2016年浙江省杭州市外国语学校高考英语（阅读理解提分训练）每日一练41_高考复习指南

2016年浙江省杭州市外国语学校高考英语（阅读理解提分训练）每日一练41

　　Consider the following scenario: You want to buy a house with a big kitchen and a big yard, but there are only two homes on the market---one with a big kitchen and a small yard and the other with a small kitchen and a big yard. Studies show you'd be about 50% likely to choose either house---and either one would be a rational choice. But now, a new home comes on the market, this one with a large kitchen and no yard. This time, studies show, you'll make an irrational decision: Even though nothing has changed with the first two houses, you'll now favor the house with the big kitchen and small yard over the one with the small kitchen and big yard. Overall, scientists have found, people and other animals will often change their original preferences when presented with a third choice．

　　Not so with ants. These insects also shop for homes but not quite in the way that humans do. Solitary worker ants spread out, looking for two main features: a small entrance and a dark inside. If an ant finds an outstanding hole---such as the inside of an acorn or a rock crevice---it brings another worker ant to check it out. As more ants like the site, the number of workers in the new hole grows. Once the crowd reaches a critical mass, the ants race back to the old nest and start carrying the queen and larvae to move the entire colony．

　　To test ant rationality, Stephen Pratt, a behavioral ecologist at Arizona State University in Tempe, and a colleague designed a series of possible nests for 26 ant colonies. The duo cut rectangular holes in balsa wood and covered them with glass microscope slides. The researchers then drilled holes of various sizes into the glass slides and slipped plastic light filters under the glass to vary the features ants care about most. At first, the colonies only had two options, A and B. A was dark but had a large opening, whereas B was bright with a small opening. As with humans, the ants preferred both options equally: The researchers found no difference between the number of colonies that picked A versus B．