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  3. Man is the only animal that laughs. Why is this true? What makes us respond

Man is the only animal that laughs. Why is this true? What makes us respond

游客2025-04-03  1
问题     Man is the only animal that laughs. Why is this true? What makes us respond as we do to pleasurable experiences? What is the history of this "happy【C1】______" , as someone once termed it, and just what is its function?
    We are not short of theories to explain the mystery; for centuries, biologists, philosophers, psychologists, and medical men have sought a definitive explanation of laughter. One writer【C2】______that its function is to【C3】______others or to prove to be better than them by insulting them. Another took the opposite view: that we laugh in order not to cry. A psychologist offered the explanation that laughter functions as【C4】______for painful experiences, and that it serves to defend a person against what the psychologist termed "the many minor pains to which man is【C5】______". In the 17th century a writer set forth the theory that we laugh when we compare ourselves with others and find ourselves superior;【C6】______, we laugh at the weakness of others.
    Virtually every theory has been concerned with either the structure or the function of laughter, whereas relatively few have been devoted to the question of its【C7】______. I propose to offer a theory which, so far as I am aware, has not previously been set forth; that only those animals capable of【C8】______are capable of laughter; and that therefore man, being the only animal that speaks, is the only animal that laughs.
    Those of us who have observed chimpanzees closely feel quite confident that the chimpanzee occasionally exhibits behavior that looks very much like a primitive human laughter. This behavior, however, has been observed only in a human context;【C9】______it occurs under natural conditions is dubious; but【C10】______that under any conditions an ape is capable of such behavior is of more than passing interest—for does it not indicate that early man had the basics of laughter? [br] 【C8】
选项 A、speech
B、judging
C、thoughts
D、communication
答案 A
解析 考查对上下文的理解。本题空格所在的分句意思是：“只有会______的动物才会笑”。因此，空格部分应关乎“笑”的唯一条件。空格所在的分句后面又提到：“因此，人作为唯一能说话的动物，是唯一会笑的动物”。此句揭示了“笑”的条件：能说话。根据前后两句话的因果关系，可以推断A．speech(说话，言语)是正确答案。B．judging(判断)，C．thoughts(思想)和D．communication(交流)不合逻辑。故选A。
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