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【阅读理解】Reading: The Silence at Point Calimere
The first sign was silence.
On 14 March 2019, Priya Raman, a 34-year-old field ecologist, stood on the observation deck of the Point Calimere observatory and waited for the evening flight.
Nothing came.
"Where are they?" she whispered to her assistant, a novice named Arjun.
He shrugged, binoculars hanging from his neck, and together they watched an empty sky turn the colour of weak tea.
Normally, this stretch of coast is a magnet for migratory birds.
Some 40,000 arrive each season, driven by an inborn compass that scientists still cannot fully define.
Priya had spent nine years charting their routes, funded by a modest government grant of 1.2 million rupees.
Her work was invaluable, though few outside her circle seemed to perceive its value.
Then the birds stopped coming.
Not entirely, but sporadically, in dwindling batches.
A census in 2020 recorded a 62 percent fall.
"It's not a niggle anymore," Priya told a colleague.
"It's a verdict."
The cause was not obvious.
Arjun, who was pursuing a doctorate in astronomy of all things, noticed something strange.
The birds, he said, seemed to be navigating by starlight rather than by landmarks.
That meant light pollution.
New hotels along the coast had multiplied, their exuberant displays burning all night.
Each bulb interfered with the faint glow that had guided these creatures for millennia.
"We built a wall of light," Priya said, "and we called it promotion."
Arjun calibrated his instruments and confirmed it: artificial glow had displaced the natural cue by up to 90 percent in some zones.
But the story twisted.
When Priya presented her findings to the local council, a developer named Mr. Sen pushed back hard.
"Your data is preliminary," he said, arms folded.
"Tourism employs 3,000 people here.
Are you asking us to choose birds over families?"
The room went quiet.
Priya felt her frustration wax into something colder.
She had no vested interest in conflict, yet she could not ignore the casualty: a coastal economy that had prospered precisely because of the birds was now, in a bitter irony, destroying them.
The council approved the hotels anyway.
By 2022, the fallout was undeniable.
Unemployment among local fishermen rose by 18 percent as fish stocks shifted.
The tourism board, once eager to cater to birdwatchers, saw bookings plummet.
Priya, exhausted and overweight from years of desk work, took a leave of absence.
She spent three months in a remote village, living on a modest subscription to a research newsletter, trying to recover her sense of purpose.
The birds, she realized, had been a kind of antidote to her own disillusion.
Without them, something in her had gone stagnant.
In early 2023, Arjun called with news.
A small flock had returned to the old inlet.
"Only 200," he said.
"But they're here."
Priya drove through the night, arriving at dawn.
She stood on the same deck where she had once felt so lost.
The sky, pale and tender, showed no grand consolation.
Just a thin line of wings, moving north.
She raised her binoculars and watched until they vanished, then lowered them slowly, unsure whether this was a beginning or a remnant of something already gone.
Questions
1. What happened to the migratory bird population at Point Calimere by 2020?
A. It increased by 40,000 birds. B. It remained stable. C. It fell by 62 percent. D. It fell by 18 percent.
2. What did Arjun discover about the birds' navigation?
A. They used landmarks instead of starlight. B. They followed fish stocks along the coast. C. They relied on starlight, which was affected by light pollution. D. They were guided by the hotels' bright lights.
3. What does the word "exuberant" most nearly mean in the passage?
A. Dim and faint B. Lively and plentiful C. Cheap and simple D. Old and traditional
4. What can be inferred about the decision to approve the hotels?
A. It was supported by local fishermen. B. It was based on Priya's preliminary data. C. It led to an immediate increase in tourism bookings. D. It prioritized economic benefits over environmental concerns.
5. Which of the following best summarizes the passage?
A. The history of the Point Calimere observatory. B. The life of a fisherman in a coastal village. C. A scientist's struggle against light pollution and its impact on migratory birds. D. The economic benefits of tourism in Point Calimere.