Being a man has always been dangerous. There 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. But the great universal of male mortality is being changed. Now, by babies survive almost as well as girls do. This means that, for the first time, there will be an excess of boys in those crucial years when they are searching for a mate. More important, another chance for natural selection has been removed. Fifty 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. Today it makes almost no difference. Since much of the variation is due to genes one more agent of evolution has gone.

There is another way to commit evolutionary suicide: stay alive, but have fewer children. Few people are as fertile as in the past. Except in some religious communities, very few women has 15 children. Nowadays the number of births, like the age of death, has become average. Most of us have roughly the same number of offspring. Again, differences between people and the opportunity for natural selection to take advantage of it have diminished. India shows what is happening. The country offers wealth for a few in the great cities and poverty for the remaining tribal peoples. The 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.

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

55. 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.

[答案] C

[解題思路]

本題對應信息在文章第一段，其中第一段前兩句說道"Being a man has always been dangerous. There 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"（做男人總是充滿危險，出生時男女比例大約是105:100，但到了成熟期，這一比例幾乎持平，而在70歲的老人中女性的人數是男性的兩倍），說明男人存活下來的幾率低于女人，因此C為正確答案。A選項的問題是現在的一個問題，但題中"used to be"指過去的情況，因此A選項錯誤。B和D選項在原文中沒有提及。

[題目譯文]

根據文章第一段，在過去，作為男人的一個危險是什么？
[A] 缺乏配偶
[B] 激烈的競爭
[C] 存活率較低
[D] 缺損的基因

56. 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.

[答案] B

[解題思路]

關于印度的例子出現在文章第二段的最后三句話"India shows what is happening. The country offers wealth for a few in the great cities and poverty for the remaining tribal peoples. The 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"（印度的現狀可以說明正在發生的一切。這個國家給大城市里的少數人提供財富，而留給其余的各部落民族都是貧困。今天這種極其顯著的平均化--每個人的生存機會和子女數量都相同--意味著與部落相比較，自然選擇在印度中上層已經失去了80％的作用）。瀏覽幾個選項就可以發現B選項對引文最后半句"natural selection has lost 80% of its power in upper-middle-class India compared to the tribes"的同義說明，因而是正確選項。A選項的表述在原文中沒有對應信息，因而可以排除。C選項對80%這個數據的使用與原文意思相反，且選項中的middle class population與原文中的upper-middle-class India意思也有出入。D選項沒有在原文中出現，可以排除。

[題目譯文]

印度的例子說明了什么？
[A] 富人總是比窮人生孩子少。
[B] 自然選擇在富人和窮人之間并不起作用。
[C] 中產階級人口比布羅人口少了80%。
[D] 印度是出生率很高的國家之一。

57. 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

[答案] A

[解題思路]

從題干中的stopped evolving我們可以定為到原文最后一段的第五句話"We did not evolve, because machines and society did it for us"（我們沒有進化，因為機器和社會替我們辦了這一切），其中machines and society即與A選項中的technological advance向呼應，即科技極大地提高了人們的生活質量，以至于我們的身體已經停止了進化。B和D選項都與這道題討論的evolution話題無關，可輕松排除。C選項的表述過于絕對，從最后一段的最后一句話"But however amazed our descendants may be at how far from Utopia we were, they will look just like us"（但是，不管我們的子孫后代對我們離烏托邦的理想境界之遙遠感到有多么驚訝，他們的長相將會跟我們差不了多少）可以看出是否停止進化尚無定論。

[題目譯文]

作者認為我們的身體停止了進化的原因在于              。
[A] 技術進步改進了我們的生活
[B] 女嬰的數量一直在下降
[C] 我們這個物種已經達到了人類進化的最高階段
[D] 貧富差距正在消失

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