单选题
Men are generally better than women on tests of spatial ability, such as mentally rotating an object through three dimensions or finding their way around in a new environment. But a new study suggests that under some circumstances a woman's way of navigating is probably more efficient. Luis Pacheco-Cobos of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and his colleagues discovered this by following mushroom gatherers from a village in the state of Tlaxcala for two rainy seasons. Two researchers, each fitted with GPS navigation devices and heart-rate monitors, followed different gatherers on different days. They recorded the weight of the mushrooms each gatherer collected and where they visited. The GPS data allowed a map to be made of the routes taken and the heart-rate measurements provided an estimate of the amount of energy expended during their travels. The results, to be published in Evolution and Human Behavior, show that the men and women collected on average about the same weight of mushrooms. But the men travelled farther, climbed higher and used a lot more energy—70% more titan the women. The men did not move any faster, but they searched for spots with lots of mushrooms. The women made many more stops, apparently satisfied with, or perhaps belier at finding, patches of fewer mushrooms. Previous work has shown that men tend to navigate by creating mental maps of a territory and then imagining their position on the maps. Women are more likely to remember their mutes using landmarks. The study lends support to the idea that male and female navigational skills were honed differently by evolution for different tasks. Modern-day hunter-gatherers divide labor, so that men tend to do more hunting and women more gathering. It seems likely that early humans did much the same thing. The theory is that the male strategy is the most useful for hunting prey; chasing an antelope, say, would mean running a long way over a winding mute. But having killed his prey, the hunter would want to make a beeline for home rather than retrace his steps exactly. Women, by contrast, would be better off remembering landmarks and retracing the paths to the most productive patches of plants. The research suggests that in certain circumstances women are better at navigating than men, which might lend some comfort to a man desperately searching for an item in a supermarket while his exasperated wife methodically moves around the aisles filling the shopping trolley. He is simply not cut out for the job, evolutionarily speaking.
单选题
Before Luis Pacheco-Cobos and his colleagues' discovery, it is believed that ______. A. men are generally better than women on tests of spatial ability B. in certain circumstances women have some special abilities C. men tend to do more hunting D. women tend to do more gathering
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】[解析] 由第一段首句“在空间能力测试方面，男性的成绩普遍优于女性……”可知A项正确。由首段最后一句“But a new study suggests that under some circumstances a woman's way of navigating is probably more efficient.”可知B项错误。C、D两项是后面例子中发现的男女在实验中的不同表现，与问题不符。
单选题
What can we learn from Luis's research? A. Women are more likely to be satisfied than men. B. Men walk faster than women. C. Women are good at remembering landmarks. D. Men are good at remembering landmarks.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[解析] 由第三段的最后一句话可知，“女性则走走停停，很显然她们满意于只有少量蘑菇的区域，或者说她们更善于发现这样的区域。”不是比男人更容易满足，A项曲解了原文的意思，因此错误；由第三段第三句“The men did not move any faster”可知B项错误；第四段第二句中提到女人而不是男人更愿意使用标记，可以确定C项是正确答案。
单选题
What accounts for the difference between women and men in the navigational skill? A. Men have more strength and power. B. Men would make a beeline for home. C. Women are more likely to remember their routes. D. There are different evolutions for different tasks.
单选题
What is the text mainly about? A. Luis's research shows women are belier at navigating than men under some circumstances. B. There are differences of navigation skills between men and women. C. It is believed that men are good al hunting. D. Labor is divided by hunter-gatherers.