2014考研英语：阅读理解实例解析（七）_跨考网

　　面对一篇阅读理解，我们究竟应该如何下手?下面，我们通过具体的实例，来和小编分享一下考研英语阅读理解的剖析方法以及答题技巧。>>>考研英语复习备考手册

　　A boy or a girl? That is usually the first question asked when awoman gives birth. Remarkably, the answer varies with where the mother lives.In rich countries the chances of its being a boy are about 5% higher than inpoor ones. Equally remarkably, that figure has been falling recently. Severaltheories have been put forward to explain these observations. Some argue thatsmoking plays a role, others that diet may be important. Neither of these ideashas been supported by evidence from large studies. But new research points to adifferent factor: stress.

　　Strange as it might seem, the terrorist attacks of September 11th2001 shed light on the enigma. Studies noting the sex of babies conceived inNew York during the week of the attacks found a drop in the ratio of males tofemales. That is consistent with earlier studies, which revealed a similarshift in women who became pregnant during floods and earthquakes and in time ofwar. Moreover, a study carried out eight years ago by researchers at theUniversity of Aarhus, in Denmark, revealed that women who suffered the death ofa child or spouse from some catastrophic illness around the time they conceivedwere much more likely to give birth to girls than to boys.

　　Taken together, these results suggest that acute stress to a womanat the time of conception shifts the sex ratio towards girls. However, CarstenObel, a researcher at Aarhus who was not involved in the earlier study,wondered if the same might be true of chronic stress too. In a paper justpublished in Human Development, he shows that it is.

　　Dr Obel used a set of data collected between 1989 and 1992. Duringthat period 8,719 expectant mothers were asked to fill in questionnaires thatinquired, among other things, about their level of stress. Dr Obel found thatthe more stressed a mother had been, the less chance she had of having givenbirth to a boy. Only 47% of children born to women in the top quartile ofstress were males. That compared with 52% for women in the bottom quartile. DrObel suspects the immediate cause is that male pregnancies are more likely tomiscarry in response to stress than female pregnancies are, especially duringthe first three months. However, that is difficult to prove. More intriguing,though, is the ultimate cause, for he thinks it might be adaptive, rather thanpathological.

　　That is because the chances are that a daughter who reachesadulthood will find a mate and thus produce grandchildren. A son is a differentmatter. Healthy, strapping sons are likely to produce lots of grandchildren, byseveral women-or would have done in the hunter-gatherer societies in which mosthuman evolution took place. Weak ones would be marginalised and maybe evenkilled in the cut and thrust of male competition. If a mother’s stressadversely affects the development of her fetus then selectively aborting boys,rather than wasting time and resources on bringing them to term, would makeevolutionary sense.

　　That, in turn, would explain why women in rich countries, who areless likely to suffer from hunger and disease, are more likely to give birth tosons. That this likelihood is, nevertheless, falling suggests that rich women’s lives maybe more stressful than they used to be.

　　1. The author begins the passage by_____.

　　[A] presenting an argumentation

　　[B] explaining a phenomenon

　　[C] raising a question

　　[D] making a comparison

　　2. The ratio of giving birth to a boy is falling in rich countriesbecause_____.

　　[A] the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 exerted hugenegative impact

　　[B] women are facing greater pressure than past

　　[C] women are under new pressure now which they seldom faced in thepast

　　[D] male pregnancies are more easily to miscarry

　　3. Which of the following can explain Dr Obel’s opinionthat the ultimat cause is adaptive rather than pathological?

　　[A] 47% of children born to women in the top quartile of stress weremales while 52% in the bottom quartile.

　　[B] Women in rich countries are more likely to give birth to boys

　　[C] Women selectively abort boys rather than waste time andresources on bringing them to term for fear of male competition.

　　[D] Women who suffer from calamity in conception are more likely togive birth to girls.

　　4. Women in the hunter-gatherer societies are more likely to givebirth to daughters because_____.

　　[A] they agree that giving birth to daughters is beneficial in theevolutionary sense

　　[B] sons are likely to produce lots of grandchildren with severalwomen

　　[C] they think it is a better practice for a daughter to produce grandchildrenwith only one mate

　　[D] they think bringing sons to term is wasting time and resources.

　　5.From this passage, we may draw a conclusion that_____.

　　[A] acute stress is more likely to cause women to choose abortingboys than chronic stress.

　　[B] stress to a woman at the time of conception, whether acute orchronic, will shift the sex ratio towards girls.

　　[C] more girls will be born in the future because today’s women, inboth rich and poor countries, suffer from increasing pressure.

　　[D] chronic stress is more decisive in influencing the women’spregnancies.

　　文章剖析：

　　这篇文章是介绍影响婴儿出生性别原因的一个新的研究成果--压力。文章第一段提出以往人们对该问题的看法，然后引出新的研究结果;第二段用一些事例来证明突发压力对于婴儿性别的影响;第三段、第四段讲述Obel博士调查研究表明慢性压力在这方面的影响;第五段对Obel博士的研究结果作了一些论证;第六段是对第一段提到的现象用得出的结论做解释。

　　词汇注释：

　　enigma n. 谜

　　chronic adj. 长期的，持续的

　　conception n. 受精

　　fetus n. 胎儿

　　questionnarie n. 调查表

　　quartile n. 四分位值

　　miscarry v. 流产

　　pathological adj. 病理的

　　strapping adj. 伟岸的，魁梧的

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