Directions: The following paragraphs are given in a
wrong order. For Questions 41--45, you are required to reorganize these
paragraphs into a coherent article by choosing from the list A--E to fill in
each numbered box. The first and the last paragraphs have been placed for you in
Boxes. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.
[A] Hemp has been cultivated by many cultures for thousands of years. It
produces fibre which can be made into paper, fuel, oils, textiles, food, and
rope. For many centuries, it was essential to the economies of many countries
because it was used to make the ropes and cables used on sailing ships; colonial
expansion and the establishment of a world-wide trading network would not have
been possible without hemp. Nowadays, ships’ cables are usually made from’ wire
or synthetic fibres, but scientists are now suggesting that the cultivation of
hemp should be revived for the production of paper and pulp. According to its
proponents, four times as much paper can be produced from land using hemp rather
than tress, and many environmentalists believe that the large-scale cultivation
of hemp could reduce the pressure on Canada’s forests. [B] Much of Canada’s
forestry production goes towards making pulp and paper. According to the
Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, Canada supplies 34% of the world’s wood
pulp and 49% of its newsprint paper. If these paper products could be produced
in some other way, Canadian forests could be preserved. Recently, a possible
alternative way of producing paper has been suggested by agriculturalists and
environmentalists: a plant called hemp. [C] In recent years, two major
movements for legalization have been gathering strength. One group of activists
believes that ALL cannabis should be legal --both the hemp plant and the
marijuana plant -- and that the use of the drag marijuana should not be an
offense. They argue that marijuana is not dangerous or addictive, and that it is
used by large numbers of people who are not criminals but productive members of
society. They also point out that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol or
tobacco. [D] However, there is a problem: hemp is illegal in many countries
of the world. This plant, so useful for fibre, rope, oil, fuel and textiles, is
a species of cannabis, related to the plant from which marijuana is
produced. [E] The other legalization movement is concerned only with the hemp
plant used to produce fibre; this group wants to make it legal to cultivate the
plant and sell the fibre for paper and pulp production. This second group has
had a major triumph recently: in 1997, Canada legalized the farming of hemp for
fibre. For the first time since 1938, hundreds of farmers are planting this
crop, and soon we can expect to see pulp and paper produced from this new
source. [F] In the late 1930s, a movement to ban the drug marijuana began to
gather force, resulting in the eventual banning of the cultivation not only of
the plant used to produce the drug, but also of the commercial fibre-producing
hemp plant. Although both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp in
large quantities on their own land, any American growing the plant today would
soon find himself in prison--despite the fact that marijuana cannot be produced
from the hemp plant, since it contains almost no THC (the active ingredient in
the drug). [G] Every second, 1 hectare of the world’s rainforest is
destroyed. That’s equivalent to two football fields. An area the size of New
York City is lost every day. In a year, that adds up to 31 million hectares --
more than the land area of Poland. This alarming rate of destruction has serious
consequences for the environment; scientists estimate, for example, that 137
species of plant, insect or animal become extinct every day due to logging. In
British Columbia, where, since 1990, thirteen rainforest valleys have been
clear-cut, 142 species of salmon have already become extinct, and the habitats
of grizzly bears, wolves and many other creatures are threatened. Logging,
however, provides jobs, profits, taxes for the government and cheap products of
all kinds for consumers, so the government is reluctant to restrict or control
it.