B2Reading and Use of EnglishParte 6
Gapped text
You are going to read an article. Six sentences have been removed from the article. Choose from the sentences A-G the one which fits each gap (1-6). There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.
Whenever Dr Helen Achebe walks across the university campus wearing a rubber mask of an old man’s face, the crows in the trees above start to call loudly and dive towards her head. When she takes the mask off, they lose interest almost immediately.
Five years ago, as part of a study on bird behaviour, Achebe and her team caught a small number of crows, put rings on their legs and then released them, unharmed. While doing this, each researcher wore the same mask of an old man.
Other researchers walked around wearing a different mask, one that had never been seen near a trapped bird, and the crows ignored them completely.
The masks were chosen with care. Neither face looked like anyone who worked on the campus, and to make the test fair, volunteers wore them on the same routes at the same times of day. They were asked to walk calmly and not to look up at the birds.
The real surprise came later. The team had expected only the crows that had actually been caught to remember the mask.
Within a few years, the number of crows that shouted at the “dangerous” face had more than doubled, and many of them were young birds that had not even been born at the time of the trapping. Some of the angriest birds lived more than a kilometre from where the trapping had taken place.
Achebe believes the young crows learnt by watching their parents and neighbours.
It is a useful skill for an animal that lives close to humans, since some people feed crows while others chase them away, or worse. A bird that can tell the difference between the two has a much better chance of staying safe and well fed.
Of course, the experiment has had some uncomfortable consequences for the scientists.
Achebe now wears a hat when she crosses the campus, and one of her former students says she is still scolded by crows when she visits, years after she last trapped a bird. Achebe takes it all in good humour. “It’s a small price to pay,” she says, “for finding out how much these birds understand.”
The research has changed the way many people think about crows.
Achebe is not surprised by any of these stories. “People see crows as pests,” she says. “But they’re watching us just as carefully as we’re watching them. Probably more carefully.”
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