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  3. There are always good reasons for people to care about the welfare of animals. Ever since the Enlightenment, their treatment has

There are always good reasons for people to care about the welfare of animals. Ever since the Enlightenment, their treatment has

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问题     There are always good reasons for people to care about the welfare of animals. Ever since the Enlightenment, their treatment has been seen as a measure of mankind’s humanity. It is no coincidence that William Wilberforce and Sir Thomas Foxwell Buxton, two leaders of the movement to abolish the slave trade, helped found the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in the 1820s. An increasing number of people go further: mankind has a duty not to cause pain to animals that have the capacity to suffer. Both views have led people gradually to extend treatment once reserved for mankind to other species.
    But when everyday lives are measured against such principles, they are fraught with contradictions. Those who would never dream of caging their cats and dogs guzzle bacon and eggs from ghastly factory farms. The abattoir and the cattle truck are secret places safely hidden from the meat-eater’s gaze and the child’s story book. Plenty of people who denounce the fur-trade (much of which is from farmed animals) quite happily wear leather (also from farmed animals).
    Perhaps the inconsistency is understandable. After hundreds of years of thinking about it, people cannot agree on a system of rights for each other, so the ground is bound to get shakier still when animals are included. The trouble is that confusion and contradiction open the way to the extremist. And because scientific research is remote from most people’s lives, it is particularly vulnerable to their campaigns.
    In fact, science should be the last target, wherever you draw the boundaries of animal welfare. For one thing, there is rarely an alternative to using animals in research. If there were, scientists would grasp it, because animal research is expensive and encircled by regulations. Animal research is also for a higher purpose than a full belly or an elegant outfit. The world needs new medicines and surgical procedures just as it needs the unknowable fruits of pure research.
    And science is, by and large, kind to its animals. The couple of million (mainly rats and mice) that die in Britain’s laboratories are much better looked-after and far more humanely killed than the billion or so (mainly chickens) on Britain’s farms. In fact, if Darley Oaks makes up its loss of guinea pigs with turkeys or dairy cows, you can be quite sure animal welfare in Britain has just taken a step backwards.
The aim of the first paragraph is
选项 A、putting forward sound reason to care about the welfare of animals.
B、emphasizing the glory of the Enlightenment.
C、Introducing the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
D、providing background knowledge for the discussion to be expanded.
答案D
解析 本题是一道文章结构和段落功能题．考查考生对全文的整体把握能力。本题的答案信息来源在第二段首句，尤其是该句中的转折词“but”(但是)。一般而言，如果英语原文第二段首句含有转折词，这表明第一段的功能一般是“为第二段的深入讨论进行相关信息的铺垫”或者“与第二段所陈述的信息进行对立对比”。由此可以推断本题的正确选项是D“provide background knowledge for the discussion to be expanded”(为接下来展开的讨论提供背景知识)。
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