2. 外语
  3. The current emergency in Mexico City that has taken over our lives is nothing I could ever have imagined for me or my children.

The current emergency in Mexico City that has taken over our lives is nothing I could ever have imagined for me or my children.

admin2014-09-19  56
问题     The current emergency in Mexico City that has taken over our lives is nothing I could ever have imagined for me or my children. We are living in an environmental crisis, an air-pollution emergency of unprecedented severity. What it really means is that just to breathe here is to play a dangerous game with your health.
    As parents, what terrorizes us most are reports that children are at higher risk because they breathe more times per minute. What more can we do to protect them and ourselves? Our pediatrician’s (儿科医师的) medical recommendation was simple：abandon the city permanently. We are foreigners and we are among the small minority that can afford to leave. We are here because of my husband’s work. We are fascinated by Mexico—its history and rich culture. We know that for us, this is a temporary danger. However, we cannot stand for much longer the fear we feel for our boys. We cannot stop them from breathing.
    But for millions, there is no choice. Their lives, their jobs, their futures depend on being here. Thousands of Mexicans arrive each day in this city, desperate for economic opportunities. Thousands more are born here each day. Entire families work in the streets and practically live there. It is a familiar sight; as parents hawk goods at stoplights, their children play in the grassy highway dividers (分线处), breathing exhaust fumes. I feel guilty complaining about my personal situation; we won’t be here long enough for our children to form the impression that skies are colored only gray.
    And yet the government cannot do what it must to end this problem. For any country, especially a developing Third World economy like Mexico’s, the idea of barring from the capital city enough cars, closing enough factories and spending the necessary billions on public transportation is simply not an option. So when things get bad, as in the current emergency, Mexico takes half measures—prohibiting some more cars from circulating, stopping some factories from producing—that even its own officials concede (承认) aren’t adequate.
    The word "emergency" implies the unusual. But when daily life itself is an emergency, the concept loses its meaning. It is human nature to try to adapt to that which we cannot change. Or to mislead ourselves into believing we can adapt.
The Mexican government takes half measures to solve the pollution problem because______.
选项 A、Mexican economy depends very much on cars and factories
B、it is not wise enough to come up with effective measures
C、Mexicans are able to adapt themselves to the current emergency
D、Mexicans enjoy playing dangerous games with their health
答案A
解析 本题是一道具体细节题。问墨西哥政府只采取了部分措施来解决污染问题的原因是什么。文章第四段指出，政府无法采取应有的措施来解决这个问题，因为，对每个国家来说特别是像墨西哥这样一个第三世界的发展中国家来说，首先选择的办法不是禁止首都拥有足够的车辆、关闭工厂，而是要花数十亿必要的钱来整治交通问题。所以，当情况变得严峻时——像目前所出现的这种严重情况一样，墨西哥政府仅采取力所能及的措施，如限制进一步增加车辆的数量，让某些工厂停产，即使他们自己的官员也承认这些措施是不够的。由此可见，本题的正确答案应是A“墨西哥的经济在很大程度上依赖着汽车和工厂”。B“采取有效的措施是不明智的”。由上面的分析可以看出，墨西哥政府不是不想有效地解决空气污染问题，而是怕采取果断的措施会影响到经济的发展。C“墨西哥人能适应目前的严重状况”。根据第三段，墨西哥城的人，有为寻找经济上的发展机会而不断涌入的人们和每天新出生的人，他们没有别的选择，因为他们的生活、工作和未来都依靠着这个城市。D“墨西哥人愿意拿自己的健康做危险的游戏”。文章中未提到这种字样。
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