Question

Way back in 1662,John Evelyn,a brilliant Englishman known for his detailed diaries, wrote about disastrous effects of coal-burning on the city of London. In it, he described an infernal scene of smog, air filled with "Columns and Clouds of Smoke", given out by small industries and residences that burned coal for fuel.

I found the description in the 2003 book When Smoke Ran like Water , by

epidemiologist(流行病學(xué)家) and environmental advocator (倡導(dǎo)者)Devra Davis. In it, Davis looks back at several historic pollution events and their disastrous effects on human health ― and at how these phenomena were often ignored or even active?ly covered up by people in charge at that time.

As Davis points out,John Evelyn was ahead of his time when writing about how London's polluted air af?fected the well-being of its residents. It wasn't until nearly 300 years later, after what became well-known as the Great Smog of 1952, that the government began to address the problem in a systematic way.

For four days, between December 5th and 9th, due to all the accidents of the weather pattern, the city was buried in a heavy fog. People were still burning coal for fuel,and low-grade coal at that time,because of wartime condition. A temperature inversion (轉(zhuǎn)向)trapped the smoke from the city's fires, creating a black cloud in which people could barely find their way down the most familiar streets. Some tried to protect themselves, but most people simply went about their business.

But 1952's fog was far worse than any other in memory. In the same week of the previous year, 1852 people had died in London; in 1952, that number was 4,703. And the deaths didn't stop when the weather changed and the fog lifted. Davis and her colleagues an?alyzed data from the next several months and found that about 13,000 more people died between December and March than one would have predicted from historical av?erages. Many of them died of pneumonia(肺炎).The government,she writes, tried to blame a bad flu season. Her detailed analysis found that explanation simply did not pan out.

Davis writes that even today in this country, we still have not completely absorbed the lessons of similar events. The killer fog has lifted in London for sixty-years, and people are dying 

preventable deaths and suf?fering life, changing illnesses,simply because they must breathe the air of the cities where they live.

1. The passage is written to .

A.warn people of the danger from air pollution

B.introduce London's Great Smog of 1952

C.blame the government for the smog

D.explain the reasons for air pollution

2.The underlined word "infernal" in the first paragraph

probably means "   "•

A. imaginary   B. adventurous

C. unbelievable D. annoying

3.One of the reasons for the Great Smog of 1952 was

that . 

A.people burned wood for fuel

B.a forest fire created a black cloud over the city

C.the government ignored the smog

D.most people went about their business

4. How does the writer feel about the present air condi?tion in London?

A. Indifferent. B. Concerned.

C. Hopeless.   D. Panic.

Answer 1

【文章大意】本文是一篇議論文，主要討論

了空氣污染給人們的健康帶來危害的問題。

A寫作意圖題。根據(jù)文章第一段和最后一段可推知，本文通過擺事實(shí)講道理，主要警示人們關(guān)注空氣污染的危害，故選A項(xiàng)。

D詞義猜測(cè)題。根據(jù)文章第一段第一句"…wrote about dis?astrous effects of coal-burning on the city of London."可知，此處infernal與disastrous呼應(yīng)，由此可推知infernal和annoying 意思相近，故選D項(xiàng)。

C 推理判斷題。根據(jù)文章第二段最后一句"…and at how these phenomena were often ignored or even actively covered up by people in charge at that time,，'并結(jié)合第三段最后一句"It wasn't until nearly 300 years later, after what became well-known as the Great Smog of 1952, that the government began to address the problem in a systematic way.，，可推知， 1952年倫敦大霧是由于政府長期忽略煙霧問題等而引起的， 故選C項(xiàng)。 -

B 觀點(diǎn)態(tài)度題。根據(jù)文章最后一段最后一句"…people are dying preventable deaths and suffering life, changing illnesses, simply because they must breathe the air of the cities where they live."并結(jié)合對(duì)本段的整體理解可推知，作者認(rèn)為倫敦現(xiàn)在的空氣質(zhì)量令人擔(dān)憂，故選B項(xiàng)。