Đề thi thử THPT Quốc gia môn Tiếng Anh năm 2015 đợt 10

GEESE 

The name geese is used for birds belonging to one family called Anatidae. They include swans and ducks. However, there are two types of geese that people are acquainted with. These are gray geese from the Anser family and black geese from the Branta family. Geese are found in Europe, Asia and North America. They are migratory birds that breed in the north and go south for the winter. 

Geese are generally the same wherever they may be found. They have a tail, head and neck that are black. The cheeks have a white patch and the body is white and various shades of brown. Their length varies from about 25 to 45 inches. Male and female geese look very much alike, although the male may be slightly bigger and have a higher-pitched voice. 

Geese are more land birds than water birds. Their legs are farther up front on their bodies than those of ducks. This makes it easier for them to walk on land. They get their food by grazing grasses and grain in the spring field. A flock of geese can make a lot of noise, especially when a stranger comes near. 

The most unusual thing about geese is their behavior to imprint. When a baby goose is born, it believes that it is the same species as any moving object it first sees. [66A] Thus, if it sees a human being first, it will believe that it is also a human. Scientists do not know why imprinting happens. [66B] Imprinting allows the formation of a strong bond between the hatchling and the parent or whoever the young bird sees. Geese that imprint a human being at birth treat the human like a parent when young, and as the geese grow older they may not try to mate with the other geese. [66C] Hence , it is important for fanners or other people living with geese 4 to make sure that the first living thing a baby goose sees is another goose. The capacity to imprint can also be seen in ducks, but animals such as cats and dogs do not imprint. Although they are born and see a human being first, they know immediately that they are not humans. [66D] 

The pleasures which a movie film offers to our eyes have been paid for with the loss of sight of a man whose name is hardly known outside the annals of science - Josept Plateau, a Belgian professor, born in Brussels in 1801. He studied the mechanism of sight, beginning a series of most dangerous experiments at the age of 28 by staring into the sun for 25 seconds to see what the effects on his eyes would be, he was blind for nearly a month. But he went on experimenting, increasing the length of time during which he looked into the sun, knowing that in the end, this would cost him his sight. At the age of 42, he was completely and incurably blind; the sun had destroyed the retina of his eyes. But he continued to work as well as he could until he died at the age of 82. Science profited enormously from his research. He studied the so-called inertia of the eyes, which makes a picture remain on the retina for about one-sixth of a second after it has disappeared from our vision. This means that, if we see a succession of individual pictures each of which appears only for a fraction of a second, they “overlap” one another in our brain; and if they show consecutive phases of movement, that movement will appear to us continuous.