted, giving information about the fish’s age, just like the growth rings of a tree.”可知，當(dāng)幼魚長大一些的時候，它們的otoliths開始每年增加一環(huán)，據(jù)此可以判斷魚的年齡，就像通過樹的年輪判斷樹齡一樣，故選D。

3.but chemistry tells us about the environment in which the fish swam ...These elements tell us about the chemistry of the water that the fish was in. It also says something about water temperature”可知，通過研究otoliths的化學(xué)成分，可以了解魚的生活環(huán)境、水質(zhì)和水溫等情況，故選C。

4.Eager to learn about his technology”可知，就Thorrold的研究成果而言，魚類科學(xué)家們愿聞其詳，他們很渴望了解Thorrold的研究技術(shù)，故選A。

考點：科學(xué)類短文閱讀