C
I visited Elba last June, joining Mary and John on a bicycling vacation. They made the arrangements for the car, hotel and bicycles. I studied the history of the island, which of course particularly features Napoleon.
Napoleon (now I know) picked Elba as a place for peace when he was forced to give up the throne (王权) as Emperor of France in 1814. Far from being a prison island, Elba is beautiful with towering mountains, thick forests and sweeping bays and beaches.
It is also an island filled with treasure. Very early on this island, locals discovered rich deposits of iron. Soon outsiders, too, discovered the iron and 150 other valuable minerals on this little piece of land. Long before Etruscans and other Greeks set foot on it, Dorians had moved in by the tenth century B. C. and were mining the island. The Romans ruled next, obtaining the minerals and building grand houses overlooking the sea. From the twelfth century until the nineteenth, the island was traded back and forth and was passed to France in 1802. Then came Napoleon, the new ruler of Elba.
I was eager to visit his house in Portoferraio. The Emperor lived with his court and his mother, but his wife, Marie Louise hadensconced herself in the splendid Viennese palace of her father, Emperor of Austria. She lived safely there and showed little interest in visiting her husband in his mini-kingdom. Apparently, Napoleon wasn’t troubled much by this. He was too busy riding everywhere on horseback, building roads, modernizing agriculture and, above all, sharpening his tiny army and navy into readiness for his escape.
In the formal gardens behind the house it seemed to me that I could imagine the exiled (流放的) conqueror’s anxious thoughts. He might gaze over where I stood now, toward the lighthouse of the Stella fort, the sandy bay, and across it, the green mountains of the Tuscan coast. Napoleon spent only ten months here before making his victorious return to France and the throne.
28. What did the author do for the visit to Elba?
A. He did research on its past. B. He arranged transportation.
C. He planned bicycling routes. D. He booked accommodation.
29. Who might be the earliest outsiders to Elba according to the text?
A. Napoleon and his army. B. Etruscans and other Greeks.
C. Dorians. D. Romans.
30. What does the underlined word “ensconced” probably mean?
A. Settled. B. Locked. C. Cured. D. Controlled.
31. What came to the author’s mind during his visit to Napoleon’s gardens?
A. Beautiful views on Elba. B. Terrible living conditions on Elba.
C. Napoleon’s ambition to regain power.
D. Hardship of Napoleon’s return to France.
D
An international team of researchers from the University of Oxford have found that the way people use the Internet is closely tied to the seasonal movements in the natural world. Their online species searches follow the patterns of seasonal animal migrations (迁徙).
Migratory birds (候鸟) flood back to where they reproduce every spring. That migratory behavior is accompanied by some human behavior. “In English-language Wikipedia (维基百科), the online searches for migratory species tend to increase in spring when those birds arrive in the United States,” said the lead author John Mittermeier.
And not just birds. Mittermeier and his team surveyed nearly 2.5 billion Wikipedia search records, for 32,000 species, across 245 languages. They also saw variable search rates for insects, horsetails and flowering plants. Seasonal trends seemed to be widespread in Wikipedia behavior for many species of plants and animals.
This finding suggests new ways to monitor changes in the world’s biological diversity. It also shows new ways to see how much people care about nature, and which species and areas might be the most effective targets for conservation.
Mittermeier is encouraged by the search results. He commented, “I think there’s a concern among conservationists (生态环境保护者) that people are losing touch with the natural world and that they’re not interacting with native species anymore. And so in that sense, it was really exciting and quite unexpected for me to see people’s Wikipedia interest closely related to changes in nature.”
Richard Grenyer, Associate Professor from the University of Oxford, says search data is useful to conservation biologists, “By using these big data approaches, we can direct our attention towards the difficult questions in modern conservation: which species and areas are changing, and where are the people who care the most and can do the most to help.”
32.What have researchers found about species searches?
A.They strengthen ties among people. B.They affect the animal movements.
C.They differ in language backgrounds. D.They reflect animal migration seasons.
33. What is the purpose of writing Paragraph 3?
A. To summarize the research process. B. To further support the research findings.
C. To show the variety of species searches.
D. To present researchers’ heavy work load.
34. How does Mittermeier feel about the search results?
A. Satisfied with Wikipedia’s service. B. Worried about Wikipedia behavior.
C. Amazed at people’s care about nature.
D. Sad about people’s not getting close to nature.
35. Why does Richard think such search data is useful?
A. It helps to aim at conservation targets.
B. It increases interest in big data approaches.
C. It keeps track of trends in biologists’ work.
D. It pushes people to solve difficult problems.