Question

If you could take a large snapshot (照片) of everyone in the United States today, it would contain six million more females than males. In this country, women outlive men by about seven years. Throughout the modern world, cultures are different, diets are different, ways of life and causes of death are different, but one thing is the same--- women outlive men.

It starts before birth. At conception, male fetuses(胎儿) outnumber female by about 110 to 100; at birth, the rate has already fallen to about 105 boys to every 100 girls. By the age of 30, there are only enough men left to match the number of women. Then women start taking a lead.  Beyond the age of 80, there are nearly twice as many women as men.

“If you look at the top ten or twelve causes of death,” said Deborah Wingard, a disease expert at the University of California at San Diego, “every single one kills more men.” She listed out one sad fate after another – heart disease, lung cancer and so on. Each kills men at roughly twice the rate of that it does women.

More than a century ago American men surpassed and outlived the women. But in the 20th century, women began living longer,  primarily because pregnancy（怀孕) and giving birth to children had become less dangerous. The gap grew steadily. In 1946, for the first time ever in the United States, females outnumbered males.

Parts of the reasons are self-made. Men smoke more, drink more and take more life-threatening chances than women. Men are murdered (usually by other men) three times as often as women are. They commit suicide at a higher rate and have more than twice as many fatal car accidents as women do. Men are likely to be involved in alcohol-related deaths.

But behavior doesn’t explain away the longevity gap.

Today, some scientists studying the gender gap believe that the data point to one conclusion: Mother Nature may be partial(偏袒) to women.

Every living thing is assembled according to instructions on its chromosomes (染色体), and humans have 23 pairs of them. But in males, one of these is a weak non-matching pair, expressed by “xy”. The agreement pair in females is “xx”, and its genetic “backup” power is sometimes listed as a clue to woman’s superior restoring force.  If the male’s single “x” chromosome isn’t perfect, it is possible for a serious genetic disorder to appear. Some blood diseases, for instance, are diseases caused by a shortcoming in a single gene on the “x” chromosome. They are far more common in males than females.

1.What may the underlined word “outlive” in Paragraph1 mean?

A. Become stronger than.

B. Live longer than.

C. Be wiser than.

D. Be born more earlier than.

2. What can we infer from the second paragraph?

A. Female fetuses are more than male.

B. The female are surpassing the male with age increasing.

C. By the age of 30, the female are more than the male.

D. Over 90, men are more than women in the United States.

3.How many exact diseases are mentioned as examples killing twice men than women?

A. Two.              B. Three.         C. Ten.              D. Five.

4.The best title for this passage is _____

A. Why women live longer than men

B. Women are different from men

C. American men once lived longer than the women

D. Men smoke and drank more than women

Answer

1.B

2.B

3.A

4.A

【解析】

试题分析：为什么女性比男性长寿？科学家们在本文中给出了答案。

1.猜测词义题。根据第一段If you could take a large snapshot (照片) of everyone in the United States today, it would contain six million more females than males. In this country, women outlive men by about seven years. 如果今天你在全美国照张照片会发现女性比男性多600万人，女性比男性长寿7年。故选B。

2.推理判断题。根据第二段提供的数据判断，随着年龄的增长女性的数量远远超过男性。选B。

3.细节理解题。根据She listed out one sad fate after another – heart disease, lung cancer and so on. Each kills men at roughly twice the rate of that it does women.可知文中提到两种疾病男性死亡率是女性的两倍--心脏病和肺癌。选A。

4.最佳标题。根据But in the 20th century, women began living longer, primarily because pregnancy（怀孕) and giving birth to children had become less dangerous. Parts of the reasons are 和Today, some scientists studying the gender gap believe that the data point to one conclusion:。得知全文都在探讨女性比男性长寿的原因。最佳标题选A。

考点： 科研类文章