GRE长难句前60句

1 That sex ratio will be favored which maximizes the number of descendants an individual will have and hence the number of gene copies transmitted.

2  Hardy's weakness derived from his inability to control the comings and goings of these divergent impulses and from his unwillingness to cultivate and sustain the energetic and risky ones.

3  Virginia Woolf's provocative statement about her intentions in writing Mrs. Dalloway has regularly been ignored by the critics, since it highlights an aspect of her literary interests very different from the traditional picture of the "poetic" novelist concerned with examining states of reverie and vision and with following the intricate pathways of individual consciousness.

4  As she put it in The Common Reader "  it is safe to say that not a single law has been framed or one stone set upon another because of the Chaucer said or wrote; and yet, as we read him, we are absorbing morality from every pore ".

5. With the conclusion of a burst of activities, the lactic acid level is high in the body fluids, leaving the large animal vulnerable to attack until the acid is reconverted via oxidative metabolism, by the liver into glucose, which is then sent back to the muscles for glycogen re-synthesis.

6 Although Gutman admits that forced separation by sales was frequent, he shows that slaves' preference, revealed most clearly on plantations where sale was infrequent, was very much for stable monogamy.

7 Gutman argues convincingly that the stability of black family encouraged the transmission of -- and so was crucial in sustaining - the black heritage of folklore, music, and religious expression from one generation to another, a heritage that the slaves were continually fashioning out of their African and American experiences.

8 This preference for exogamy, Gutman suggests, may have derived from West African rules governing marriage, which, though they differed from one tribal group to another, all involved some kind of prohibition against unions with close kin. 

9 His thesis works relatively well when applied to discrimination against Blacks in the United States, but his definition of racial prejudice as “racially-based negative prejudgments against a group generally accepted as a race in any given region of ethnic competition,” can be interpreted as also including hostility toward such ethnic groups as the Chinese in California and the Jews in medieval Europe.

10 Such variations in size, shape, chemistry, conduction speed, excitation threshold, and the like as had been demonstrated in nerve cells remained negligible in significance for any possible correlation with the manifold dimensions of mental experience.

Manifold多种多样的

Negligible不重要的

11  It was possible to demonstrate by other methods refined structural differences among neuron types; however, proof was lacking that the quality of the impulse or its condition was influenced by these differences, which seemed instead to influence the developmental patterning of the neural circuits.

Lacking adj缺乏，proof was lacking.

12 Although qualitative variance among nerve energies was never rigidly disproved, the doctrine was generally abandoned in favor of the opposing view, namely, that nerve impulses are essentially homogeneous in quality and are transmitted as “common currency” throughout the nervous system.

Opposing对立的，opposing view 

Qualitative性质的，质的；quantitative量化的，量的

Qualitative variance质的变化;

quality质量quantity数量

In  favor of

13 Other experiments revealed slight variations in the size, number, arrangement, and interconnection of the nerve cells, but as far as psychoneural correlations were concerned, the obvious similarities of these sensory fields to each other seemed much more remarkable than any of the minute differences.

As far as sth be concerned,就-----而言；

14  Although some experiments show that, as an object becomes familiar, its internal representation becomes more holistic and the recognition process correspondingly more parallel, the weight of evidence seems to support the serial hypothesis, at least for objects that are not notably simple and familiar.

Holistic全面的，整体性的

the weight of 

Serial连载的

15 In large part as a consequence of the feminist movement, historians have focused a great deal of attention in recent years on determining more accurately the status of women in various periods.

16  If one begins by examining why ancients refer to Amazons, it becomes clear that ancient Greek descriptions of such societies fact-real Amazonian societies —but rather to offer “moral lessons” on the supposed outcome of women’s rule in their own society. 

17  Thus, for instance, it may come as a shock to mathematicians to learn that the Schrodinger equation for the hydrogen atom is not a literally correct description of this atom, but only an approximation to a somewhat more correct equation taking account of spin, magnetic dipole, and relativistic effects; and that this corrected equation is itself only an imperfect approximation to an infinite set of quantum field-theoretical equations.

Schrodinger薛定谔

Literally 

Approximation近似值

Hydrogen氢

18  The physicist rightly dreads precise argument, since an argument that is convincing only if it is precise loses all its force if the assumptions on which it is based are slightly changed, whereas an argument that is convincing though imprecise may well be stable under small perturbations of its underlying assumption.

Perturbation不安，扰动

Underlying基础的，潜在的，根本的

Dread v恐惧

19  However, as they gained cohesion, the Bluestockings came to regard themselves as a women’s group and to possess a sense of female solidarity lacking in the salonnieres, who remained isolated from one another by the primacy each held in her own salon.

Cohesion团结；a sense of solidarity凝聚感

 solidarity团结；primacy卓越，第一位

20 As my studies have advanced, I have been increasingly impressed with the functional similarities between insect and vertebrate societies and less so with the structural differences that seem, at first glance, to constitute such an immense gulf between them.

Insect and vertebrate昆虫和脊椎动物

Immerse沉浸

 immense巨大的  immense gulf巨大的鸿沟

21 Although fiction assuredly springs from political circumstances, its authors react to those circumstances in ways other than ideological, and talking about novels and stories primarily as instruments of ideology circumvents much of the fictional enterprise. 

Assuredly确实地，spring from来自

Fictional enterprise小说事业 

Circumvent回避，限制

22  Is this a defect, or are the authors working out of, or trying to forge, a different kind of aesthetic?

forge锻造，创造

Forage放牧,搜寻食物;草料 

23 In addition, the style of Black novels like JT's Cane verges on expressionism and unrealism; does this technique provides a counterpoint to the prevalent theme that portrays the fate against which Black heroes are pitted, a theme usually conveys by more naturalistic modes of expression?

verge接近于，倾向于做某事verge on ---

Expressionism表现主义surrealism超现实主义

Pit--- put /place in a pit挖坑，与---做斗争

Prevalent流行的

24  Black fiction surveys a wide variety of novels, bringing to our attention in the process some fascinating and little-known works like James Weldon Johnson’s Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.

A wide variety of sth.

Fascinating 

25  Although these molecules allow the radiation at visible wavelengths, where most of the energy of sunlight is concentrated, to pass through, they absorb some of the longer-wavelength, infrared emissions radiated from the Earth's surface, radiation that would otherwise be transmitted back into space

Radiate散发

Molecule molecule molecule 

Infrared红外线的

26 The role those anthropologists ascribe to evolution is not of dictating the detail of human behavIor but one of imposing constraint -- ways of feeling, thinking and acting that "come naturally"   archetypal situation in any culture.

Impose强制收取，imposing

Archetypal原型的

Ascribe归因于 

Dictate口述

27 Which of the following most probably provides an appropriate analogy from human morphology for the “details” versus “constraints” distinction made in the passage in relation to human behavior?

Morphology形态学 

In  relation to 

analogy类比

28 A low number of algal cell in the presence of a high number of grazers suggested, but did not prove, that the grazer removed the most of algae.

Algal水藻的algae水藻，

29  Perhaps  the fact that many of these first studies considered only algae of a size that could be collected in a net (net  phytoplankton ), a practice that overlooked the smaller phytoplankton (nannoplankton) that we now know grazers are most likely to feed on, led to a de-emphasis of the role of grazers in subsequent research.

de-emphasis减少重要性，贬低。

Subsequent后续的

30  Studies by Hargrave and Geen estimated natural community grazing rates by measuring feeding rates of individual zooplankton species in the laboratory and then computing community grazing rates for field conditions using the known population density of grazers.

31  In the periods of peak zooplankton abundance, that is, in the late spring and in the summer, Haney recorded maximum daily community grazing rates, for nutrient-poor lakes and bog lakes, respectively, of 6.6 percent and 114 percent of daily phytoplankton production.

32 The hydrologic cycle, a major topic in this science, is the complete cycle of phenomena through which water passes, beginning as atmospheric water vapor, passing into liquid and solid form as precipitation, thence along and into the ground surface, and finally again returning to the form of atmospheric water vapor by means of evaporation and transpiration.

33  Only when a system possesses natural and artificial boundaries that associated the water within it with the hydrologic cycle may the entire system properly be termed as hydrogeologic. 

Boundary boundary 

34  The historian Frederick J. Turner wrote in the 1890’s that the agrarian discontent that had been developing steadily in the United States since about 1870 had been precipitated by the closing of the internal frontier—that is, the depletion of available new land needed for further expansion of the American farming system.

Precipitate引发，加剧

Discontent不满

35  In the early 1950’s historians who studied preindustrial Europe (which we may define here as Europe in the period from roughly 1300 to 1800) began, for the first time in large numbers, to investigate more of the preindustrial European population than the 2 or 3 percent who comprised the political and social elite: the kings, generals, judges, nobles, bishops, and local magnates who had hitherto usually filled history books.

Hitherto迄今为止magnate巨头，显贵，more ———than 

注意：这里研究的是大多数人口，而不是那些精英阶层

36 Historians such as Le Roy Ladurie have used the documents to extract case histories, which have illuminated the attitudes of different social groups (these attitudes include, but are not confined to, attitudes toward crime and the law) and have revealed how the authorities administered justice.

administer管理

37 It can be inferred from the passage that a historian who wished to compare crime rates per thousand in a European city in one decade of the fifteenth century with crime rates in another decade of that century would probably be most aided by better information about which of the following?

38  My point is that its central consciousness—its profound understanding of class and gender as shaping influences on people’s lives-owes much to that earlier literary heritage, a heritage that, in general, has not been sufficiently valued by most contemporary literary critics. 

A owes much to B 指前者有很多东西来自后者，得益于后者

Understand of A as B把A理解成B， 

39 Even the requirement that biomaterials processed from these materials be nontoxic to host tissue can be met by techniques derived from studying the reactions of tissue cultures to biomaterials or from short-term implants.

虚拟语句should+v原型should可以省略

40 But achieving necessary matches in physical properties across interfaces between living and non-living matter requires knowledge of which molecules control the bonding of cells to each other—- and area that we have not yet explored thoroughly.

41 Islamic law is a phenomenon so different from all other forms of law —notwithstanding, of course, a considerable and inevitable number of coincidences with one or the other of them as far as subject matter and positive enactment are concerned—that its stuff is indispensable in order to appreciate adequately the full range of possible legal phenomena.

notwithstanding  = in spite of尽管，不顾

42  Both Jewish law and canon are more uniform than Islamic law. Though historically there is a discernible break between Jewish law of the sovereign state of ancient Israel and of the Diaspora (the dispersion of Jewish people after the conquest of Israel), the spirit of the legal matter in later parts of the Old Testament is very close to that of the Talmud, one of the primary codifications of Jewish law in the Diaspora.

 sovereign君主

43  Islam, on the other hands, represented a radical breakaway from the Arab paganism that preceded it; Islamic law is the result of an examination, form a religious angle, of the legal subject matter that was far from uniform, comprising as it did the various components of the laws of pre-Islamic Arabis and numerous legal elements taken over from the non-Arab peoples of the conquered territories. 

paganism异教precede V先于，在--之前

44  One such novel idea is that of inserting into the chromosomes of plants discrete genes that are not a part of the plants; natural constitution: specifically, the idea of inserting into non-leguminous plants the genes, if they can be identified and isolated, that fit the leguminous plants to be hosts for nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Hence, the intensified research on legumes. 

discrete不相关的, chromosomes染色体  【背这句】

45  It is one of nature’s great ironies that the availability of nitrogen in the soil frequently sets an upper limit on plant growth even through the plants’ leaves are bathed in a sea of nitrogen gas.

46 yield 

Unless they succeed, the yield gains of the Green Revolution will be largely lost even if the genes in legumes that equip those plant to enter  a symbiosis with nitrogen fixers are identified and isolated, and even if the transfer of those gene complexes, once they are found, becomes possible.

47 Its subject (to use Maynard Mack’s categories) is “life-as-spectacle,” for readers, diverted buy its various incidents, observe its hero Odysseus primarily from without; the tragic Iliad, however, presents “life-as-experience”: readers are asked to identify with the mind of Achilles, whose motivations render him a not particularly likable hero.

spectacle精彩的表演，景象；tragic悲惨的，render sb sth.使某人怎样，

likable讨人喜欢的without --还有表示“outside”的意思identify辨认

抽象词对句子理解的影响--熟悉这些抽象词。Life-as-spectacle  life-as -experience.

48  Most striking among the many asymmetries evident in an adult flatfish is eye placement: before maturity one eye migrates, so that in an adult flatfish both eyes are  on the same side of the head. 

placement放置，位置，

49  A critique of the Handling’ interpretation of why legal slavery did not appear until the 1660’s suggests that assumptions about the relation between slavery and racial prejudice should be reexamined, and that explanations for the different treatment of Black slaves in  North and South America should be expanded.

50  The best evidence for the layered mantle thesis is the well-established fact  that volcanic rocks found on oceanic island, islands believed to result form mantle plumes arising from the lower mantle, are composed of material fundamentally different from that of the mid ocean ridge system, whose source, most geologists contend, is the upper mantle.

plume羽毛，柱子mantle plume地幔柱mid-ocean 

51  Some geologists, however, on the basis of observation concerning mantle xenoliths, argue that the mantle is not layered, but that heterogeneity is created by fluids rich in “incompatible elements” (elements tending toward liquid rather than solid state) percolating upward and transforming portions of the upper mantle irregularly, according to the vagaries of the fluids’ pathways. 

xenolith俘虏岩vagary改变，变化

 according to the vagaries of the fluids' pathways.  Percolate过滤，渗透

52  Fallois proposed that Proust had tried to begin a novel in 1980, abandoned it for what was to be a long demonstration of Saint-Beuve’s blindness to the real nature of great writing, found the essay giving rise to personal memories and fictional developments, and allowed these to take over in a steadily developing novel. 

give rise to使发生- -  take over 

53  The very richness and complexity of the meaningful relationships that kept presenting and rearranging themselves on all levels, from abstract intelligence to profound dreamy feelings, made it difficult for Proust to set them our coherently.

coherent连贯一致的

54  Those of us who hoped, with Kold’s newly published complete edition of Proust’s correspondence for 1909 would document the process in greater detail are disappointed.

correspondence通信

55 Now we must also examine the culture as we Mexican Americans have experienced it, passing from a sovereign people to compatriots with newly arriving settlers to, finally, a conquered people—a charter minority on our own land.

 sovereign元首compatriot同胞，charter宪章

56 It is possible to make specific complementary DNA’s (cDNA’s) that can serve as molecular probes to seek out the messenger RNA’s    of the peptide hormones. If brain cells are making the hormones, the cells will contain these mRAN’s. If the products the brain cells make resemble the hormones but are not identical to them, then the cDNA’s should still bind to these mRNA’s, but should not bind as tightly as they would to mRAN‘s for the true hormones. 

probe探测，探测器 

57 The molecular approach to detecting peptide hormones using cDNA probes should also be much faster than the immunological method because it can take years to tedious purifications to isolate peptide hormones and then develop antiserums to them,

 immunology，immunological免疫学的purification提纯，isolate隔绝，分离，

58 Nevertheless, researchers of the Pleistocene epoch have developed all sorts of more or less fanciful model schemes of how they would have arranged the Ice Age had they been in charge of events.

fanciful 异想天开的，稀奇古怪的

59  This succession was based primarily on a series of deposits and events not directly related to glacial and interglacial periods, rather than on the more usual modern method of studying biological remains found in interglacial beds themselves interstratified within glacial deposit.

60  There have been attempts to explain these taboos in terms of inappropriate social relationships either between those who are involved and those who are not simultaneously involved in the satisfaction of a bodily need, or between those already satiated and those who appear to be shamelessly gorging.