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Part Ⅳ Reading Comprehension (Reading in Depth) (25 minutes)
Section A
Directions: In this section, there is a short passage with 5 questions or incomplete statements. Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions or complete the statements in the fewest possible words on Answer
Sheet 2.
Questions 47 to 51 are based on the following passage.
Women often complain that dating is like a cattle market, and a paper just published in Biology Letters by Thomas Pollet and Daniel Nettle of Newcastle University, in England, suggests they are right. They have little cause for complaint, however, because the paper also suggests that in this particular market, it is women who are the buyers.
Mr. Pollet and Dr. Nettle were looking for evidence to support the contention that women choose men of high status and resources, as well as good looks. That may sound common sense, but it was often denied by social scientists until a group of researchers who called themselves evolutionary psychologists started investigating the matter two decades ago. Since then, a series of experiments in laboratories have supported the contention. But as all zoologists know, experiments can only tell you so much. Eventually, you have to look at natural populations.
And that is what Mr. Pollet and Dr. Nettle have done. They have examined data from the 1910 census of the United States of America and discovered that marriage is, indeed, a market. Moreover, as in any market, a scarcity of buyers means the sellers have to have particularly attractive goods on offer if they are to make the exchange.
The advantage of picking 1910 was that America had not yet settled down, demographically(人口統(tǒng)計(jì)學(xué)方面) speaking. Though the long-colonized eastern states had a sex ratio of one man to one woman, or thereabouts, in the rest of the country the old adage(格言，諺語(yǔ))“go west, young man” had resulted in a surplus of males. Mr. Pollet and Dr. Nettle were thus able to see just how picky women are, given the chance.
Rather than looking at the whole census, the two researchers relied on a sample of one person in 250.They then assigned the men in the sample a socioeconomic status score between zero and 96, on a scale drawn up in 1950.They showed that in states where the sexes were equal in number, 56% of low status men were married by the age of 30, while 60% of high status men were. As the men went west, then, so did their marriage opportunities.
47. A paper published in Biology Letters agreed with women that ______________________.
48. What is the contention which is often denied by social scientists?
49. Although the experiments support the contention, all zoologists suggest that ______________________.
50. In the market of marriage, a scarcity of buyers means sellers have to to make the exchange ______________________.
51. What had given two researchers the chance to see how picky women were?
