喂 110吗？我被这个单词给“骗”了！

2022-07-14 03:07

GRE阅读当中总是会碰到一些自我感觉已经认识的词汇，殊不知这些“老面孔”其实非常具有欺骗性，因为GRE必考一词多义和熟词僻义，你背的词义未必适用于文章。

词义理解偏差往往会对理解文章造成巨大的障碍，甚至影响正确率。因此，我们不仅要熟知填空考察的高难度词汇，同时还需要对一些基础词汇有更全面深入的理解。

今天，我们就来盘点一个非常简单的词—— impact

众所周知，impact的词义是“影响、作用”，在GRE阅读中经常考察这层含义。

下面咱们来看看几个真题例句是如何考察的：

Through their interpretations, which exert a continuing influence on our understanding of the revolutionary process, the impact of the events of June has been magnified, while, as an unintended consequence, the significance of the February insurrection has been diminished.

他们的观点持续影响着我们对革命的认知，这样的解读方式夸大了六月事件带来的影响，而无意间也低估了二月起义的重要性。

In the absence of reliable data concerning the relationship between the material quality [i.e., physical condition] and the price of used books, it is impossible to offer statistically exact information for the impact of the used-book market on the cost of reading in eighteenth-century England.

由于缺乏材料质量（例如书籍的品相）和二手书价格二者关联的可靠数据，因此在十八世纪的英国，不可能存在精确数据可以评估二手书市场对于阅读成本造成的影响。

但是，到了与天文相关的文章当中，impact常考的词义变了。先来看下impact在American Heritage Dictionary中的词义：

a. The striking of one body against another; collision.

b. The force transmitted by a collision.

a. 撞击，碰撞

b. 撞击力，碰撞力

这两个含义经常涉及天体之间碰撞的话题，如小行星或者彗星撞击。

Thus the evolution of life has depended on a frequency of cometary impacts sufficient to convey water, as well as carbon and nitrogen, from these distant regions of the solar system to Earth while stopping short of an impact magnitude that would destroy the atmosphere and oceans.

因此，生命的演化需要依赖一定次数的彗星撞击，从而把水、碳和氮从太阳系中遥远的区域运抵地球，并且还需要彗星撞击的强度不足以摧毁地球的大气和海洋。

Skeptics have argued that a single impact would raise an asteroid’s overall temperature very little and that asteroids would cool too quickly between impacts to accumulate much heat.

持怀疑态度的人认为，单次撞击造成小行星整体温度升高的总量极少，并且小行星在两次撞击之间冷却很快，无法积累大量热量。

此外，impact的同根词impactor也常在GRE阅读中出现，它在American Heritage Dictionary中的词义如下：

A body that strikes another, usually larger body in an impact, as a comet striking a planet.

impactor 就是指与其他天体发生碰撞的撞击体或撞击物。

In a titanic collision model, the bulk of the Moon would have formed from a combination of material from the impactor and Earth’s mantle.

在大碰撞模型当中，月球的大部分由撞击体的物质和地球地幔组成。

It has been estimated that without this shield, Earth would have experienced bombardment by comet-sized impactors a thousand times more frequently than has actually been recorded during geological time.

可以估计，如果没有这层屏障，地球遭受彗星大小天体撞击的次数将会比实际地质记录的次数多一千多倍。

准确理解impact和impactor这两个小词的含义对理解文章很有帮助，比如下面这道真题。

The binary planet hypothesis—that Earth and the Moon formed simultaneously by the accretion of smaller objects—does not explain why the Moon’s iron core is so small relative to the Moon’s total volume, compared with Earth’s core relative to Earth’s total volume. According to the giant-impact hypothesis, the Moon was created during a collision between Earth and a large object about the size of Mars. Computer simulations of this impact show that both of the objects would melt in the impact and the dense core of the impactor would fall as molten rock into the liquefied iron core of Earth. The ejected matter—mantle rock that had surrounded the cores of both objects—would be almost devoid of iron. This matter would become the Moon.

❓The giant-impact hypothesis as described in the passage answers all of the following questions EXCEPT:

A. What happened to the rock that surrounded the impactor’s core after the impactor hit Earth?

B. What happened to the impactor’s core after the impactor hit Earth?

C. Where did the impactor that collided with Earth originate?

D. Why is the Moon’s iron core small relative to that of Earth?

E. What was the size of the impactor relative to that of Mars?

文章介绍了两种理论：双行星说（binary planet hypothesis）和大碰撞说（giant-impact hypothesis）。前者不能解释月球铁核与月球体积的比例比地球铁核与地球体积的比例更小，而后者却能够解释这种现象。

再来看题目，题干问“大碰撞说”（giant-impact hypothesis）没有回答哪个问题。

❌A选项和D选项的回答都对应最后两句：“The ejected matter—mantle rock that had surrounded the cores of both objects—would be almost devoid of iron. This matter would become the Moon.”，撞击物地幔的岩石最终成为了月球，并且由于其不含铁，因此月球的铁核相对地球而言比较小。

❌B选项的回答对应“the dense core of the impactor would fall as molten rock into the liquefied iron core of Earth”：撞击体的铁核最终和地球的铁核融为一体。

❌E选项的回答对应“a large object about the size of Mars”：与火星大小差不多。

C选项的问题是“与地球碰撞的撞击体来自哪里？”，而“大碰撞说”并未提供答案，因此本题选C。

总结

impact除了表示“影响”之外，还有“碰撞”的含义，而impactor指与其他天体发生碰撞的“撞击体”。

课后练习

接下来给大家留一道作业，欢迎同学们积极留言，把答案和思路写在评论区，我们会在下午6：00前公布置顶正确答案~

Many theorists now doubt that heat loss from Earth’s core and radioactive decay are sufficient by themselves to produce all the energy driving the tectonic plates whose movements have helped shaped Earth’s surface. This leaves a loose end in current geological theory. Herbert Shaw argues that because scientists have underestimated the input of substantial amounts of energy from extraterrestrial impactors (asteroids and comets striking Earth), they have difficulty accounting for the difference between the quantity of energy produced from sources intrinsic to Earth and that involved in plate tectonics. Whereas most geologists have treated the addition of energy through the bombardment of Earth’s surface by such impactors as a process separate and independent from the movement of Earth’s tectonic plates, Shaw asserts that these processes are indivisible. Shaw’s revolutionary “open-system” view recognizes a continuum between terrestrial and extraterrestrial dynamics, whereas modern plate tectonic theory, like the classical geology developed during the nineteenth century, is founded on the view that Earth’s geological features have changed through gradual, regular processes intrinsic to Earth, without reference to unique catastrophic events. Classical geology borrowed a decisive, if unspoken, premise from Newton—the independence of Earth’s processes from any astronomical context.

❓The author’s primary purpose is to

A. identify the influences informing a particular geological theory about the processes that have shaped Earth’s surface

B. identify differences between two views of the extraterrestrial impactors and argue that the phenomenon has influenced the development of plate tectonic theory

C. argue that an explanation is based on a dubious evidence and propose an alternative explanation

D. discuss an explanation and place that explanation under theoretical context

E. suggest that apparent discrepancy poses a serious problem for a particular theory that many have believed