科学家对未来都有各种预测。有近期未来预测（immediate future），也有远期未来预测（distant future）。有精确预测（predict），也有不太精确的预测（forecast）。这些都是英语文化经常“纠缠”的区分。
老夏考研“每日一题”选自《大西洋月刊》文章标题为“可笑的是，有资格的当局在预测未来方面表现得很糟糕。但可靠的预测是可能的。”（人是无价的）。
今天给的是词义推测题。我们先做题吧......
【题目】The word “crashed” is closest in meaning to ______
[A] changed.
[B]declined.
[C] shifted.
[D] erupted.
【试题】
①The bet was on, and it was over the fate of humanity. ②On one side was the Stanford biologist Paul R. Ehrlich. ③In his 1968 best seller, The Population Bomb, Ehrlich insisted that it was too late to prevent a doomed disaster resulting from overpopulation. ④Resource shortages would cause hundreds of millions of starvation deaths within a decade. ⑤It was cold, hard math: The human population was growing exponentially*; the food supply was not. ⑥Ehrlich was an accomplished butterfly specialist. ⑦He knew that nature did not regulate animal populations delicately. ⑧Populations exploded, blowing past the available resources, and then crashed.
⑨In his book, Ehrlich played out hypothetical scenarios that represented “the kinds of disasters that will occur.” ⑩In the worst-case scenario, famine rages across the planet.
【参考译文】
①The bet was on, and it was over the fate of humanity. 赌局已经开始了，赌的是人类的命运。
②On one side was the Stanford biologist Paul R. Ehrlich. 一边是斯坦福大学的生物学家Paul R. Ehrlich。
③In his 1968 best seller, The Population Bomb, Ehrlich insisted that it was too late to prevent a doomed disaster resulting from overpopulation. 他1968年的畅销书《人口爆炸》中，Ehrlich坚持认为，要阻止一场因人口过剩而注定的灾难，为时已晚。
④Resource shortages would cause hundreds of millions of starvation deaths within a decade. 资源短缺将在十年内造成数亿人因饥饿而死亡。
⑤It was cold, hard math: The human population was growing exponentially*; the food supply was not. 这是一个冷酷而又困难的数学问题：人类人口呈指数级增长；食物供应却没有。
⑥Ehrlich was an accomplished butterfly specialist. Ehrlich是一位很有成就的蝴蝶专家。
⑦He knew that nature did not regulate animal populations delicately. 他知道大自然并没有巧妙地控制动物的数量。
⑧Populations exploded, blowing past the available resources, and then crashed. 人口激增，超过了可用的资源，然后剧减。
⑨In his book, Ehrlich played out hypothetical scenarios that represented “the kinds of disasters that will occur.” 在他的书中，Ehrlich列举了一些假设的情景，这些情景代表了“将要发生的各种灾难”。
⑩In the worst-case scenario, pandemic rages across the planet. 在最坏的情况下，流行病将席卷全球。
点击视频看老夏给你精讲答案
考研英语除了考查知识点之外，还注重考查考生的思辨能力,即概念理解能力，逻辑推测能力以及概括能力。鉴于此，“每日一题”以段落的形式出现（这样为理解提供充分的语境），题目设计的目的主要帮助你既巩固所学知识（knowledge）又提高思辨能力（critical skills）。相信能成为你达到“事半功倍”复习效果的助手。
我们选择的外刊是考研命题的高频题源外刊，而且都是近期的最新文章。老夏按照考试的要求对文章进行了改写，以让朋友们“轻装上阵”。
你在学习时无需投入太多的时间和精力，更无需照抄文本。只要做题，搞懂“大意”就可以了（当然，欲夺高分者多花一些精力也无妨）。注意带“*”是超纲单词。
扫描二维码，即可加入到今日头条小程序，直接看历史文章，和老夏每天最先发布的文章啦！选择底部的【进阶计划】菜单按钮，就可找到《最新题源外刊每日一题》了。
