Question

【題目】閱讀下列短文，從每題所給的四個選項(A、B、C和D)中選出最佳選項。

Environmentalists said our planet was doomed to die. Now one man says they are wrong.

“Everyone knows the planet is in bad shape，”thundered a magazine article last year. Species(物種) are being driven to die out at record rates，and the rivers are so poisonous that fish are floating on the surface，dead.

But there's a growing belief that what everyone takes for granted is wrong：things are actually getting better. A new book is about to overturn our most basic assumptions about the world's environment. Rivers，seas，rain and the atmosphere are all getting cleaner. The total amount of forests in the world is not declining. The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg，professor of statistics at the University of Aarhus in Denmark，is an attack on the misleading claims of environmental groups，and the “bad news” culture that makes people believe everything is getting worse.

Now the attacks are increasingly coming from leftwing environmentalists such as Lomborg，a former member of Greenpeace. The accusation is that，although the environment is improving，green groups－with profits of hundreds of millions of pounds a year－are using scare tactics(謀略) to gain donations. Lomborg's book doesn't deny global warmingprobably the biggest environmental threat－but destroys almost every other environmental claim with many official statistics.

The Worldwatch Institute claims that “deforestation has been accelerating over the last 30 years”．But Lomborg says that is simply rubbish. Since the dawn of agriculture the world has lost about 20 per cent of its forest cover，but in recent decades the forestarea's depleting has come to a stop. According to UN figures，the area of forests has remained almost steady，at about 30 per cent of total land area，since the 1940s.Forests in countries such as the US，the UK and Canada have actually been expanding over the past 40 years. Despite all the warnings the Amazon rainforest has only shrunk(縮小) by about 15 per cent.

Nor are all our species dying out. Some campaigners claim that 50 per cent of all species will have died out within 50 years. But other studies show only 0.08 per cent of species are dying out each year. Conservation efforts have been successful. Whales are no longer threatened and the bald eagle is off the endangered list.

Environmental groups claim that many of the improvements are the results of the success of their campaigns. Stephen Tindale，director of Greenpeace UK，said，“There are important examples，such as acid rain and ozone，where things aren't as bad as predicted，and that's because behavior has changed.”

【1】In his book，The Skeptical Environmentalist，what is Lomborg's main argument?

A．Our planet is in bad shape.

B．The world's environment is improving.

C．The total amount of forests in the world is not declining.

D．Conservation efforts have been successful.

【2】What is Lomborg's main accusation of environmentalists?

A．They scared people into making donations.

B．They overturned our basic assumptions about the world's environment.

C．They changed their behavior toward the environment.

D．They only told people bad news about the environment.

【3】The underlined word “depleting” in Paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to “________”．

A．reducing

B．limiting

C．expanding

D．accelerating

【4】According to the passage，which of the following statements is true?

A．The total area of forests in the world has increased significantly.

B．The effects of global warming are not as bad as first expected.

C．It appears that the bald eagle will survive.

D．In the last 50 years the number of whales has increased.

Answer 1

【答案】【1】B

【2】A

【3】A

【4】C

【解析】語篇解讀:“環(huán)境一直在變壞，我們的星球末日將要來臨”，這是環(huán)保主義者們發(fā)出的警告，然而Lomborg的新書卻提出了完全相反的觀點，他批駁了環(huán)保主義者們聳人聽聞的言論。

【1】 考查細節(jié)理解。根據文章第一段與第三段可知Lomborg在The Skeptical Environmentalist中的觀點(argument)是環(huán)境狀況正在改善，因此選項B正確，C項只是他觀點的一部分，不全面，故排除。

【2】 考查細節(jié)理解。根據文章第四段中的第二句話可知Lomborg指責環(huán)保主義者們利用恐嚇手段讓人們捐款。

【3】 考查猜測詞義。第五段Lomborg通過一些數據反駁了The Worldwatch Institute的觀點“deforestation has been acceleration over the last 30 years”，Lomborg認為在最近幾十年里，森林面積的縮小已經停止，因此選擇reducing。

【4】 考查細節(jié)判斷。根據文章倒數第二段中的“Whales are no longer threatened and the bald eagle is off the endangered list”可知禿鷹已經不屬于瀕危的物種了，由此可知C項正確。