UNIT 2 课时检测（二）“Reading and Thinking”的课文习读环节（word练习）-【新课程学案】新教材2023-2024学年高中英语必修2 （人教版2019）

5 / 5 UNIT 2 课时检测（二） “Reading and Thinking” 的课文习读环节 Ⅰ.阅读理解 A More than 500 of the world's smallest penguins have been mysteriously washed up dead on beaches across New Zealand over the past couple of months. Experts aren't exactly sure what has been killing off such a large number of the cute seabirds, but they suspect that climate change may have played a role. It was not immediately clear what killed the penguins, but experts have noted that most of the dead seabirds were significantly underweight. Little penguins should weigh between 1.8 and 2.2 pounds, but some of the bodies weighed less than half that much. “There was just no body fat on them; there was hardly any muscle to show，” Graeme Taylor, a seabird scientist, told The Guardian. “When they get to that stage of emaciation (消瘦), they can't dive, which eventually causes them to starve or die of hypothermia (体温过低) because they lack a protective layer of blubber (鲸脂)．” he added. The malnourishment of the dead penguins shows that they have not been eating enough fish, their favorite food, which could be a sign of overfishing by humans. But Taylor suspects that rising ocean surface temperatures caused by global warming have forced the fish into deeper and cooler waters, where the birds can no longer reach them.“These little penguins can dive down to 20 or 30 meters, but they are not good at diving a lot deeper than that.” Taylor said. This idea could explain why little penguins from New Zealand's South Island haven't been affected, because the waters there have remained much cooler near the surface than waters farther north. “This is not the first time little penguins have died in large numbers in New Zealand. Die-offs of hundreds of little penguins have occurred about once every decade. However, this is the third time that a die-off has happened in the past 10 years, which is not a good sign.” Taylor said. “As you start seeing it happen regularly like this, then there's really not much chance for the bir