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2000年硕士入学考试英语阅读真题附答案详解:TEXT2

发布者: 偶来偶去 | 发布时间: 2014-7-4 14:00| 查看数: 1416| 评论数: 0|

难句解析:

①There are about 105 males born for every 100 females, but this ratio drops to nearbalance at the age of maturity, and among 70-year-olds there are twice as manywomen as men.

▲该句是由三个递进关系的简单句组成的并列句,句法结构比较清晰。

△第一个分句的关键词在born,表明该比数是婴儿出生时的性别比例;第二个分句的关键词在nearbalance(接近持平)和at the age of maturity,表示性别比例的持平状态发生在成年时期;第三个分句的70-year-olds指代的是“70岁的人们”,作名词。

②Again, differences between people and the opportunity for natural selection to takeadvantage of it have diminished.

▲注意differences between people和the opportunity for natural selection to takeadvantage of it是两个并列的主语,千万不要理解成people与the opportunity是between的并列宾语。

△and连接的两个并列部分是differences between people和the opportunity for naturalselection to take advantage of it,而不是people和the opportunity。另外注意句中的it指代的是differences between people。

③The grand mediocrity of today — everyone being the same in survival and number ofoffspring — means that natural selection has lost 80% of its power inupper-middle-class India compared to the tribes.

▲该句的主语是The grand mediocrity,谓语是means,其后跟着that引导的宾语从句that naturalselection has lost 80% of its power in upper-middle-class India compared to thetribes,其中compared to the tribes是分词结构作状语,省略了if/when being。破折号中间everyone being the same in survival and number of offspring是典型的插入语,其中survival和number of offspring都是介词in的宾语。

△grand在此处不是“宏伟,壮丽”的意思,而是“程度很深”;mediocrity也非“平庸,平常”,而是“平均化”或“折衷”;offspring是“后代”。另外要理解natural selection has lost 80% of itspower in upper-middle-class India的意思,这里是指在原来的社会不平等的情况下,印度中上层阶级拥有一些能使自己在自然选择中处于优势的特权,而随着医疗和卫生条件的改变,下层人民也拥有同样的生存条件,因此中上层阶级就丧失了80%的自然选择中的优势。

④Darwin had a phrase to describe those ignorant of evolution: they "look at anorganic being as a savage looks at a ship, as at something wholly beyond hiscomprehension."

▲冒号后的句子是主句中a phrase的同位语。该同位语从句中的结构是A does something as Bdoes something(A做某事的样子正像B做某事的样子)。

△those ignorant of evolution指对生物进化过程一无所知的人,其后的they也指代这些人。最后的his指代前面的a savage。beyond his comprehension超出了他的理解范围。



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