Passage Two
Questions 51 to 55 are based on the following passage.
The ability to make inferences from same and different, once thought to be unique to humans, is viewed as a cornerstone of abstract intelligent thought. A new study, however, has shown that what psychologists call same- different discrimination is present in creatures generally seen as unintelligent: newborn ducklings(小鸭).
The study, published Thursday in Science, challenges our idea of what it means to have a birdbrain, said Edward Wasserman, an experimental psychologist at the university of Iowa who wrote an independent review of the study.
“In fact, birds are extremely intelligent and our problem pretty much lies in figuring out how to get them to‘talk’ to us, or tell us how smart they really are,” he said.
Antone Martinho and Alex Kacelnik, co-authors of the new paper, devised a clever experiment to better test bird intelligence.
First, they took 1-day-old ducklings and exposed them to a pair of moving objects. The two objects were either the same or different in shape or color. Then they exposed each duckling to two entirely new pairs of moving objects.
The researchers found that about 70% of the ducklings preferred to move toward the pair of objects that had the same shape or color relationship as the first objects they saw. A duckling that was first shown two green spheres, in other words, was more likely to move toward a pair of blue spheres than a mismatched pair of orange and purple spheres.
Ducklings go through a rapid learning process called imprinting shortly after birth— it's what allows them to identify and follow their mothers.
These findings suggest that ducklings use abstract relationships between sensory inputs like color, shape, sounds and odor to recognize their mothers, said Dr. Kacelnik.
By studying imprinting, the authors of this study have shown for the first time that an animal can learn relationships between concepts without training, said Jeffrey Katz, an experimental psychologist at Auburn University who was not involved in the study.
Previous studies have suggested that other animals, including pigeons, dolphins, honeybees and some primates(灵长类动物), can discern same from different, but only after extensive training.
Adding ducklings to the list— particularly untrained newborn ducklings— suggests that the ability to compare abstract concepts“is far more necessary to a wider variety of animals’ survival than we previously thought,” Dr. Martinho said. He believes the ability is so crucial because it helps animals consider context when identifying objects in their environment.
It's clear from this study and others like it that“animals process and appreciate far more of the intricacies in their world than we' ve ever understood,” Dr. Wasserman said. “We are in a revolutionary phase in terms of our ability to understand the minds of other animals.”
51. In what way were humans thought to be unique?
A) Being capable of same-different discrimination.
B) Being able to distinguish abstract from concrete.
C) Being a major source of animal intelligence.
D) Being the cornerstone of the creative world.
52. What do we learn from the study published in Science?
A) Our understanding of the bird world was biased.
B) Our communication with birds was far from adequate.
C) Our knowledge about bird psychology needs updating.
D) Our conception of birds' intelligence was wrong.
53. What did the researchers discover about most ducklings from their experiment?
A) They could associate shape with color.
B) They could tell whether the objects were the same.
C) They preferred colored objects to colorless ones.
D) They reacted quickly to moving objects.
54. What was novel about the experiment in the study reported in Science?
A) The ducklings were compared with other animals.
B) It was conducted by experimental psychologists.
C) The animals used received no training.
D) It used a number of colors and shapes.
55. What do we learn from Dr. Wasserman's comment on the study of animal minds at the end of the passage?
A) research methods are being updated.
B) It is getting more and more intricate.
C) It is attracting more public attention.
D) Remarkable progress is being made.
答案解析：
51. 由题干中的关键词 "humans thought to be unique" 定位到第一段。第一段提到 "The ability to make inferences from same and different, once thought to be unique to humans..."，说明过去人们认为人类独有的能力是从“相同”和“不同”中进行推断的能力，所以选A。
52. 由题干中的关键词 "study published in Science" 定位到第二段。第二段提到 "The study, published Thursday in Science, challenges our idea of what it means to have a birdbrain..."，并引用专家的话说鸟类其实非常聪明，这挑战了我们对“鸟脑”即“愚蠢”的固有看法，所以选D。
53. 由题干中的关键词 "researchers discover" 和 "ducklings" 定位到第五段。第五段提到 "The researchers found that about 70% of the ducklings preferred to move toward the pair of objects that had the same shape or color relationship as the first objects they saw."，说明大多数小鸭能够识别并趋向于具有相同关系(形状或颜色)的物体对，即它们能分辨物体是否相同，所以选B。
54. 由题干中的关键词 "novel" 和 "experiment" 定位到第九段。第九段提到 "By studying imprinting, the authors of this study have shown for the first time that an animal can learn relationships between concepts without training..."，并与其他需要大量训练的动物研究进行对比，突出了其新颖之处在于实验动物未经训练，所以选C。
55. 由题干中的关键词 "Dr. Wasserman's comment" 和 "end of the passage" 定位到最后一段。最后一段提到 "We are in a revolutionary phase in terms of our ability to understand the minds of other animals."，说明Wasserman博士认为，在理解动物心智方面，我们正处于一个革命性的阶段，即正在取得显著的进步，所以选D。
