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  3. It is hard to box against a southpaw, as Apollo Creed found out when he fought Rocky Balboa in the first of an interminable seri

It is hard to box against a southpaw, as Apollo Creed found out when he fought Rocky Balboa in the first of an interminable seri

admin2010-05-05  61
问题     It is hard to box against a southpaw, as Apollo Creed found out when he fought Rocky Balboa in the first of an interminable series of movies. While "Rocky" is fiction, the strategic advantage of being left-handed in a fight is very real, simply because most fight-handed people have little experience of fighting left-handers, but not vice versa.
    The orthodox view of human handedness is that it is connected to the bilateral specialisation of the brain that has concentrated language-processing functions on the left side of that organ. Because, long ago in the evolutionary past, an ancestor of humans underwent a contortion that twisted its head around 180’ relative to its body, the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, and vice versa. In humans, the left brain is usually dominant. And on average, left-handers are smaller and lighter than right-handers. That should ’put them at an evolutionary disadvantage. Sporting advantage notwithstanding, therefore, the existence of left-handedness poses a problem for biologists. But Charlotte Faurie thinks he knows the answer.
    As any schoolboy could tell you, winning fights enhances your status. If, in prehistory, this translated into increased reproductive success, it might have been enough to maintain a certain proportion of left-handers in the population, by balancing the costs of being left-handed with the advantages gained in fighting. If that is true, then there will be a higher proportion of left-handers in societies with higher levels of violence, since the advantages of being left-handed will be enhanced in such societies. Dr. Faurie set out to test this hypothesis. Fighting in modern societies often involves the use of technology, notably firearms, that is unlikely to give any advantage to left-handers. So Dr. Faurie decided to confine his investigation to the proportion of left-handers and the level of violence in traditional societies.
    By trawling the literature, checking with police departments, and even going out into the field and asking people, Dr. Faurie found that the proportion of left-handers in a traditional society is, in deed, correlated with its homicide rate. One of the highest proportions of left-handers, for example, was found among the Yanomamo of South America. Raiding and warfare are central to Yanomarno culture. The murder rate is 4.15 per 1,000 inhabitants per year. And, according to Dr. Faurie, 22.6% of Yanomamo are left-handed. In contrast, Dioula-speaking people of Burkina Faso in West Africa are virtual pacifists. There are only 0.013 murders per 1,000 inhabitants among them and only 3.4% of the population is left-handed.
    While there is no suggestion that left-handed people axe more violent than the right-handed, it looks as though they are more successfully violent. Perhaps that helps to explain the double meaning of the word "sinister".
选项 A、right-handers are put at a psychological disadvantage.
B、right-handers do not excel at boxing.
C、left-handers enjoy advantage in some sports.
D、left-handers are often involved in fighting.
答案C
解析 本题问文章列举"Apollo Creed"的例子是为了说明什么。首段中"It is hard to box against a southpaw"和"the strategic advantage of being left-handed in a fight is very real"都说明左撇子在拳击(运动)中更占有优势，故"左撇子在某些运动中占有优势"正确。右撇子在心理上被置于弱势地位：首段首句虽然谈到"Creed"发现左撇子很难应付，但这只是因为一般人都缺乏与左撇子打斗的经验，并没有说他心理上对左撇子感到恐惧。而且作者显然无意论述右撇子的心理状态，而是说明左撇子的运动优势，为下文内容作铺垫。右撇子在拳击方面不优秀：文章的中心是讲左撤子拥有某些优势而并非右撇子不优秀。左撇子经常与人打架：从"Apollo Creed"的例子中看不出左撇子与好斗有什么联系。而且末段也提到 "there is no suggestion that left-handed people are more violent than the right-handed"，可以看出左撇子不一定好斗。
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