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  3. They may not be the richest, but Africans remain the world’s staunchest optimists. An annual survey by Gallup International, a r

They may not be the richest, but Africans remain the world’s staunchest optimists. An annual survey by Gallup International, a r

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问题    They may not be the richest, but Africans remain the world’s staunchest optimists. An annual survey by Gallup International, a research outfit, shows that, when asked whether this year will be better than last, Africa once again comes out on top. Out of 52,000 people interviewed all over the world, under half believe that things are looking up. But in Africa the proportion is close to 60%—almost twice as much as in Europe.
   Africans have some reasons to be cheerful. The continent’s economy has been doing fairly well with South Africa, the economic powerhouse, growing steadily over the past few years. Some of Africa’s long-running conflicts, such as the war between the north and south in Sudan and the civil war in Congo, have ended. Africa even has its first elected female head of state, in Liberia.
   Yet there is no shortage of downers too. Most of Africa remains dirt poor. Crises in places like Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe are far from solved. And the democratic credentials of Ethiopia and Uganda, once the darlings of western donors, have taken a bad knock. AIDS killed over 2 million Africans in 2005, and will kill more this year.
   So is it all just a case of irrational exuberance? Meril James of Gallup argues that there is, in fact, usually very little relation between the survey’s optimism rankings and reality. Africans, this year led by Nigerians, are consistently the most upbeat, whether their lot gets better or not. On the other hand, Greece— hardly the worst place on earth—tops the gloom-and-doom chart, followed closely by Portugal and France.
   Ms James speculates that religion may have a lot to do with it. Nine out of ten Africans are religious, the highest proportion in the world. But cynics argue that most Africans believe that 2006 will be golden because things have been so bad that it is hard to imagine how they could possibly get worse. This may help explain why places that have suffered recent misfortunes, such as Kosovo and Afghanistan, rank among the top five optimists. Moussaka for thought for those depressed Greeks.
The tone of the author in discussing African status can be defined as being______.
选项 A、radical
B、impartial
C、hesitant
D、self-centered
答案B
解析 本题属于中心主旨类题型，测试考生把握全文整体结构和中心主旨的能力。本题的答案信息来源在第二、三段。作者在第二段讲非洲人高度乐观的理由，然后作者毫不回避地在第三段列举了非洲人目前所面对的困难。从作者在这两段所叙述的内容而言，我们不难看出作者在谈论非洲状况时的语气是“客观的”，故本题的正确选项应该是B“impartial”(客观公正的)。考生在阅读时应注重对原文整体结构的把握。
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