Question

[Lê Quỳnh Anh]

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, 8, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 36 to 42.

Many ants forage across the countryside in large numbers and undertake mass migrations; these activities proceed because one ant lays a trail on the ground for the others to follow. As a worker ant returns home after finding a source of food, it marks the route by intermittently touching its stinger to the ground and depositing a tiny amount of trail pheromone - a mixture of chemicals that delivers diverse messages as the context changes. These trails incorporate no directional information and may be followed by other ants in either direction.

Unlike some other messages, such as the one arising from a dead ant, a food trail has to be kept secret from members of other species. It is not surprising then that ant species use a wide variety of compounds as trail pheromones. Ants can be extremely sensitive to these signals. Investigators working with the trail pheromone of the leafcutter ant Atta texana calculated that one milligram of this substance would suffice to lead a column of ants three times around Earth.

The vapor of the evaporating pheromone over the trail guides an ant along the way, and the ant detects this signal with receptors in its antennae. A trail pheromone will evaporate to furnish the highest concentration of vapor right over the trail, in what is called a vapor space. In following the trail, the ant moves to the right and left, oscillating from side to side across the line of the trail itself, bringing first one and then the other antenna into the vapor space. As the ant moves to the right, its left antenna arrives in the vapor space.

The signal it receives causes it to swing to the left, and the ant then pursues this new course until its right antenna reaches the vapor space. It then swings back to the right, and so weaves back and forth down the trail.

Question 37: The word "intermittently" in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to _____.

A. roughly

B. incorrectly

C. rapidly

D. periodically

Answer 1

[Dương Hoàn Anh]

Đáp án D

Từ “in termittenfly” ở đoạn 1 có ý nghĩa gần nhất với ________.

A. roughly (adv): thô                                              B. incorrectly (adv): không đúng

C. rapidly (adv): nhanh                                           D. periodically (adv): định kỳ

Căn cứ vào ngữ cảnh của câu:

“As a worker ant returns home after finding a source of food, it marks the route by intermittently touching its stinger to the ground and depositing a tiny amount of trail pheromone - a mixture of chemicals that delivers diverse messages as the context changes." (Khi một con kiến thợ trở về nhà sau khi tìm ra nguồn thức ăn, nó đánh dấu đường đi bằng chạm ngòi của nó ngắt quãng trên mặt đất và để một lượng pheromone nhỏ - một hỗn hợp các chất hóa học cung ứng các thông điệp đa dạng khi bối cảnh thay đổi)

=> “intermittently” ~ periodically: ngắt quãng, định kỳ