Unit 4 Earthquakes grammar课时作业

阅读理解

(A)

　　One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do, according to the association of scholars known as Three Dog Night. But what if there are many numbers even less popular than one?

　　For reasons totally unrelated to classic rock, author Alex Bellos set out to find the world's favorite numbers. His online survey swiftly received more than 30,000 votes from numberphiles around the world. Voters gave many reasons for their favorites, though they usually orresponded to an important date or age or other positive association.

　　Overall, odd numbers outperformed evens. And Bellos suggests that numbers ending in zero were too round for most tastes. "When we say 100, we don't usually mean exactly 100; we mean around 100," Bellos told Nautilus magazine. "Why would you have something as your favorite that is so vague?"

　　Numbers that serve a higher purpose did well. For instance, 42--the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything" from The Hitchhiker 's Guide to the Galaxy--landed in 11th place. The lovely, symmetrical （对称的） number eight, which is pronounced "ba-" in Chinese and rhymes with the Chinese character "fa-" signifying prosperity, came in third. Second place went to the number three, perhaps for its many appearances in nature and culture: the number of leaves on a typical clover （三叶草）, little pigs pursued by a certain wolf, musketeers （火箭手） in the Dumas novel, and wishes offered by genies.

　　But the clear winner is the number seven, winning nearly 10 percent of the total vote. Shocked? But seven's triumph also reaffirms a human fascination that goes back thousands of years. Bellos points out that ancient Babylonian tablets were riddled with sevens. There are also seven dwarfs, seven deadly sins, and seven days of the week. We even speak of seventh heaven as the final happiness.

　　But all of this, Bellos suspects, is the effect and not the cause of our like for seven. He assumes that seven is a stone-cold rebel that follows no rules but its own.

"Seven is the only number among those we can count on our hands, one to ten, that cannot be divided or multiplied within the group," Bellos explains. One, two, three, four, and five can each be