4. Discovery of a Possible New Human Species

Section D

Directions: Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions or complete the statements in the fewest possible words.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 (A)

Kids, I’m Giving It Away

With tons of money and now lots of leisure time, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates will retire on Friday as one of the most envied men in the world. But don’t bother envying his three children, the youngest of whom is only 6 years old.

Last week, Gates announced he planned to give all his wealth, $58 billion in total, to charity. Speaking about the joint-decision he made with his wife, he said: “We’ve chosen not to pass it on to our children.”

Many rich Americans have long given money away to charities, rather than to their children. In a survey by Fortune magazine in 1986, of 30 multimillionaires, six said their children would be better off with only minimal inheritance. Almost half planned to leave at least as much to charity as to their heirs.

　 The trend has continued in recent years. Since 1988, the US has seen a massive decline in the percentage of wealthy individuals who inherited their wealth. A study by the Wall Street Journal in April suggests that 65 percent of today’s multimillionaires made their wealth themselves.

Americans’ coldness to inherited wealth might be influenced by the nation’s culture. While the English aristocracy (贵族) respected inherited wealth, the Americans respect self-made heroes like Andrew Carnegie. He once said that “the man who dies rich dies disgraced.” He emigrated from Scotland to the US, became the world’s second richest man in the 1870s, and gave away all of his fortune.

Today, the respect for self-made heroes lives on. The two richest businessmen in the US, Bill Gates and the investor Warren Buffet, are following in the Carnegie tradition. Last year, Buffet also decided to donate most of his fortune to charity.

He believes that setting up his heirs with “a lifetime supply of food stamps just because they came out of the right womb” can be “harmful” for them. He called it an “anti-social act”. To him, the perfect amount to leave a child who is a college graduate is “a few hundred thousand dollars.”

3. Further research

2. Because they might provide new evidence for human study.

1. Because it resembles the tiny heroes in the Lord of the Rings books.

4. The best title of the passage is _______.

Key:

3. According to Daniel E. Lieberman, what does disagreement lead to?_____.

2. Why are small discoveries in Indonesia important ? _____.

1. Why did Researchers name the skeleton Hobbit ?_____.

4. What information will probably be provided following the last paragraph?

　 ___________________________________________________________

Key:

1 safe drinking water should be a primary concern.

2 Americans

3 fight against the worldwide water shortage and sanitation problem.

4 A list of nonprofit water organizations to make contact with.

Section D

Directions: Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions or complete the statements in the fewest possible words.

Small discoveries in Indonesia are causing a stir in the science world. Researchers have unearthed (挖掘) tiny bones that they believe belong to an entirely new human species. If that’s true, it will change how we think about our ancestors.

Clues that the little people may have lived long ago were first revealed last year in the scientific journal Nature. Scientists said that they had found the bones of a three-foot-tall female on the island of Flores, in Indonesia. When they looked more closely, they saw that the nearly complete skeleton (骨骼) belonged to a full-grown adult. Researchers named her Hobbit, after the tiny heroes of the Lord of the Rings books.

Now the team is saying it has unearthed even more pieces of the puzzle, including a jawbone and parts of arms, legs and hands from several individuals, as well as stone tools. They reported their find in Nature this month. “The new evidence makes it very clear that these people are a new species, distinct from modern humans,” Peter Brown, a scientist on the team, said. They named these ancient humans Homo floresiensis.

Brown says that these little people lived as recently as 12,000 years ago. If Homo floresiensis was a different species from modern humans, that would make our family tree bigger than we knew. It means, says Brown, that “until recently, a relative shared the planet with us.”

Many scientists think a new species is unlikely. Some argue that the bones must have belonged to modern humans whose small size was the result of a genetic problem.

Daniel E. Lieberman, a scientist at Harvard University, thinks that the debate over the discovery is healthy. He believes that the questions and arguments raised by critics will help us learn more about these unusual skeletons. “Disagreement is an important part of the scientific process,” Lieberman said. “As far as I’m concerned, the story’s only just begun.”

3. The main purpose of the passage is to call on people to ____.