Question

All across California, honeybees are flying away from their hives(蜂箱) and dying. Empty hives are causing a lot of worry about some important food crops.

Bees give us a lot more than delicious honey. They are pollinators（授粉者）—they enable plants to produce the fruits and nuts we enjoy by carrying pollen from one plant or flower to the next. The wind pollinates oats, corn, and wheat, but many other plants (like apple and cherry trees and melon vines) depend on insects, bats, and birds. In the U.S., millions and millions of bees kept by human beekeepers fly around doing a lot of this important work for food crops. “Bees are worth protecting because their work adds so much to our diet,” says Dr. Jeff Pettis of the Bee Research Laboratory.

California’s almond (杏仁) crop alone depends on about half the bees in the country. But now the almond crop and many others could be in trouble with so many bees dying.

Researchers at government and university labs all over the country are trying to figure out why so many bees are dying. However, bees are hard to study. Most die away from the hive, so researchers don’t have dead bodies to examine. And when researchers return to a hive after two weeks, about half the bees they studied on their first visit will be dead, replaced by new ones in the natural life cycle of bees. “It isn’t like studying a large animal like a cow that doesn’t move around much and is easy to find out in the cow field,” says Pettis.

Researchers have some ideas about what could be affecting bee health. They could be sick from poisons widely used to kill insects, or they might not be getting enough good food to stay strong. Also, tiny insects called mites feed on bees. “A virus or bacteria could also be doing the killing.” explains Pettis.

1.What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?

A. The wind helps pollinate.

B. Bees are important in food crops.

C. Bees give us a lot of delicious honey.

D. Cherry trees are pollinated by bees.

2.Bees are hard to study because ____________.

A. they move around too much

B. new bees soon replace all the bees studied by researchers

C. they are too tiny

D. they never return to hives

3.What could cause so many bees to die?

A. Poisons to kill birds.                                                               B. Eating too much.

C. Large insects.                                                                          D. Some virus.

4.What can we learn from the article?

A. A large number of bees have died in the hive.

B. Without bees, some foods would disappear from our diet.

C. Only researchers in California want to know what kills bees.

D. Large animals are easier to study than tiny insects.

 

Answer 1

【答案】

 

1.B

2.A

3.D

4.B

【解析】

试题分析:蜜蜂是人类的好朋友，它们不仅给我们提供美味的蜂蜜，也帮助植物授粉，而且其中加利福尼亚的杏仁作物只能靠蜜蜂授粉才可以结果。所以当地蜜蜂的大量死亡引起了人们的担忧，也促使研究人员努力去找到其中的原因。

1.B推理判断题。文章第二段介绍了蜜蜂除了给人们提供蜂蜜以外，还可以帮助植物授粉，由此判断B选项正确。

2.A 细节理解题。根据文章第四段Pettis说的话“It isn’t like studying a large animal like a cow that doesn’t move around much and is easy to find out in the cow field,”可知蜜蜂难以观察的原因是它们不会呆在固定的地方，所以A选项正确。

3.D细节理解题。根据文章末段“A virus or bacteria could also be doing the killing.”可以判断D选项正确。

4.B推理判断题。根据文章第三段可知某些植物必须依靠蜜蜂授粉，所以如果没有蜜蜂这些植物将不会结果实，由此判断B选项正确。

考点：考查科学知识类短文阅读。