阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从1~15各题所给的A、B、C和D项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

Number sense is not the ability to count. It is the ability to recognize a   1   in number. Human beings are born with this ability.   2  , experiments show that many animals are, too. For example, many birds have good number sense. If a nest has four eggs and you remove one, the bird will not   3  . However, if you remove two, the bird   4   leaves. This means that the bird knows the   5   between two and three.

Another interesting experiment showed a bird’s   6   number sense. A man was trying to take a photo of a crow (乌鸦) that had a nest in a tower, but the crow always left when she saw him coming. The bird did not   7   until the man left the tower. The man had an   8  . He took another man with him to the tower. One man left and the other stayed, but they did not  9   the bird. The crow stayed away until the second man left, too. The experiment was   10   with three men and then with four men. But the crow did not return to the nest until all the men were   11  . It was not until five men went into the tower and only four left that they were   12   able to fool the crow.

How good is a human’s number sense? It’s not very good. For example, babies about fourteen months old almost always notice if something is taken away from a   13   group. But when the number goes beyond three or four, the children are   14   fooled.

It seems that number sense is something we have in common with many animals in this world, and that our human   15   is not much better than a crow’s.

1. A. rise                 B. pattern                 C. change                   D. trend

2. A. Importantly       B. Surprisingly             C. Disappointedly          D. Fortunately

3. A. survive           B. care                       C. hatch                      D. notice

4. A. generally         B. sincerely                C. casually                  D. deliberately

5. A. distance          B. range                      C. difference                D. interval

6. A. amazing           B. annoying               C. satisfying                 D. disturbing

7. A. relax                B. recover                   C. react                       D. return

8. A. appointment    B. excuse                     C. idea                        D. explanation

9. A. fool                 B. hurt                       C. catch                      D. kill

10. A. reported            B. repeated                  C. designed                  D. approved

11. A. confused          B. gone                       C. tired                              D. drunk

12. A. gradually         B. luckily                    C. strangely                 D. finally

13. A. single               B. small                      C. local                       D. new

14. A. seldom             B. temporarily              C. merely                    D. often

15. A. sight                B. nature                     C. ability                    D. belief