上海新東方：2009年1月考研完形填空分析

　　本次考研英語考試剛落下帷幕，究其完形填空部分，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)此文始見于2008年5月7日的New York Times，全文原為四段，為符合考研要求和篇幅標準，考研命題者將其中第三段剔除，留下了三段。原文如下(其中標注出了考試的選項答案部分)：

　　Editorial Notebook

　　The Cost of Smarts

　　By VERLYN KLINKENBORG

　　Published: May 7, 2008

　　Research on animal intelligence always makes me wonder just how smart humans are. Consider the fruit-fly experiments described in Carl Zimmer's piece in the Science Times on Tuesday. Fruit flies who were taught to be smarter than the average fruit fly tended to live shorter lives. This suggests that dimmer bulbs burn longer, that there is an advantage in not being too terrifically bright.

　　Intelligence, it turns out, is a high-priced option. It takes more upkeep, burns more fuel and is slow off the starting line because it depends on learning - a gradual process - instead of instinct. Plenty of other species are able to learn, and one of the things they've apparently learned is when to stop.

　　Is there an adaptive value to limited intelligence? That's the question behind this new research. I like it. Instead of casting a wistful glance backward at all the species we've left in the dust I.Q.-wise, it implicitly asks what the real costs of our own intelligence might be. This is on the mind of every animal I've ever met.

　　Every chicken that looks at you sideways - which is how they all look at you - is really saying what Thoreau said less succinctly: you are endeavoring to solve the problem of a livelihood by a formula more complicated than the problem itself. Thoreau himself would not dispute that he was hoping to recover the chicken's point of view. He went to Walden Pond "to remember well his ignorance."

　　Research on animal intelligence also makes me wonder what experiments animals would perform on humans if they had the chance. Every cat with an owner, for instance, is running a small-scale study in operant conditioning. I believe that if animals ran the labs, they would test us to determine the limits of our patience, our faithfulness, our memory for terrain. They would try to decide what intelligence in humans is really for, not merely how much of it there is. Above all, they would hope to study a fundamental question: Are humans actually aware of the world they live in? So far the results are inconclusive.

　　通過對答案部分的研究，我們不難發(fā)現(xiàn)此文以文學(xué)的方式包裝了科學(xué)的內(nèi)在。就其內(nèi)容而言，本文描述了智慧的代價，是從一個前人罕見的角度以批判的眼光看待了"智慧"這一事物。

　　而從措辭與筆觸角度，則相當(dāng)文學(xué)化。文中Intelligence, it turns out, is a high-priced option.一句，很多考生從語法角度分析， 發(fā)現(xiàn)無法理解，因為原文出現(xiàn)兩組主謂結(jié)構(gòu)，但居然沒有連接詞。但從文學(xué)角度而言，將it turns out作為插入語卻未嘗不可，而這個it其實是主語復(fù)指現(xiàn)象，也僅在文學(xué)性較強的文章中會出現(xiàn)。接觸過老TOEFL考試語法部分的同學(xué)，恰恰很容易發(fā)現(xiàn)，老TOEFL考試將主語重復(fù)出現(xiàn)作為一種常見的語法錯誤，可見在本文中所用的文學(xué)筆觸。主語復(fù)指其實并不罕見，最為經(jīng)典的莫過于莎翁筆下的To be or not to be, that is the question.中這個that的存在了，而過分深究語法者將其改為To be or not to be is the question.就在文學(xué)色彩上大打折扣了。

　　文末也很有意思的采用了虛擬的方式，展開充分聯(lián)想，描述到：如果動物能對人類做實驗，......。原文：

　　Research on animal intelligence also makes me wonder what experiments animals would perform on humans if they had the chance. Every cat with an owner, for instance, is running a small-scale study in operant conditioning. I believe that if animals ran the labs, they would test us to determine the limits of our patience, our faithfulness, our memory for terrain. They would try to decide what intelligence in humans is really for, not merely how much of it there is. Above all, they would hope to study a fundamental question: Are humans actually aware of the world they live in? So far the results are inconclusive.

　　這里利用虛擬，從動物的角度來看待人類，作者無非希望跳出人類這個圈子，從一個更客觀、更具批判性的角度來分析智慧的代價，然而這種角度是在前人中鮮見的，是容易引起人們爭議的，從文學(xué)角度而言，又是與文章開頭的果蠅實驗呼應(yīng)的。

　　解題而言，這次題型中仍然有大量相似相近相反選項可供考生參考，如第三題的lighter和dimmer，第九題的limited與indefinite，第十題的forward和backward，第十八題的above all與after all等。而在邏輯考察方面，考試秉承了一貫的原則，依舊在往年的那些邏輯關(guān)系中徘徊，比如十四題出現(xiàn)的對比關(guān)系by contrast和舉例關(guān)系for instance，而by chance和as usual這樣的詞就沒有作為正確答案而存在，主要是因為缺乏前后文的呼應(yīng)。比如十五題選擇的if為條件關(guān)系，而且還是個虛擬的條件。選項詞匯而言，此次考試也鮮見難詞、偏詞，都是一些比較基本的詞匯，所以在充分準備的情況下，有四、六級基礎(chǔ)的考生看不懂選項的概率應(yīng)該是不高的，而真正作為答案的詞匯無一例外都是四級詞匯，所以還是應(yīng)證了那句老話，考研完型填空不傾向與選擇難詞與偏詞。

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