2. 外语
  3. The current emergency in Mexico City that has taken over our lives is nothing I could ever have imagined for me or my children.

The current emergency in Mexico City that has taken over our lives is nothing I could ever have imagined for me or my children.

admin2012-07-17  69
问题     The current emergency in Mexico City that has taken over our lives is nothing I could ever have imagined for me or my children. We are living in an environmental crisis, an air-pollution emergency of unprecedented severity. What it really means is that just to breathe here is to play a dangerous game with your health.
    As parents, what terrorizes us most are reports that children are at higher risk because they breathe more times per minute. What more can we do to protect them and ourselves? Our pediatrician’s (儿科医师的) medical recommendation was simple：abandon the city permanently. We are foreigners and we are among the small minority that can afford to leave. We are here because of my husband’s work. We are fascinated by Mexico—its history and rich culture. We know that for us, this is a temporary danger. However, we cannot stand for much longer the fear we feel for our boys. We cannot stop them from breathing.
    But for millions, there is no choice. Their lives, their jobs, their futures depend on being here. Thousands of Mexicans arrive each day in this city, desperate for economic opportunities. Thousands more are born here each day. Entire families work in the streets and practically live there. It is a familiar sight; as parents hawk goods at stoplights, their children play in the grassy highway dividers (分线处), breathing exhaust fumes. I feel guilty complaining about my personal situation; we won’t be here long enough for our children to form the impression that skies are colored only gray.
    And yet the government cannot do what it must to end this problem. For any country, especially a developing Third World economy like Mexico’s, the idea of barring from the capital city enough cars, closing enough factories and spending the necessary billions on public transportation is simply not an option. So when things get bad, as in the current emergency, Mexico takes half measures—prohibiting some more cars from circulating, stopping some factories from producing—that even its own officials concede (承认) aren’t adequate.
    The word "emergency" implies the unusual. But when daily life itself is an emergency, the concept loses its meaning. It is human nature to try to adapt to that which we cannot change. Or to mislead ourselves into believing we can adapt.
According to the passage, the current emergency in Mexico City refers to______.
选项 A、serious air pollution
B、economic crisis
C、unemployment
D、natural disaster
答案A
解析 本题是一道具体细节题。问按照文章内容，墨西哥城目前严峻的事情是什么。作者在第一段指出，目前在墨西哥城存在的严峻状况影响到她的生活，这是她和孩子们来此地之前始料未及的。他们正生活在一场环境危机中——这是一场前所未见的严重空气污染造成的危机，这事实上意味着，呼吸本身就是拿健康开的一种危险的玩笑。可见，这里提到的current emergency是指air—pollution emergency of unprecedented severity。因此，本题的正确答案应是A“严重的空气污染问题”。
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