Rothschild might have conclud…——2013 高考英语第 53 题答案解析

【考点】OA：健康环保类阅读．菁优网版权所有
【分析】本文属于科普说明文，主要向我们讲述了鱼龙的身体弯曲的原因以及结果．
罗斯柴尔德博士通过实验推翻了以前关于鱼龙进化的一些猜测．
【解答】61．A 细节理解题．根据第一段If a diver surfaces too quickly，he may suffer the
bends．Nitrogen（氮） dissolved（溶解） in his blood is suddenly liberated by the reduction
of pressure．可知潜水员如果露出水面太快身体会弯曲，故选A．
62．B 推理判断题．根据第三段to find out how widespread the problem was in the past和to
investigate was how ichthyosaurs adapted to the problem of
decompression可知罗斯柴尔德博士的研究目的是为了探讨鱼龙如何适应减压的问题，故
选B．
63．C 推理判断题．根据第四段he assumed that signs of the bends would be rarer in
younger fossils，接下来又说Instead，he was astonished to discover the
opposite．可知，他开始时所认为的与实验得出的结论不符，因此说他的实验结果和他
开始的预测相反，故选C．

【答案】A

【解析】推理判断题．根据第四段If ichthyosaurs did evolve an anti﹣decompression
means…But that is not what Dr Rothschild thinks
happened．可知，罗斯柴尔德博士并不认可鱼龙的抗溶解进化途径．因此A正确；误解
分析：B项文章中没有提及；文章只是说they have surfaced to escape a

predator，并不是说鱼龙的灭绝是鲨鱼造成的，因此C错；D项与罗斯柴尔德博士的看法
正好相反；故选A．
【点评】做阅读理解时要快速的浏览全文，把握文章主旨大意，带着问题回到原文，寻
找细节或概括相应的答案，最后要理清作者写作思路．
30．（12分）Mark Twain has been called the inventor of the American novel．And he surely
deserves additional praise：the man who popularized the clever literary attack on racism．
I say clever because anti﹣slavery fiction had been the important part of the literature in the
years before the Civil War．H．B．Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is only the most famous
example．These early stories dealt directly with slavery．With minor exceptions，Twain
planted his attacks on slavery and prejudice into tales that were on the surface about something
else entirely．He drew his readers into the argument by drawing them into the story．
Again and again，in the postwar years，Twain seemed forced to deal with the challenge of
race．Consider the most controversial，at least today，of Twain's novels，Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn．Only a few books have been kicked off the shelves as often as Huckleberry
Finn，Twain's most widely read tale．Once upon a time，people hated the book because it
struckthemas rude．Twain himself wrote that those who banned the book considered the
novel"trash and suitable only for the slums（贫民窟）．"More recently the book has been
attacked because of the character Jim，the escaped slave，and many occurrences of the word
nigger．（The term Nigger Jim，for which the novel is often severely criticized，never
appears in it．）
But the attacks were and are silly﹣and miss the point．The novel is strongly
anti﹣slavery．Jim's search through the slave states for the family from whom he has been
forcibly parted is heroic．As J．Chadwick has pointed out，the character of Jim was a first in
American fiction﹣a recognition that the slave had two personalities，"the voice of survival
within a white slave culture and the voice of the individual：Jim，the father and the man．"
There is much more．Twain's mystery novel Pudd'nhead Wilson stood as a challenge to the
racial beliefs of even many of the liberals of his day．Written at a time when the accepted
wisdom held Negroes to be inferior （低等的） to whites，especially in
intelligence，Twain's tale centered in part around two babies switched at birth．A slave gave
birth to her master's baby and，for fear that the child should be sold South，switched him for

the master's baby by his wife．The slave's light﹣skinned child was taken to be white and
grew up with both the attitudes and the education of the slave﹣holding class．The master's
wife's baby was taken for black and grew up with the attitudes and intonations of the slave．
The point was difficult to miss：nurture （养育），not nature，was the key to social
status．The features of the black man that provided the stuff of prejudice﹣manner of
speech，for example﹣were，to Twain，indicative of nothing other than the conditioning that
slavery forced on its victims．
Twain's racial tone was not perfect．One is left uneasy，for example，by the lengthy passage
in his autobiography （自传） about how much he loved what were called"nigger shows"in
his youth﹣mostly with white men performing in black﹣face﹣and his delight in getting his
mother to laugh at them．Yet there is no reason to think Twain saw the shows as representing
reality．His frequent attacks on slavery and prejudice suggest his keen awareness that they did
not．
Was Twain a racist？Asking the questioning the 21 stcentury is as wise as asking the same of
Lincoln．If we read the words and attitudes of the past through the"wisdom"of the considered
moral judgments of the present，we will find nothing but error．Lincoln，who believed the
black man the inferior of the white，fought and won a war to free him．And Twain，raised in
a slave state，briefly a soldier，and inventor of Jim，may have done more to anger the nation
over racial injustice and awaken its collective conscience than any other novelist in the past
century．