我觉得这道题是这样的 要特别注意两个keywords the past hundred years 专指刚过去的100年 maximum age 本来精确的来说海水溶解含盐总增加量除以每百年的增加量得到海洋的年龄(总百年数) 但是我们用了 the resulting increase in salt levels in the oceans over the past hundred years 来估算每年的增加量 假设a不成立,那么The quantities of dissolved salts deposited by rivers in the Earth’s oceans have not been unusually large during the past hundred years. 这样得出来的是minimum age而不是maximum age 因为这样的话分母比平均增加量大了 换句话说我们要得到maximum age就要求 the resulting increase in salt levels in the oceans over the past hundred years <=平均增加量 所以答案是a |