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 find 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 relationships, 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 family 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?

A、 People will turn to their close friends when they are in a crisis.
B、 People often become less sociable after they have a new partner.
C、 People gain a new partner at the cost of losing two close friends.
D、 Women tend to lose their close friends more easily than men.

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】解析：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”。

单选题 The phrase "very close relationships" (Lines 1-2, Para. 3) refers to_______.

A、 romantic relationships
B、 intimate friends
C、 close partners
D、 close relatives

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】解析：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。

单选题 The purpose of Robin Dunbar's study is to _______.

A、 persuade people to care about their friends
B、 investigate how people spend their time
C、 look into how people balance different relationships
D、 give some tips on how to start a romantic relationship

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】解析：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)。

单选题 What do we learn about Dunbar's questionnaire from the passage?

A、 It was carried out online.
B、 It focused on people who had romantic partners.
C、 It was designed by the journal Personal Relationships.
D、 Women were more willing to do the questionnaire than men.

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】解析：第6段首句提到邓巴的团队是用网上问卷的方式调查的(internet-based questionnaire)，A中的on-line与此对应，故为正确答案。

单选题 What do we learn from the last paragraph about "extra romantic partners"?

A、 They gain their popularity in today's society.
B、 They are not acceptable in the researchers' eyes.
C、 They tend to argue a lot with the original romantic partners.
D、 They expel the original romantic partners from the "core set" of relationships.

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】解析：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。