单选题______A butB not C orD nor

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Water Crisis in Spain　　There’ve been floods, gales and heat waves across Europe-and some lay the blame for the unpredictable weather on climate change.　　Spain is undergoing its worst drought for sixty years with many areas in the south of the country not seeing a drop of rain for months. Some reservoirs are nearly empty while the volume of water in some rivers is down to a third of its normal level.　　Guadalajara, in the centre of the country, used to be a prosperous tourist area. Its old Moorish name, ironically, means water running through rocks. But when Emma Jane Kirby visited the small town of Buendia, she found an ecological disaster area in the marketing.　　There’s a strange smell around the lake at Buendia, the sort of smell that greets you when you first open the fridge after a week or two away from home—a putrid stench of salad leaves that’ve begun to turn to compost in their cellophane bag. I’m reluctant to mention this to my companion, Marco ObisP0 because this after are is the place where he has spent every one of his summer holidays and a just few hours ago we were pouting over the family photograph books while he reminisced wistfully about his idyllic childhood.　　The problem is I don’t recognize this place as being the same one he showed me in the pictures Those images boasted bronzed children racing joyfully down a bank of emerald green grass towards a vast expanse of water so blue that the cornflower sky above looked dazzled. But this landscape is bleached and barren, the banks crusted white, the ponds patchy and the colour of thin ink.　　Guadalajara in the centre of Spain has been hit hard by drought. The rains haven’t come since spring last year, leaving the soil parched and lifeless, as cracked and scarred as the face of a small pox victim. The sun has sucked the life from anything that once had the energy to be green and stealthily, its hot tongue has lapped away at the lake’s edge reducing the reservoirs to a fifth of the size they were twenty years ago. As quickly as the water’s evaporated, so have the tourists—the holidaymakers from all over Europe with whom Marco played as a child have been lured away to other areas of Spain where swimming or sailing a boat can be done without fear of scraping knees or hulls on the lake bed.　　If the landscape is crying out for new water management, then it’s weeping with painful dust-dry tears. North east of Buendia, only the ancient Spanish pine forests seem able to sustain life, some atavistic survival instinct wing them triumph over droughts which long ago killed off the weaker competition. But the trees are now so dehydrated and sapless they’ve become irresistible to fire-two weeks ago, thirteen thousand hectares were lost to a spark from a barbecue-an inferno that also claimed the lives of eleven men. As far as the eye can see now, the hills are almost bare.

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中国的环保　　我们高度重视资源节约和环境保护，把节能和减排(emission-reduction)作为国家的目标。近两年，又提出并实施节能减排综合性工作方案，建立节能减排指标体系、监测体系、考核体系和目标责任制(a system of accountabifity for reaching the targets)，颁布了应对气候变化国家方案。依法淘汰一大批落后生产能力，关停小型火力发电厂产能(thermal power plants with a total capacity of)2157万千瓦、小煤矿1.12万处，淘汰落后炼铁设施(iron- smelting facilities)产能4659万吨、炼钢产能3747万吨、水泥产能8700万吨。启动十大重点节能工程。中央政府投资支持重点流域水污染防治项目691个。继续推进天然林保护、京津风沙源治理(control the factors causing sandstorms in Beijing and Tianjin)等生态建设，五年累计退耕还林3191万公顷，退牧还草3460万公顷。我们还加强土地和水资源保护。经过各方面努力，节能减排取得积极进展，去年单位国内生产总值能耗(energy consumption per unit of GDP)比上年下降3.27％，化学需氧量(chemical oxygen demand)、二氧化硫(emission of sulfur dioxide)排放总量近年来首次出现双下降，比上年分别下降3.14％和4.66％。节约资源和保护环境从认识到实践都发生了重要转变。

Very little was said about the matter, wasn’t it?

我国将实行新住房政策　　据有关官员和内部人士上周末透露，我国将于本月底之前开始实行有利于中低收入者的新住房政策。　　其中一项重大调整就是将现有的经济适用房细分为销售型和租赁型。建设部的一位官员称，这个划分将成为未来中国住房保障体系的主要框架。据有关官员介绍，与以往政策不同的是，新政策将鼓励城市建造一些“廉租房”，提供给那些处于最低生活保障线下的人群租住。此外，当地政府将为这些租房者提供一定的租房补贴。　　新政策规定，建筑面积90平米以下的住房必须占到新建房数量的70%，这在房地产开发商和业内人士中引起了争议。　　中国房地产开发集团董事长孟晓苏说：“低价位房受到想买新房的人民大众的欢迎”，“面积小是其中一个重要因素”。孟晓苏说，目前，经济适用房的投资比例只占房地产总投资的5%，远远不能满足中低收入家庭不断增长的购房需要。他还建议：“中国房地产市场上的经济适用房比重应该超过30%。”

Tarzan, a character in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ books, has many breathtaking adventures in the jungle.

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外交部发言人谈2000年中国外交工作　　今后，中国将继续坚持邓小平外交思想，始终不渝地奉行独立自主的和平外交政策，坚决维护国家主权、领土完整和民族尊严，坚定推进祖国统一大业。我们愿在和平共处五项原则基础上，加强与世界各国的友好合作关系。在国际事务中，我们将继续伸张正义，反对霸权主义和强权政治，维护世界和平与稳定，促进人类的共同发展。　　我们将切实加强同发展中国家的团结与合作，继续巩固同周边国家的睦邻友好关系，努力保持相对稳定的大国关系框架，改善与发展同欧洲各国及其他发达国家的关系，为中国的改革开放和现代化建设营造一个长期和平稳定的国际和周边环境。　　我们将积极参加多边外交活动，坚定维护联合国宪章的宗旨和原则以及公认的国际关系准则，同全世界所有爱好和平的国家和人民一道，为推动建立公正合理的国际政治经济新秩序，建设一个和平、安全、繁荣、稳定的新世界作出自己的贡献。

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The sentence “Our planet has shrunk” underlined in Paragraph 1 means that __________.

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旅游的意义　　旅游是一种集观光、娱乐、健身为一体的愉快而美好的活动。旅游业随着时代进步而不断发展。20世纪中叶以来，现代3旅游在世界范围迅速兴起，旅游人数不断增加，旅游产业规模持续扩大，旅游经济地位显著提升，旅游活动日益成为各国人民交流文化、增进友谊、扩大交往的重要渠道，对人类生活和社会进步产生越来越广泛的影响。　　古往今来，旅游一直是人们增长知识、丰富阅历、强健体魄的美好追求。在古代，中国先哲们就提出了“观国之光”的思想，倡导“读万卷书，行万里路”，游历名山大川，承天地之灵气，接山水之精华。

农民工月收入不到1000元　　农田面积的不断缩小造成农民工队伍的日趋壮大，同时也带来很多社会问题。我国农民工大多是从农村进城打工的贫困农民，数量已超过1亿。目前，我国城市外来农民工的月工资平均为966元，远高于普通农民的月收入，但与城市居民相比仍处于较低水平。我国农民的平均月收入只有城市居民的四分之一左右。　　据国家统计局的一项最新调查显示，我国一半农民工的人均月收入低于800元，19.67%的农民工月收入低于500元。在参加调查的29，425名农民工中，10%的人月收入达到1,500元。调查显示，我国东部地区的农民工最“富”，月平均收入达到1,090元，而中、西部地区农民工的月收入则分别为880元和835元。　　我国农民工的月花销平均为463元，其中，住宿72元，饮食235元，休闲47元。为了提高专业技能，有一半的受调查农民工接受过职业培训，24.1%的人是自学“成才”。在5,065名携子女入城的农民工中，只有1.05%的人的子女辍学，而49.2%的农民工除向学校缴纳学费外，还要缴纳“登记费”，平均1,226元。

The Grand Canyon　　A famous American John Muir said in 1898：“The Grand Canyon…as unearthly in the color and grandeur(宏大)and quantity of its architecture as if you had found it after death on some other star. ”　　Like Muir, those of us who stand along the rim are prompted to wonder about the unearthliness and the forces that created and are still changing this place.　　After more than 100 years of studies, many things are still obscure. Today visitors come by the thousands—the great and simple of the earth — all in a spirit of marvel. Travelers come from every state of the Union, from every country in Europe and Asia, pilgrims(朝圣者)to a shrine(神殿)that is the same as the creed(信仰).　　From the depths of the canyon(峡谷)comes welling silence. Seldom can you hear the roar of the river. For all sounds are swallowed in this gulf of space. ‘It makes one want to murmur.  A woman once whispered to her companion. This silence is not the silence of death；rather, it is a presence. It is like a great piece of music. But music made of man works up to a climax and ceases；the Grand Canyon is all climax, a chord(和音)echoing into eternity.  Perhaps the most spectacular feature of the Grand Canyon, its Redwall limestone(石灰石) cliff, stands about half way up the chasm (裂口) and is practically vertical. Its average height is550 feet almost exactly that of the Washington Monument. Though it is actually gray-blue limestone, the surface of the cliff has been stained to a sunset hue by iron salts washing out of the rocks. Above the Redwall come alternating layers of red sandstone and shale(页岩)1, 000 feet thick, then comes the next pale-blue layer. The topmost layers are a yellowish limestone.　　Now, visitors to the South Rim alone may number 18, 000 in a single day. Some of that number will travel by mule(轻型牵引机)train down Bright Angel Trail to the canyon’s floor, cross the raging fiver by a suspension bridge and amount to the North Rim.　　Though the two rims face each other across only 12 miles, it is a journey of 214 miles by car from one to the other. Nor can you visit the North Rim except in summer；some 1, 200 feet higher than the South Rim, it is snow covered much of the year except in July and August.　　But there is no day that you may not visit the South Rim and find the sun warm on your face and the air perfumed with the incense of smoke from an Indian hearth. The Grand Canyon is an unearthly sight. No wonder an American writer and journalist said, “I came here an atheist(无神论者), and departed a devout (虔诚的) believer. ”

The Environment in Perspective:Is Everything Getting Steadily Worse?　　Much of the discussion of environmental problems in the popular press leaves the reader with the impression that matters have been growing steadily worse, and that pollution is largely a product of the profit system and modern industrialization. There are environmental problems today that are both enormous and pressing, but in fact pollution is nothing new. Medieval cities were pestholes—the streets and rivers were littered with garbage and the air stank of rotting wastes. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, a German traveler reported that to get a view of London from the tower of St. Paul’s, one had to get there very early in the morning “before the air was full of coal smoke.”　　Since 1960 there has been progress in solving some pollution problems, much of it the result of concerted efforts to protect the environment. The quality of the air in most Canadian cities has improved. In Toronto, for example, the concentration of suspended particulates, or soot, in the air has fallen dramatically since 1962. To put this figure in perspective, it should be noted that the current health advisory level for the index is 32. At a level of 58, people with chronic respiratory diseases may be affected. At 100, even healthy people may be affected by prolonged conditions, and those with cardiac and respiratory diseases could suffer severe effects　　Recently in Toronto, the index has exceeded 32 on fewer than half a dozen days annually. Similar improvements have occurred elsewhere in Canada and in other industrialized countries. Even the famous, or rather infamous, “fogs” of London are almost a thing of the past. There have been two high readings of particular note in the British capital in 1959 (when the index rose to 275 and there was a 10 percent increase over the normal number of deaths) and in 1962 (when the index rose to 575 and there was a 20 percent increase in mortality). But more recently, London’s, cleaner air has resulted in an astounding 50 percent increase in the number of hours of winter sunshine. In short, pollution problems are not a uniquely modem phenomenon, nor is every part of the environment deteriorating relentlessly.　　Environmental problems do not occur exclusively in capitalist economies. For example, in the People’s Republic of China, coal soot from factory smokestacks in Beijing envelops the city in a thick black haze. Similarly, smoke from brown-coal furnaces pollutes the air almost everywhere in Eastern Europe. It has been estimated that a third of Poland’s citizens live in areas of “ecological disaster”. The citizens of Leipzig, a major industrial city in what was formerly East Germany, have a life expectancy a full six years shorter than the national average.　　However, we do not mean to suggest that all is well with the environment in market-oriented economies or that there is nothing more to do. While there have been some improvements, serious problems remain. Our world is now subject to a number of new pollutants, most of which are far more dangerous than those we have reduced, even though they may be less visible and less malodorous　　While environmental problems are neither new nor confined only to capitalist, industrialized economies, these facts are not legitimate grounds for complacency. The potential damage that we are inflicting on ourselves and on our surroundings is very real and very substantial.

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There is something suspect about unanimous praise in this context.

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Our plan didn’t get up the ground because no one could come.

Political cartoons often convey messages by mocking a particular type of personality or institution.