Tuning in round the clock, via satellite or internet blog, to any bout of mayhem anywhere, you might not think the world was becoming a more peaceable place. But in some ways it is, and measurably so. A recent Human Security Report released by the Liu Institute at the University of British Columbia registers a 40% drop in the number of armed conflicts between 1992 and 2003, with the worst wars, those claiming more than a thousand lives in battle, down by 80%. While 28 armed struggles for self-determination ignited or reignited between 1991 and 2004, an encouraging 43 others were
contained
or doused.
Yet measured in a different way, from the point of view of the half of the world"s population that is female, argues the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of the Armed Forces, the world is an awfully violent place, and not just in its war zones. Men still fill most of the body bags in wartime, including in civil wars, even on DCAF"s figures, but their sisters, mothers, wives and daughters, it argues in a new report entitled "Women in an Insecure World", face nothing short of a "hidden gendercide".
Violence against women is nothing new. DCAF"s contribution is to collate the many figures and estimates—not all of them easily verifiable, it has to be said—on everything from infanticide to rape (in both war and peace), dowry deaths, sex trafficking and domestic violence (in richer countries as well as poorer ones).
According to one UN estimate cited by DCAF, between 113m and 200m women are now demographically "missing". This gender gap is a result of the aborting of girl foetuses and infanticide in countries where boys are preferred; lack of food and medical attention that goes instead to brothers, fathers, husbands and sons; so-called "honour killings" and dowry deaths; and other sorts of domestic violence. It implies that each year between 1.5m and 3m women and girls are lost to gender-based violence. In other words, every two to four years the world looks away from a victim count on the scale of Hitler"s Holocaust.
Women between the ages of 15 and 44 are more likely to be maimed or die from violence inflicted one way or another by their menfolk than through cancer, malaria, traffic accidents or war combined. Poor health care means that 600,000 women are lost each year to childbirth (a toll roughly equal annually to that of the Rwandan genocide). The World Health Organisation estimates that 6,000 girls a day (more than 2m a year), mostly in the poor world, undergo genital mutilation. Other WHO figures suggest that, around the world, one woman in five is likely to be a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime.
单选题
In the narration of the first two paragraphs, the author employs the device of______.
A. comparison B. inversionC. contrast D. omission
单选题
It can be inferred from the third paragraph of the text that______.
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】[解析] 这是一道细节题，测试考生对原文中一些必要细节的理解，尤其是原文中形容词和副词所传递的信息。本题的答案信息在第三段第二句，该句的大意是：“DCAF的贡献在于核对许多数字和判断——并不是所有的数字和判断都是容易考证的……”。这句话的引申含义是：DCAF在核对相关数字方面付出了艰苦的努力。故本题的正确选项应该是D“the examining work conducted by DCAF has been demanding”(DCAF所做的检查工作一直是难度很大的)。
单选题
Hitler"s Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide are mentioned in the text with the aim to______.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】[解析] 这是一道细节题，测试考生识别具体例证在原文中的功能和作用的能力。本题的答案信息来源在第四段的尾句和尾段的第二句。作者运用第四段尾句中的“Hitler"s Holocaust”来具体地描述死于有关暴力的女性人数；作者运用尾段中的“the Rwandan genocide”来具体刻画由于贫乏的医疗死于生产的女性人数。由此可以推断本题的正确选项是A“provide a concrete concept of the statistics related to gender-based violence and poor health care”(提供有关性暴力和落后医疗的数字的具体概念)。
单选题
Which of the followings could be the best title for the text?
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[解析] 这是一道中心主旨题，测试考生控制和把握全文的能力。本题答案信息的重要来源在第二、三、四、五段的首句，尤其是第二段的首句。第二段首句是全文的灵魂句，它阐明了全文要论述的主题：“……从女性占世界人口二分之一这个角度来看，这个世界是一个充满暴力的场所……”。由此可见本题的正确选项应该是C“Women in a Hazardous World”(处于危险世界的妇女)。