单选题
How much pain do animals feel? This is a question which has caused endless controversy. Opponents of big game shooting, for example, arouse our pity by describing tile agonies of a badly wounded beast that has crawled into a comer to die. In countries where the fox, the hare and the deer are hunted, animal-lovers paint harrowing pictures of the pursued animal suffering not only the physical distress of the chase but the mental anguish of anticipated death. The usual answer to these criticisms is that animals do not suffer in the same way, or to the same extent, as we do. Man was created with a delicate nervous system and has never lost his acute sensitiveness to pain; animals, on the other hand, had less sensitive systems to begin with and in the course of millions of years, have developed a capacity of ignoring injuries and disorders which human beings would find intolerable. For example, a dog will continue to play with a ball even after a serious injury to his foot; he may be unable to run without limping, but he will go on trying long after a human child would have had to stop because of the pain. We are told, moreover, that even when animals appear to us to be suffering acutely, this is not so; what seems to us to be agonized contortions caused by pain are in fact no more than muscular contractions over which they have no control. These arguments are unsatisfactory because something about which we know a great deal is being compared with something we can only conjecture. We know what we feel; we have no means of knowing what animals' feet. Some creatures with a less delicate nervous system than ours may be incapable of feeling pain to the same extent as we do: that as far as we are entitled to do, the most humane attitude, surely, is to assume that no animals are entirely exempt from physical pain and that we ought, therefore, wherever possible, to avoid causing suffering even to the least of them.
单选题
Animal-lovers assume that animals, being hunted, would suffer from______.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】解析:本题是细节题。从关键词animal-lover可找到其定位句,即第一段的第三句“animal—lovers paint harrowing pictures of the pursued animal suffering not only the physicaldistress of the chase but the mental anguish of anticipated death”,由此可知动物被追赶时遇到的危险,还忍受着死亡逼近的精神痛苦,故选A。
单选题
Supporters of game shooting may argue that animals______.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】解析:本题是细节题。从第二段的“Man was created with a delicate nervous system…disorders which human beings would find intolerable”可知,动物们在开始时神经系统不敏感,随后在几百万年的进化中有了忽略疼痛和错乱的能力,而这种疼痛和错乱状态是人类无法忍受的,故选C。
单选题
The author feels sure that______.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】解析:此题是判断推理题。从第二段的第三句“For example,a dog will continue to playwith a ball...but he will go on trying long after a human child would have had to stop because ofthe paln”可知,狗可以忍受身体上的疼痛从事各项活动,一旦忍受不了疼痛时,会停下来。B符合此意。
单选题
What is the author's opinion about animal hunting?
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】解析:本题是观点态度题。从关键词animal hunting可找到其定位原句,即第三段的“…the most humane attitude,surely,is to assume that…to avoid causing suffering even to theleast of them”,由此可知作者强调不应伤害动物,选项C符合此意。
单选题
This passage seems to______.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】解析:本题是归纳概括题。文中用到controversy、opponents of game shooting、animal—lovers、answer to criticism、arguments、humane attitude is to assume等词语,目的是表明立场和观点,即本文是议论文。故选A。