Question

Three Yale University professors agreed in a discussion that the automobile was what one of them called “Public Health Enemy No. 1 in this century”. Besides polluting the air and overcrowding the cities, cars are involved in more than half the disastrous accidents, and they contribute to heart disease “because we won’t walk anywhere any more,” said Richard Weeinaman, professor of medicine and public health.

Speaking of many of those man-made dangers of the automobile, Arthur W. Galson, professor of biology, said it was possible to make a kerosene-burning turbine car that would “lessen smog by a very large factor”. But he expressed doubt whether Americans were willing to give up moving about the countryside at 90 miles per hour in a large vehicle. “America seems wedded to the motor car—every family has to have at least two, and one has to be a convertible (敞篷汽車) with 300 horsepower,” professor Galson continued. “Is this the way of life that we choose because we treasure these values?”

For professor Sears, part of the blame lies with “a society that regards profit as a supreme value, under the illusion that anything that’s technically possible is, therefore, morally justified”. Professor Sears also called the country’s dependence on its modern automobiles “terrible economics” because of the large horsepower used simply “moving one individual to work”. But he admitted that Americans have painted themselves into a corner by allowing the national economy to become so dependent on the automobile industry.

“The solution,” Dr Weeinerman said, “is not finding a less dangerous fuel but a different system of inner city transportation. Because of the increasing use of cars, public transportation has been allowed to wither (衰弱) and grow worse, so that if you can’t walk to where you want to go, you have to have a car in most cities,” he declared. This, in turn, Dr Weeinerman contended, is responsible for the “arteriosclerosis (動脈硬化)” of public roads, for the pollution of the inner city and for the middle-class movement to the suburbs.

1.The main idea of the passage is that .

A. Americans are used to travelling by cars

B. American public transportation is growing worse

C. American car industry caused disastrous road accidents

D. American people’s health is threatened by automobiles

2.It can be inferred from the passage that .

A. Americans prefer cars to anything else

B. Americans are interested in fast automobiles

C. kerosene-burning engines cause more problems

D. kerosene-burning engines are green transportation

3.In Paragraph 3, Professor Sears implies that .

A. technology is always good for people

B. technology is a sword with two sides

C. more attention should be paid to social effects

D. US doesn’t care about the environment at all

Answer 1

1.D

2.B

3.C

【解析】

試題分析：本文主要講的是汽車對人的身體健康的影響。

1.主旨大意題。文章第一段第一句指出，三位耶魯大學的教授一致認為汽車是“本國公共健康的頭號大敵”，隨后作者又指明汽車的使用會污染空氣，導致交通事故，引發心臟病等，故選D。

2.推理判斷題。文章第二段前兩句話指出人類有必要生產煤油汽車，但又提出疑問：人類是否愿意放棄在鄉間以每小時90英里的速度高速行使的樂趣？可見，人們對高速行駛的興趣大于對健康的關心，故選B。

3.細節理解題。文章最后一段提到：Dr．Weinermen認為：解決這一問題的關鍵不是尋找一種污染小的燃料，而是建立一套完全不同的市內交通體系。因為汽車的增多，公共交通已經變得越來越糟糕。除了開車，你無法走到你想去的地方，因此，解決這個問題的辦法在于改善市內公共交通系統，故選C。

考點：社會生活類閱讀