2006年Text 3

　　When prehistoric man arrived in new parts of the world, something strong happened to the large animals; they suddenly became extinct. Smaller species survived, the large, slow-growing animals were easy game, and were quickly hunted to extinction. Now something similar could be happening in the oceans.

　　That the seas are being over-fished has been known for years what researchers such as Ransom Myers and Boris Worm have shown is just how fast things are changing. They have looked at half a century of data from fisheries around the world. Their methods de not attempt to estimate the actual biomass (the amount of living biological matter) of fish species in particular parts of the ocean, but rather changes in that biomass over time. According to their latest paper published in Nature, the biomass of large predators (animals that kill and eat other animals) inanes fishery is reduced on average by 80% within 15 years of the start of exploitation. In some long-fished areas, it has halved again since then.

　　Dr. Worm acknowledges that these figures are conservative, one reason for this is that fishing technology has improved Today's vessels can find their prey using satellites and sonar, which were not available 50 years ago that means a higher proportion of what is in the sea is being caught, so the real difference between present and past is likely to be worse than the one recorded by changes in catch sizes. In the early days, too, longlines would have been more saturated with fish. Some individuals would therefore not have been caught, since to baited hooks would have been available to trap them, leading to an underestimate of fish stocks in the past. Furthermore, in the early days of longline fishing, a lot of fish were lost to sharks after they had been hooked. That is no longer a problem, because there are fewer sharks around noise.

　　Dr. Myers and Dr. worm argue that their work gives a correct baseline, which future management efforts must take into account. They believe the date support an idea current among marine biologists, that of the "shifting baseline". The notion is that people have failed to detect the massive changes which have happened in the ocean because they have been looking back only a relatively short time into the past. That matters because theory suggests that the maximum sustainable yield that can be cropped form a fishery comes when the biomass of a target species is about 50% of its original levels. Most fisheries are well below that, which is a bad way to do business.

　　34. Dr Myers and other researchers hold that

　　[A] people should look for a baseline that can't work for a longer time

　　[B] fisheries should keep the yield below 50% of the biomass

　　[C] the ocean biomass should restored its original level.

　　[D] people should adjust the fishing baseline to changing situation.

　　[答案] D

　　[解題思路]

　　文章最后一段第二句話指出：They believe the date support an idea current among marine biologists, that of the "shifting baseline" (他們相信自己的數據恰恰體現了一個目前在海洋生物學家中非常流行的觀點，那就是"改變基線")。shifiting (活動的)這個詞暗示根據情況進行調整，所以正確答案是D。A選項明顯是錯誤，但B、C選項都很具有欺騙性，因為文章最后一段倒數第二句話使用了yield. fishery, biomass, 50%, its original level等詞語，但是這兩個選項都與原文不符，"the maximum sustainable yield that can be cropped form a fishery comes when the biomass of a target species is about 50% of its original levels"(當一種目標生物的生物量大約達到原始水平的50%時，就可以從一個漁場收獲到最大程度的可持續發展的魚儲量)，B、C選項的keep和restore都無中生有。

　　[題目譯文]

　　Myers博士和其他研究者們認為

　　[A] 人們應該尋找一個能在更長時間內有效的起點。

　　[B] 漁場應該將其產出限制在生物量的50%以內

　　[C] 海洋生物量應該恢復到最初的水平

　　[D] 人們應該根據具體的情況調整捕魚起點

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