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  3. More boys than girls are born all over the world, but a new study has found that the closer people live to the equator(赤道), the

More boys than girls are born all over the world, but a new study has found that the closer people live to the equator(赤道), the

admin2017-06-11  68
问题     More boys than girls are born all over the world, but a new study has found that the closer people live to the equator(赤道), the smaller the difference becomes. No one knows why.
    The imbalanced sex ratio at birth has been known for more than a hundred years, and researchers have found a large variety of social, economic and biological factors that relate to the sex ratio at birth-war, economic stress, age, diet, selective abortion and more. But latitude(纬度)is a natural phenomenon, unaffected by cultural or economic factors.
    To look at the effect of latitude, Kristen J. Navara of the University of Georgia used the latitude of the capital city in 202 countries, as well as 10 years of data on sex ratio at birth and annual variations in day length and temperature. Dr. Navara performed a statistical analysis which showed that there was a significant relation between sex ratios in favor of boys and latitude. African countries produced the lowest sex ratios—50. 7 percent boys—and European and Asian countries had the highest with 51. 4 percent.
    There are some possible explanations, but none entirely satisfactory. It could be that there is some survival value in producing more girls in warmer regions, but it is unclear what this might be. There may be genetic or racial differences that could explain it, but the connection persists over so many varied populations that this seems unlikely. Mice also produce more male offspring during shorter days or colder weather, but the reasons in these animals are just as mysterious as they are in humans.
    " There’s a possibility that humans might be responding to factors they were programmed to respond to a long time ago-not cultural or socioeconomic, but climate and things like latitude," Dr. Navara said. " What’s interesting is that we may be seeing something that connects us with our animal ancestry. "
What is the purpose of the passage?
选项 A、To tell a mysterious story.
B、To report a scientific experiment.
C、To explain an interesting phenomenon.
D、To argue for a viewpoint.
答案C
解析 主旨大意题。从整个行文来看，全文在讨论性别比例不均衡的现象，所以答案为C。全文没有任何story，因此选项A不对。文章也没有提到experiment，可排除B。如果文章讨论某一观点，应该有支持和反对的对照，故D也不正确。
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