问题 填空题

Part 1


·Read the fllowing passages, eight sentences have been removed from the article.
·For each gap (1-8) mark one letter (A-H) on the Answer Sheet.
·Do not mark any letter twice.
There’s a story in Texas about the rancher who complained when a well driller found oil instead of the water he had been sent to look for. "Cattle can’t drink that stuff!" the rancher cried.
That story is no longer funny. We are short of both oil and water, but the water shortage is worse. (1) And we are using water a great deal faster than it is being replaced. The replacement rate is dependent on rainfall (sometimes in the form of snow) to resupply rivers, lakes, and ground water. (2) Worse, droughts are occurring more frequently and are increasing in severity, not only in the United States but also abroad.
Even without droughts, rainfall is insufficient to maintain a balance. (3) So much water has been taken from the Colorado River by Arizona and California that Mexico has complained that those states have exceeded the U.S. share under a 1944 treaty on water-sharing. Southern Californians also have elaborated arrangements to transport water from the Pacific North west, which has it in abundance, to their area, which doesn’t have nearly enough to support its population. (4)
Short of a fanciful solution, the U.S. has two broad options, neither pleasant. We can conserve or we can produce. The former is inconvenient or worse: less irrigation (and thus less food), fewer swimming pools golf courses, and green lawns. (5) In the quantities necessary, this would probably require nuclear power. It is technically feasible, but expensive, and was considered 30 years ago as a joint U.S.-Mexican project in the Gulf of California to alleviate the Colorado river problem. As more of it is done, the cost could be expected to come down; and as we became more desperate for water, we would be more willing to pay the cost even if it didn’t come down. (6) This is an arrangement whereby large landowners would sell the groundwater under their land, for whatever the market would bear, to cities that might be hundreds of miles distant. This would involve the considerable cost of pipeline construction and would mean faster depletion of groundwater reserves. (7)
It’s a good bet that during the 21st century some new arrangements are going to have to be made about the nation’s — and the world’s — water supplies. These are likely to be neither cheap nor easy. They are more likely to be cheaper and easier if we have thought about them in advance. (8) We have been sued to choices of guns or butter. This one might be water or meat.
  • A. A century ago, a drought affected only farmers and perhaps inland navigation; now it affects everybody.
  • B. The Northwest is showing signs of getting tired of this drain.
  • C. It is not too soon to begin.
  • D. We cannot live without oil in the style to which we have become accustomed, but we cannot live at all without water.
  • E. Rivers are running dry, especially in the West.
  • F. It would also mean less food production.
  • G. A solution currently being advanced in west Texas is a concept called "Water Ranching".
  • H. The latter is expensive: desalinization of seawater.

答案

参考答案:H

解析: 第4段提到美国开始制定对策,有两种可选方案。文章提到前一种“The former…”,句H“the latter…”很明显是正确答案。

问答题

      从20世纪40年代起,人们开始大量生产和使用六六六、DDT等剧毒杀虫剂以提高粮食产量,这些剧毒物质的确在短期内起到了杀虫的效果,粮食产量得到了空前的提高。然而,这些杀虫剂会通过空气、水、土壤等潜入农作物,残留在粮食、蔬菜中,或通过饲料、饮用水进入畜禽体内,继而又通过食物链进入人体。这种有机氯化物在人体中积存,可使神经系统和肝脏功能遭到损害,引起皮肤癌,使胎儿畸形或引起死胎。同时,这些农药的大量使用使许多害虫产生了抵抗力,并由于食物链结构的改变而使一些原本无害的昆虫变为害虫了。人类制造的杀虫剂,无异于为自己种下了一棵毒苗。20世纪60年代,美国生物学家蕾切尔·卡逊经过4年时间,调查了使用化学杀虫剂对环境造成的危害后,于1962年出版了《寂静的春天》(Silent Spring)一书。在这本书中,卡逊阐述了农药对环境的污染,用生态学的原理分析了这些化学杀虫剂对人类赖以生存的生态系统带来的危害,指出人类用自己制造的毒药来提高农业产量,无异于饮鸩止渴,人类应该走“另外的路”。

(1)结合你的所知所学,“另外的路”指的是什么?

(2)《寂静的春天》出版前和出版后都受到了多方面的围攻,请问这些围攻这本书的人可能是些什么人?为什么要围攻它?

(3)《寂静的春天》是一部警示录。由于它的广泛影响,美国政府开始对书中提出的警告做调查,最终改变了对农药政策的取向,并于1970年成立了环境保护局。美国各州也相继通过立法来限制杀虫剂的使用,最终使剧毒杀虫剂停止了生产和使用,其中包括其发明者曾获得诺贝尔奖的DDT等。这对你有怎样的启示?

(4)目前虽然这些剧毒杀虫剂已从生产和使用的名单上被清除,但在有些地方,包括中国某些地区,人们至今仍在非法地生产和使用着被禁止使用的农药。据统计,发展中国家由于农药使用不当而发生的人死亡事故每年都有上万起,不少人发生急性农药中毒。知道剧毒杀虫剂的危害后,为什么还有那么多人仍然使用剧毒杀虫剂呢?

(5)卡逊在身患癌症,遭受众多压力的情况下,仍旧一直坚持自己的观点,大声疾呼人类要爱护自己的生存环境。她的不屈不挠终于得到读者和社会的认同。卡逊对公众和政府呼吁加强对环境的关注和爱护,最终促成美国国家环境保护局以及“世界地球日”的建立。对此你有什么感想?

判断题