单选题 Animals, too, communicate. If you try to catch a seagull, it will call out "Hahaha! Hahaha!" to signal its friends to watch out for an intruder (入侵者). Certain fish signal their presence by sending electric impulses from their muscles. But these signal systems differ in very fundamental ways from human communication.
First of all, our symbols are subjective. If you do not speak Chinese, you would not know what a gou is. Gou is the Chinese word for dog. There is no inherent connection between the word and the thing itself. The Spaniards, after all, call the same animal perro and the French call it chien. The meaning of a word is not determined by any inherent quality of the thing itself. It is instead subjective: a word may mean whatever a group of humans have agreed it is supposed to mean. On the other hand, animals are not free to produce different symbols subjectively to indicate the same thing. This is why, for example, all seagulls throughout the world make the same sound to indicate the presence of danger.
Second, animal communication is a closed system, whereas human language is an open system. Each animal species can communicate only a limited set of messages, and the meaning of these signals is fixed. Animals can use only one signal at a time—they cannot combine two or more to produce a new and more complex message. A bird can signal "worms" to other birds but not "worms" and "cats" together. Animal communication is also closed in the sense of being tied to what is immediately present in the environment. The bird can signal "worms" only because it sees them. In contrast, we call blend and combine symbols to express whatever ideas come into our heads. We can create new messages, and the potential number of messages that we can send is infinite. Thus we can talk about concepts such as good and evil, truth and beauty, for which there is no physical thing that is being signaled. It is this creative character of language that leads many people to believe that language is unique to humans. Although several chimpanzees (黑猩猩) have been taught sign language, it is doubtful that they have created innovative sentences of their own.
单选题 The author believes that animals are capable of ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。从文章第一句便可知,动物也是可以交流的,而交流的方式是用不同的方式来传递信息,比如海鸥(seagull)用叫声,某种鱼类则用肌肉发出的电子脉冲(electric impulses)。只有B选项(相互之间发送信息)是原文的正确改写。
单选题 The main idea of Paragraph 2 is that ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 主旨题。第一段最后一句讲到,动物的符号系统与人类交流的方式有本质的区别。第二段的主题句为首句“our symbols are subjective”,即我们(人类)的符号都是主观性的,换言之,动物的交流系统符号不是主观性的。故本题正确答案为A。
单选题 The word "infinite" (Para. 3) means ______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 词汇题。infinite的含义是“无限制的,无尽的”,与unlimited含义最接近。从文中的语义线索中也可判断出答案。最后一段第二句讲到,动物“can communicate only a limited set of messages”,即只能用有限的信息来交流,而人与动物不同,可用来交流的信息是infinite,即limit的反义词unlimited。
单选题 According to the author, animals can only signal ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。从最后一段“Animal communication is also closed in the sense of being tied to what is immediately present in the environment. The bird can signal "worms" only because it sees them. ”可知,动物的交流只与当时情景下息息相关。鸟类能发出“虫子”的信号,因为它看见了虫子。由此可知,动物只能发出看得见的信号。故本题正确答案为A。
单选题 It is unique of human communication to express ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。从最后一段中“Thus we can talk about concepts such as good and evil, truth and beauty, for which there is no physical thing that is being signaled. ”可知,人类能谈论善与恶、真与美之类的concept(概念,观点),B选项中的idea是concept的同义改写。故本题答案为B。