2007年考研阅读理解与解析.doc

2007年 Text 1 If you were to examine the birth certificates of every soccer player in 2006’s World Cup tournament, you would most likely find a noteworthy quirk: elite soccer players are more likely to have been born in the earlier months of the year than in the later months. If you then examined the European national youth teams that feed the World Cup and professional ranks, you would find this strange phenomenon to be even more pronounced. 如果你打算调查一下2006年世界杯锦标赛上所有足球运动员的出生证明，那么你很有可能发现一个值得注意的怪现象：优秀足球运动员更可能出生于每年的前几个月而不是后几个月。如果你再调查一下那些为世界杯和各大职业联赛提供球员的欧洲国家青年队，你会发现这一奇怪的现象更为明显。 What might account for this strange phenomenon? Here are a few guesses: a) certain astrological signs confer superior soccer skills; b) winter-born babies tend to have higher oxygen capacity, which increases soccer stamina; c) soccer-mad parents are more likely to conceive children in springtime, at the annual peak of soccer mania; d) none of the above. 什么可以解释这一奇怪的现象呢？下面是一些猜测：a）某种星象学的征兆使人具备更高的足球技能；b）冬季出生的婴儿往往有较高的血氧含量，这增加了踢足球所需要的耐力；c）热爱足球的父母更可能在春季（每年足球狂热的鼎盛时期）怀孕；d）以上各项都不对。 Anders Ericsson, a 58-year-old psychology professor at Florida State University, says he believes strongly in “none of the above.” Ericsson grew up in Sweden, and studied nuclear engineering until he realized he would have more opportunity to conduct his own research if he switched to psychology. His first experiment, nearly 30 years ago, involved memory: training a person to hear and then repeat a random series of numbers. “With the first subject, after about 20 hours of training, his digit span had risen from 7 to 20,” Ericsson recalls. “He kept improving, and after about 200 hours of training he had risen to over 80 numbers.” 58岁的安德斯 ? 埃里克森是佛罗里达州立大学的一名心理学教授，他说，他坚信“以上各项都不对”这一猜测。在瑞典长大的埃里克森，早先从事核工程学的研究，直到后来他认识到如果自己转向心理学领域，就会有更多机会从事自己的研究。他的首次试验是大约30年以前进行的一个与记忆有关的试验：训练一个人先听一组任意挑选的数字，然后复述这些数字。“在经过大约20小时的训练之后，第一个试验对象复述的数字跨度从7个上升到20个，” 埃里克森回忆说。“该试验对象不断进步，在接受大约200个小时的训练后，他复述的数字已经达到80多个。” This success, coupled with later research showing