2. 外语
  3. The night is not what it was. Once, the Earth was cast perpetually (永恒地) half in shadow. Man and beast slept beneath inky skies,

The night is not what it was. Once, the Earth was cast perpetually (永恒地) half in shadow. Man and beast slept beneath inky skies,

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问题     The night is not what it was. Once, the Earth was cast perpetually (永恒地) half in shadow. Man and beast slept beneath inky skies, dotted with glittering stars. Then came fire, candle, and the light bulb, gradually drawing back the curtain of darkness and giving us unprecedented control over our lives.
    But a brighter world, as is becoming increasingly clear, has its drawbacks. A study released last week finding that breast cancer is nearly twice as common in brightly-lit communities as in dark ones only added to a growing body of evidence that artificial light threatens public health, wildlife, and possibly even safety.
    Those findings are all the more troubling considering that an estimated 30 percent of outdoor lighting — plus even some indoor lighting — is wasted. Ill-conceived, ineffective, inefficient lighting costs U.S. about $10.4 billion a year, according to Bob Gent of the International Dark-Sky Association, a nonprofit that aims to control light pollution, and it generates 38 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.
    Motivated by such trends, more than two dozen cities worldwide will go dim on March 29 in an hour-long demonstration. According to the World Wildlife Fund, which is organizing the event, an estimated 2.2 million Australians switched off their lights or took other action during "Earth Hour" last year in Sydney, briefly reducing that city’s energy use by more than 10 percent.
    A number of groups are trying to measure light pollution and assess its detrimental (有害 的) effects on the environment in the hope that people will reduce their own contribution to the problem. Last week, as part of an annual program called GLOBE at Night, thousands of students and amateur scientists stared up at the constellation Orion (猎户座星群) from locations across the country and reported how many of its stars they could see. No data are yet available, but in dark, rural areas, says Gent, about 2,000 stars are typically visible at night, compared with "maybe five" in a bright city square — and about 5,000 in centuries past.
    People who are working while others are stargazing may face the greatest risks. Nighttime exposure to white light can fuel the growth of tumors (肿瘤), experiments show. Two decades of research indicates that women who work night shifts have usually high rates of breast cancer.
The word "drawbacks" (Line 1, Para. 2) probably means______.
选项 A、benefits
B、interests
C、effects
D、problems
答案D
解析 本题考查drawbacks的意思，应结合该词的前后文来进行推断。drawbacks出现在第二段首句。由句首的But可知，本句和首段末句应是转折关系。上句提到明亮的夜晚给人们带来好处：能控制自己的生活。而本句应是在说明亮夜晚的坏处，由此可初步推断drawbacks是个贬义词。再结合紧接drawbacks后的句子中提到的人造灯光危害公众健康、危害野生动物，甚至可能威胁到人们的安全可确定，drawbacks指的是问题，故答案为[D]。
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大学英语四级

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