閱讀理解 B
If you've ever watched a dog sleep, you've probably wondered if animals dream. It's a difficult question. We still don't know exactly why humans dream, or why dreams might be important. Studying animal dreams is even harder.
Animal dreams might be very interesting. "I think dreaming gives us a way to relate many human cognitive abilities to animals, such as emotion, memory, and even imagination," says David M. Pena-Guzmán, who recently authored When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness.
We know monkeys have emotions, but consider spiders, which a recent study suggests may experience REM-like sleep and even dreams. The thought of spider dreams sounds outlandish, but it might be true.
"We have this idea of dreams being an imaginary process with something crazy in it," says Matthew Wilson, a neurobiologist at MIT. "But when we look into animal models, we're simply trying to understand what goes on during sleep that might influence learning, and behavior."
Cats were some of the first animals studied in dream research. Michel Jouvet, a pioneer of sleep studies, researched that cats dreamed in the 1960s.
In REM sleep, human muscles don't move much. The body doesn't act out our dreams no matter how real they seem. Jouvet learned that, in cats, a part of the brain called the pons seemed to control REM sleep and produce partial paralysis. By removing parts of the pons, Jouvet found with their brains deep in REM sleep the cats began moving as if awake, hunting, jumping and fighting against unseen threats. This provided a window into what was happening in the cats' sleeping brains.
"I wouldn't be surprised if actual dreams were found in animals, and I think finally we'll be able to show that scientifically," Stanford neurobiologist Philippe Mourrain says. "We're not the only species able to remember and learn."
5. What is the point of studying animal dreams?
A. To improve animals' sleeping quality.
B. To find a scientific way to raise animals.
C. To learn about animals' cognitive abilities.
D. To understand the importance of humans' dreams.
6. What does the underlined word "outlandish" mean in Paragraph 3?
A. Special.
B. Strange.
C. Meaningful.
D. Reasonable.
7. What can we learn from Michel Jouvet's research on cats' dreaming?
A. Cats dream in a way different from humans.
B. The pons is what keeps cats still in REM sleep.
C. Dreams have very little to do with cats' behavior.
D. Cats are more active in sleep than when they're awake.
8. What does Philippe Mourrain think of animal dreams?
A. They will be proved by further research.
B. They are more confusing than people think.
C. The present research is still far from satisfactory.
D. There is a long way to go before they're understood.
答案：5. C
解析：根據第二段“dreaming gives us a way to relate many human cognitive abilities to animals”可知，研究動物夢是為了了解動物的認知能力，選C。
6. B
解析：“spider dreams”（蜘蛛做夢）的想法聽起來很“奇怪”，與“but it might be true”形成轉折，“outlandish”意為“奇怪的”，選B。
7. B
解析：第六段提到“the pons seemed to control REM sleep and produce partial paralysis”，即腦橋使貓在REM睡眠時保持不動，選B。
8. A
解析：最后一段Philippe Mourrain說“finally we'll be able to show that scientifically”，表明他認為動物做夢會被進一步研究證實，選A。
