大学英语四级阅读理解练习 四

　　Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following passage:
　　It remains to be seen whether the reserves of raw materials would be sufficient to supply a world economy which would have grown by 500%. South-East Asia alone would have an energy consumption five times greater than that of Westen Europe in 1970. Incidentally, if the underdeveloped countries started using up petrol at the same rate as the industrialised areas, then world reserves would already be exhausted by 1985.
　　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 world-wide scale.
　　This is a matter of life and death because world population is exploding 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 1500 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 stabilise（稳定） world population in the next 50 years, the number of inhabitants per square kilometre 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（假设）we do nothing. By the year 2000, the southern parts of the world then have a population greater than the total world population today. Calcutta would have 60 million inhabitants. It is unthinkable.
　　Alternatively（或）, we could start acting right now to bring births under control within 15 years so that population levels off. Even then the population in the southern areas would not stop growing for 75 years.　　
　　6.World petrol reserves will be used up by 1985 if _________.
　　 A) Western European consumption continues to expand
　　 B) South-East Asia does not limit its consumption
　　 C) underdeveloped countries start to use petrol at the same rate as Western Europe
　　 D) world population continues to expand
　　7.The author thinks that we should ________.
　　 A) do nothing
　　 B) act now
　　 C) wait 10 years
　　 D) wait 20 years
　　8.Should we take the effective measures immediately, the world's population _________.
　　 A) would not stop growing for 75 years
　　 B) would stop growing in about 15 years' time from now
　　 C) could stabilise in about 75 years' time
　　 D) could stabilise in 35 years' time
　　9.The author suggests in the passage that _________.
　　 A) there will certainly not be enough raw materials for the world economy in the year 2000
　　 B) world petrol supplies will have been exhausted by 1985
　　 C) we need to use natural resources carefully and divide them up equally
　　 D) to slow down the economic growth in developed countries might be a possible solution to the problem
　　10.The purpose of the author in writing this piece is to _________.
　　 A) urge people to start taking action right away
　　 B) tell people about the surprising rate of population growth
　　 C) describe the problem the world will be faced with
　　 D) give an account of the relationship between population growth and industry
　　Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following passage:
　　One of the most interesting paradoxes（逆说）in America today is that Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, is now engaged in serious debate about what a university should be, and whether it is measuring up.
　　Like the Roman Catholic（天主教的）Church and other ancient institutions, it is asking-still in private rather than in public-whether its past assumptions about faculty, authority, admissions, courses of study, are really relevant to the problems of the 1980's.
　　Should Harvard-or any other university-be an intellectual sanctuary（圣坛）, apart from the political and social revolution of the age, or should it be a laboratory for experimentation with these political and social revolutions, or even an engine of the revolution? This is what is being discussed privately in the big houses of faculty members around the Harvard Yard.
　　The issue was defined by Walter lippmann, a distinguished Harvard graduate, several years ago.
　　"If the universities are to do their work, " he said, "they must be independent and they must be disinterested--- They are places to which men can turn for judgements which are unbiased by special interest. Obviously, the moment the universities fall under political control, or under the control of private interest, or the moment they themselves take a hand in politics and the leadership of government, their value as independent and disinterested sources of judgement is weakened --- "
　　This is part of the argument that is going on at Harvard today. Another part is the argument among the students that a university is the keeper of our ideals and morals, and should not be "disinterested" but activist in bringing the nation's ideals and actions together.
　　Harvard's men of today seem more troubled and less sure about personal, political and acadimic purpose than they did at the beginning. They are not even clear about how they should debate and resolve their problems, but they are struggling with them privately, and how they come out is bound to influence American university and political life in the 1980's.