四、阅读理解
From red apples and yellow lemons to blueberries and green melons, fruit comes in many different colours. Why do different kinds of fruit have so many colours?
According to Chinese Academy of Sciences, fruit colours come from their different pigments (色素), such as red or yellow carotenoid (类胡萝卜素) and blue or purple anthocyanin (花青素). These pigments appear in different amounts (数量), depending on the fruit's environment. This causes the fruit to turn into a certain colour.
To find out how the environment influences fruit colours, Chinese scientists studied more than 280 different fruit colours, including white, red, blue, purple and black.
They found that red fruit tends to (倾向于) grow in cooler places. And instead of just growing in one place, you can find them growing in many places around the world. Blue and purple fruit mostly grows in warm places. The fruit tends to grow a lot in just one special area. The scientists also found that the closer the fruit is to the equator (赤道), the darker its colour will be.
Animals have also influenced the evolution (进化) of fruit colours. Animals eat fruit and drop the seeds (种子) in other places later. This helps the fruit spread and grow in different places. Therefore, in order to attract (吸引) animals, some fruit develops colours that are easy for animals to see.
▲ So fruit needs to develop colours that are suited to animals' visual (视觉的) abilities. For example, birds can see red more easily than humans can. Therefore, there tends to be more red fruit in areas where birds live. The lemurs (狐猴) of Madagascar are red-green colour-blind. Lots of yellow fruit can be found in their habitats (栖息地), as they can easily see this colour.
(
C
) 1. Some fruit develops certain colours to ______.
A. drive animals away
B. get more sunlight
C. attract animals to eat them
D. protect themselves
(
A
) 2. What do we know from the passage?
A. Dark fruit tends to live in hot places.
B. Green fruit tends to grow in cool places.
C. Humans can see red more easily than birds.
D. Lemurs are colour-blind and can't make out any colours.
(
C
) 3. Which of following have influenced the evolution of fruit colours?
a. the environment
b. the pigments
c. animals
d. scientists
A. ad
B. bc
C. ac
D. bd
(
D
) 4. Which of the following sentences is suitable for "▲"?
A. Fruit and animals help each other.
B. That is why fruit in the wild is more colourful.
C. However, not all animals are interested in colours.
D. However, animals see colours in a different way.
(
D
) 5. In which section of the newspaper can you read this article?
A. Culture.
B. History.
C. Advertisement.
D. Science.
