2016考研英語最新時文閱讀：性別差異

考研英語來源：文都教育 2015-11-30　

男性與女性的差異問題在歷年考研英語真題閱讀中出現過幾次，是考生需要了解的重點話題。今天我們回顧一下2000年的考研英語閱讀真題，再次了解一下性別差異問題的相關信息。一起來看一下具體內容：

Being a man has always been dangerous.There are about 105 males born for every 100 females, but this ratio drops to near balance at the age of maturity, and among 70-year-olds there are twice as many women as men. But the great universal of male mortality is being changed. Now, by babies survive almost as well as girls do. This means that, for the first time, there will be an excess of boys in those crucial years when the are searching for a mate. More important, another chance for natural selection has been removed. Fifty years ago, the chance of a baby (particularly a boy baby) surviving depended on its weight. A kilogram too light or too heavy meant almost certain death. Today it makes almost no difference. Since much of the variation is due to genes one more agent of evolution has gone.

嬰兒出生的男女性別比例約為105:100，這對男性而言是極其危險的，因為到了成年階段，這個數字差異反而會縮小，到了70歲的時候男性僅剩下女性的一半。現在男性死亡率偏高的情形正在發生變化，男孩存活率幾乎同女嬰一樣高。這就意味著男孩到了尋找伴侶的關鍵年齡將首次出現男孩過剩現象。更重要的是，又一次自然選擇的機會不復存在了。50年前，嬰兒(尤其是男嬰)存活的機會取決于體重，過輕或過重幾乎意味著必死無疑。今日體重幾乎不起什么作用，因為大部分差異是由基因引起的，又一個進化的因素消失了。

There is another way to commit evolutionary suicide: stay alive, but have fewer children. Few people are as fertile as in the past. Nowadays the number of births, like the age of death, has become average. Most of us have roughly the same number of offspring. Again, differences between people and the opportunity for natural selection to take advantage of it have diminished. India shows what is happening. The country offers wealth for a few in the great cities and poverty for the remaining tribal peoples. The grand mediocrity of today — everyone being the same in survival and number of offspring — means that natural selection has lost 80% of its power in upper-middle-class India compared to the tribes.

還有另外一種方式會造成進化自殺，那就是減少生育孩子的數量。現代社會已經很少有人會生過多的孩子。并且嬰兒的出生率與死亡率也漸漸趨同，大多數人的后代數量基本相同。人們之間的差異以及利用這種差異進行自然選擇的機會進一步減少了。印度就可以說明正在發生的一切。這個國家給大城市里的少數人提供財富，而給其余的各部落民族以貧困。今天這種極其顯著的平均化——每個人的生存機會和子女數量都相同——意味著與部落相比較，自然選擇在印度中、上層已經失去了80%的效力。

在歷年真題當中考研英語一2008年text 1，以及英語二2013年text 3都考到了性別差異與性別平等問題。所以建議2016考研的考生將此類話題文章再拿出來，做統一的復習回顧，這樣再次出現同類話題時就比較方便理解了。預祝2016考研考生金榜題名!