英语六级

单选题Questionsare based on the following passage.
By education, I mean the influence of the environment upon the individual to produce a permanent change in the habits of behaviour, of thought and of attitude. It is in being thus susceptible to the environment that man differs from the animals, and the higher animals from the lower. The lower animals are influenced by the environment but not in the direction of changing their habits. Their in-stinctive responses are few and fixed by heredity. When transferred to an unnatural situation, such ananimal is led astray by its instincts. Thus the "ant-lion" whose instinct implies it to bore into loose sand by pushing backwards with abdomen, goes backwards on a plate of glass as soon as danger threatens, and endeavours, with the utmost exertions to bore into it. It knows no other mode of flight,"or if such a lonely animal is engaged upon a chain of actions and is interrupted, it either goes on
vainly with the remaining actions (as useless as cultivating an unsown field. or dies in helpless in- activity") Thus a net-making spider which digs a burrow and rims it with a bastion of gravel and bits of wood, when removed from a half finished home, will not begin again, though it will continue an-other burrow, even one made with a pencil.
Advance in the scale of evolution along such lines as these could only be made by the emergence of creatures with more and more complicated instincts. Such beings we know in the ants and spiders. But another line of advance was destined to open out a much more far-reaching possibility of which we do not see the end perhaps even in man. Habits, instead of being born ready-made (when they are called instincts and not habits at all) were left more and more to the formative influence of the environment, of which the most important factor was the parent who now cared for the young animal during a period of infancy in which vaguer instincts than those of the insects were moulded to suit surroundings which might be considerably changed without harm.
This means, one might at first imagine, that gradually heredity becomes less and environment more important. But this is hardly the truth and certainly not the whole truth. For although fixed automatic responses like those of the insect-like creatures are no longer inherited, although selection for purification of that sort is no longer going on, selection for educability is very definitely still of importance. The ability to acquire habits can be conceivably inherited just as much as can definite responses to narrow situations. Besides, since a mechanism--is now, for the first time, created by which the individual (in contradiction to the species)can be fitted to the environment, the latter becomes, in another sense, less not more important. And finally, less not the higher animals who possess the power of changing their environment by engineering feats and the like, a power possessed to some extent even by the beaver, and preeminently by man. Environment and heredity are in no case exclusive but always supplementary factors.
What is the difference between human beings and animals?

A.The way they communicate.
B.How they express feelings.
C.The permanent change influenced by environment upon human beings instead of animals.
D.Whether they can use tools or not.

参考答案:C进入在线模考
参考译文
通过教育,我的意思是环境对人们在行为、思想和态度上所产生的永久改变。容易受环境影响是人类区别于动物、高等动物区别于低等动物的地方。低等动物容易受环境影响,但不会引起习惯的改变。它们很少出自本能反应。并且由遗传固定。当遇到不自然的环境,这样的动物会被本能引上歧途。就像“蚁狮”会按照本能的暗示,在面临巨大危险时,利用腹部推后的移动钻入松散细沙,并向玻璃板后退,尽最大努力钻进去。“它没有别的脱险办法”,或者说,“这样一个孤独的动物,在专心于活动时被打断,它要么徒劳地继续活动(如同在一片没有播种的土地上耕作.,要么死于无助的不作为。”因此,编织网的蜘蛛挖一个地洞,并且在其周围用沙砾和木片构筑时,如果在完成一半的时候退出,它不会再重新开始,尽管它将继续建另一个洞穴,也不会重复之前的工作。
进化的发展只有依靠具备越来越多复杂本能的生物才能完成,如蚂蚁和蜘蛛。但另一条进化的线路注定会带来另一种可能性,即使在人类身上也看不到结果。习惯,不是天生带来的(有时被叫作本能,而不是习惯),更多地受到环境的影响。其中最重要的因素便是父母,他们在婴幼儿时期照料孩子,在这一阶段,为了适应周围环境的需要,模糊的本能会做出无害的改变。
人们或许会料想,这意味着遗传的影响会逐渐变小,环境的作用变得更为重要。可很难说这是对的,当然不是全部事实。虽然对于那些像昆虫一样的生物来说,机械的反应不再由遗传导致,尽管物种进化选择已不复存在。但可塑性的遴选仍然很重要。正如对恶劣环境可以做出确切回应一样,习性可以得到遗传。另外,如今一些机制第一次被创建出来,个体(相对于物种)可以很好地适应环境。这样看来,后者的作用也不重要了。最后,高等动物有能力通过类似的工程手艺来改变环境,从某种程度上来说,海狸具备这样的能力,人类更卓越。环境与遗传之间绝不互相排斥,而是互补关系。
参考答案与解析
细节题。根据关键词“difference”定位至原文第一段前三句。第二句强调句指明区别为“susceptible to environment”(易受环境影响.,同时还需结合第一句和第三句,第三句指出虽然低等动物也受环境影响,但不会直接引起习惯的改变,第一句指出人类会受环境影响,并形成持久的改变(a permanent change)。因此,
正确答案是C。

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1 Why does the author cite the example of the ant-lion in the first paragraph?

A.To support the evidence that the way lower animals respond to environment result from instinct.
B.To demonstrate the specialty of the ant-lion.
C.To emphasize the influence of environment.
D.To support the evidence that the way higher animals respond to environment result from instinct.

2Which of the following is true about habits according to the passage?

A.They are natural endowments to living creatures.
B.They are more important than instincts to all animals.
C.They are subject to the formative influence of the environment.
D.They are destined to open out a much more far-reaching possibility in the evolution of human beings.

3Besides human beings, who is able to alter environment by engineering feats?

A.Ant-lion.
B.Beaver.
C.Spider.
D.Insect.