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  3. In some ways, the United States has made spectacular progress. Fires no longer destroy 18 000 buildings as they did in the Great

In some ways, the United States has made spectacular progress. Fires no longer destroy 18 000 buildings as they did in the Great

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问题     In some ways, the United States has made spectacular progress. Fires no longer destroy 18 000 buildings as they did in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, or kill half a town of 2 400 people, as they did the same night in Peshtigo, Wisconsin. Other than the Beverly Hill Supper Club fire in Kentucky, in 1977, it has been four decades since more than 100 Americans died in a fire.
    But even with such successes, the United States still has one of the worst fire death rates in the world. Safety experts say the problem is neither money nor technology, but the indifference of a country that just will not take fires seriously enough.
    American fire departments are some of the world’s fastest and best equipped. They have to be. The United States has twice Japan’s population, and 40 times as many fires. It spends far less on preventing fires than on fighting them. American fire-safety lessons are aimed almost entirely at children, who die in disproportionately large numbers in fires but who, contrary to popular myth, start very few of them.
    Experts say the fatal error is an attitude that fires are not really anyone’s fault. That is not so in other countries, where both public education and the law treat fires as either a personal failing or a crime. Japan has many wood houses; of the estimated 48 fires in world history that burned more than 10 000 buildings, Japan has had 27. Penalties for fire by negligence can be as high as life imprisonment.
    In the United States, most education dollars are spent in elementary schools. But the lessons are aimed at too limited an audience? just 9 percent of all fire deaths are caused by children playing with matches.
    The United States continues to rely more on technology than laws or social pressure. There are smoke detectors in 85 percent of all homes. Some local building codes now require home sprinklers (自动灭火装置). New heaters and irons shut themselves off if they are tipped.
The reason why so many Americans die in fires is that______.
选项 A、they took no interest in new technology
B、they did not attach great importance to preventing fires
C、they showed indifference to fighting fires
D、they did not spend enough money on fire facilities
答案B
解析 本题问为什么许多美国人死于火灾。利用查阅式阅读法，我们发现文章第二段指出，虽然美国在消防领域取得了很大进步，但是，它仍然是世界上火灾死亡率最高的国家之一，其中原因不能归结为资金投入和技术条件问题，而是一个态度问题，他们对火灾尚不够重视，态度漠然。而第四段指出，在专家们看来，人们认为火灾不是人为原因造成的，这种看法是一个致命的错误。由于人们有这种看法，因此，他们对于防患于未然就不够重视，不够严厉。而日本就不同了，在日本，对不小心引发严重火灾的人可以判无期徒刑。这一严厉的法律手段有效地降低了火灾发生率。第三段第四句还指出，美因人用于救火的钱比用于防火的钱要多得多。由此我们可以推断出本题的正确答案应是B“他们不重视防火”。
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