阅读理解 For hundreds of millions of years, turtles have struggled out of the sea to lay their eggs on sandy beaches, long before there were nature documentaries to celebrate them, or GPS satellites and marine biologists to track them, or volunteers to hand-carry the hatchlings down to the water's edge lest they become disoriented by headlights and crawl towards a motel parking lot instead. A formidable wall of bureaucracy has been erected to protect their prime nesting on the Atlantic coastlines. With all that attention paid to them, you' d think these creatures would at least have the gratitude not to go extinct.
But Nature is indifferent to human notions of fairness, and a report by the Fish and Wildlife Service showed a worrisome drop in the populations of several species of North Atlantic turtles, notably loggerheads, which can grow to as much as 400 pounds. The South Florida nesting population, the largest, has declined by 50% in the last decade, according to Elizabeth Griffin, a marine biologist with the environmental group Oceana. The figures prompted Oceana to petition the government to upgrade the level of protection for the North Atlantic loggerheads from "threatened" to "endangered"—meaning they are in danger of disappearing without additional help.
Which raises the obvious question: what else do these turtles want from us, anyway? It turns out, according to Griffin, that while we have done a good job of protecting the turtles for the weeks they spend on land (as egg-laying females, as eggs and as hatchlings), we have neglected the years they spend in the ocean. "The threat is from commercial fishing," says Griffin. Trawlers (which drag large nets through the water and along the ocean floor) and longline fishers (which can deploy thousands of hooks on lines that can stretch for miles) take a heavy toll on turtles.
Of course, like every other environmental issue today, this is playing out against the background of global warming and human interference with natural ecosystems. The narrow strips of beach on which the turtles lay their eggs are being squeezed on one side by development and on the other by the threat of rising sea levels as the oceans warm. Ultimately we must get a handle on those issues as well, or a creature that outlived the dinosaurs will meet its end at the hands of humans, leaving our descendants to wonder how creature so ugly could have won so much affection.
单选题 We can learn from the first paragraph that ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】细节题。第一句提到了人们为保护海龟所做的种种努力，并且通过最后一句可以判断出，B项“已经为防止海龟灭绝做出了努力”为正确答案。A项“人类的行为改变了海龟的生存方式”和D项“海洋生物学家正在寻找海龟繁殖的秘密”，文中均没有提及。C项“政府的行政措施导致了海龟的灭绝”，与文意相反。
单选题 What does the author mean by "Nature is indifferent to human notions of fairness" (Para. 2)?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】推断题。“Nature is indifferent to human notions of fairness”是第一段和第二段之间的转折句。第一段提到人们做出了很多努力，那海龟就不至于很快灭绝；但第二段提到海龟数量还是急速下降，所以这句话是指自然并没有朝人们预想的方向发展，D项说法正确。A项与文意相反；B、C两项文中并没有提及。
单选题 What constitutes a major threat to the survival of turtles according to Elizabeth Griffin?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】细节题。根据第三段中的“The threat is from commercial fishing”可知，Griffin认为商业捕捞是主要威胁。A、C、D三项文中均没有提到。故选B。
单选题 How does global warming affect the survival of turtles?
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】细节题。根据最后一段中的“The narrow strips of beach on which the turtles lay their eggs are being squeezed on one side by development and on the other by the threat of rising sea levels as the oceans warm.”可知，全球变暖对海龟产卵的沙滩造成威胁，A项说法正确。B、C、D三项文中均没有提及。
单选题 The last sentence of the passage is meant to .
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】推断题。文章最后一句说“最终我们还要想办法解决这些问题，否则这种比恐龙还要长寿的生物将会在人类手中灭绝，让我们的后代困惑于怎么这种丑陋的生物会得到如此的钟爱”。这就是在呼吁人们想办法保护海龟，不要让海龟灭绝在人类手上，因此C项“号召采取有效措施确保海龟生存”正确。