Question

　　Then by chance, Darwin read a book by Malthus, an Englishman. The book was forty years old, and Malthus was already dead. But it suddenly pushed Darwin nearer to some answers. Malthus said,“The number of people in the world can grow very quickly. Just think, a man and his wife could have ten children. When these ten grow up, every one of them could have ten more children. So now we have a hundred children. Again, if every one of these has ten children, we will have a thousand children and this can continue. We will have more and more people.”

　　All this could happen. But did it? Malthus said,“No. It doesn't happen in the real world. The number of people remains almost the same. Why? The reason is this. We just can't grow food quickly enough. Soon there's not enough food. So some people can't eat. They die before they bring any more children into the world.”

　　These ideas came at just the right time for Darwin. He asked one more question: Which people will die before they have children? For Malthus, this was not an important question. But for Darwin, it was very important.

　　He asked,“Which people will have children? Why does this man have children, and why does that man not have any?”And soon of course he was thinking of the Galapagos finches（鸣鸟）again.

　　“The number of finches remains almost the same. So usually two birds must give us only two new birds. But a finch lays more than two eggs. Which two young birds will live, and give us more eggs? Which will not?”

　　The answer is some birds can't get enough food--they will die. But why can't they get enough? Why are some birds better than them? The birds in one family are not quite the same. Some are stronger, some are quicker, some are bigger, some have longer beaks, some have lighter bodies. The best birds will live.

　　And always an answer brought with a question: What is“best”? Darwin now, had his list of facts and questions, answers and ideas. Could he put them together and make a clear story? Could he explain the evolution（进化）of the finches?

　　He could and he did.

(1) What are the general differences between Darwin and Malthus according to the passage?

[　　]

A．Darwin thought of the evolution while Malthus considered the starvation.

B．Malthus believed that more food was needed for more people while Darwin found the answer to the problem of how to keep the“best one”.

C．Darwin concluded“the survival of the fittest”,while Malthus made it clear that the lack of food might prevent the increase of population.

D．Malthus felt it important for people to live better while Darwin supposed it more important for birds to have more young ones.

(2) What is Malthus'point of view about the problem of population?

A．It is natural for the population to increase without any plan.

B．It is unnecessary to make people have fewer children.

C．Some people could not have fewer children because of the lack of food.

D．The number of people would remain almost the same if the food conditions would not change.

(3) What was the result of Darwin's research?

[　　]

A．He wanted to find out why some birds can live better while some others cannot.

B．He only made an answer to the question“What is the best?”

C．He explained the evolution of the finches through his observation（观察）.

D．He discovered a lot more“Whys”than Malthus did.

(4) Which of the following is TRUE?

[　　]

A．Darwin developed his theory with the help of Malthus'.

B．Darwin agreed completely with Malthus.

C．Darwin held the same opinion that lack of food made people have fewer children.

D．Darwin used finches to do experiments before using people.

(5) From the passage we can find out the author ________.

[　　]

A．preferred talking about Darwin to Malthus

B．just gave some facts of scientists'research work without any comments（评论）

C．thought Malthus'book led Darwin to the scientific research of the birds

D．believed Darwin had done much more research work than Malthus ever did

Answer 1

答案：C;D;C;A;B
解析：

(1) C；根据文章的第二、三段及后三段可得出该题的答案。 (2) D；请参见文章第二段。 (3) C；由文章最后一句He could and he did.即He could and did explain the evolution of finches.可知。 (4) A (5) B；A、D两项明显不对。C项为最大的干扰项，但从文章第一段就可以看出，Malthus的书对达尔文的研究只起到促进作用。