ВСЕРОССИЙСКАЯ ОЛИМПИАДА ШКОЛЬНИКОВ ПО АНГЛИЙСКОМУ ЯЗЫКУ 2021 г.
ВСЕРОССИЙСКАЯ ОЛИМПИАДА ШКОЛЬНИКОВ ПО АНГЛИЙСКОМУ ЯЗЫКУ 2021 г. МУНИЦИПАЛЬНЫЙ ЭТАП. 9 КЛАСС Time: 30 min Task 1. You are going to read an article about dolphin’s memory skills. Ten sentences have been removed. Choose from the sentences given (A-K) the one which fits each gap. There is one sentence which you do not need to use. Dolphins intelligence fuels discovery Could you recognize a childhood friend you hadn't seen or spoken to in 20 years, just by their voice? Most people would find it difficult, at the very least. That is, unless we're talking about the recently-dubbed "non-human people" - dolphins. 1 … . This kind of memory surpasses the recognition abilities of elephants, monkeys and other intelligent animals. A study published today shows how these animals possess a truly remarkable social memory. 2 … . The researchers demonstrated that the animals easily remembered the 'names' and voices of others they hadn't heard in more than 20 years. Their findings indicate that the social memory skills of dolphins are truly amazing, perhaps even exceeding the ability of people to remember faces. Early in its life every dolphin develops a signature call. 3 … .Whereas these may alter considerably as people age, a dolphin’s call remains unchanged throughout its life. To establish how well dolphins could remember their former companions, Dr Bruck collected data from 43 different bottlenose dolphins at six facilities. He played recordings of signature whistles to dolphins that had once lived with the animals that made the calls. 4 … . “When they hear a dolphin they know, they often quickly approach the speaker playing the recording,” says Dr Bruck. The kind of study can only be done in captive groups where scientists can know exactly how long the animals have been together. The University of Chicago’s study involved recording the signature calls of the dolphins in different locations including the Brookfield Zoo near Chicago and Dolphin Quest in Bermuda. 5 … . To attempt a similar study in the wild would be impossible because evidence of whether two dolphins knew each other could never be obtained. In one notable example, Dr Bruck played a recording of a female dolphin named Allie, who currently lives at the Brookfield Zoo, for Bailey, a female now in Bermuda. 6 … . But 20 years and six months after their last contact, Bailey still recognized the recording of Allie’s signature whistle. 7 … . That kind of performance after decades apart was typical, leading Dr Bruck to conclude that dolphins maintain lifelong memories of each others’ whistles. However, the researchers can’t give the exact answer why dolphins need this kind of memory. In the open ocean, dolphins may break apart from one group and “fuse” with other groups many times over. 8 … . Such relationships could have required a growth in memory capacity. Another big question this study raises is how similar dolphins’ signature calls are to human words and names. So far no one has been able to test signature whistles in a dolphin’s mind. “We know they use these signatures like names, but we don’t know if the name stands for something in their minds the way a person’s name does for us. 9 … .”, admits Dr Bruck. For the next round of research, the scientists’ goal is to show whether the call represents something similar to a person’s name for humans. The findings of the University of Chicago have been supported by researchers at the University of St. Andrews in the UK, who suggest there are strong parallels between dolphin and human social recognition. 10 … . In other words scientists have yet to establish if the mental processes of a dolphin are like those of human beings.