Day 1

英文重現(xiàn)

Biologists have advanced two theories to explain why schooling of fish occurs in so many fish species. Because schooling is particularly widespread among species of small fish, both theories assume that schooling offers the advantage of some protection from predators.

——GMAT OG 2015, Reading Comprehension, Passage 1

解析

1.單詞“school”在此處屬于熟詞僻義，作名詞時(shí)意思是“（魚(yú)、鯨等的）群”，作動(dòng)詞時(shí)意思是“成群地游”。“advanced”也屬于熟詞僻義，在這里是動(dòng)詞“advance”的過(guò)去分詞，意思是“提出”。詞組“protect...from sth.”意為“保護(hù)；使……免于”，在句子中用的是“protect”的名詞形式。

2.第一個(gè)句子中，動(dòng)詞“explain”的賓語(yǔ)為“why”引導(dǎo)的賓語(yǔ)從句“why schooling of fish occurs in so many fish species”；第二個(gè)句子中“because”引導(dǎo)原因狀語(yǔ)從句，“assume”后面為“that”引導(dǎo)的賓語(yǔ)從句。

詞義辨析

參考翻譯

生物學(xué)家提出了兩種理論來(lái)解釋為什么魚(yú)的成群游動(dòng)會(huì)發(fā)生在這么多的魚(yú)類(lèi)里。因?yàn)槌扇河蝿?dòng)在小型魚(yú)類(lèi)里尤為普遍，所以?xún)煞N理論都設(shè)想，成群游動(dòng)能為（魚(yú)群）不受捕食者的攻擊提供一些保護(hù)性?xún)?yōu)勢(shì)。

實(shí)戰(zhàn)演練

Biologists have advanced two theories to explain why schooling of fish occurs in so many fish species. Because schooling is particularly widespread among species of small fish, both theories assume that schooling offers the advantage of some protection from predators.

Proponents of theory A dispute the assumption that a school of thousands of fish is highly visible. Experiments have shown that any fish can be seen, even in very clear water, only within a sphere of 200 meters in diameter. When fish are in a compact group, the sphere of visibility overlap. Thus, the chance of a predator finding the school is only slightly greater than the chance of the predator finding a single fish swimming alone. Schooling is advantageous to the individual fish because a predator's chance of finding any particular fish swimming in the school is much smaller than its chance of finding at least one of the same group of fish if the fish were dispersed throughout an area.

According to the passage, both theory A and theory B have been developed to explain how

(A) fish hide from predators by forming schools.

(B) forming schools functions to protect fish from predators.

(C) schooling among fish differs from other protective behaviors.

(D) small fish are able to make rapid decisions.

(E) small fish are able to survive in an environment densely populated by large predators.

答案：B

答案解析

題目問(wèn)的是兩個(gè)理論都是被用來(lái)解釋什么的，由“theory A and theory B”的意思可定位到原文的第一個(gè)句子“Biologists have advanced two theories to explain why schooling of fish occurs in so many fish species”，該句子提到這兩種理論是用來(lái)解釋為什么魚(yú)會(huì)聚群的。根據(jù)后一句中提到的兩種理論都設(shè)想成群游動(dòng)會(huì)提供一些保護(hù)性?xún)?yōu)勢(shì)，可得出選項(xiàng)B“解釋聚群如何能保護(hù)魚(yú)不被捕食”是正確的。選項(xiàng)A“魚(yú)通過(guò)聚群來(lái)躲避捕食者”比較容易選錯(cuò)，它錯(cuò)在“hide from”，魚(yú)并非通過(guò)聚群就可以躲開(kāi)捕食者（不被發(fā)現(xiàn)）。選項(xiàng)C“魚(yú)的聚群和其他保護(hù)性行為不同”、選項(xiàng)D“小魚(yú)能夠快速做出決定”，以及選項(xiàng)E“小魚(yú)能夠在捕食者眾多的環(huán)境中生存”，都明顯不符合文章主旨。