单选题
下面有3篇短文，每篇短文后有5道题，每题后面有4个选项。请仔细阅读短文并根据短文回答其后面的问题，从4个选项中选择1个最佳答案。
{{B}}第一篇{{/B}}
Part science and part natural history, ornithology(鸟类学) owes its tremendous popularity as a science and a scientific recreation to a simple circumstance that is sometimes forgotten when we weigh the eligibility(有被选资格，合适)of different kinds of animals for informal study. Birds are day animals where others, just as engaging in their way—mice, for instance—are creatures of the night. Apart from their visibility (something very much in their favor), the beauty of birds and their many appealing habits have won for them a huge fan following that has more than once tempted impatient and ill-informed laboratory biologists to dismiss ornithology as so much bird-watching—an absurdly unjust judgment that ignores the fact that ornithology has made a number of profoundly important contributions to general biology.
Professional biologists are not hard put to reel off(滔滔不绝地讲) a list of distinctive contributions that ornithology has made to general biology science. They will cite, for example, Ernst Mayr's investigations of evolution and the mechanisms of speciation (物种形成), or M. R. Irwin's work on the immunologic performance of species of Columbidae(pigeons and doves) and of hybrids(杂交种)between them. Then again, David Lack's studies on mortality in wild populations of birds are the most illuminating life tables of wild animals and animal demography (统计学) generally. Most important of all, perhaps is the contribution that ornithology has made to the study of animal behavior, beginning with Julian Huxley' s classic study of the courtship habits of the great crested great and followed by Niko Tinbergen's studies on the behavior of herring gulls.
单选题 What is the main idea of the passage?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】归纳类文章中，主旨句多出现在段末或篇末，作为由具体事实引出的一般结论。该题可参阅第一段最后一句后半句，“…that ornithology has made a number of profoundly important contribution to general biology，”
单选题 Why mice are described in the passage as "creatures of the night" because they are______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】参见第一段第一句，“…ornithology owes its tremendous popularity…to a simple circumstance(fact/truth)…birds are day animals where…ice are creatures of the night．”此处where=whereas．
单选题 Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the first as a reason for popular interest in birds?
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】参阅第一段第二句可知答案B、C、D都在句子中提到，而题干问没有提到的理由。
单选题 The pronoun "They" in the second paragraph refers to______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】考查考生在语篇水平上正确地理解词、短语或句子的能力。参阅第二段第一句“Professional biologists are not hard put to reel off a list of distinctive contributions that ornithology has made to general biology science．”可知，They=professional biologists。
单选题 David Lack' s research contributed to biological science specifically in the area of______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】本题答案可参考第二段第三句，本题中contribute to=be helpful to是“对……有贡献”的意思。