Preparing for final exams Reading Read the article about animals and natural disasters. Some parts are missing. Choose the correct part (A–K) for each gap (1–8). There are two extra parts that you should not use. Write your answers in the boxes provided. The first one (0) has been done for you. TASK 1 Are animals better at predicting natural disasters? The great Asian tsunami on 26 December 2004 took people living in the area completely by surprise, yet many animals escaped the disaster. Elephants in Sri Lanka and Sumatra moved to high ground before the giant waves struck; they did the same in Thailand, trumpeting before they did so. According to a villager in Bang Koey, Thailand, a herd of buffalo were grazing by the beach when they “suddenly lifted their heads and looked out to sea, ears standing upright.” They then promptly turned and stampeded up the hill, (0) . Similar reactions were observed elsewhere. At Ao Sane beach, near Phuket, dogs ran up to the hilltops, and at Galle in Sri Lanka, dog owners were puzzled by the fact that their animals refused to go for their usual morning walk on the beach. In Cuddalore District in South India, buffalo, goats and dogs escaped, (1) . How did they know? The usual speculation is that the animals picked up tremors preceding the tsunami. This explanation seems unconvincing, however, (2) . They would not have taken place in the coastal areas alone. And if animals can predict earthquake-related disasters by sensing slight tremors, why can’t seismologists? Animals seem to know when other kinds of calamities are about to strike, for example before earthquakes in Kobe, Japan and Assisi, Italy. In all these cases there were many reports of wild and domesticated animals (3) . The same is true of the 1999 earthquake in Turkey, with its epicentre near Izmit. Dogs were howling for hours before the earthquake, and many cats and birds were behaving unusually. On 28 February 2001, a 6.8-magnitude quake struck the Seattle area, and once again animals behaved unusually beforehand. Some cats were said (4) . Others were behaving in an anxious way, or ‘freaking out’ an hour or two before; some dogs were barking ‘frantically’ before the earthquake struck; and goats and other animals were showing obvious signs of fear. No one knows how some animals sense earthquakes coming. Perhaps they pick up subtle sounds or vibrations in the earth; maybe they respond to subterranean gases released prior to earthquakes or react to changes in the Earth’s electrical field. They may even sense in advance what is about to happen in a way that (5) . Unusual animal behaviour also occurs before avalanches. On 23 February 1999, an avalanche devastated the Austrian village of Galtur in the Tyrol, killing dozens of people. The previous day, the chamois (small goat-like antelopes native to Europe) came down from the mountains into the valleys, (6) . Through surveys in alpine villages in Austria and Switzerland, it was found that these animals are the most likely to anticipate avalanches, along with ibexes and dogs. 178 178 Reading 185 Listening 189 Writing 190 Speaking 237 Key Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Ver ags öbv
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODE3MDE=