Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passages coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.When scientists accidentally killed 【小题1】turned out to be the world’s oldest living creature, it was bad enough. Now, their mistake has been worsened after further research found it was even older – at 507 years.
The ocean quahog, a type of deep-sea clam, was dredged (捕捞) alive from the bottom of the North Atlantic near Iceland in 2006 by researchers. They then put it in a fridge-freezer, 【小题2】is normal practice, unaware of 【小题3】age. It was only when it was taken to a laboratory 【小题4】scientists from Bangor University studied it and concluded it was 400 years old.
The discovery made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. However, by this time, it was too late for Ming the Mollusc(软体动物), 【小题5】(name) after the Chinese dynasty 【小题6】its life began. Unfortunately, researchers who calculated Ming’s age killed it instantly by opening its shell.
The researchers opened the ancient clam up to judge its age by counting growth rings inside. But the rings were so close together 【小题7】scientists ended up having to count the rings on the outside to be accurate, 【小题8】(lead) CBS journalists to point out that if scientists had just started there, Ming could have lived on. Now, after examining the quahog 【小题9】(closely), and 【小题10】(use) more advanced methods, the researchers have found the animal was actually 100 years older than they first thought.
Dr Paul Butler, from the University’s School of Ocean Sciences, said: “We got it wrong the first time and maybe we were a bit hasty publishing our findings back then. But we are absolutely certain that we’ve got the right age now.” The mollusc was born in 1499 – just seven years after Columbus discovered America and before Henry VIII had even married his first wife, Catherine of Aragon in 1509.
