2016年8月20日托福閱讀詞匯題:
likewise=similarly
lucrative=profitable
surge=sudden increase
might=strength
compile=put together
prevail=accepted
coexist=live together
exquisitely=perfectly
predominate=mainly
adopting=start to use
2016年8月20日托福閱讀第一篇 人口增長
原文回顧:因為農業(yè)發(fā)展,公元前8000年人口就忽然增長。然后,因為農業(yè)讓媽媽可以生更多的孩子。而且嬰兒可以喂谷物,而不是像以前那樣,只喝奶;大孩子也可以照顧小孩,還可以分擔一些農活。所以,人類出生率就變高了。農業(yè)人口再語言上和其他一些方面上都優(yōu)于漁獵人口。所以,漁獵人口逐漸開始向農業(yè)人口學習。
相關背景學習: Population genetics
In population genetics a sexual population is a set of organisms in which any pair of members can breed together. This means that they can regularly exchange gametes to produce normally-fertile offspring, and such a breeding group is also known therefore as a gamodeme. This also implies that all members belong to the same of species, such as humans. If the gamodeme is very large (theoretically, approaching infinity), and all gene alleles are uniformly distributed by the gametes within it, the gamodeme is said to be panmictic. Under this state, allele (gamete) frequencies can be converted to genotype (zygote) frequencies by expanding an appropriate quadratic equation, as shown by Sir Ronald Fisher in his establishment of quantitative genetics.
This seldom occurs in nature: localisation of gamete exchange – through dispersal limitations, or preferential mating, or cataclysm, or other cause – may lead to small actual gamodemes which exchange gametes reasonably uniformly within themselves, but are virtually separated from their neighbouring gamodemes. However, there may be low frequencies of exchange with these neighbours. This may be viewed as the breaking up of a large sexual population (panmictic) into smaller overlapping sexual populations. This failure of panmixia leads to two important changes in overall population structure: (1) the component gamodemes vary (through gamete sampling) in their allele frequencies when compared with each other and with the theoretical panmictic original (this is known as dispersion, and its details can be estimated using expansion of an appropriate binomial equation); and (2) the level of homozygosity rises in the entire collection of gamodemes. The overall rise in homozygosity is quantified by the inbreeding coefficient (f or φ). Note that all homozygotes are increased in frequency – both the deleterious and the desirable. The mean phenotype of the gamodemes collection is lower than that of the panmictic "original" – which is known as inbreeding depression. It is most important to note, however, that some dispersion lines will be superior to the panmictic original, while some will be about the same, and some will be inferior. The probabilities of each can be estimated from those binomial equations. In plant and animal breeding, procedures have been developed which deliberately utilise the effects of dispersion (such as line breeding, pure-line breeding, back-crossing). It can be shown that dispersion-assisted selection leads to the greatest genetic advance (ΔG = change in the phenotypic mean), and is much more powerful than selection acting without attendant dispersion. This is so for both allogamous (random fertilization) and autogamous (self-fertilization) gamodemes.