考研英语阅读理解命题思路透析和真题揭秘(36)

　　2006年Text 3

　　When prehistoric man arrived in new parts of the world, something strong happened to the large animals; they suddenly became extinct. Smaller species survived, the large, slow-growing animals were easy game, and were quickly hunted to extinction. Now something similar could be happening in the oceans.

　　That the seas are being over-fished has been known for years what researchers such as Ransom Myers and Boris Worm have shown is just how fast things are changing. They have looked at half a century of data from fisheries around the world. Their methods de not attempt to estimate the actual biomass (the amount of living biological matter) of fish species in particular parts of the ocean, but rather changes in that biomass over time. According to their latest paper published in Nature, the biomass of large predators (animals that kill and eat other animals) inanes fishery is reduced on average by 80% within 15 years of the start of exploitation. In some long-fished areas, it has halved again since then.

　　Dr. Worm acknowledges that these figures are conservative, one reason for this is that fishing technology has improved Today's vessels can find their prey using satellites and sonar, which were not available 50 years ago that means a higher proportion of what is in the sea is being caught, so the real difference between present and past is likely to be worse than the one recorded by changes in catch sizes. In the early days, too, longlines would have been more saturated with fish. Some individuals would therefore not have been caught, since to baited hooks would have been available to trap them, leading to an underestimate of fish stocks in the past. Furthermore, in the early days of longline fishing, a lot of fish were lost to sharks after they had been hooked. That is no longer a problem, because there are fewer sharks around noise.

　　Dr. Myers and Dr. worm argue that their work gives a correct baseline, which future management efforts must take into account. They believe the date support an idea current among marine biologists, that of the "shifting baseline". The notion is that people have failed to detect the massive changes which have happened in the ocean because they have been looking back only a relatively short time into the past. That matters because theory suggests that the maximum sustainable yield that can be cropped form a fishery comes when the biomass of a target species is about 50% of its original levels. Most fisheries are well below that, which is a bad way to do business.

　　34. Dr Myers and other researchers hold that

　　[A] people should look for a baseline that can't work for a longer time

　　[B] fisheries should keep the yield below 50% of the biomass

　　[C] the ocean biomass should restored its original level.

　　[D] people should adjust the fishing baseline to changing situation.

　　[答案] D

　　[解题思路]

　　文章最后一段第二句话指出：They believe the date support an idea current among marine biologists, that of the "shifting baseline" (他们相信自己的数据恰恰体现了一个目前在海洋生物学家中非常流行的观点，那就是"改变基线")。shifiting (活动的)这个词暗示根据情况进行调整，所以正确答案是D。A选项明显是错误，但B、C选项都很具有欺骗性，因为文章最后一段倒数第二句话使用了yield. fishery, biomass, 50%, its original level等词语，但是这两个选项都与原文不符，"the maximum sustainable yield that can be cropped form a fishery comes when the biomass of a target species is about 50% of its original levels"(当一种目标生物的生物量大约达到原始水平的50%时，就可以从一个渔场收获到最大程度的可持续发展的鱼储量)，B、C选项的keep和restore都无中生有。

　　[题目译文]

　　Myers博士和其他研究者们认为

　　[A] 人们应该寻找一个能在更长时间内有效的起点。

　　[B] 渔场应该将其产出限制在生物量的50%以内

　　[C] 海洋生物量应该恢复到最初的水平

　　[D] 人们应该根据具体的情况调整捕鱼起点

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