1. In what ________ to a last minute stay of execution, a council announced that emergency funding would keep alive two aging satellites.
[A] applies [B] accounts [C] attaches [D] amounts
答D 句意为：卫星快要报废的最后关头，委员会宣布紧急基金将使两颗已使用多年的卫星继续服役。apply to意为“使用，应用”，无account to这一用法，attach oneself to意为“附属于”，amount to意为“等于”。根据句意，选择D。
有关amount to的典型用法：
Your words amount to a refusal. 你的话等于回绝了。
Their traveling expenses amount to seven hundred dollars. 他们的旅费***达700 美元。
In fact, your ambiguous words amount to a refusal. 实际上,你说的那些模棱两可的话等于是拒绝。
2. This means that, for the first time, there will be an excess of boys in those
crucial years when they are searching for a mate.
因怀疑你打字错误，找到了原句出处：
Being a man has always been dangerous. There are about 105 males born for every 100 females, but this ratio drops to near balance at the age of maturity, and among 70-year-olds there are twice as many women as men. But the great universal of male mortality is being changed. Now, boy babies survive almost as well as girls do. This means that, for the first time, there will be an excess of boys in those crucial years when they are searching for a mate. More important, another chance for natural selection has been removed. Fifty years ago, the chance of a baby(particularly a boy baby) surviving depended on its weight. A kilogram too light or too heavy meant almost certain death. Today it makes almost no difference. Since much of the variation is due to genes, one more agent of evolution has gone.
只要理解了句子的意思，选择就不难了。
翻译：这意味着，等到他们到了寻找配偶的紧要关头，男女比例将第一次出现男多女少的情况。
看你打错了多少关键词！（boys->ways, mate->male).这对理解句子和解题可是crucial的！
3. He has evolved a new theory after many years of research. 他经过多年的研究, 逐渐
总结出了新的理论.
查词典：evolve: vi&t. to (cause to) develop gradually: He evolved a new system for running the fatory. The British political system has evolved over several centuries.
你看，作及物不及物，都可译作“发展”