Part IV Cloze (10%)

Directions: There are 20 blanks in the following passage, and for each blank there are 4 choices marked A, B, C and D at the end of the passage. You should choose ONE answer that best fits into the passage. Then blacken the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet.

   The mysterious tiger has been a symbol of power and strength for centuries. Its power is a 56  to hunters, 57  have tried to kill it to prove their own skill and  58 . In India 59  the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, large parties of  60  from around the world  61  go out on huge tiger hunts. Hundreds’ of tigers could be killed in a few weeks. As a  62  of this over-hunting,  63  with loss of habitat (栖息地), the population of tigers in India dropped from about 40,000  64  the turn of the twentieth century to about 2,000 by 1972.

    With the help of India and other concerned countries, the World Wildlife Fund  65  Operation Tiger in 1972 to save the tiger  66 dying out. Since then, seventeen tiger preserves (保护区) have been  67  , and the tiger population in India has risen to  68  4,000 and 5,000.

   But when people live on the  69  of the tiger preserves, tigers sometimes kill their farm animals and attack people --about 600 people in India have been killed by tigers in the last dozen years. 70  tigers do not eat humans. But “old, wounded and homeless” tigers can become habitual (习惯的) man-eaters. In one area in India, villagers have  71 a clever solution. They wire lifelike human dummies (假人) to  electricity  72  the tigers get a(n) 73 shock when they attack. It is hoped that in this way tigers will learn to  74  people. But the conflict between human and tiger 75 . Only if people have enough food, shelter and fuel will the tiger survive in the long run. And only if the tiger and its forest survive will people have a natural world they can return to.