Passage One

Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage:

      When global warming finally came, it stuck with a vengeance (异乎寻常地). In some regions, temperatures rose several degrees in less than a century. Sea levels shot up nearly 400 feet, flooding coastal settlements and forcing people to migrate inland. Deserts spread throughout the world as vegetation shifted drastically in North America, Europe and Asia. After driving many of the animals around them to near extinction, people were forced to abandon their old way of life for a radically new survival strategy that resulted in widespread starvation and disease. The adaptation was farming: the global-warming crisis hat gave rise to it happened more than 10,000 years ago.

      As environmentalists convene in Rio de Janeiro this week to ponder the global climate of the future, earth scientists are in the midst of a revolution in understanding how climate has changed in the past — and how those changes have transformed human existence. Researchers have begun to piece together an illuminating picture of the powerful geological and astronomical forces that have combined to change the planet’s environment from hot to cold, wet to dry and back again over a time period stretching back hundreds of millions of years.

      Most important, scientists are beginning to realize that the climatic changes have had a major impact on the evolution of the human species. New research now suggests that climate shifts have played a key role in nearly every significant turning point in human evolution: from the dawn of primates (灵长目动物) some 65 million years ago to human ancestors rising up to walk on two legs, from the huge expansion of the human brain to the rise of agriculture. Indeed, the human history has not been merely touched by global climate change, some scientists argue, it has in some instances been driven by it.

Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage:

      No woman can be too rich or too thin. This saying often attributed to the late Duchess (公爵夫人) of Windsor embodies much of the odd spirit of our times. Being thin is deemed as such a virtue.

      The problem with such a view is that some people actually attempt to live by it. I myself have fantasies of slipping into narrow designer clothes. Consequently, I have been on a diet for the better — or worse — part of my life. Being rich wouldn’t be bad either, but that won’t happen unless an unknown relative dies suddenly in some distant land, leaving me millions of dollars.

      Where did we go off the track? When did eating butter become a sin, and a little bit of extra flesh unappealing, if not repellent? All religions have certain days when people refrain from eating and excessive eating is one of Christianity’s seven deadly sins. However, until quite recently, most people had a problem getting enough to eat. In some religious groups, wealth was a symbol of probable salvation and high morals, and fatness a sign of wealth and well-being.

      Today the opposite is true. We have shifted to thinness as our new mark of virtue. The result is that being fat — or even only somewhat overweight — is bad because it implies a lack of moral strength.

      Our obsession (迷恋) with thinness is also fueled by health concerns. It is true that in this country we have more overweight people than ever before, and that, in many cases, being over-weight correlates with an increased risk of heart and blood vessel disease. These diseases, however, many have as much to do with our way of life and our high-fat diets as with excess weight. And the associated risk of cancer in the digestive system may be more of a dietary problem — too much fat and a lack of fiber — than a weight problem.

      The real concern, then, is not that we weigh too much, but that we neither exercise enough nor eat well. Exercise is necessary for strong bones and both heart and lung health. A balanced diet without a lot of fat can also help the body avoid many diseases. We should surely stop paying so much attention to weight. Simply being thin is not enough. It is actually hazardous if those who get (or already are) thin think they are automatically healthy and thus free form paying attention to their overall life-style. Thinness can be pure vainglory (虚荣).

Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage:

      War may be a natural expression of biological instincts and drives toward aggression in the human species. Natural impulses of anger, hostility, and territoriality (守卫地盘的天性) are expressed through acts of violence. Theses are all qualities that humans share with animals. Aggression is a kind of innate (天生的) survival mechanism, an instinct for self-preservation, that allows animals to defend themselves from threats to their existence. But, on the other hand, human violence shows evidence of being a learned behavior. In the case of human aggression, violence cannot be simply reduced to an instinct. The many expressions of human violence are always conditioned by social conventions that give shape to aggressive behavior. In human societies violence has a social function: It is a strategy for creating or destroying forms of social order. Religious traditions have taken a leading role in directing the powers of violence. We will look at the ritual and ethical (道德上的) patterns within which human violence has been directed.

      The violence within a society is controlled through institutions of law. The more developed a legal system becomes, the more society takes responsibility for the discovery, control, and punishment of violent acts. In most tribal societies the only means to deal with an act of violence is revenge. Each family group may have the responsibility for personally carrying out judgment and punishment upon the person who committed the offense. But in legal systems, the responsibility for revenge becomes depersonalized and diffused. The society assumes the responsibility for protecting individuals from violence. In cases where they cannot be protected, the society is responsible for imposing punishment. In a sate controlled legal system, individuals are removed from the cycle of revenge motivated by acts of violence, and the state assumes responsibility for their protection.

      The other side of a state legal apparatus is a state military apparatus. While the one protects the individual from violence, the other sacrifices the individual to violence in the interests of the state. In war the state affirms its supreme power over the individuals within its own borders. War is not simply a trial by combat to settle disputes between states; it is the moment when the state makes its most powerful demands upon its people for their recommitment, allegiance, and supreme sacrifice. Times of war test a community’s deepest religious and ethical commitments.

Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage:

      Researchers who are unfamiliar with the cultural and ethnic groups they are studying must take extra precautions to shed any biases they bring with them from their own culture. For example, they must make sure they construct measures that are meaningful for each of the cultural or ethnic minority groups being studied.

      In conducting research on cultural and ethnic minority issues, investigators distinguish between the emic approach and the etic approach. In the emic approach, the goal is to describe behavior in one culture or ethnic group in terms that are meaningful and important to the people in that culture or ethnic group, without regard to other cultures or ethnic groups. In the etic approach, the goal is to describe behavior so that generalizations can be made across cultures. If researchers construct a questionnaire in an emic fashion, their concern is only that the questions are meaningful to the particular culture or ethnic group being studied. If, however, the researchers construct a questionnaire in an etic fashion, they want to include questions that reflect concepts familiar to all cultures involved.

      How might the emic and etic approaches be reflected in the study of family processes? In the emic approach, the researchers might choose to focus only on middle-class White families, without regard for whether the information obtained in the study can be generalized or is appropriate for ethnic minority groups. In a subsequent study, the researchers may decide to adopt an etic approach by studying not only middle-class White families, but also lower-income White families, Black American families, Spanish American families, and Asian American families. In studying ethnic minority families, the researchers would likely discover that the extended family is more frequently a support system in ethnic minority families than in White American families. If so, the emic approach would reveal a different pattern of family interaction than would the etic approach, documenting that research with middle-class White families cannot always be generalized to all ethnic groups.