GMAT考试 4月9日更新GMAT阅读机经(四).

　　GMAT考试已于2012年4月2日更换题库，以下是2012年4月的GMAT阅读机经更新，更新日期从2012年4月2日起，澳际留学小编将为您提供最新的GMAT阅读机经。说明：*代表考古，绿色代表考古标志，凡是未确认的都有红标，没红标的就是已经确认了；粉色代表参考答案；红色代表重要提示；靛蓝代表参考文献，各种底色代表问题答案所对应的原文段落，详情请见问题后面的粉色描述。澳际留学在此祝大家GMAT考试顺利，得胜归来!　

6*. 乌鸦的逻辑思维能力(长)

　　V1：by cavashawn

　　还有一个是讲raven的。大概是说这动物会logical reasoning，文章一开始写了第一个实验，有人质疑，然后文章又写了第二个实验来反驳这个质疑，具体忘记了，挺简单的，映像不深。

　　V2：by ksdl

　　有一篇是讲某种动物是有逻辑推断能力的，然后有人反驳说可能是step by step的学会的。结构就是第一段讲动物有这个能力，第二段给出反驳和实验室里动物的例子，然后作者提出一个新实验证明反驳是不成立的。

　　V3：by Stephanieqt91

　　还有一篇是讲测试某种动物到底有没有逻辑分析能力，还是天生的，还是通过模仿别人获得的。

　　考古(已确认)

　　影子提醒：本月考试的童鞋请注意这篇文章的结论，是有变体的，有的结论是乌鸦有思维能力，有的是有没有思维能力还不确定，具体必须看文章，不要一看到题目就贸然选择

　　V1

　　开始讲科学家通过试验，发现乌鸦能够通过一系列复杂的行为(内容很复杂，没有题目，主要讲乌鸦有logical)来获取一个精心设计放置的肉类。表明乌鸦有逻辑思维能力.

　　第二段就讲很多动物在试验中也可以一步一步的来获取复杂放置的食物。但是他们都是通过不断试错(这里有一道题)和研究人员在这个过程中每一步的食物鼓励做到的，这个并不能说明这些小动物有逻辑思维能力。当然，有一种针对乌鸦试验的反驳观点认为乌鸦是在那个复杂行为中每一步发现肉更近了来获得精神激励，(这里有道细节题,为反驳的观点是什么)不说明他们能逻辑思考。作者反驳了这种观点，提出一个有点复杂的理由。(总之知道作者不赞同就行了);解释:这里的意思是,因为乌鸦在那个复杂的行为中,每做一步就会发现肉离它更近了一点,所以受到了精神上面的鼓励,所以才会这么一步一步做下去.如果这个解释成立的话,那么乌鸦就和那些在实验室中被研究人员一步一步用食物鼓励的小动物的行为没有差别了.那么这就说明了乌鸦没有逻辑思维能力,只是一种觅食本能的反应. 这种解释就被用来反驳文章第一段中研究人员认为乌鸦有逻辑思维能力的推论.作者认为这个解释是不合理的,提出了一堆比较复杂的理由,认为这个反驳是不成立的.

　　第三段,后来研究人员又做了一个类似第一段的试验,发现乌鸦并不具备逻辑思维能力.因此,文章的结论是乌鸦是否具备逻辑思维能力还不确定。

　　有一个推理题要注意:讲猴子怎样的行为才能说明它有逻辑思维能力.这个需要理解全文才能作.原来没有见过这个题型,所以记忆深刻.我选的E.就是猴子通过一系列复杂的行为来获取水果.比较确定.其他选项很迷惑,但是仔细分析都是文章中用来说明乌鸦没有逻辑思维能力的理由,所以不能证明猴子有逻辑思维能力.

　　V2

　　第一段：一个实验，乌鸦拉绳(yanked on the swing)取meat，最后乌鸦得到了meat并且每个步骤都做得好，而且一次就做对了，这个不是乌鸦先天的本能或是以前有过的经验，所以乌鸦具有logical的能力。

　　第二段：举了一些实验室里其他动物的例子，说他们也能学会这种能力并且是因为有food rewarding。所以有人反对说乌鸦能取到meat是因为food rewarding的影响，因为它越拉绳子就能离food越近。作者不同意反对观点。

　　第三段：又做了一个实验证明到底乌鸦是否具有logical的能力，这回拉绳子的方向相反了， 结果是虽然乌鸦拉对了方向但是没有乌鸦得到meat，但是它们也没有copy上一次的经验。。。证明他们确实有logical能力，最后一句说如果他们(乌鸦?)认为这种行为unusual的话，也一样不会做(有考点)

　　第三段(另一版本)：说科学家又做了个试验，虽然比第一个试验难不了多少，不过R的表现差很多，说明原来的假设值得进一步的研究。结论：又做了一次实验，证明logical不太好，所以到底乌鸦能不能logical还要考证

　　Q1：出了第一段的main idea 题：证明乌鸦有逻辑能力

　　Q2：关于第二段的implication题：我选的是提供一个解释，这个应该是对的，文章主流方向还是肯定最开始结论的

　　Q3：问最后一段作用：我选排除第一段的巧合的可能(注意这个答案是讲第三段确定乌鸦有logical能力的)

　　Q4：如果猴子也被拿来在试验室里做同样试验，它会怎么表现?

　　参考文献(长，不建议背，词汇量小的同学看看记住生词就行)

　　Just How Smart Are Ravens?

　　Some of you know that Bernd Heinrich has spent many winters studying ravens and their behavior. This month, Heinrich and his colleague, Thomas Bugnyar, published an article in Scientific American that explores the intelligence of ravens. In this article, they investigate the question; do the birds consciously contemplate alternative behaviors and choose the most appropriate ones, or are they merely relying on instinct or learning to perform specific actions by rote?

　　reputed to behave intelligently. They state that other relatives of the ravens -- the corvids, such as crows, jays, magpies and nutcrackers -- appear to possess surprising and sophisticated mental abilities. They even mention that these birds&apos capacities appear to be equivalent to or to even surpass those of the great apes. For example, nutcrackers have the capacity to recall thousands of locations where they have cached food items -- a capacity that exceeds that of humans.

　　Which leads us to ask; do corvids rely on logic to solve problems or are they relying on instinct? Do corvids distinguish between each other and alter their behaviors accordingly? To more precisely determine the mental capacities of ravens, the largest of the corvids, Heinrich and Bugnyar designed several tests. The first experiment consisted of food hanging from a string below the bottom of the wire cage (pictured right, bigger). To get this treat, the bird had to reach down from a perch and grasp the string in its beak, pull up on the string, place the loop of string on the perch, step on this looped segment of string to prevent it from slipping down, then let go of the string and reach down again and repeat its actions until the morsel of food was within reach.

　　They found that some adult birds would examine the situation for several minutes and then perform this multistep procedure in as little as 30 seconds without any trial and error -- as if they knew exactly what they were doing. Because there was no opportunity for the birds to be confronted with a similar problem in the wild, the simplest explanation is that they were able to imagine the possibilities and to perform the appropriate behaviors. The authors also found that successfully performing this behavior required maturity: immature birds were unable to do it while year-old birds performed a variety of trials bore they were able to succeed.

　　assert that, basically, knowing how to do something requires few or no trials, whereas trial-and-error learning requires no logic. In fact, it was possible that the birds were rewarded by having the meat become closer with each looping behavior. So as a result, the authors designed another experiment to find out how the birds were solving the problem by presenting them with a situation that was not immediately rewarding because it was counter-intuitive: a string that must be pulled down to cause the food to move upwards towards the bird (pictured lt, bigger).

　　In this situation, the ravens were still interested in the food but none of them managed to solve the problem of obtaining it even though they would have had to use the same sequence of actions. The authors concluded that the pull-up method of obtaining the meat was mastered quickly because it was logical -- a capacity that is lacking or present only to a limited extent in most animals.

　　Thinking and logic can be quite unreliable and can cause their own set of problems. For example, paper wasps rely on precise hard-wired behaviors to manufacture paper into a nest with a very precise architecture. No learning is required to create the nest, although the environment can modify some genetically programmed behaviors. So why are corvids different? What is special about their social environment that favored the evolved of intelligence as the source for complex behaviors?

　　Much of the natural history of ravens suggests that they evolved under circumstances that required them to cope with rapidly changing short-term situations. These birds are opportunists who do some hunting on their own, but are mainly dependent upon food that other animals have killed. The predators that inadvertently provide the birds with food are unpredictable and thus, can also kill ravens. Under these circumstances, trial-and-error is evolutionarily untenable because the first mistake in dealing with an unpredictable predator could cost the birds their lives.

　　Food bonanzas provided by mammalian carnivores are often quickly consumed by them. As a result, it pays ravens to get an early start in feeding -- often, side-by-side with these carnivores. To do this, the birds must be able to predict the carnivores&apos behavior, such as when they might attack, how far they can jump and how to distract them, and some of that knowledge needs to be in place bore the bird itself is distracted by feeding.

　　Juvenile birds learn these things early in life by interacting with the predators through testing their reactions. Juvenile ravens often will land nearby and nip them from behind. This so-called risky "play activity" is dangerous but ultimately aids in the birds&apos survival by providing information about the capabilities of various predators. By deliberately provoking them, ravens learn which animals they can trust and how far away they must stay to remain safe.

　　Ravens also cache food -- busily hauling it away, burying it in secret locations and eating it later. Because ravens have a nearly nonexistent sense of smell, they must memorize the precise location of this stored food, as is the case for other birds that also engage in caching. However, unlike most other caching birds, ravens observe caching of their competitors and thereby memorize the precise locations of not only their own caches, but also those of their competitors. Because of this, ravens prer to cache their food in private.

　　As newly-fledged birds that are still being fed by their parents, young ravens practice caching by hiding inedible items. Not only are the young birds learning which items are edible, but equally important, they were also learning to predict their siblings&apos behavior -- namely, cache pilfering. To better understand practice caching and pilfering behavior, the authors acted as surrogate parents to several young birds. One person was designated the "thi" and always stole a young bird&aposs cache, whereas the other person consistently examined the young birds&apos caches but never pilfered them.

　　When the thi was nearby, the authors found that the young birds significantly delayed the time they waited until they cached their food, and they relocated those caches they previously made. In contrast, the presence of the nonthi did not elicit these behaviors. These experiments reveal that the young birds improved their food-caching skills after others raided them, but they also learned to distinguish individuals, in this case, human thieves from human nonthieves. .

　　Because wild ravens typically feed in groups, it is nearly impossible for them to cache food without another bird catching them in the act, thereby learning the cache&aposs precise location. Thus, it is important that ravens identify individual birds, just as they are able to distinguish between humans. So the authors designed another experiment where they tested this ability in ravens.

　　A large aviary was designed for caching. Inside a smaller cage within this aviary were two ravens; one was a "knower" bird that was able to observe the test bird&aposs cache locations, and the other was a "nonknower" bird that had not observed the test subject&aposs caching behavior. The cacher was allowed to make three caches and then that bird was removed from the aviary. Within five minutes after the termination of the caching behavior and the removal of the cacher, either the knower and nonknower birds were allowed to go into the caching arena to search for food.

　　Knowing that caching birds often retrieve their food when robbery seems imminent, the authors tested the caching birds&apos behavior when they were in the arena privately, when the nonknower bird was present, or when the knower bird was present in the aviary. They found that the caching bird retrieved its food stores more often when the knower bird came within two meters of the cache. Thus, the authors speculated, the caching bird was able to identify which bird had observed it making its caches and was able to discriminate between it and the "nonknower" bird.

　　The authors also found that the knower birds were carul about their intentions; they did not go to the caches when the caching birds were nearby, but instead, they waited until they were at some distance. This suggests that both birds had the ability to attribute knowledge to specific individuals and to anticipate a particular response.

　　The authors used another version of this same experiment to determine if the caching birds made subtle cues that the knower birds might be able to decipher. To do this, a human make the caches, and then stood by passively while either two knower birds, or a knower and a nonknower bird were placed in the aviary together. As predicted, the knower birds were quick to pilfer human-made caches when paired with another knower. However, when paired with a nonknower, the knower bird&aposs reactions depended upon social rank. When a knower was paired with a socially dominant nonknower bird, the knower would delay approaching the cache -- instead, waiting until the dominant bird was some distance away bore pilfering the stash. Thus, the authors concluded that it was unlikely that the knowers were providing some behavioral cue that cache raiders might use.

　　In conclusion, the results of the string-pulling experiment indicate that ravens rely on logic to guide their actions. The results of the pilfer anti-pilfer experiments show that ravens react to their competitors based on what they remember them being able to observe, that they can accurately attribute the capacity of knowledge to their competitors, and that they integrate this knowledge together with social status to make strategic decisions when retrieving food caches.

　　以上就是4月9日更新的GMAT阅读机经，考生可以适当借鉴，并通过练习来掌握GMAT阅读的解题规律，从而在GMAT考试中发挥出更好的水平。 相关链接：

1.GMAT机经汇总 3月29日更新GMAT阅读机经

2.GMAT机经汇总 4月06日更新GMAT数学机经

3.GMAT考试 4月9日更新GMAT阅读机经(三)

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