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  3. The residents of California’s Santa Monica Bay have some rather noisy neighbors—and they’re not happy about it. That is the conc

The residents of California’s Santa Monica Bay have some rather noisy neighbors—and they’re not happy about it. That is the conc

admin2012-08-10  81
问题     The residents of California’s Santa Monica Bay have some rather noisy neighbors—and they’re not happy about it. That is the conclusion of a new study which shows that blue whales feeding off the coast of California stop calling to each other when a nearby naval base powers up its sonar (声纳) for training exercises.
    It’s not exactly news that sonar can disturb whales. What’s different about this study is that it shows an underwater sound outside a whale’s voice range can still affect its calling behavior. Because the endangered blue whale may depend on communication to keep its family group together and alert them to the presence of food, the effects of that sonar are a serious concern.
    But it’s not only sonar that’s getting to them. When ships come by, sound of the engines falls within the blue whales’ vocalization range, which means the creatures have to raise their voices. Unsurprisingly, this sort of effect—like living inside a noisy, dark bar—is not ideal for intelligent and social animals trying to have a conversation.
    Luckily it’s not all bad news. Technology can help—if people are willing to pay for it. In terms of shipping noise, efforts are under way by the International Maritime Organization to develop and encourage the use of quieter engines on ships. Even the U. S. Navy is now working on the problem of ocean noise. In fact, over the last ten years the U. S. Navy has been the primary funder of marine mammal research on the planet.
    Some say this isn’t simply a conservation issue. It’s a moral one. Last month, a group of scientists and ethicists (伦理学家) presented a "Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans (鲸目动物)" to the largest science conference in the world, the AAAS meeting in Vancouver, Canada. The Declaration states that because of their intelligence and social complexity, whales and dolphins should be respected as non-human persons with a right to life. " We’ve had decades of work demonstrating what kinds of beings they are, what kind of brains they have," says Lori Marino, a senior lecturer in neuroscience and behavioral biology at Emory University, whose groundbreaking work has shown that dolphins, like humans, can recognize themselves in the mirror. Science, it seems, is telling us how undersea noise is affecting whales and dolphins. It also may be telling us why we should do something about it.
What do we learn from Paragraph 3?
选项 A、Ships should use quiet engine to prevent noise.
B、The blue whales need a quiet environment.
C、The blue whales can’t survive in a dark and noisy place.
D、Sound of ships’ engines turns blue whales’ voices up.
答案B
解析 推理判断题。本题考查对于第三段信息的理解。根据原文，嘈杂、黑暗的环境对于蓝鲸来说并不理想，由此推断蓝鲸需要安静的环境，故B)“蓝鲸需要一个安静的环境”正确。A)“轮船应使用噪音小的引擎来防止噪音”并未在第三段中体现，故排除；C)“蓝鲸无法在嘈杂、黑暗的地方生存”是对原文的错误理解，原文中提到这种环境时使用了not ideal“不理想”，而并不是说蓝鲸无法在这样的环境中生存，故排除；D)“轮船的引擎声使蓝鲸的声音提高”是对文章的错误理解，那些在蓝鲸发声范围内的轮船引擎声会迫使鲸鱼提高声音，而不是说所有类型的轮船引擎声都会把蓝鲸的声音提高，故排除。
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