2. 外语
  3. In 1798 the political economist Malthus predicted that in time mankind would face starvation, having outgrown the available food

In 1798 the political economist Malthus predicted that in time mankind would face starvation, having outgrown the available food

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问题     In 1798 the political economist Malthus predicted that in time mankind would face starvation, having outgrown the available food supplies. Today, a century and a half later, there are still experts who forecast the same global disaster—unless urgent measures are taken to prevent it.
    By the end of the present century there may well be over five thousand million people living on this globe, an increase of over fifty percent on today’s figure. In order to keep pace with this increase in mankind the farmers of the world will have to step up their production of food by at least two percent every year. Such a rate of increase has never been maintained in any country by conventional methods of agriculture, despite modern mechanization and the widespread use of fertilizers. There are no large worthwhile reserves of potential farmland remaining, and good fertile land is continually being changed into industrial use. Moreover, erosion of the soil takes a constant toll (损失).
    Intensive research, carried out over many years in all manners of climate conditions, has produced a revolutionary method of growing crops without using any soil at all. Hydroponics (水栽 法), as this technique is called, may well be the answer to all our food worries; already it has accomplished wonders in producing huge crops. Hydroponics was once a complicated and expensive business, now it is well out of the experimental stage. Labor costs are far lower than when normal methods of agriculture are employed. In fact, it is a completely automatic system. There is no hard manual work, no digging or ploughing, and no weeding to speak of. Yields can be far higher than they are in soil.
"Erosion" in the last sentence of the second paragraph probably means______.
选项 A、washing away
B、taking away
C、digging up
D、picking up
答案A
解析 本题是一道词汇含义题。问第二段最后一句话中的词汇erosion是什么意思。文章第二段指出，到本世纪(20世纪)末，地球上的人口将超过50亿，比现在人口增长一半。为了保持与人口增长一致的速度，世界各国的农民必须加速提高粮食产量，增长率至少是每年2%。尽管用现代机械化耕种和大范围使用化肥，这种增长率至今为止在任何用传统的农业种植方法的国家里尚未出现。而且已经没有大面积可作为农业耕地的土地，而好的肥沃的耕地也在不断地被用做工业用地。另外，土壤的流失也不断带来损失。这里erosion指“流失”。因此，本题的正确答案应是A。
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