考研英语：历年真题阅读要点之1995-Text 5（二）

　　Practice (or review) tends to build and maintain memory for a task or for any learned material. ... and the adaptive consequences may not seem obvious. Yet, dramatic instances of sudden forgetting can be seen to be adaptive. In this sense, the ability to forget can be interpreted to have survived through a process of natural selection in animals.

　　review“复习”，也可以表示“评论”，book review“书评”;tend to do“倾向于，往往”，也可以用have a tendency to do;learned形容词“学术上的”，也可以表示“博学的，有学问的”;material“资料”，materialism“物质主义”，materialist“物质主义者”;adaptive consequences“适应性结果”;yet“然而”，重点关注转折处，常见的表示转折的词but, nevertheless, however, whereas, fortunately, unfortunately(不管是“幸运地”还是“不幸地”，一律看作转折“但是”);Yet, dramatic instances of sudden forgetting can be seen to be adaptive.“然而，人们可以把突然遗忘的生动例子看作是具有适应性的。”dramatic“引人注目的，生动的”;in this sense“从这种意义上来说”;survive through“经过...活下来(幸存下来)”，live through“经受住”，二者含义相近，work through“通过反复思考来解决问题”;interpret“解释”，名词interpretation;a process of natural selection in animals“在动物中，自然选择的过程”，A of B in C“在C中，B的A”。

　　Indeed, when one’s memory of an emotionally painful experience lead to serious anxiety, forgetting may produce relief. Nevertheless, an evolutionary interpretation might make it difficult to understand how the commonly gradual process of forgetting survived natural selection.

　　indeed“的确”;painful experience“痛苦的经历”;anxiety“焦虑”，形容词anxious，be anxious about“担忧”;produce relief“带来宽慰”;nevertheless“然而”;it充当形式宾语，真正的宾语是to understand how the commonly gradual process of forgetting survived natural selection;转折处说的是“然而，进化论的解释可能使人难以理解普遍的渐进遗忘过程是如何在自然选择中幸存下来的。”