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Passage Two
Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.
From the moment that an animal is born it has to make decisions. It has to decide which of the things around it are for eating, and which are to be avoided when to attack and when to run away. The animal is, in effect, playing a complicated and potentially very dangerous game with its environment, discomfort or destruction.
This is a difficult and unpleasant business and few animals would survive if they had to start from the beginning and learn about the world wholly by trial and error, for there are the have possible decisions which would prove fatal. So we find, in practice, that the game is always arranged in favour of the young animal in one way or another. Either the animal is protected during the early stages of its learning about the world around it, or the knowledge of which way to respond is built into its nervous system from the start.
The fact that animals behave sensibly can be attributed partly to what we might call genetic (遺傳的) learning, to distinguish it from the individual learning that an animal does in the course of its own life time. Genetic learning is learning by a species as a whole, and it is achieved by selection of those members of each generation that happen to behave in the right way. However, genetic learning depends upon a prediction that the future will more or less exactly resemble the past. The more variable individual experience is likely to be, the less efficient is genetic learning as a means of getting over the problems of the survival game. It is not surprising to find that very few species indeed depend wholly upon genetic learning. In the great majority of animals, behaviour is a compound of individual experience and genetic learning to behave in particular ways.
26. According to the first paragraph, the survival game is considered potentially very dangerous because ________.
A) animals are constantly threatened by attacks
B) wrong decisions will lead to the disappearance of a species
C) decisions made by an animal may turn out to be fatal
D) few animals can survive in their struggle with the environment
27. It is implied but not directly stated in the passage that most animals ________.
A) are likely to make wrong decisions
B) have made correct decisions for their survival
C) depend entirely on their parents in learning about the world around them
D) survive by means of individual learning
28. Genetic learning is effective only if ________.
A) the survival game is arranged in favour of the young animals
B) the animals can adapt themselves to the changing surroundings
C) circumstances remain more or less the same
D) the animals have varied individual experiences
29. The best TITLE for this passage would be ________.
A) The Decision-Making Ability of Animals
B) Survival and Environment
C) Reward and Penalty for Animals
D) Behaviour and Survival
30. How is genetic leaning achieved?
A) It is inherited from animals with keen observation.
B) It is passed down from those animals that behave in the correct way.
C) It is taught to the young generation.
D) It is learned by the new generation through trial and error.
