题文
People have wondered for a long time how their personalities and behavior are formed. It is not easy to explain why one person is intelligent and another is not, or why one is cooperative and another is competitive.Social scientists are of course extremely interested in these types of questions. They want to explain why we possess certain characteristics and exhibit certain behavior. There are no clear answers yet, but two distinct schools of thought on the matter have developed. As one might expect, the two approaches are very different from each other, and there is a great deal of debate between proponents of each theory. The controversy is often conveniently referred to as “nature and nurture”．
Those who support the “nature” side of the conflict believe that our personalities and behavior patterns are largely determined by biological factors. That our environment has little, if anything, to do with our abilities, characteristics and behavior is central to this theory. Taken to an extreme，this theory states that our behavior is predetermined to such a great degree that we are almost completely governed by our instincts(本能)．
Proponents of the “nurture” theory, or, as they are often called, behaviorists, claim that our environment is more important than our biologically based instincts in determining how we will act. A behaviorist, B. F. Skinner, sees humans as beings whose behavior is almost completely shaped by their surroundings. The behaviorists' view of the human being is quite mechanistic. They state that, like machines, humans respond to environmental stimuli (刺激) as the basis of their behavior.
Socially and politically, the consequences of these two theories are far-reaching. In the US，for example, blacks often score below whites on standardized intelligence tests. This leads some “nature” proponents to conclude that blacks are genetically lower in status than whites. Behaviorists, on the contrary, say that the differences in scores are due to the fact that blacks are often robbed of many of the educational and other environmental advantages that whites enjoy, and that, as a result, they do not develop the same responses that whites do.
Neither of these theories can yet fully explain human behavior. In fact, it is quite likely that the key to our behavior lies somewhere between these two extremes and that the controversy will continue for a long time is certain.
小题1:This passage is mainly concerned with ________. A．relation between personality and behavior B．relation between behavior and environment C．different accounts of patterns of human behavior D．different theories of the formation of human behavior 小题2:The underlined word “proponents” in Paragraph 2 means ________.A．creatorsB．advisorsC．advocatesD．judges小题3:In Paragraph 5, the author mainly writes about ________. A．the considerable influence of the two theories B．differences between the blacks and whites C．racial discrimination in the United States D．different responds to intelligence tests小题4:What's the author's purpose in writing the passage? A．To call our attention to the changes of human behavior. B．To urge scientists to do more research in social science. C．To give us a detailed explanation of human behavior. D．To present an argument in the field of social science. 题型：未知 难度：其他题型
答案
小题1:D
小题2:C
小题3:A
小题4:D
解析
本文主要讨论了人的个性和智力是先天形成的还是受环境影响的。
小题1:主旨大意题。首段首句指出作者要讨论的问题，第 2 段开始从两个方面解释 该问题，末段是总结段，由此看来，首段首句和末段首句提到的 human behavior 是本文的 中心内容，虽然文章首段第 2 句就提到 intelligent 一词， 但该句的 intelligent， cooperative， competitive 等都只是举例说明首句有关 personalities 和 behaviors 的问题， 由此可见，选项 B 并非本文主旨；作者提到两种理论是为了解释性格和行为形成的原因，并非讨论这两种理论形成的原因，因此 A和C两项均不正确。选D
小题2:猜词题。根据文章内容，我们可以判断 proponent 应指人，指这两种理论的支持者，只有 advocates“拥护者”符合这种推测，故选 C。
小题3:段落大意题：题干问第五段主要关于什么，这要看第五段的结构。第一句Socially and politically, the consequences of these two theories are far-reaching.很明心是个概括句，下面的论据是为了证明这两个理论的相当大的影响。选A
小题4:写作意图题：结合文章的首尾可知作者的写作目的是为了介绍社会科学领域的一个争论吗，答案选D
考点
据考高分专家说，试题“People have wondered.....”主要考查你对 [社会现象类阅读 ]考点的理解。社会现象类阅读
社会现象类阅读概念：
这类文章通过写人记事来揭示文章的主题，显示其社会意义，一般采用顺序或倒叙来叙述。题目经常是一些细节问题。考查的方面可以是原因和其中引发的思考。
社会现象类阅读解题技巧：
这类文章通过写人记事来揭示文章的主题，显示其社会意义，一般采用顺序或倒叙来叙述。题目经常是一些细节问题。考查的方面可以是原因和其中引发的思考。阅读这类文章要理清思路。
1、浏览试题，明确要求。
在阅读文章前，最好先浏览一下文章后面的题干和选项。知道了问题后再去看文章，可使思路更敏捷，而且也便于阅读时留意文中出现的与选项有关的信息。
2、通读全文，抓住主要内容。
在不影响理解的前提下，尽可能地阅读以便在尽可能短的时间内理解文章或段落的内容。阅读时，如遇到不熟悉的单词、词组或一时看不懂的句子，不要停下来苦思冥想，继续读下去，通过上下文的词语和句子可能就理解了。
3、抓住中心思想和段落大意。
通读全文时，要特别注意主题句。每篇文章或每个段落都有与文章有关的句子，尤其是科技、政论性文章的主题句一般都在文章的开头或结尾，插在中间的很少。所以，文章的第一段或开头的第一、二个句子往往包含着文章的中心思想、作者的意图或全文的概述，因此要特别注意，彻底理解。
4、有针对性地仔细阅读，找寻所需信息。
在前面的基础上，可进行有针对性地阅读了。把与问题无关的内容一扫而过，而对于和问题有关的内容认真阅读，还可以用笔在下面做出记号。再把这些信息与问题的要求结合起来，逐条分析，综合判断，找出正确答案。
5、进行合理的推理判断。
对文章有了全面的了解之后，可以按照文章要求以及上下文之间的关系，做出推理判断。在进行推理判断的时候，需要综合考虑句型、语法、句子之间的逻辑关系、文化背景等方面的因素。
6、认真复读，验证答案。
要用全文的中心思想统帅各个题目，研究其内在联系和逻辑关系，并依次审核那些还未打上的题目，确保理解无误。
