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  3. In some ways, the United States has made spectacular progress. Fires no longer destroy 18,000 buildings as they did in the Great

In some ways, the United States has made spectacular progress. Fires no longer destroy 18,000 buildings as they did in the Great

admin2005-06-26  53
问题     In some ways, the United States has made spectacular progress. Fires no longer destroy 18,000 buildings as they did in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, or kill half a town of 2,400 people, as they did the same night in Peshtigo, Wisconsin. Other than the Beverly Hill Supper Club fire in Kentucky in 1977, it has been four decades since more than 100 Americans died in a fire.
    But even with such successes, the United States still has one of the worst fire death rates in the world. Safety experts say the problem is neither money nor technology, but the indifference of a country that just will not take fires seriously enough.
    American fire departments are some of the world’s fastest and best-equipped. They have to be. The United States has twice Japan’s population, and 40 times as many as fires. It spends far less on preventing fires than on fighting them. And American fire-safety lessons are aimed almost entirely at children, who die in disproportionately large numbers in fires but who, contrary to popular myth, start very few of then.
    Experts say the fatal error is an attitude that fires are not really anyone’s fault. That is not so in other countries, where both public education and the law treat fires as either a personal failing or a crime. Japan has many wood houses; of the estimated 48 fires in world history that burned more than 10,000 buildings, Japan has had 27. Penalties for causing a severe fire by negligence can be as high as life imprisonment.
    In the United States, most education dollars are spent in elementary schools. But the lessons are aimed at too limited an audience; just 9 percent of all fire deaths are caused by children playing with matches.
    The United States continues to rely more on technology than laws or social pressure. There are some smoke detectors in 85 percent of all homes. Some local building codes now require home sprinklers. New heaters and irons shut themselves off if they are tipped.
To narrow the gap between the fire death rate in the United States and that in other countries, the author suggests______.
选项 A、developing new technology
B、counting more on laws and social pressure
C、placing a fire extinguisher in every family
D、reinforcing the safeness of household appliances
答案B
解析 文章第二段指出“尽管拥有了如此的成就，美国仍然是世界上火灾死亡率最高的国家之一。安全专家说，问题既不在资金方面，也不在技术方面，而在于这个国家对火灾的重视程度不够。”A项说要开发新技术，所以不对。C和D两项都是注重技术的做法，所以也都不对。作者指出主要是态度问题，第四段也提到了态度问题。最后一段说“美国仍然在更多地依赖技术而不是法律或社会压力”，在这里作者把态度问题具体化为法律和社会压力。可见，作者认为，应该更多地依靠法律和社会压力。所以应该选B。
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