2020托福听力练习：美国政府拟用无人机发射疫苗保护濒危雪貂（下载）-新东方网

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2020托福听力练习：美国政府拟用无人机发射疫苗保护濒危雪貂（下载）

2020-07-07 19:36

　　新东方网为大家带来2020托福听力练习：美国政府拟用无人机发射疫苗保护濒危雪貂（下载），希望对大家有所帮助!更多内容请随时关注新东方网!

　　A recent headline on the Web site theverge.com got a lot of attention on social media. Because each new phrase seemed to take the message in an unexpected direction. The headline read: U.S. government plans to use drones to fire vaccine-laced M&Ms near endangered ferrets.

　　Some background. Black-footed ferrets have been on the endangered species list since 1967. Only about 300 were known to be alive in the wild at the end of 2015. They tend to live in the Great Plains and the West. Because they love to eat prairie dogs, which tend to live in the Great Plains and the West. Unfortunately, prairie dogs often harbor fleas, and fleas can carry the plague. Yup, that plague, the so-called Black Death that killed millions in Europe in the 14th century.

　　So ferrets suffer when fleas cause a plague outbreak in prairie dogs, either because the ferrets also catch the disease or because the prairie dogs die and the ferrets go hungry. Officials have tried vaccinating individual ferrets and they've tried treating prairie-dog burrows with flea-killer. But neither method is particularly efficient.

　　And so the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is preparing a study for September in the UL Bend National Wildlife Refuge in Montana. The viral headline was incorrect about the M&Ms, but otherwise, yes, aerial drones will shoot vaccine-laced pellets designed to be irresistible to prairie dogs. The drone delivery system should quickly spread the vaccine-carrying goodies over a wide area so that lots of prairie dogs gobble them up—thus making the prairie dogs available to be gobbled up, safely, by the endangered ferrets.

　　And so everybody wins. Except for the prairie dogs that get eaten. And the Yersinia pestis bacteria that cause plague. Well, that's it for me, I've droned on long enough.

翻译见下页

　　Theverge.com网站最近的一条标题引起很多社交媒体的关注。原因是每一个新短语都好像将这条信息引往了一个意想不到的方向。标题写着：美国政府计划用无人机向濒危雪貂栖息地发射带有疫苗的M&Ms糖果。

　　背景介绍：黑足雪貂在1967年被列入濒危物种名单。截至2015年底，现存的野生黑足雪貂只有300只左右。黑足雪貂喜欢生活在美国大平原和美国西部地区。这是因为它们喜欢吃的草原犬鼠生活在美国大平原和西部地区。不幸的是，草原犬鼠通常会滋生跳蚤，并且跳蚤可能带有鼠疫。没错，被称为“黑死病”的鼠疫在14世纪导致欧洲数百万人死亡。

　　因此，当跳蚤导致鼠疫袭击草原犬鼠时，雪貂也会受到牵连，要么是因为雪貂也会染上鼠疫，要么是因为草原犬鼠的死亡导致雪貂挨饿。官员曾尝试给雪貂接种疫苗，也曾尝试往草原犬鼠的洞穴里喷洒杀蚤剂。但这两种方法都不是特别有效。

　　所以，美国鱼类和野生动物局正在为一项研究做准备，该研究将于9月在蒙大拿州国家野生动物保护区启动。那条轰动标题中有关M&Ms的部分是不正确的，不过除此以外，无人机的确将发射带有疫苗的糖果，这种糖果被设计成使草原犬鼠无法抗拒的美味。无人机输送系统应在广泛区域迅速播撒带有疫苗的糖果，让大量草原犬鼠食用，进而让濒危雪貂可以安全地捕食草原犬鼠。

　　这样大家都是赢家。当然，除了被吃掉的草原犬鼠和引发鼠疫的鼠疫耶尔森氏杆菌。好了，就是这些了，我已经讲了很长时间了。

　　重点讲解：

　　1. either...or... (表示在两者或多者中择其一)或者，要么;

　　例句：Either we will find a supply, or we will make the goods.

　　我们或是寻求供货，或者自己制造。

　　2. go hungry 挨饿;吃不饱;

　　例句：Leonidas' family had been poor, he went hungry for years.

　　利奥尼达斯家曾经很穷，他有很多年都吃不饱肚子。

　　3. gobble up 贪婪地吃;狼吞虎咽;

　　例句：There were dangerous beasts in the river that might gobble you up.

　　河里有吃人的危险动物。

　　4. except for 除了;除…之外;唯有;