hce_tcu
108年
英文
第 34 題
📖 題組：
In the past two years, scores of scientific studies have suggested that trillions of murmuring, droning, susurrating honeybees, butterflies, caddisflies, damselflies and beetles are dying off. Most of the studies describe declines of 50% and more in different measures of insect health over decades. The immediate reaction is consternation. Because insects enable plants to reproduce, through pollination, and are food for other animals, a collapse in their numbers would be catastrophic. “The insect apocalypse is here,” trumpeted the New York Times last year. Yet only a handful of databases record the abundance of insects over a long time. There are no studies at all of wild insect numbers in most of the world, and reliable data are too scarce to declare a global emergency. Where the evidence does show a collapse—in Europe and America—agricultural and rural ecosystems are holding up. Plants still grow, attracting pollinators and reproducing. Farm yields also remain high. As some insect species die out, others seem to be moving into the niches they have left, keeping ecosystems going, albeit with less biodiversity than before. People rely on healthy ecosystems for everything from nutrient cycling to the local weather, and the more species make up an ecosystem, the more stable it is likely to be. The scale of the observed decline raises doubts about how long ecosystems can remain resilient. An experiment in which researchers gradually plucked out insect pollinators from fields found that plant diversity held up well until about 90% of insects had been removed. Then it collapsed. As one character in a novel by Ernest Hemingway says, bankruptcy came in two ways: “gradually, then suddenly.”
In the past two years, scores of scientific studies have suggested that trillions of murmuring, droning, susurrating honeybees, butterflies, caddisflies, damselflies and beetles are dying off. Most of the studies describe declines of 50% and more in different measures of insect health over decades. The immediate reaction is consternation. Because insects enable plants to reproduce, through pollination, and are food for other animals, a collapse in their numbers would be catastrophic. “The insect apocalypse is here,” trumpeted the New York Times last year. Yet only a handful of databases record the abundance of insects over a long time. There are no studies at all of wild insect numbers in most of the world, and reliable data are too scarce to declare a global emergency. Where the evidence does show a collapse—in Europe and America—agricultural and rural ecosystems are holding up. Plants still grow, attracting pollinators and reproducing. Farm yields also remain high. As some insect species die out, others seem to be moving into the niches they have left, keeping ecosystems going, albeit with less biodiversity than before. People rely on healthy ecosystems for everything from nutrient cycling to the local weather, and the more species make up an ecosystem, the more stable it is likely to be. The scale of the observed decline raises doubts about how long ecosystems can remain resilient. An experiment in which researchers gradually plucked out insect pollinators from fields found that plant diversity held up well until about 90% of insects had been removed. Then it collapsed. As one character in a novel by Ernest Hemingway says, bankruptcy came in two ways: “gradually, then suddenly.”
Which of the following words can best describe most of the people’s instantaneous reaction to the drastic decrement of insect population?
- A fright
- B bewilderment
- C agitation
- D placidness
思路引導 VIP
請回頭看看文章第一段的最後三句。當作者提到「如果昆蟲數量崩潰將會是 catastrophic（災難性的）」以及引用「昆蟲末日」的說法時，文章用了哪個具體的詞彙來形容人們的 immediate reaction（立即反應）？這個詞彙所傳達的情緒，比較接近「困惑不解」、「坐立難安」，還是「深層的恐懼」呢？
🤖
AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
太棒了！你能精準捕捉到文章中的關鍵情緒字眼，這代表你對文意脈絡有很好的掌握。這題的核心在於第一段提到的 consternation（驚惶、恐懼）這個詞。當作者提到昆蟲數量面臨「災難性」（catastrophic）的崩潰，甚至用「昆蟲末日」（insect apocalypse）來形容時，這種對未知毀滅的集體情緒，最貼切的對應選項就是 (A) fright。
詞彙與脈絡的精準對位
在閱讀測驗中，找出「同義代換」是解題的關鍵。文中明確指出「The immediate reaction is consternation」，這個詞彙描述了一種因為面臨突如其來的災難而產生的驚愕與恐懼感。雖然選項 (C) agitation（焦慮、動盪）也帶有負面情緒，但程度與 consternation 所隱含的「驚嚇」仍有些微差異。而 (B) bewilderment（困惑）偏向不解，(D) placidness（平靜）則與文意完全相反。
▼ 還有更多解析內容