predict和forecast都是“预测”的含义？哪个是更为精

科学家对未来都有各种预测。有近期未来预测（immediate future），也有远期未来预测（distant future）。有精确预测（predict），也有不太精确的预测（forecast）。这些都是英语文化经常“纠缠”的区分。

老夏考研“每日一题”选自《大西洋月刊》文章标题为“可笑的是，有资格的当局在预测未来方面表现得很糟糕。但可靠的预测是可能的。”（人是无价的）。

今天给的是词义推测题。我们先做题吧......

【题目】The word “crashed” is closest in meaning to ______   

[A] changed.

[B]declined.

[C] shifted.

[D] erupted.

【试题】

①The bet was on, and it was over the fate of humanity. ②On one side was the Stanford biologist Paul R. Ehrlich. ③In his 1968 best seller, The Population Bomb, Ehrlich insisted that it was too late to prevent a doomed disaster resulting from overpopulation. ④Resource shortages would cause hundreds of millions of starvation deaths within a decade. ⑤It was cold, hard math: The human population was growing exponentially*; the food supply was not. ⑥Ehrlich was an accomplished butterfly specialist. ⑦He knew that nature did not regulate animal populations delicately. ⑧Populations exploded, blowing past the available resources, and then crashed.

⑨In his book, Ehrlich played out hypothetical scenarios that represented “the kinds of disasters that will occur.” ⑩In the worst-case scenario, famine rages across the planet.

【参考译文】

①The bet was on, and it was over the fate of humanity. 赌局已经开始了，赌的是人类的命运。

②On one side was the Stanford biologist Paul R. Ehrlich. 一边是斯坦福大学的生物学家Paul R. Ehrlich。

③In his 1968 best seller, The Population Bomb, Ehrlich insisted that it was too late to prevent a doomed disaster resulting from overpopulation.他1968年的畅销书《人口爆炸》中，Ehrlich坚持认为，要阻止一场因人口过剩而注定的灾难，为时已晚。

④Resource shortages would cause hundreds of millions of starvation deaths within a decade. 资源短缺将在十年内造成数亿人因饥饿而死亡。

⑤It was cold, hard math: The human population was growing exponentially*; the food supply was not. 这是一个冷酷而又困难的数学问题：人类人口呈指数级增长；食物供应却没有。

⑥Ehrlich was an accomplished butterfly specialist. Ehrlich是一位很有成就的蝴蝶专家。

⑦He knew that nature did not regulate animal populations delicately. 他知道大自然并没有巧妙地控制动物的数量。

⑧Populations exploded, blowing past the available resources, and then crashed. 人口激增，超过了可用的资源，然后剧减。

⑨In his book, Ehrlich played out hypothetical scenarios that represented “the kinds of disasters that will occur.” 在他的书中，Ehrlich列举了一些假设的情景，这些情景代表了“将要发生的各种灾难”。

⑩In the worst-case scenario, pandemic rages across the planet. 在最坏的情况下，流行病将席卷全球。

点击视频，老夏给你精讲答案！

predict和forecast都是“预测”的含义？哪个是更为精确的预测呢？——老夏考研每日一题（34）

更多题目可以搜小程序“词邦”，或关注新浪微博：老夏考研。