2000年英语一阅读理解Text2

第一段

①Being a man has always been dangerous.②There are about 105 males born for every 100 females, but this ratio drops to near balance at the age of maturity, and among 70-year-olds there are twice as many women as men.③But the great universal of male mortality is being changed.④Now, boy babies survive almost as well as girls do.⑤This means that, for the first time, there will be an excess of boys in those crucial years when they are searching for a mate.⑥More important, another chance for natural selection has been removed.⑦Fifty years ago, the chance of a baby (particularly a boy baby) surviving depended on its weight. A kilogram too light or too heavy meant almost certain death.⑧Today it makes almost no difference.⑨Since much of the variation is due to genes, one more agent of evolution has gone.

单词&词组

1. ratio  n. 比率

2. maturity  n. 成年

3. universal n. 普遍特征

4. mortality  n. 死亡率

5. excess  n. ［仅用单数］过多，过量

6. crucial  a. 关键性的

7. remove  v. 使消失

8. particularly  ad. 尤其地

9. kilogram  n. 公斤

10. variation  n. 变化；变异

11. due to  由于；因……而产生

12. agent  n. 动因

13. evolution  n. 进化

14. there are twice as many A as B  A是B的两倍

15. boy/girl babies  男/女婴

16. natural selection  自然选择

17. depend on  取决于

18. makes almost no difference  几乎不会造成不同，几乎不起作用

翻译译文

身为男性总是危险的。新生儿男女比例约为105：100，但到了成年期，这一比例下降到几乎持平，在70岁的老年人中，女性人数则是男性的两倍。但是男性死亡率高这一普遍情形正在发生改变。如今，男婴存活率几乎同女婴一样高。这意味着到了男孩寻找伴侣的关键年龄，将首次出现男孩过剩现象。更重要的是，自然选择的另一次机会也已不复存在。50年前，婴儿（尤其是男婴）的存活机率取决于其体重。轻一公斤或重一公斤几乎意味着必死无疑。现在，体重几乎不起什么作用。因为婴儿体重差异很多情形下源于基因，所以又一个进化动因消失了。

第二段

①There is another way to commit evolutionary suicide: stay alive, but have fewer children.②Few people are as fertile as in the past.③Except in some religious communities, very few women have 15 children.④Nowadays the number of births, like the age of death, has become average.⑤Most of us have roughly the same number of offspring.⑥Again, differences between people and the opportunity for natural selection to take advantage of it have diminished.⑦India shows what is happening.⑧The country offers wealth for a few in the great cities and poverty for the remaining tribal peoples.⑨The grand mediocrity of today—everyone being the same in survival and number of offspring—means that natural selection has lost 80% of its power in upper-middle-class India compared to the tribes.

单词&词组

1. commit suicide  自杀

2. religious communities  宗教团体

3. fertile  a. 能生育的

4. roughly  ad. 大致，差不多

5. offspring  n. 子女

6. take advantage of  利用

7. diminish  v. 缩小，减少

8. wealth  n. 财富，富裕

9. poverty  n. 贫穷

10. tribal  a. 部落的

11. grand  a. 大规模的

12. mediocrity  n. 平凡；均一

13. compare to  与……相比

翻译译文

进化自杀还有另一种方法：活得更久，但少生孩子。现在，很少有人像过去那样具有旺盛的生育力。除了在一些宗教社群中，几乎没有女性能够生育15个孩子。如今生育的人数同死亡的年龄一样，已趋于平均化。我们多数人的子女数大致相同。又一次，人与人之间的差异和利用这种差异进行自然选择的机会都削弱了。印度的状况可以说明正在发生的一切。这个国家为大城市里的少数人提供财富，而给予其余的各部落民族以贫困。今天这种大规模的均一化一—每个人在存活机率和子女数量方面都相同——意味着与部落相比，自然选择在印度中上阶层已经失去了80%的效能。

第三段

真题原文：

①For us, this means that evolution is over; the biological Utopia has arrived.②Strangely, it has involved little physical change.③No other species fills so many places in nature.④But in the past 100, 000 years-even the past 100 years-our lives have been transformed but our bodies have not.⑤We did not evolve, because machines and society did it for us.⑥Darwin had a phrase to describe those ignorant of evolution: they “look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as at something wholly beyond his comprehension.”⑦No doubt we will remember a 20th century way of life beyond comprehension for its ugliness. ⑧But however amazed our descendants may be at how far from Utopia we were, they will look just like us.

单词&词组

1. Utopia  n. 乌托邦，理想的完美境界

2. involve  v. 牵涉，涉及

3. transform  v. 彻底改变

4. physical change  身体变化

5. ignorant of  对……无知

6. beyond one's comprehension  超出

7. no doubt  毫无疑问

8. evolve  v. 进化

9. ignorant  a. 无知的

10. savage  n. 未开化的人；野蛮人

11. wholly  ad. 完全地；全部地

12. comprehension  n. 理解（力）

13. ugliness  n. 丑陋

14. amazed  a. 惊讶的

15. descendant  n. 后代；后裔

翻译译文

对我们来说，这意味着进化已经结束；生物乌托邦已经来临。奇怪的是，这一过程几乎没有牵涉到人身体上的变化。在自然界没有其他哪种物种遍布如此多的地方。但在过去的10万年——甚至过去的100年中，我们的生活发生了变化，而我们的身体却没有改变。我们的确没有进化，因为机器和社会代替我们进化了。达尔文曾用一句话来描述那些对进化一无所知的人：他们“看有机生命体如同野人看船，好像看着某种完全超出其理解力的东西”。毫无疑问，我们在回顾20世纪的生活方式时，会因其丑陋不堪而无法理解。但是，不管我们的子孙后代有多么惊讶于乌托邦对我们的遥不可及，他们的模样与我们是一样的。

五道题

15. What used to be the danger in being a man according to the first paragraph?

A：A lack of mates.    

B：A fierce competition.

C：A lower survival rate.    

D：A defective gene.

16. What does the example of India illustrate?

A：Wealthy people tend to have fewer children than poor people.

B：Natural selection hardly works among the rich and the poor.

C：The middle class population is 80% smaller than that of the tribes.

D：India is one of the countries with a very high birth rate.

17. The author argues that our bodies have stopped evolving because     .

A：life has been improved by technological advance

B：the number of female babies has been declining

C：our species has reached the highest stage of evolution

D：the difference between wealth and poverty is disappearing

18. Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

A：Sex Ratio Changes in Human Evolution.

B：Ways of Continuing Man’s Evolution.

C：The Evolutionary Future of Nature.

D：Human Evolution Going Nowhere.

参考答案

CBAD

答案解析

15、第一段①句说明过去情形：身为男人充满危险。②句进而对“危险”进行阐释：新生儿男女比例105：100，到成年期男女数量达到平衡，到70岁时女性多于男性。从这个变化过程可以看出，男性存活率低于女性，c正确。

16、印度的例子为第二段⑦③④句，这三句共同论证上文观点：由于人们寿命和子女数的趋同，自然选择利用差异性发挥作用的机会削减。且例子本身表明；如今寿命和子女数的趋同使得自然选择在印度中上阶层(少数高人)中失去了相比部落（占大多数的穷人)的大部分优势，即：过去，财富差异对自然选择的影响相当大，但如今由于人们寿命和子女数趋同，财富差异虽依然存在、但已不在自然选择中产生明显影响。故[B]正确。

17、根据题干关键词our bodies定位到文章第三段④句，该句指出，我们的身体在过去很长一段时间没有改变。⑤句分析原因：机器和社会代替我们进化了。而机器的进化和社会的进步归根结底是科技水平的提高，故[A]正确。

18、通观全文，文章前两段分析指出自然选择作用于人类的多个因素已经消失。末段首句概括前文得出观点“人类的生物进化已经停滞”，随后进一步指出，但人类的社会进化一直进行且将继续进行。可见全文围绕“人类进化”展开，且表明“我们尚无法断言人类进化是否已经结束”，[D]正确。