Question

Scientists at Harvard University and Bates College find female chimpanzees (黑猩猩) appear to treat sticks as dolls, carrying them around until they have children of their own. Young males engage in such behavior much less frequently.

The new work by Sonya M. Kahlenberg and Richard W. Wrangham, described this week in the journal Current Biology, provides the first evidence of a wild non­human species playing with dolls, as well as the first known sex difference in a wild animal’s choice of playthings.

The two researchers say their work adds to a growing body of evidence that human children are probably born with their own ideas of how they want to behave, rather than simply mirroring other girls who play with dolls and boys who play with trucks. Doll play among humans could have its origins in object—carrying by earlier apes (猿类), they say, suggesting that toy selection is probably not due entirely to socialization.

“In humans, there are obvious sex differences in children’s toy play, and these are remarkably similar across cultures,” says Kahlenberg. “While socialization by elders and peers has been the primary explanation, our work suggests that biology may also have an important role to play in activity preferences.”

In 14 years of data on chimpanzee behavior at the Kibale National Park in Uganda, Kahlenberg and Wrangham counted more than 100 examples of stick­carrying. Some young chimpanzees carried sticks into the nest to sleep with them and on one occasion built a separate nest for the stick. “We have seen juveniles occasionally carrying sticks for many years, and because they sometimes treated them rather like dolls, we wanted to know if in general this behavior tended to represent something like playing with dolls,” says Wrangham, a Professor at Harvard. “If the doll hypothesis (假设) was right, we thought that females should carry sticks more than males do, and that the chimpanzees should stop carrying sticks when they had their first child. We have now watched enough young chimpanzees to prove both points.”

1.What does a female chimpanzee do with sticks?

A．She gives them to her child to play with.

B．She treats them as dolls.

C．She makes useful tools from them.

D．She treats them as weapons.

2. What causes the different toy selection of chimpanzees, according to the passage?

A．Sex difference.	B．Socialization.
C．Environment.	D．Cultural difference.

3.We can infer from the fourth paragraph that ________.

A．socialization has nothing to do with human’s choice of playthings

B．sex difference is the only factor in human’s choice of playthings

C．the biology factor may also influence toy choice

D．people choose different toys in different cultures

4.It can be concluded from the passage that ________.

A．both humans and chimpanzees choose their playthings due to sex difference

B．different factors cause humans and chimpanzees to choose different playthings

C．only female chimpanzees have playthings

D．chimpanzees usually choose playthings for their children

 

Answer 1

【答案】

1.B

2.A

3.C

4.A

【解析】文章介绍了再选择玩具方面猩猩和人有很多相似之处。

1.细节题。根据第一段第2行treat sticks as dolls。

2.细节题。根据第二段最后一句as well as the first known sex difference in a wild animal’s choice of playthings.可知性别差异是选择玩具的一个原因。

3.细节题。根据第四段最后一句our work suggests that biology may also have an important role to play in activity preferences.可知C正确。

4.推断题。根据文章特别的3,4段可知人类和动物在选择玩具方面都受到性别差异的影响。