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  3. A Dolphin and an Astronomer One day in 1963, a dolphin named Elvar and a famous astronomer, Carl Sagan, were playing a littl

A Dolphin and an Astronomer One day in 1963, a dolphin named Elvar and a famous astronomer, Carl Sagan, were playing a littl

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问题                         A Dolphin and an Astronomer
    One day in 1963, a dolphin named Elvar and a famous astronomer, Carl Sagan, were playing a little game. The astronomer was visiting an institute which was looking into the way dolphins communicate with each other. Sagan was standing on the edge of one of the tanks where several of these friendly, highly intelligent creatures were kept. Elvar had just swum up alongside him and had turned on his back.
    The dolphin wanted Sagan to scratch his stomach again, as the astronomer had done twice before. Elvar looked up at Sagan, waiting. Then, after a minute or so, the dolphin leapt up through the water and made a sound just like the word "more". The astonished astronomer went to the director of the institute and told him about the incident. "Oh, yes. That’s one of the words he knows," the director said, showing no surprise at all.
    Dolphins have bigger brain in proportion to their body size than humans have, and it has been known for a long time that they can make a number of sounds. What is more, these sounds seem to have different functions, such as warning each other of danger. Sound travels much faster and much further in water than it does in air. That is why the parts of the brain that deal with sound are much better developed in dolphin than in humans. But can it be said that dolphins have a "language", in the real sense of the word? Scientists don’t agree on this.
    A language is not just a collection of sounds, or even words. A language has a structure and what we call a grammar. The structure and grammar of a language help to give it meaning. For example, the two questions "Who loves Mary?" and "Who does Mary love?" mean very different things. If you stop to think about it, you will see that this difference doesn’t come from the words in the question but from the difference in structure. That is why the question "Can dolphins speak?" can’t be answered until we find out if dolphins not only make sounds but also arrange them in a grammatical order which affects their meaning.(2003年)
The astronomer was not interested in the way dolphins communicate with each other.
选项 A、Right
B、Wrong
C、Not mentioned
答案B
解析 题干大意：天文学家对海豚交流的方式不感兴趣。文章第一段提到：The astronomer was visiting an institute which was looking into the way dolphins commu—nicate with each other．Sagan was standing on the edge of one of the tanks where severalof these friendly，highly intelligent creatures were kept．天文学家拜访了一个研究海豚交流方式的协会。Sagan站在其中一个贮水池边缘，在那儿养着几只海豚，这些海豚非常友好，也是高智商的动物。也就是说如果他不感兴趣就不会去看，去拜访了，所以题干所述与文章信息相左，故答案选B。
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