单选题
Some of the world's most significant problems never hit headlines. One example comes from agriculture. Food riots and hunger make news. But the trend lying behind these matters is rarely talked about. This is the decline in the growth in yields of some of the world's major crops. A new study by the University of Minnesota and McGill University in Montreal looks at where, and how far, this decline is occurring. The authors take a vast number of data points for the four most important crops: rice, wheat, corn and soyabeans(大豆). They find that on between 24% and 39% of all harvested areas, the improvement in yields that took place before the 1980s slowed down in the 1990s and 2000s. There are two worrying features of the slowdown. One is that it has been particularly sharp in the world's most populous(人口多的) countries, India and China. Their ability to feed themselves has been an important source of relative stability both within the countries and on world food markets. That self-sufficiency cannot be taken for granted if yields continue to slow down or reverse. Second, yield growth has been lower in wheat and rice than in corn and soyabeans. This is problematic because wheat and rice are more important as foods, accounting for around haft of all calories consumed. Corn and soyabeans are more important as feed grains. The authors note that 'we have preferentially focused our crop improvement efforts on feeding animals and cars rather than on crops that feed people and are the basis of food security in much of the world'. The report qualifies the more optimistic findings of another neus paper which suggests that the world will not have to dig up a lot more land for farming in order to feed 9 billion people in 2050, as the Food and Agriculture Organisation has argued. Instead, it says, thanks to slowing population growth, land currently ploughed up for crops might be able to revert (回返) to forest or wilderness. This could happen. The trouble is that the forecast assumes continued improvements in yields, which may not actually happen.
单选题
What does the author try to draw attention to? ______
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】细节题。第一段紧跟But句之后,写到:“This is the decline in the growth in yields of some of the world's major crops.”说明那些鲜被讨论的正是粮食产量下滑问题。与C选项表达的意思相同。
单选题
Why does the author mention India and China in particular? ______
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】根据关键词India and China定位到文章第三段的第二句,而第三句是解释了为什么提到India and China,A选项是对其原意再现,vital对应important;B选项具有一定干扰性,它只是现象,但没有解释原因;C选项worldwide concerns,文中没有提到;D选项出现了原文中的词,但与原意有出入。故选A。
单选题
What does the new study by the two universities say about recent crop improvement efforts? ______
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】细节题。根据题干中的crop improvement efforts迅速定位至第四段we have preferentially focused our crop improvement efforts on feeding animals and cars rather than on crops that feed people...。rather than意为“而不是”,与选项中的“more...than”结构相对应。可知D选项符合题意。
单选题
What does the Food and Agriculture Organisation say about world food production in the coming decades? ______
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】细节题。根据题干中的the Food and Agriculture Organisation定位至倒数第二段,“到2050年,世界将不必为了给90亿人口提供粮食而拓宽农田的面积。”“will not have to dig up a lot more land”对应D选项中的“without increasing farmland”,且句意符合,故选D。
单选题
How does the author view the argument of the Food and Agriculture Organisation? ______