Directions: In this part, you trill have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on the Answer Sheet. For questions 1-7, choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.
Bird Brains
Cracking Walnuts
The scene: a traffic light crossing on a university campus in Japan. Carrion crows and humans line up patiently, waiting for the traffic to halt. When the lights change, the birds hop in front of the cars and place walnuts, which they picked from the adjoining trees, on the road. After the lights turn green again, the birds fly away and vehicles drive over the nuts, cracking them open. Finally, when its time to cross again, the crows join the pedestrians and pick up their meal.
Biologists already knew the corvine family--it includes crows, ravens, rooks, magpies and jackdaws--to be among the smartest of all birds. But this remarkable piece of behavior would seem to be a particularly acute demonstration of bird intelligence. Researchers believe they probably noticed cars driving over nuts fallen from a walnut tree overhanging a road. The crows already knew about dropping clams from a height on the seashore to break them open, but found this did not work for walnuts because of their soft green outer shell.
Other birds do this, although not with quite the same precision. In the Dardia Mountains of Greece, eagles can be seen carrying tortoises up to a great height and dropping them on to rocks below.
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