Question

PLAYA GRANDE, COSTA RICA----This resort town was long known for Leatherback Sea Turtle（棱皮龜）National Park, nightly turtle beach tours and even a sea turtle museum. However, on a beach where dozens of turtles used to nest on a given night, scientists spied only 32 leatherbacks all of last year.

With leatherbacks threatened with extinction, Playa Grande’s turtle museum was abandoned （拋棄）three years ago and now sits among a sea of weeds. And the beachside ticket office for turtle tours was washed away by a high tide in September. “We do not promote that as a turtle tourism destination any more because we realize there are far too few turtles to please,” said Alvaro Fonseca, a park ranger.（管理員）

Even before scientists found temperatures going up over the past decade, sea turtles were threatened by beach development, drift net fishing and Costa Ricans’ interest in eating turtle eggs. But climate change may cause the most serious harm to an animal that has lived in the Pacific for 150 million years.

Sea turtles are sensitive to numerous effects of warming. They feed on reefs, which are dying in hotter seas. They lay eggs on beaches that are being covered by rising seas and more violent waves.

More uniquely（獨(dú)特地）, their gender is determined not by genes but by the egg’s temperature during development. Small rises in beach temperatures can result in all-female populations, obviously problematic for survival. If the sand around the eggs hits 30 degrees Celsius, the gender balance shifts to female; at about 32 degrees they are all female. Above 34, you get boiled eggs.

On some nesting beaches, scientists are artificially cooling nests with shade or irrigation and trying to protect broader areas of coastal property from development to ensure that turtles have a place to nest as the seas rise.

1.Why does the resort town stop promoting its turtle tourism?

A.It decides not to disturb the turtles’ normal life.

B.Tourists have lost interest in watching turtles.

C. There are only very few turtles now.   D. The turtle museum was destroyed by a high tide.

2. Which of the following is the major factor in the turtles’ endangerment?

A. The locals’ eating habit.   B. Drift net fishing.  C. Beach development. D. Global warming.

3. The underlined word “gender” in Paragraph 5 means ____.

A. the sex of turtles   B. the habit of turtles   C. the weight of turtles   D. the kind of turtles

4. We learn from the last paragraph that scientists ____.

A. are doing research on the sea rise   B. are moving turtles to new homes

C. are protecting turtles’ nests        D. are going rid of sea weeds

5. The passage intends to ____.

A. introduce a special kind of sea turtle   B. explain the mystery of turtles’ eggs

C. show the dangers a certain kind of sea turtle is facing  

D. attract more visitors to a sea turtle museum

 

Answer 1

【答案】

1.D2.D3.B4.B5.A

【解析】略