In the summer of 1978 an English farmer was driving his tractor through a field of wheat when he
discovered that some of his wheat was lying flat on the ground. The flattened wheat formed a circle
about six meters across. Around this circle were four smaller circles of flattened wheat. The five circles
were in a formation like five dots. During the following years, farmers in England found the strange
circles in their fields more and more often.
The circles are called "crop circles" because they appear in the fields of grain-usually wheat or corn.
The grain in the circles lies flat on the ground but is never broken; it continues to grow, and farmers can
later harvest it. Farmers always discover the crop circles in the morning, so the circles probably form
at night. They appear only in the months from May to September.
At first, people thought that the circles were a hoax. Probably young people were making them as
a joke, or farmers were making them to attract tourists. To prove that the circles were a hoax, people
tried to make circles exactly like the ones that farmers had found. They couldn't do it. They couldn't
enter a field of grain without leaving tracks, and they couldn't flatten the grain without breaking it.
Many people believe that beings from outer space are making the circles to communicate with us
from far away and that the crop circles are messages from them.
Scientists who have studied the crop circles suggested several possibilities. Some scientists say that
a downward rush of wind leads to the formation of the circles-the same downward rush of air that
sometimes causes an airplane to crash. Other scientists say that forces within the earth cause the circles
to appear. There is one problem with all these scientific explanations:crop circles often appear in
formations, like the five-dot formation. It is hard to believe that any natural force could form those.
1. In the summer of 1978, an English farmer discovered in his field that ________.
A. some of his wheat had been damaged
B. some of his wheat had fallen onto the ground
C. his grain was growing up in circles
D. his grain was moved into several circles
2. The underlined word "hoax" in Paragraph 3 is probably ________.
A. an attempt made to fool people
B. a special way to plant crops
C. an experiment for the protection of crops
D. a research on the force of winds
3. Which of the following may prove that the crop circles are not made by man?
A. The farmers couldn't step out of the field.
B. The farmers couldn't make the circles round.
C. The farmers couldn't leave without footprints.
D. The farmers couldn't keep the wheat straight up.
4. One explanation given by scientists for the crop circles is that they are made by ________.
A. airplane crashes
B. air movement
C. unknown flying objects
D. new farming techniques
