Question

Mosquitoes(蚊子) ruin countless American picnics every year, but around the world, this bloodsucking beast isn’t just annoying--it causes a health problem. More than a million people die from the spread of mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and yellow fever each year. Attempts to control populations via insecticides like DDT have had ruinous side effects for nature and human health. Neurobiologist Leslie B. Vosshall has a different solution for stopping the insects and the spread of disease. “I believe the key to controlling mosquito behavior is to understand better how they sense us,” she says.

At their Rockefeller University lab, Vosshall and her colleagues are studying the chemical sensory processes by which mosquitoes choose hosts. How do they sense heat, humidity, carbon dioxide, and body odor(氣味)? What makes some people more attractive to a mosquito than others? It takes blood and sweat to find out. To study how mosquitoes assess body odor, Vosshall and her teammates might wear stockings on their arms and keep from showering for 24 hours to create sample smells, Then comes the hard part. They insert their arms into the insects’ hidden home to study how mosquitoes land, bite, and feed and then they document how this changes. This can mean getting anywhere from one bite to 400, depending on the experiment. Studying male mosquitoes is more pleasant. Since they don’t feed on blood, the lab tests their sense of smell using honey.

Vosshall and her team have also begun to study how genetics contribute to mosquitoes’ choice of a host. She’s even created a breed that is unable to sense carbon dioxide, an important trigger for the insects. “By using genetics to make mutant(變異的) mosquitoes, we can document exactly how and why mosquitoes hunt humans,” Vosshall says.

Once Vosshall figures out what makes mosquitoes flock to us, she can get to work on making them leave us alone. Many of her lab’s proposed solutions sound simple enough, including bracelets(手鐲) that carry long-lasting repellants(驅(qū)蟲劑) or traps that can reduce populations, but the breakthroughs, when they come, may save millions of lives in the developing world—and a lot of itching everywhere else.

1.Vosshall and her colleagues are mainly studying mosquitoes’ ______.

A. appearance B. size

C. behavior D. change

2.By saying the underlined part “Then comes the hard part”, the author probably means that______.

A. the insects smell terrible

B. the experiment will last long

C. The researchers will probably suffer

D. the researchers have to study lots of documents.

3.Why is it less challenging to study male mosquitoes?

A. They are not bloodsuckers.

B. They are afraid of stockings.

C. They have a poor sense of smell.

D. They are protective of their hosts.

4.It can be inferred from the last paragraph that Vosshall’s research______.

A. looks very promising

B. has saved millions of lives

C. is facing great difficulties

D. is quite simple to carry out.

Answer 1

1.C

2.C

3.A

4.A

【解析】

試題分析：文章主要介紹了科學(xué)家對蚊子的叮咬和吸血等行為進(jìn)行的研究。在全世界范圍內(nèi)，蚊子不僅吸食血液，它們還給人帶來健康問題。每年有一百多萬人死于瘧疾、黃熱病等由蚊子攜帶和傳播的疾病。

1.I believe the key to controlling mosquito behavior”和第二段第六行“study how mosquitoes land, bite, and feed”可知，Vosshall研究的是蚊子的叮咬、吸血等行為，故選C。

2.They insert their arms into the insects’ hidden home to study how mosquitoes land, bite, and feed”可知，研究人員把手臂伸進(jìn)蚊子聚集的地方，以研究蚊子是如何選擇落腳點、怎樣咬和吸血的。研究人員這樣做有感染通過蚊子傳播的疾病的危險，故選C。

3.Studying male mosquitoes is more pleasant. Since they don’t feed on blood”可知，公蚊子不吸血，所以研究公蚊子相對會比較安全一些，故選A。

4.but the breakthroughs, when they come, may save millions of lives in the developing world—and a lot of itching everywhere else”可知，一旦研究有了突破性進(jìn)展，將會挽救發(fā)展中國家成千上萬人的生命，也能消除蚊子叮咬引起的瘙癢，說明他們的研究很有前景，故選A。

考點：科學(xué)類短文閱讀