Americans used to stand tall as the people with the highest average height in the world. However, since the middle of this centu

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问题     Americans used to stand tall as the people with the highest average height in the world. However, since the middle of this century, several Scandinavian (斯堪的那维亚的) countries have moved ahead and now have taller citizens on average than the United States.
    "One of the keys to understanding why America is falling behind other countries in terms of stature has to do with access to health care, particularly for children," said Richard Steckel, a professor of economics and anthropology at Ohio state university.
    "I suspect there are pockets of poverty in the United States where the lack of medical programs and nutritional programs may be factors in poor health, and the reason some people aren’t growing as tall as they might."
    "I think the countries that have surpassed the United States have done well in reaching nearly everyone with complete health and nutrition services."said Steckel. "The success of the Scandinavian countries in health care shows up in many measures, not just height, such as mortality rates(死亡率) and life expectancy(寿命)."
    Immigration to the United States of people with shorter average heights -- such as Asian -- can’ t explain why other countries have moved ahead in average height, according to Steckel. "In the past half century, the change in ethnic (种族的) composition hasn’t been enough to make a significant difference in the country’s average height."
    Steckel said he first began investigating height as an alternative way to measure the standard of living -- a traditional area of research for economists.
    Research has shown that average height is significantly associated with a country’s per capita (人均) income. But studying height has some advantages, Steckel said. For example, researchers have records of average height that go further back in history than do records of national income. Height also tells a slightly different story about the standard of living because it measures consumption of basic necessities, rather than output. Moreover, because growth occurs mostly in childhood, it allows researchers to look at how resources are allocated within families.
    "Studying height captures some things about the standard of living that income leaves out," Steckel said, "Economists need to take a multiple approach to studying the standard of living."
Immigration to the United States by people with shorter average height is no reason for the decline in the average height in America because______.

选项 A、Asians came to the United States only in recent years
B、Asians are taller than immigrants from other areas
C、the immigration by people with shorter average height is not large enough
D、immigrants of other ethnicities usually have good access to medical care and nutrition

答案C

解析 细节题。该题问,为什么说小身材的移民者来到美国不是美国人身高下降的原因。根据关键词"immigration",我们可知答题依据在第5段。文章第二句说,“种族组成的变化不足以改变这个国家的总体身高”。故, [C]为正确答案。
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