Question

Oh, the places you’ll go!

When it comes to habitat, human beings are creatures of habit. It has been known for a long time that, whether his habitat is a village, a city or, for real globe-trotters (周游世界者), the planet itself, an individual person generally visits the same places regularly. The details, though, have been surprisingly obscure. Now, thanks to an analysis of data collected from 40,000 smartphone users around the world, a new property of humanity’s locomotive (移动的) habits has been revealed.

It turns out that someone’s “location capacity”, the number of places which he or she visits regularly, remains constant over periods of months and years. What constitutes a “place” depends on what distance between two places makes them separate. But analyzing movement patterns helps illuminate the distinction and the researchers found that the average location capacity was 25. If a new location does make its way into the set of places an individual tends to visit, an old one drops out in response. People do not, in other words, gather places like collector cards. Rather, they cycle through them. Their geographical behavior is limited and predictable, not fancy-free.

The study demonstrating this, just published in Nature Human Behavior, does not offer any explanation for the limited location capacity it measures. But a statistical analysis carried out by the authors shows that it cannot be explained solely by constraints on time. Some other factor is at work. One of the researchers draws an analogy. He suggests that people’s cognitive capacity limits the number of places they can visit routinely, just as it limits the number of other people an individual can routinely socialize with. That socialization figure, about 150 for most people, is known as the Dunbar number, after its discoverer, Robin Dunbar.

Lehmann says his group is now in search of similar data from other primates (灵长目动物), in an attempt to work out where human patterns of mobility have their roots. For those, though, they will have to rely on old-fashioned methods of zoological observation unless they can work out a way to get chimpanzees to carry smartphones.

1.The underlined word “obscure” in paragraph 1 can be replaced by     .

A. clear    B. little known

C. accurate    D. long forgotten

2.How can the researchers get similar data from other primates?

A. Observe the primates or let them carry smartphones.

B. Work together with Robin Dunbar.

C. Carry out statistical analysis.

D. Publish essays in Nature Human Behavior.

Answer

1.B

2.A

【解析】

通过搜集大量智能手机用户的数据，研究者得出一个人通常会定期访问相同的地方，这与人的位置能力有关，动物也是如此。

1.猜测词义题。研究表明一个人通常会定期访问相同的地方，尽管细节还出人意料地模糊不清。上句是人们得出的结论，下句是数据的来源。句中though 表示意思转折，“obscure”指模糊不清的，与little known同义，故选B.

2.细节理解题。根据最后一段For those, though, they will have to rely on old-fashioned methods of zoological observation unless they can work out a way to get chimpanzees to carry smartphones.可知人们研究其他灵长类动物，可以通过让黑猩猩携带智能手机或依靠老式的动物学观察方法得到数据。故选A.