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  3. When two drunken men fight over a woman, alcohol and stupidity may not be the only things at work. Sadly, evolution may have sha

When two drunken men fight over a woman, alcohol and stupidity may not be the only things at work. Sadly, evolution may have sha

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问题     When two drunken men fight over a woman, alcohol and stupidity may not be the only things at work. Sadly, evolution may have shaped men to behave this way. Almost all of the traits considered to be masculine—big muscles, facial hair, square jaws, deep voices and a propensity to violence—evolved, it now seems, specifically for their usefulness in fighting off or intimidating other men, allowing the winner to get the girl.
    That, at least, is the contention of David Puts, an anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University, in an upcoming paper in Evolution and Human Behavior. Dr Puts is looking at how sexual selection gave rise to certain human traits. A trait is sexually selected if it evolved specifically to enhance mating success. They come in two main forms: weapons, such as an elk’s horns, which are used to fight off competitors; and ornaments, like a peacock’s tail, which are used to advertise genetic fitness to attract the opposite sex.
    Researchers have tended to consider human sexual selection through the lens of the female’s choice of her mate. But human males look a lot more like animals designed to battle with one another for access to females, says Dr Puts. On average, men have 40％ more fat-free mass than women, which is similar to the difference in gorillas, a species in which males unquestionably compete with other males for exclusive sexual access to females. In species whose males do not fight for access to females, males are generally the same size as, or smaller than, females.
    The heavier brow and jaw of males might have developed to withstand blows from other males. Heavy eyebrows, facial hair and deep voices all could serve to make a man more imposing to other men. Dr Puts does not dismiss mate selection outright. Women are attracted to some of the same traits that are good for dominating other men because they signal that the man will sire sons who will also be successful at mating. But female choice probably is not the primary cause of the traits.
    It is a disturbing idea to modern minds, harking back to old stereotypes about violent cavemen battling with clubs while a passive woman, fetching in furs, waits helplessly to see who will win her. But Dr Puts emphasizes that evolutionary biology is not destiny. Regardless of our evolutionary past, in modern societies men and women freely choose their mates. However, understanding the evolutionary pressures that made men the way they are could help us better understand male violence, including murder, domestic abuse, gang violence and perhaps even warfare.
It can be learned from Paragraph 1 that ________.
选项 A、masculine traits have evolved to get the opposite sex
B、alcohol is the only thing at work in drunken men’s fight
C、evolution has shaped human beings’ traits and behavior
D、tendency to violence cannot be counted as a masculine trait
答案A
解析 根据题干定位到第一段。该段第三句说，男性特征可能是专为击败或吓退其他男性以赢得女性而进化的，最终目的是为了get the girl“得到女孩”，A项的get the opposite sex与文中的get the girl同义。根据第一段第一二句可知，当两个醉汉在争夺一个女人时，起作用的可能不只是酒精和愚蠢，还可能是进化造就的，B项把酒精看作是唯一起作用的东西，明显错误。C项中的human beings“人类”和第二句中的men“男人”概念是不同的，原文仅限于说men的情况，C项偷换了概念。根据第三句，男性特征里有一项就是tendency to violence，即“暴力倾向”，D项说它不属于男性特征，与原文的说法相反。
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