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  3. After World War II the glorification of an ever-larger GNP formed the basis of a new materialism, which became a sacred obligati

After World War II the glorification of an ever-larger GNP formed the basis of a new materialism, which became a sacred obligati

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问题     After World War II the glorification of an ever-larger GNP formed the basis of a new materialism, which became a sacred obligation for all Japanese governments, businesses and trade unions. Anyone who mentioned the undesirable by-products of rapid economic growth was treated as a heretic. Consequently, everything possible was done to make conditions easy for the manufacturers. Few dared question the wisdom of discharging untreated waste into the nearest water body or untreated smoke into the atmosphere. This silence was maintained by union leaders as well as by most of the country’s radicals; except for a few isolated voices, no one protested. An insistence on treatment of the various effluents would have necessitated expenditures on treatment equipment that in turn would have given rise to higher operating costs. Obviously, this would have meant higher prices for Japanese goods, and ultimately fewer sales and lower industrial growth and GNP.
    The pursuit of nothing but economic growth is illustrated by the response of the Japanese government to the American educational mission that visited Japan in 1947. After surveying Japan’s educational program, the Americans suggested that the Japanese fill in their curriculum gap by creating departments in chemical and sanitary engineering. Immediately, chemical engineering departments were established in all the country’s universities and technical institutions. In contrast, the recommendation to form sanitary engineering departments was more or less ignored, because they could bring no profit. By 1960, only two second-rate universities, Kyoto and Hokkaido, were interested enough to open such departments.
    The reluctance to divert funds from production to conservation is explanation enough for a certain degree of pollution, but the situation was made worse by the type of technology the Japanese chose to adopt for their industrial expansion. For the most part, they simply copied American industrial methods. This meant that methods originally designed for use in a country that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific with lots of air and water to use as sewage receptacles were adopted for an area a fraction of the size. Moreover, the Japanese diet was much more dependent on water as a source of fish and as an input in the irrigation of rice; consequently discharged wastes built up much more rapidly in the food chain.
It can be concluded from paragraph 2 that______.
选项 A、chemical engineering departments are more profitable and therefore preferred
B、Japanese educational institutions are less intrigued with sanitary engineering
C、the Japanese government concerned itself only with economic gain
D、Japan was markedly influenced by the U. S. in education
答案C
解析 根据题干信号词concluded from paragraph 2可知本题目是段落主旨题。这类题型的解题思路是关注该段的主题句，主题句往往是段首句、段尾句或段落转折句。根据is illustrated(阐明)by可知第二段首句(日本政府对于1947年造访本国的美国教育代表团所做的反应明确表明他们对于经济增长的一味追求)是本段主旨句，也是本题目的“题眼”，整个下文都在具体讲述“日本政府对美国教育代表团所做的反应”这一事例，并以此为据阐述“日本对经济增长的一味追求”。
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