Do elephants never forget?

导读

对于我们人类来说,记忆力好决定是一件值得骄傲的事情。每个人都希望自己能拥有一个过目不忘的超强大脑。只可惜,这种天赋并非人人能获得。但是动物界里的大象却天生就拥有超强的记忆里,他们可以记得几十年以前的事情。
在美语里,我们常能够听到这样一句表达“elephants never forget”字面意思很简单,说的就是大象永远不会忘记。可是大家千万不要望文生义,搞不好会出问题哦。到底这句话,究竟表示什么意思,用在什么场合呢?今晚给大家揭晓哈。

更多剧透

第一步:解决高频单词

grudge [grʌdʒ]

n. 怨恨;恶意;妒忌

abuser [ə'bju:zə]

n. 滥用者;施虐者

sour grape 

酸葡萄

masculinity [,mæskjʊ'lɪnɪtɪ]

n. 男性;男子气;刚毅

personas [pə'səʊnə]

n. 人物角色;伪装的外表

congregate ['kɒŋgrɪgeɪt]

vi. 聚集

nevertheless [,nevəðə'les]

adv. 然而,不过;虽然如此

rank [ræŋk]

vt. 排列;把…分等

stray [streɪ]

vi. 流浪;迷路;偏离

vice versa [,vaisi'və:sə]

反之亦然

60p

第二步:精读重点段落

(Tips: 双击文中单词可以查释义并加入你的生词本哦)

[2] Nearly a century later, extensive observations have confirmed that elephants indeed remember injuries and hold grudges against their abusers. For example, one study of African elephants found that the animals react negatively to the sight and scent of clothing worn by members of a nearby Maasai tribe of people. Why the sour grapes? Maasai men spear elephants as a customary display of their masculinity.

  • grudge n. 怨恨;积怨 v. 嫉妒;怀恨
  • abuser n. 滥用者;施虐者
  • sour grapes 酸葡萄;酸葡萄作用
  • masculinity n. 男性;男子气;刚毅

[4] Elephants are far more thoughtful mammals than their popular circus entertainer personas imply. In the wild, they follow formalized family structures with older females, or matriarchs, at the top. Daughter elephants always stick close with their mothers, forming families. Male offspring leave the family at around 14 years of age, or whenever they reach sexual maturity, described as being in musth. From there, males join groups of other male elephants, which they'll periodically leave for mating purposes. During droughts, multiple elephant families consisting of the females and their calves may congregate to form bond groups and share resources.

  • personas n. 人物角色;伪装的外表
  • musth n. 狂暴状态(在交尾期中的狂暴)  adj. 狂暴状态的
  • congregate vi. 聚集 adj. 集合在一起的

[7] Scientists haven't been able to measure elephants’ intelligence precisely. Nevertheless, for decades, experts have observed the pachyderms' behavior and concluded that they rank among the smartest in the animal kingdom. That said, the theory of elephants never forgetting is an exaggeration, but doesn't stray terribly far from the truth.

  • pachyderm n. 迟钝的人;厚脸皮的人;[脊椎] 厚皮类动物
  • rank vi. 排列;把…分等
  • stray vi. 流浪;迷路;偏离
85p

第三步:攻克必学语法

今天给大家做个小小的总结,讲讲简单句的几种基本句型。先把这些简单的概念搞清楚,才能进一步的把句子写长,写对。基础好的同学,可以先分析一下面的句子,然后看看它们都属于那种句型。基础稍微差一丢丢的同学理解句意即可。

  1. The First impression counts/matters.
  2. He always keeps his promise.
  3. Time would prove me right.
  4. My mother gave me a new dress.
  5. Michael presented the manager his application.
  6. Hard work is indispensable to success.
100p

加分任务:精读全文

在之前的三步后,你已经完全具备了精读全文的能力。再多花半个小时,让你的学习效果达到120%!

查看/展开全文


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(Tips: 双击文中单词可以查释义并加入你的生词本哦)

Do elephants never forget?

[1] Women and elephants never forget an injury. Or so it goes according to H.H. Munro's brief narrative, "Reginald on Besetting Sins." We'll set aside the questionable implications of the first half of that assertion for now. But regarding the elephants, the British author was onto something.

  • questionable adj. 可疑的;有问题的
  • assertion n. 断言,声明;主张,要求;坚持;认定

[2] Nearly a century later, extensive observations have confirmed that elephants indeed remember injuries and hold grudges against their abusers. For example, one study of African elephants found that the animals react negatively to the sight and scent of clothing worn by members of a nearby Maasai tribe of people. Why the sour grapes? Maasai men spear elephants as a customary display of their masculinity.

  • grudge n. 怨恨;积怨 v. 嫉妒;怀恨
  • sour grapes 酸葡萄;酸葡萄作用
  • masculinity n. 男性;男子气;刚毅

[3] Anecdotal evidence also suggests that elephants remember trainers or keepers who mistreated them even after years of separation. Similarly, scientists have linked elephant raids on villages in Uganda to a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. The experts believe that the elephants lashed out because the growing human population was taking over elephant territory, forcibly separating some elephants from their close-knit family units.

  • anecdotal adj. 轶事的;轶事一样的;多轶事的
  • post-traumatic adj. 受伤后的
  • lash out 猛击;猛烈抨击;大肆挥霍

[4] Elephants are far more thoughtful mammals than their popular circus entertainer personas imply. In the wild, they follow formalized family structures with older females, or matriarchs, at the top. Daughter elephants always stick close with their mothers, forming families. Male offspring leave the family at around 14 years of age, or whenever they reach sexual maturity, described as being in musth. From there, males join groups of other male elephants, which they'll periodically leave for mating purposes. During droughts, multiple elephant families consisting of the females and their calves may congregate to form bond groups and share resources.

  • musth n. 狂暴状态(在交尾期中的狂暴)  adj. 狂暴状态的
  • congregate vi. 聚集adj. 集合在一起的

[5] With all of this coming and going, elephants have many forms of communication to keep up with each other. One method for spatially locating other elephants is through the bundles of nerve sensors in their feet called Pacinian corpuscles. The corpuscles translate seismic vibrations coming from the ground into a nerve impulse that sends a message to the brain about the source and direction of the vibrations. Even their toenails contain nerves that discern where sounds come from.

  • spatially adv. 空间地;存在于空间地
  • bundles [解剖] 束
  • pacinian corpuscles 帕西尼氏小体;环层小体

[6] But what's going on in those noggins that makes elephants famous for their memory? Next, we'll dissect the elephant brain to see whether or not it's just peanuts up there.
[7] Scientists haven't been able to measure elephants’ intelligence precisely. Nevertheless, for decades, experts have observed the pachyderms' behavior and concluded that they rank among the smartest in the animal kingdom. That said, the theory of elephants never forgetting is an exaggeration, but doesn't stray terribly far from the truth.

  • pachyderm n. 迟钝的人;厚脸皮的人;[脊椎] 厚皮类动物

[8] Elephants have the largest brains by mass of all mammals, weighing in at a hefty 10.5 pounds (4.7 kilograms) for an adult. While we can't judge how effectively a brain works based solely on its size, it can offer a decent approximation and give us a hint as to the power of elephant memory. One conventional way of estimating an animal's intelligence is examining the encephalization quotient (EQ). The EQ compares the actual size of an animal's brain against the size scientists would project its brain to be based on body weight. To better understand this measurement, think of an apple and an avocado. Both fruits are relatively the same size, but an apple has tiny seeds, while an avocado's seed resembles a golf ball.

  • hefty n. 体格健壮的人adj. 重的;肌肉发达的;异常大的 adv. 强有力地;非常
  • avocado n. 鳄梨;鳄梨树

[9] The logic follows that the smaller the ratio of brain to body mass (think of the apple example), the dumber the animal and vice versa. For instance, people have an average EQ above seven, while pigs have an EQ of around 1.27.
[10] Elephants score relatively high on this scale, coming in at a cross-species average of 1.88. For comparison, chimpanzees have an EQ of 2.5. Female elephants, the leaders of the herds, often have greater EQs than males. This is probably linked to the matriarchal social structure of elephant herds. Studies have also found that the elder female elephants exhibit signs of a superior memory, alerting the herd if a familiar danger arises or an old feeding site is recognized.

  • matriarchal adj. 母系氏族的;女家长的

[11] The olfactory, or smell-related, region of an elephant's brain is extremely developed in relation to its other senses. Elephants can distinguish between the urine scents of up to 30 female relatives, even if they've been separated for years. This trait helps elephants stay together when traveling in large herds, with the urine serving as a bread crumb trail for the nose -- or trunk in this case.

  • olfactory n. 嗅觉器官adj. 嗅觉的;味道的
  • trait n. 特性,特点;品质;少许

[12] While elephants' utilitarian memories help them retain essential survival information, they also allow these animals to recognize the past. Elephants' show signs of grief over dead relatives such as gently touching the corpses with their feet and caressing the bodies with their trunks. In an experiment that involved showing different sets of objects to a family unit of elephants, the group responded most prominently to bones and tusks once belonging to a relative.

  • utilitarian n. 功利主义者 adj. 功利的;功利主义的;实利的
  • retain vt. 保持;雇;记住

[13] An elephant's memory doesn't stow each detail of every stimulus ever encountered. Instead, the brain encodes what's necessary for survival, such as food location and family identification, in the same way that our short-term memory systems selectively discard or transfer data to our long-term storage. And just like those moments that impact our lives the most, the contents of elephants' functional memories are preserved for future retrieval.

  • stimulus n. 刺激;激励;刺激物
  • retrieval n. 检索;恢复;取回;拯救
200p

grudge [grʌdʒ]

n. 怨恨;恶意;妒忌

abuser [ə'bju:zə]

n. 滥用者;施虐者

sour grape 

酸葡萄

masculinity [,mæskjʊ'lɪnɪtɪ]

n. 男性;男子气;刚毅

personas [pə'səʊnə]

n. 人物角色;伪装的外表

congregate ['kɒŋgrɪgeɪt]

vi. 聚集

nevertheless [,nevəðə'les]

adv. 然而,不过;虽然如此

rank [ræŋk]

vt. 排列;把…分等

stray [streɪ]

vi. 流浪;迷路;偏离

vice versa [,vaisi'və:sə]

反之亦然

不要一时兴起,就要天天在一起

明天见!


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Do elephants never forget?

[1] Women and elephants never forget an injury. Or so it goes according to H.H. Munro's brief narrative, "Reginald on Besetting Sins." We'll set aside the questionable implications of the first half of that assertion for now. But regarding the elephants, the British author was onto something.

[2] Nearly a century later, extensive observations have confirmed that elephants indeed remember injuries and hold grudges against their abusers. For example, one study of African elephants found that the animals react negatively to the sight and scent of clothing worn by members of a nearby Maasai tribe of people. Why the sour grapes? Maasai men spear elephants as a customary display of their masculinity.

[3] Anecdotal evidence also suggests that elephants remember trainers or keepers who mistreated them even after years of separation. Similarly, scientists have linked elephant raids on villages in Uganda to a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. The experts believe that the elephants lashed out because the growing human population was taking over elephant territory, forcibly separating some elephants from their close-knit family units.

[4] Elephants are far more thoughtful mammals than their popular circus entertainer personas imply. In the wild, they follow formalized family structures with older females, or matriarchs, at the top. Daughter elephants always stick close with their mothers, forming families. Male offspring leave the family at around 14 years of age, or whenever they reach sexual maturity, described as being in musth. From there, males join groups of other male elephants, which they'll periodically leave for mating purposes. During droughts, multiple elephant families consisting of the females and their calves may congregate to form bond groups and share resources.

[5] With all of this coming and going, elephants have many forms of communication to keep up with each other. One method for spatially locating other elephants is through the bundles of nerve sensors in their feet called Pacinian corpuscles. The corpuscles translate seismic vibrations coming from the ground into a nerve impulse that sends a message to the brain about the source and direction of the vibrations. Even their toenails contain nerves that discern where sounds come from.

[6] But what's going on in those noggins that makes elephants famous for their memory? Next, we'll dissect the elephant brain to see whether or not it's just peanuts up there.

[7] Scientists haven't been able to measure elephants’ intelligence precisely. Nevertheless, for decades, experts have observed the pachyderms' behavior and concluded that they rank among the smartest in the animal kingdom. That said, the theory of elephants never forgetting is an exaggeration, but doesn't stray terribly far from the truth.

[8] Elephants have the largest brains by mass of all mammals, weighing in at a hefty 10.5 pounds (4.7 kilograms) for an adult. While we can't judge how effectively a brain works based solely on its size, it can offer a decent approximation and give us a hint as to the power of elephant memory. One conventional way of estimating an animal's intelligence is examining the encephalization quotient (EQ). The EQ compares the actual size of an animal's brain against the size scientists would project its brain to be based on body weight. To better understand this measurement, think of an apple and an avocado. Both fruits are relatively the same size, but an apple has tiny seeds, while an avocado's seed resembles a golf ball.

[9] The logic follows that the smaller the ratio of brain to body mass (think of the apple example), the dumber the animal and vice versa. For instance, people have an average EQ above seven, while pigs have an EQ of around 1.27.

[10] Elephants score relatively high on this scale, coming in at a cross-species average of 1.88. For comparison, chimpanzees have an EQ of 2.5. Female elephants, the leaders of the herds, often have greater EQs than males. This is probably linked to the matriarchal social structure of elephant herds. Studies have also found that the elder female elephants exhibit signs of a superior memory, alerting the herd if a familiar danger arises or an old feeding site is recognized.

[11] The olfactory, or smell-related, region of an elephant's brain is extremely developed in relation to its other senses. Elephants can distinguish between the urine scents of up to 30 female relatives, even if they've been separated for years. This trait helps elephants stay together when traveling in large herds, with the urine serving as a bread crumb trail for the nose -- or trunk in this case.

[12] While elephants' utilitarian memories help them retain essential survival information, they also allow these animals to recognize the past. Elephants' show signs of grief over dead relatives such as gently touching the corpses with their feet and caressing the bodies with their trunks. In an experiment that involved showing different sets of objects to a family unit of elephants, the group responded most prominently to bones and tusks once belonging to a relative.

[13] An elephant's memory doesn't stow each detail of every stimulus ever encountered. Instead, the brain encodes what's necessary for survival, such as food location and family identification, in the same way that our short-term memory systems selectively discard or transfer data to our long-term storage. And just like those moments that impact our lives the most, the contents of elephants' functional memories are preserved for future retrieval.

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