2000年考研英语阅读真题及答案2 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, boy 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 a savage 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. 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. 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 58. Which of the following would be the best title for the passage? [A] Sex Ration 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 2000年考研英语阅读真题及答案2的延伸阅读——2016年考研考生择校须知 一、招生人数 一般情况下招生单位各专业的招生人数变化不会很大。近几年，研究生的规模一直在扩大，招生人数总趋势当然也是在上涨。具体到招生单位，基本也是在小幅度上涨。缩减招生名额甚至撤销某个专业的情形很少发生。 二、报考人数 一般情况当年的报考人数一般看不到，只能看到前几年的数据。不过这些也足以判断出某个学院专业的竞争激烈程度。如果报考人数太多，推免的也不少，留给统考生的机会相对较少，那么该专业竞争很激烈。难度无疑大了很多。 三、录取人数 录取人数指的是复试完最终的录取人数。这个与前一年公布的“招生人数”可能有些出入。特别是一些名校的热门专业，竞争激烈难度大。如果碰到生源特别好，那么也有可能扩招几个名额。所以，机会总是有的，关键是看考生的综合实力和表现。 四、报考和录取比例 真实的报考人数和录取人数作对比，就得出每年的招生报录比。这是一个很重要的数据，是衡量某个专业报考热度的核心指标。如果报录比一直居高不小，说明该专业持续很热。如果忽大忽小，这就说明存在大小年现象。 五、推免人数 高校招生目录中只说明推免总人数，具体到各个专业有多少人不得而知。考生在选择报考院校时要把这一因素考虑进去。 六、复试分数线 复试线的重要性是不言而喻的。大部分招生单位都会公布这些数据，或者在研究生院，也有的在各自院系以通知的形式发布。高校每年一般会在3月初就公布各个院系专业的复试线。 |
