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考研英语阅读能力提升需要不断地积累练习，通过多阅读来积累词汇，提升阅读速度，强化把握主旨能力。2017考研复习之初，时间相对充裕，新东方在线建议大家每天多做一些阅读，可娱乐也可增长见闻，还能提升能力。下面一篇文章是关于男人长胡子的真正原因。
2017考研英语拓展阅读：男人长胡子的真正原因
You might think all the facial hair you’re seeing on the street is a way of
attracting a mate. It might not be so simple.
What is the point of a beard, evolutionarily speaking? Children, women, and
a whole bunch of men manage just fine without one. But take a walk down some
streets these days and you’ll be confronted with all sizes and shapes of groomed
(and less groomed) facial hair – from designer stubble to waxed moustaches and
hipster beards.
When we see men paying attention to their appearance, it’s easy to assume
that they’re just angling for partners. But our research on beards and voices
shows that beards probably evolved at least partly to help men boost their
standing among other men.
Compared to males and females of many other primates, men and women on
average look very different from each other – partly thanks to men’s facial
hair. And when we see differences between males and females, the explanation
often boils down to evolution through sexual selection – the process that
favours traits that boost mating opportunities.
But interestingly, women don’t seem that interested in beards. While some
studies have found that women like a bit or even a lot of facial hair on men,
other studies have reported that they prefer the clean-shaven look. The lack of
consistent evidence means we can’t conclude that beards evolved because women
were attracted to them.
Researchers have therefore suggested that a second type of sexual selection
may hold the answer. To reproduce, it’s often not enough to simply be
attractive. You also have to compete with the same sex for mating opportunities.
The funny, shy guy at the back of the bar isn’t going to stand a chance when
competing with his bolshier brothers otherwise. And there’s evidence that beards
evolved to help men do just that.
In times with a greater proportion of single men competing for fewer women,
beards and moustaches became more fashionable
A man’s ability to grow a fulsome beard isn’t actually neatly linked to his
testosterone levels. Despite this, a number of studies have suggested that both
men and women perceive men with beards as older, stronger and more aggressive
than others. And dominant men can get more mating opportunities by intimidating
rivals to stand aside.
This is something that holds true both in modern times and throughout human
history. Dominance can provide a staggering short-cut to mating opportunities:
genetic evidence indicates that about 8% of the male population of Asia today is
a descendent of Genghis Khan and his family.
A study by the appropriately-named Nigel Barber linked British facial hair
fashions between 1842 and 1971 to the ratio of men to women in the marriage
market. It found that in times with a greater proportion of single men competing
for fewer women, beards and moustaches became more fashionable.
Beards aren’t the only feature that can convey dominance – voices do too.
People tend to vote for leaders with lower-pitched voices, and during
competitive tasks men lower the pitch of their voice if they think they are more
dominant than their opponent. Like facial hair, voice pitch also easily
distinguishes men and women.
To help trace the evolutionary origin of beards and voices, we tested
whether they were seen as attractive, dominant or both. We asked 20 men and 20
women to rate the dominance and attractiveness of six men who were video-taped
on four occasions as they let their facial hair grow. We then used computer
software to create four versions of each video where the men’s voices had been
changed to sound higher and lower-pitched.
We found that male voices that sounded deeper than average were rated as
the most attractive. Really deep or high pitches weren’t as popular. In
contrast, men’s voices were perceived as increasingly dominant the lower they
were. Beards didn’t affect a man’s attractiveness rating consistently, but those
who let their facial hair grow were perceived as more dominant than others – in
line with previous research.
The tension between attracting a mate and competing with others doesn’t
just apply to beards and voices. Men on average also think their body should be
more muscular than women report that they want, while women on average believe
they need to be thinner and wear more make-up than men report that they want.
We’re not always that great at judging what the other sex finds appealing, but
maybe that’s in part because our instincts are to out-compete our peers as well
as attract a partner.
Of course, most of this research has been carried out within western
populations. Make-up use, average body composition, and even the very ability to
grow facial hair all differ enormously across the world – meaning we could get
different results elsewhere.
But the point is that, whether it’s facial hair or something else, we often
see this pattern of competing requirements leading to differences in
appearances. Think you can please everyone all of the time? You can’t.
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发表于 2017-8-6 16:13:52