题目

题型：不详难度：来源：

Plants can’t communicate by moving or making sounds, as most animals do. Instead, plants produce volatile compounds (挥发性化合物) —— chemicals that easily change from a liquid to a gas. A flower’s sweet smell, for example, comes from such volatile compounds to attract insects such as bugs and bees.
Plants can also discover  volatile compounds produced by other plants. A tree under attack by hungry insets, for instance, may give off these chemicals in order to let other trees know about the attack. In response, the other trees may send off their chemicals to keep the bugs away —— or even chemicals that will attract the bugs’ natural enemies.
Now scientists have created a quick way to understand what plants are saying: a chemical sensor (传感器) called an “electronic nose”. The “e-nose” can tell such compounds as plants make. When plants are attacked, scientists say, the e-nose could help quickly decide whether plants are being eaten by insects. But today, the only way to spot such insects is to inspect individual plants by observing them. This is a challenging task for managers of greenhouses, including those that can house thousands of plants. The research team is working with an e-nose that can recognize volatile compounds. Inside the device, 13 sensors chemically react with volatile compounds based on the interactions (相互作用), and then the e-nose will give off electronic signals that the scientists can analyze by using computer software.
To test the e-nose, the team presented it with healthy leaves from cucumber, pepper and tomato plants, all being common greenhouse crops. Then scientists collected samples of the air around damaged leaves from each type of crop. These plants had been damaged either by insects or by scientists who made holes in the leaves with a hole punch (打孔器).
The e-nose, it turns out, can identify healthy cucumber, pepper and tomato plants based on the volatile compounds they produce. It could also identify tomato leaves that had been damaged. But even more impressive, the device could tell which type of damage —— by insects or with a hole punch —— had been done to the tomato leaves.
With some fine-tuning (微调), a device like the e-nose can one day be used in greenhouses to quickly spot harmful bugs, the researchers say. A device like this can also be used to identify fruits that are perfectly ripe and ready to pick and eat, says Natalia Dudareva, a biochemist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, India, who studies smells of flowers and plants. Hopefully, scientists believe, the device can bring large benefits to greenhouse managers in the near future.
小题1:We learn from the text that plants communicate with each other by ______.

A．making some sounds

B．waving their leaves

C．producing some chemicals

D．sending out electronic signals

小题2:What did the scientists do to find out if the e-nose worked?

A．They fixed 13 sensors inside the device.

B．They presented it with all common crops.

C．They collected different damaged leaves.

D．They do tests on damaged and healthy leaves.

小题3:According to the writer, the most amazing thing about the e-nose is that it can ______.

A．pick out ripe fruits quite expertly

B．spot the insects in a very quick way

C．tell different damages to leaves

D．recognize unhealthy tomato leaves

小题4:We can infer from the last paragraph that the e-nose ______.

A．is unable to tell the smell of flowers

B．is not yet tested in greenhouses

C．is designed by scientists at Purdue

D．is helpful in killing harmful insects

答案

小题1:C
小题2:D
小题3:C
小题4:B

解析

植物会说话吗？植物如何"交流"？本文中的科学家们正在尝试用e-nose来测试植物受到伤害时的反应。
小题1:细节理解题。从文章第一段中的"Instead，plants produce volatile compounds，chemicals that..."可知，植物通过它本身所产生的一种化学物质来进行交流，所以答案选C。
小题2:推理判断题。从文章第五段可知，为了证实e-nose的效果，科学家用受到伤害的叶子与健康的叶子来测试。所以选D。
小题3:细节理解题。从倒数第二段中的"But even more impressive，the device could tell which type of damage..."可知，最令人惊奇的是e-nose能够分辨叶子受到的不同的"伤害"。
小题4:推理判断题。从文章最后一段中的"could one day be used in greenhouses to..."推断可知，e-nose还没有运用到greenhouses中，由此推断B是答案。