自考学位英语阅读理解.docVIP

Being 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. Since much of the variation is due to genes, one more agent of evolution has gone. 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. ⑥（16）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. ⑧The 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. 7、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. 全文翻译 身为男性总是有危险，男女出生时的比例大约是105100，但到了成年期，这一比例几乎持平，而在70岁的老年人中女性是男性的两倍。（句式1）但是男性死亡率普遍偏高的情况正在改变。如今，男婴存活率几乎同女婴一样高。这就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了。50年前，婴儿（尤其是男婴）存活的机率取决于体重，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