填空题

Ruining the Ruins
Acid rain (酸雨) is now a familiar problem in the industrialized countries in Europe. Harmful gases are produced by power stations and cars. They dissolve in rainwater and this makes acid rain, which damages trees, rivers and streams.
Acid rain is also capable of dissolving some rocks, and buildings made of soft rock, such as limestone (石灰石), are particularly badly affected. The acid rain attacks the rock, and so carvings and statues are eroded (受腐蚀) more quickly.
(46) According to a report in the New Scientist, acid rain is being blamed for the rapid decay of ancient ruins in Mexico. The old limestone buildings in places like Chichen Itza, Tulum and Palenque are wearing away very quickly indeed. These sites are the remains of the buildings built by the Mayas between 250 BC and AD 900, and the spectacular ruins of Mayan civilization are visited by thousands of tourists every year.
But those ruins are in danger of being seriously damaged by pollution. At many sites the stone has been covered with a layer of black substance. (47)
Scientists estimate that about one millimeter of stone is worn away every twelve years. (48) The acid rain is said to be caused by pollution from oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico. Car exhaust gases are also a problem. Local volcanic eruptions make the problem even worse. Nevertheless, with enough money and effort, researchers say that many of the problems could be solved and the rate of erosion reduced. (49)
Mexico’s current lack of funds is also partly due to oil. The country has rich oil fields and a few years ago, when oil was expensive, Mexico was selling large quantities of oil to the USA.and earning a lot of money. (50) However, the price of oil then dropped, and Mexico has been left owing enormous sums of money and with not enough income from oil sales to pay back the loans. So unless the price of oil rises, it is unlikely that Mexico will be able to afford to clean up the pollution and save its Mayan ruins from destruction.
A.At others the painted surfaces inside temples are lifting and flaking off (剥落) and the stone is being eaten away.
B.That is enough to have caused some of the ancient carvings to become seriously damaged already.
C.These measures would reduce the pollution, but would not stop it completely.
D.The government was therefore able to borrow huge sums of money from banks around the world, thinking they would have no problem repaying their debts.
E.The problem, however, is not just a European one.
F.However, the Mexican government does not have enough money to do the work, and needs to spend what money it has on the Mexican people.

【参考答案】

F
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单项选择题
Living alone in a house, the writer seems to A.have totally forgotten her work. B.be afraid of her neighbors. C.get some comfort from TV programs. D.have gone crazy.
After too long on the Net, even a phone call can be a shock. My boyfriend’s Liverpudlian accent suddenly becomes hard to understand after the clarity of his words on screen; a secretary’s tone seems more rejecting than I’d imagined it would be. Time itself becomes fluid—hours become minutes, and alternately seconds stretch into days. Weekends, once a highlight of my week, are now just two ordinary days.
For the last three years, since I stopped working as a producer for Charlie Rose, I have done much of my work as a tele-commuter (远程交谈者). I submit articles and edit them via E-mail and communicate with colleagues on Internet mailing lists. My boyfriend lives in England, so much of our relationship is computer-mediated.
If I desired, I could stay inside for weeks without wanting anything. I can order food, and manage my money, love and work. In fact, at times I have spent as long as three weeks alone at home, going out only to get mail and buy newspapers and groceries. I watched most of the blizzard (风) of ’96 on TV.
But after a while, life itself begins to feel unreal. I start to feel as though I’ve merged with my machines, taking data in, spitting them back out, just another node (节点) on the Net. Others on line report the same symptoms. We start to strongly dislike the outside forms of socializing. It’s like attending an A.A. meeting in a bar with everyone holding a half-sipped drink. We have become the Net opponents’ worst nightmare.
What first seemed like a luxury, crawling from bed to computer, not worrying about hair, and clothes and face, has become an avoidance, a lack of discipline. And once you start replacing real human contact with cyber-interaction (网上交流), coming back out of the cave can be quite difficult.At times, I turn on the television and just leave it to chatter in the background, something that I’d never done previously. The voices of the programs soothe (安危) me, but then I’m jarred (使感不快) by the commercials. I find myself sucked in by soap operas, or compulsively (强制性地) needing to keep up with the latest news and the weather. "Dateline," "Frontline," "Nightline," CNN, every possible angle of every story over and over and over, even when they are of no possible use to me. Work moves from foreground to background.