2008年Text 3

　　In the early 1960s Wilt Chamberlain was one of only three players in the National Basketball Association (NBA) listed at over seven feet. If he had played last season, however, he would have been one of 42. The bodies playing major professional sports have changed dramatically over the years, and managers have been more than willing to adjust team uniforms to fit the growing numbers of bigger, longer frames.

　　The trend in sports, though, may be obscuring an unrecognized reality: Americans have generally stopped growing. Though typically about two inches taller now than 140 years ago, today's people- especially those born to families who have lived in the U.S. for many generations- apparently reached their limit in the early 1960s. And they aren't likely to get any taller. "In the general population today, at this genetic, environmental level, we've pretty much gone as far as we can go," says anthropologist William Cameron Chumlea of Wright State University. In the case of NBA players, their increase in height appears to result from the increasingly common practice of recruiting players from all over the world.

　　Growth, which rarely continues beyond the age of 20, demands calories and nutrients - notably, protein - to feed expanding tissues. At the start of the 20th century, under-nutrition and childhood infections got in the way. But as diet and health improved, children and adolescents have, on average, increased in height by about an inch and a half every 20 years, a pattern known as the secular trend in height. Yet according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, average height- 5′9〞 for men, 5′4〞for women- hasn't really changed since 1960.

　　Genetically speaking, there are advantages to avoiding substantial height. During childbirth, larger babies have more difficulty passing through the birth canal. Moreover, even though humans have been upright for millions of years, our feet and back continue to struggle with bipedal posture and cannot easily withstand repeated strain imposed by oversize limbs. "There are some real constraints that are set by the genetic architecture of the individual organism," says anthropologist William Leonard of Northwestern University.

　　Genetic maximums can change, but don't expect this to happen soon. Claire C. Gordon, senior anthropologist at the Army Research Center in Natick, Mass., ensures that 90 percent of the uniforms and workstations fit recruits without alteration. She says that, unlike those for basketball, the length of military uniforms has not changed for some time. And if you need to predict human height in the near future to design a piece of equipment, Gordon says that by and large, "you could use today's data and feel fairly confident."

　　35. The text intends to tell us that

　　[A] the change of human height follows a cyclic pattern.

　　[B] human height is becoming even more predictable.

　　[C] Americans have reached their genetic growth limit.

　　[D] the genetic pattern of Americans has altered.

　　[答案] C

　　[解題思路]

　　縱觀全文，主要談論的是美國人的身高問題。A和B選項涉及了整個人類的身高問題，過于寬泛，可以首先排除。而D選項的表述則與原文最后一段相反，因為最后一段的第一句話指出"Genetic maximums can change, but don't expect this to happen soon"( 基因的最大值可以改變，但是不要期望它們會很快地改變)，因此基因模型還沒有改變，D選項錯誤。而C選項與文章從第二段開始討論的主題比較契合。

　　[題目譯文]

　　本文想要告訴我們的是

　　[A] 人類身高的改變遵循一個循環的模型

　　[B] 人類身高變得更有可預測性

　　[C] 美國人達到了基因上的生長極限

　　[D]美國人的基因模型已經改變

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