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This week, the governor of Connecticut proposed a statewide tax on sugar—sweetened drinks. Several cities have already enacted such soda taxes to raise money and fight obesity (肥胖) . And there’s new evidence suggesting that these taxes do work—although sometimes not as well as hoped.

Kris Madsen, an associate professor of public health at the University of California, Berkeley, is one of the researchers who has been studying soda taxes, in part because she’s convinced that sugary drinks are a threat to society, a direct cause of obesity.

“ It’s a pretty high bar for public health to be able to say that something is causing a major epidemic, ” she says. “ We can do that for sugar sweetened beverages(饮料) .”

Berkeley was the first U.S. city to tax those drinks, making them more expensive, and Madsen is leading a team of researchers that’ s trying to see how the tax is working.

“ We’ve been going out to the same neighborhoods every year for the last five years, and we’ve been asking people the same questions,” she says. Researchers interview people on the street, primarily in low--income neighborhoods.

They started doing this before the soda tax went into effect four years ago, and they’ve continued every year since.

“ We saw a 52 percent decline in consumption over the first three years” since the tax went into effect, she says. “This has a huge impact.”

Madsen’s study was published online this week by The American Journal of Public Health.

Mexico, in fact, put in place a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in 2014. That tax is smaller than the soda taxes in the U.S., and its effect on consumption also has been smaller. According to one study, consumption of sugary drinks fell on average by about 8 percent as a result of the tax.

单选题

A statewide tax on sugary drinks was planned in this week.

单选题

What is one of the reasons why the government put a tax on sugar-sweetened drinks?

单选题

We can infer from the passage that Kris Madsen believes that________.

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】

由Para.2 中“she’s convinced that sugary drinks are a threat to society, a direct cause of obesity”和 Para.中“It’s a pretty high bar for public health to be able to say that something is causing a major epidemic”可以看出她确信含糖饮料是对社会的一种威胁，是导致肥胖的直接原因，对公共卫生来说，这是一个相当高标准的流行病。选项 A：苏打水导致通货膨胀。选项 B：苏打水对社会有害。选项 C：有钱人不喝加糖饮料。选项D：加糖饮料对公众健康有害。选项 D 符合原文意思。

单选题

The tax on sugar-sweetened drinks is less effective in Mexico than that in the U.S. because

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】

由 Para.9 中“Mexico, in fact, put in place a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in 2014. That tax is smaller than the soda taxes in the U.S.,and its effect on consumption also has been smaller.”可知墨西哥在 2014 年对含糖饮料征税，税收比美国的汽水税更少，对消费的影响也较小。选项 A：更早执行。选项 B：它的税率更低。选项 C：墨西哥人更少喝苏打水。选项 D：墨西哥是个小国家。选项 B 符合原文意思。