It remains to be seen whether the reserves of raw materials in the year 2000 will be sufficient to supply a world economy which

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问题     It remains to be seen whether the reserves of raw materials in the year 2000 will be sufficient to supply a world economy which will have grown by five hundred percent. Southeast Asia alone will have an energy consumption five times greater than that of Western Europe in 1970. Incidentally, if the underdeveloped countries started using up petrol at the same rate as the industrialized areas, then world reserves would be exhausted by 1990.
    All this only goes to show just how important it is to set up a plan to conserve and divide up fairly natural resources on a worldwide scale.
    This is a matter of life and death because world population is expanding at an incredible rate. By the middle of the next century population will expand every year by as much as it did in the first 1 500 years after Christ. In the southern, poor parts of the globe, the figures are enough to make your hair stand on end. Even supposing that steps are taken to stabilize world population in the next fifty years, the number of inhabitants per square kilometer will increase by from 4 in the United States to 140 in South East Asia. What can we do about it?
    In the first hypothesis we do nothing. By the year 2000, the southern parts of the world would then have a population greater than the total world population today.
    Alternately we could start acting right now to bring birth rate under control within fifteen years so that population levels off. Even then the population in the southern areas would not stop growing for seventy-five years. And the population would level off at something like twice today’s figure.
    Finally, we could wait ten to twenty years before taking action. If we wait ten years the population of the southern area would stabilize at 3000 million. Even today the number of potential workers increases by 350 000 people per week. By the end of the century this figure will reach 750 000; in other words, it will be necessary to find work for 40 million people per year— not to speak of food.
    What this means in practical terms we can scarcely imagine. But clearly if we do nothing, nature will solve the problem for us. But at what cost!
The best title for this passage would be______.

选项 A、Raw Material in the Year 2000
B、Problem of Energy Consumption
C、Worldwide Conservation of Resources
D、The Pressure of Population Growth

答案D

解析 这是一道主旨题。文章第一、二段谈的是资源问题,指出:世界的石油储备不久就会枯竭,所以应该在全球范围内实施一套储存和合理分配自然资源的计划。第三段指出:这是有关生死存亡的问题,因为世界的人口正在以令人难以置信的速度增长;到下个世纪中叶,世界每年增长的人口就会像耶稣诞辰后的1500年内全世界增长的总人口一样多:对此我们能做些什么呢?随后几段讲的是应付人口问题的几种设想。最后一段指出:确切地说,我们无法想象这意味着什么:但是很显然,如果我们什么也不做,自然将为我们解决这个问题;但那将是怎样的代价啊!这说明,本文主要讲的是人口增长引发的问题。D说“人口增长的压力”,这可以表达文章的主题。“2000年的原材料问题”、“能源消耗问题”以及“世界范围内的资源储存”只是文章第一、二段的内容,不能表达文章的中心意思,所以A,B和C都不对。
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