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Pigeons in London have a bad reputation. Some people call them flying rats. And many blame them for causing pollution with their droppings. But now the birds are being used to fight another kind of pollution in this city of 8. 5 million.
“The problem for air pollution is that it’s been largely ignored as an issue for a long time, ” says Andrea Lee, who works for the London-based environmental organization Client Earth. “People don’t realize how bad it is, and how it actually affects their health. London’s poor air quality is linked to nearly 10, 000 early deaths a year. ” Lee says, citing(引用) a report released by the city manager last year. If people were better informed about the pollution they’re breathing, she says, they could pressure the government to do something about it.
Nearby, on a windy hill in London’s Regent’s Park, an experiment is underway that could help—the first week of flights by the Pigeon Air Patrol. It all began when Pierre Duquesnoy, the director for DigitasLBi, a marketing firm, won a London Design Festival contest last year to show how a world problem could be solved using Twitter. Duquesnoy, from France, chose the problem of air pollution.
“Basically, I realized how important the problem was, ” he says. “But also I realized that most of the people around me didn’t know anything about it. ” Duquesnoy says he wants to better measure pollution, while at the same time making the results accessible to the public through Twitter.
“So”, he wondered, “how could we go across the city quickly collecting as much data as possible?” Drones were his first thought. But it’s illegal to fly them over London. “But pigeons can fly above London, right?” he says. “They live—actually, they are Londoners as well. So, yeah, I thought about using pigeons equipped with mobile apps. And we can use not just street pigeons, but racing pigeons, because they fly pretty quickly and pretty low. ”
So it might be time for Londoners to have more respect for their pigeons. The birds may just be helping to improve the quality of the city’s air.
【文章大意】文章介绍了一个用鸽子监测伦敦空气质量的创意。
1. What can we infer about London’s air quality from Paragraph 2?
A. Londoners are very satisfied with it.
B. The government is trying to improve it.
C. Londoners should pay more attention to it.
D. The government has done a lot to improve it.
【解析】选C。推理判断题。根据第二段中“The problem for air pollution is that it’s been largely ignored as an issue for a long time, ” 以及People don’t realize how bad it is, and how it actually affects their health. 由此推断出, 伦敦人应该更关注伦敦的空气质量, 故选C。
2. Duquesnoy attended the London Design Festival to _______.
A. entertain Londoners
B. solve a world problem
C. design a product for sale
D. protect animals like pigeons
【解析】选B。细节理解题。根据第三段中It all began when Pierre Duquesnoy, the director for DigitasLBi, a marketing firm, won a London Design Festival contest last year to show how a world problem could be solved using Twitter. 可知, Duquesnoy参加伦敦设计节是为了解决一个世界性的问题, 故选B。
3. Why did Duquesnoy give up using drones to fly across London?
A. Because they are too expensive.
B. Because they fly too quickly.
C. Because they are forbidden.
D. Because they fly too high.
【解析】选C。细节理解题。根据第五段中But it’s illegal to fly them over London. 由此可知, 最初, Duquesnoy想用无人机飞越伦敦监测空气质量, 但是因为市内禁止无人机飞行, 所以他放弃了这个想法, 故选C。
4. Which can be the best title for the text?
A. Clean air in London
B. London’s dirty secret
C. London’s new pollution fighter
D. Causes of air pollution in London
【解析】选C。主旨大意题。根据第一段中But now the birds are being used to fight another kind of pollution in this city of 8. 5 million. 和最后一段So it might be time for Londoners to have more respect for their pigeons. The birds may just be helping to improve the quality of the city’s air. 可知, 这篇文章主要讲了Duquesnoy用鸽子监测伦敦空气质量, 引起人们关注空气污染, 鸽子成了伦敦新的环保战士, 故选C。
