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  3. [A]The scene occurs very near the end of what may be the best sports novel ever written, End Zone, by Don DeLillo. The hero, col

[A]The scene occurs very near the end of what may be the best sports novel ever written, End Zone, by Don DeLillo. The hero, col

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问题      [A]The scene occurs very near the end of what may be the best sports novel ever written, End Zone, by Don DeLillo. The hero, college football running back Gary Harkness, tells a teammate about his hobby: "I like to read about mass destruction and suffering...Horrible diseases, fires raging in the inner cities, crop failures, genetic chaos, temperatures soaring and dropping, panic, robbery, suicides, burned bodies, arms torn off, millions dead. That kind of thing. "
     [B]Guterl covers all of Harkness’s interests and more, although the torn-off limbs are merely implied. " What I’m aiming to do," Guterl writes, " is tell some stories about real dangers we face. I won’t give you a balanced view. I will intentionally ignore the bright side of these issues and focus on the question of how bad can it be. " The answer: Really bad. Not millions of dead but billions, including, of course, you and me and/or all our descendants, depending on the timing of the day of reckoning.
     [C]Guterl also talks about the get-it-over-in-one-shot scene, an extinction-event asteroid impact. In comes one of those Chicxulub crater makers, and we’re cooked. Former astronaut Edward Lu says we could send a telescope into a Venus-like orbit around the sun that in weeks would double our information about potentially Earth-threatening asteroids. If a killer rock were spotted, we would theoretically mount a mission to deflect the thing.
     [D]The book goes on to give due respect to the potential of climate change, ecosystem collapses, bioterror and artificial evil intelligence. Any of those cases could wipe out significant portions of the world’s population. And the subsequent social breakdown would then sweep away vast numbers of the survivors. Despite the horrible subject matter, Guterl maintains a sunny disposition. "I tend toward the techno-optimistic side," he writes. " I also think optimism is our best weapon. "
     [E]Guterl takes us on a tour of various apocalypses, starting with viruses, especially flu. Every infectious disease expert I’ve spoken to in the past two decades is terrified of a new strain that could rival the horrific 1918 flu outbreak in killing efficiency. Today we face an additional disease threat; maniacs with radio programs telling millions of devoted listeners that any public health actions taken by officials are mere smoke screens for illegal policies.
     [F]The fictional Gary Harkness would love the new nonfiction book The Fate of the Species, by Fred Guterl. Harkness would adore the first part of the subtitle—Why the Human Race May Cause Its Own Extinction—although he would probably be less interested in the concluding phrase—and How We Can Stop It.
     [G]The book’s last chapter is called "Ingenuity. " As Guterl puts it, "We’ve beaten the odds so far. To continue beating them will take every good idea. " Yet even the best ideas may not be reliable, because, fools are so ingenious. Many years ago I happened on a quotation that went something like this: "If all the world’s oceans were filled with gasoline, sooner or later some lunatic would throw in a lit match. " The match may already be lit.

选项
答案C
解析 根据上面的分析，[C]的位置已经大致确定在末段之前。在最后确定之前，需再根据最后一段进行验证。本段最后提到人类可以通过科技方法来规避自然灾难，既能说明上段的乐观主义，也能与最后一段的主题“Ingenuity”相呼应。可见，[C]为本题答案。
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