Many people believe the glare from snow causes snow-blindness. Yet, dark glasses or not , they find themselves suffering from headaches and watering eyes, and even snow-blindness, when exposed to several hours of “snow light”. The United States Army has now determined that glare from snow does not cause snow-blindness in troops in a snow-covered country. Rather, a man's eyes frequently find nothing to focus on in a broad expanse of barren (少植被的) snow-covered terrain (地形). So his gaze continually shifts and jumps back and forth over the entire landscape in search of something to look at. Finding nothing, hour after hour, the eyes never stop searching and the eyeballs become sore and the eye muscles ache. Nature eases this irritation by producing more fluid which covers the eyeball. The fluid covers the eyeball in increasing quantity until vision blurs (模糊), then is obscured (遮蔽), and the result is total, even though temporary, snow-blindness.
Experiments led the Army to a simple method of overcoming this problem. Scouts ahead of a main body of troops are trained to shake snow from evergreen bushes, creating a dotted line as they cross completely snow-covered landscape. Even the scouts themselves throw lightweight, dark colored objects ahead on which they too can focus. The men following can then see something. Their gaze is arrested. Their eyes focus on a bush and having found something to see, stop scouring the snow-blanketed landscape. By focusing their attention on one object at a time, the men can cross the snow without becoming hopelessly snow-blind or lost. In this way the problem of crossing a solid white terrain is overcome.
1. To prevent headaches, watering eyes and blindness caused by the glare from snow, dark
glasses are _________.
A. indispensable and essential B. useful C. ineffective D. available
2. When the eyes are sore tears are produced to _________.
A. balance the pain B. treat snow-blindness
C. clear the vision D. loosen the muscles
3. Snow-blindness may be avoided by _________.
A. concentrating on the solid white terrain
B. searching for something to look at in snow-covered terrain
C. providing the eyes with something to focus on
D. covering the eyeballs with more fluid
4. The scouts shake snow from evergreen bushes in order to _________.
A. prevent the men behind losing their way
B. beautify the landscape of the terrain
C. warm themselves in the severe cold
D. give the men behind something to see
5. A suitable title for this passage would be _________.
A. nature's cure for snow-blindness B. snow-blindness and how to overcome it
C. soldiers marching in the snow D. snow vision and its effect on eyesight