阅读理解。
The dinosaurs suddenly died out. What happened to them? Scientists thought that a change in temperature
may be the reason. They have come up with lots of ideas to explain the end of the dinosaurs.
The most famous one is the minor planet (小行星) idea. Everything Was OK before a large minor planet
suddenly hit the earth. What a terrible hit! It caused big fires, storms, acid rain, and even earthquakes and
volcano eruptions. The hit produced a lot of dust, which flew up into the air and blocked the sun for months.
The earth became very cold without sunlight. The plants died first. Then the grass-eating animals died of
hunger. Then the meat-eating animals could not find food either. They began to eat each other, but after a
while they died out too. The dinosaurs, either plant-eaters or meat-eaters, did not live through the disaster (灾
难). What a sad story!
In April, a British scientist thought of a new idea about the death of the dinosaurs. He thinks that after the
minor planet hit the earth, the temperature change left more dinosaur boys than girls! Without enough female
dinosaurs to hatch (孵) the eggs, the dinosaur population be-came smaller and smaller.
1. _____ may be the main reason for the dinosaurs dying out according to scientists.
A. Earthquakes
B. Big fires
C. Temperature change
2. The passage mentioned _____ ideas that the scientists came up with about the end of the dinosaurs.
A. two
B. three
C. four
3. The underlined expression "volcano eruptions" probably is _____.
A. the name of a minor planet
B. one kind of dinosaurs
C. one kind of disaster
4. The earth became cold because _____.
A. the sun refused to rise
B. the dust kept the sunlight away
C. there's too much rain
5. This passage may be found in _____.
A. a science fiction
B. a science magazine
C. a story book
