单选题
A new partner pushes out two close friends on average, leaving lovers with a smaller inner circle of people they can turn to in times of crisis, a study found.
The research, led by Robin Dunbar, head of the Institute of
Cognitive
(认知的) and Evolutionary
Anthropology
(人类学) at Oxford University, showed that men and women were equally likely to lose their closest friends when they started a new relationship.
Previous research by Dunbar"s group has shown that people typically have five very close relationships—that is, people whom they would turn to if they were in emotional or financial trouble.
"If you go into a romantic relationship, it costs you two friends. Those who have romantic relation- ships, instead of having the typical five "core set" of relationships only have four. And of those, one is the new person who"s come into their life," said Dunbar.
The study, submitted to the journal Personal Relationships, was designed to investigate how people trade off spending time with one person over another and suggests that links with fancily and closest friends suffer when people start a romantic relationship.
Dunbar"s team used an internet-based questionnaire to quiz 428 women and 112 men about their relationships. In total, 363 of the participants had romantic partners. The findings suggest that a new love interest has to compensate for the loss of two close friends.
Speaking at the British Science Festival, Professor Dunbar said: "This was a surprise for us. We hadn"t expected it."
"What I suspect is that your attention is so wholly focused on the romantic partner you don"t get to see the other folks you had a lot to do with before, and so some of those relationships start to
deteriorate
(变糟)."
The questionnaire allowed people to mention whether any of their closest friends were "extra romantic partners". In all, 32 of those quizzed mentioned having an extra love interest in their life, but these people did not lose four friends as might be expected. Instead, the extra person in their life bumped their original romantic partner out of their innermost circle of friends.
单选题
What was the new finding of Robin Dunbar"s group?
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[解析] 文章前两段。
文章第1句提到一项研究发现人们谈一次新的恋爱平均会失去两个密友，而由第2段第1句可知，该研究是由Robin Dunbar牵头的，与题干相符，故可确定C为正确答案。C中的at the cost of...意为“以……为代价”。
A利用第1段后半句的内容制造干扰，其说法本身无误，但这是人之常情，并不是该研究的结果，故排除；虽然恋爱使得人们平均失去两个亲密的朋友，但这不代表人恋爱后套变得不喜交际，B属于主观臆断，没有原文依据；D与第2段最后一句中的equally likely...相反。
单选题
The phrase "very close relationships" (Line 1, Para. 3) refers to ______.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】[解析] 第3段。
该段破折号后的内容对very close relationship作出了解释，指人们身处感情或财政危机时可以求助的人，由前面修饰词five及后面的emotional... trouble，并结合第1段后半句的内容可知这里不可能指“恋人”，故A、C可先排除；这里应指亲密的朋友，B中的intimate与close同义，所以B正确。
破折号通常起解释说明的作用，其后也是阅读理解的常考点。D利用relationship的形近词relatives制造干扰，close relatives表示“近亲”，文章讨论的是恋人、朋友的话题，完全没有提及有关“亲戚”的信息，D严重偏离主题。
单选题
The purpose of Robin Dunbar"s study is to ______.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[解析] 第5段。
该段中的was designed to提示后面的内容即为研究的目的所在。该研究意在调查人们如何权衡自己在不同的交往关系中的时间分配，C符合此意，为正确答案。其中look into对应文中的investigate，而balance对应文中的trade off(权衡)。
A无原文根据；B中的how people spend their time将文章的语义范围扩大了，原文关注的是人们在“交际”中的时间分配，故B不准确；D利用该段末出现的start a romantic relationship制造干扰，与研究目的无关。
单选题
What do we learn about Dunbar"s questionnaire from the passage?
单选题
What do we learn from the last paragraph about "extra romantic partners"?
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】[解析] 最后一段。
该段最后一句提到the extra person会将之前的恋人挤出(bump... out of)他们的密友圈子(innermost circle of friends)，D是该句的同义替换，其中expel对应文中的bump... out of，而“core set” of relationships则对应文中的innermost circle of friends。
文章结尾处及转折处常设考点。A、C均属于无中生有，并无原文根据；B可能与大部分人对“第三者”的看法相似，但文中并未提及研究者对这些“extra romantic partners”的看法，故也应排除。