单选题 Tobacco
You most likely know that tobacco is a plant. It has large leaves that have been smoked in many forms or at least 2000 years. But do you know that:
Before the twentieth century, not many people died from using tobacco because there wasn't much tobacco being used. Cigarettes had to be roiled by hand. A person who was really fast could roll about four cigarettes a minute, or around 2000 a day. In 1884 the cigarette manufacturing machine was invented that could produce 120000 cigarettes a day. Soon the number being sold rose to one billion a year. As a result of advertising and efficient machines, the tobacco business continued to grow. Today about 840 packs of cigarettes are sold every second in the US. That's more than one million every hour! Imagine that! Blink you eyes and 840 packs are sold. Blink again — another 840 packs! As the number of cigarette sales increased, so did the number of deaths caused by cigarettes. Today one out of every five people who die in the US dies because of smoking. Smoking tobacco is responsible for more deaths than cocaine, heroin, alcohol, fire, automobile accidents, homicides, suicides, and AIDS combined. That amounts to about 430000 people who die needlessly every year, 1200 people who die every day because of their addiction to cigarettes. It's like having several completely full jumbo jets crash every day, killing all aboard!
Who in the USA Smokes
Cigarette smoking is a widespread habit in the United States today. About forty-three percent of the adult men and thirty-one percent of the adult women smoke regularly. It is quite encouraging to note, however, that millions of people have given up the smoking habit. Seventy-five percent of the male population and forty-six percent of the female population have smoked cigarettes at some time during their lives, but twenty-six percent of these men and eleven percent of these women have stopped smoking. The number of persons who have given up smoking is increasing.
Men as a group smoke more than women. Among both men and women the age group with the highest proportion of smokers is the age group 24~44.
Income, education and occupation play a part in determining a person's smoking habits. City people smoke more than people living on farms. Well-educated men with high incomes are less likely to smoke cigarettes than men with fewer years of schooling and lower incomes. On the other hand, if a well-educated man with a higher income smokes at all, he is likely to smoke more packs of cigarettes every day.
The situation is somewhat different for women. There are slightly more smokers among women with higher family incomes and higher education than among the lower income and lower educational groups. These more highly educated women tend to smoke more heavily.
Among teenagers the picture is similar. There are fewer teenage smokers from upper-income, well-educated families, and from families living in farm areas. High school students who are preparing for college are less likely to smoke than those who do not plan to continue their education after high school. Children are most likely to start smoking if one or both of their parents smoke.

单选题 The tobacco business developed quickly in the 20th century because ______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 推理判断题。文章第二段回顾了烟草行业的发展过程,第四句起说明烟草制造业产生飞跃的原因:1884年卷烟机发明,使得日产量大幅提高,并使卷烟的年销售数量大增。在第六句指出:As a result of ...continued to grow,说明广告和机器的发明都是烟草业得以迅速、继续发展的原因,故选[C]。
单选题 Among the deaths, ______ percent of people die from smoking in the USA.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。第二段倒数第四句指出:Today one out of every five people... dies because of smoking,即死亡的人中有五分之一(20%)是死于吸烟,因此答案为[B]。
单选题 The number of men giving up smoking is ______ the number of women stopping smoking.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 推理判断题。文章第二部分主要说明的是美国人吸烟的情况,其中列举了许多数字,考生应仔细弄清这些数字与事实之间的对应关系。第三段倒数第二句指出,美国吸烟的成人中,有26%的男性、11%的女性已经戒烟。由这两个比例可以推知[D]对。
单选题 Which of the following is NOT true?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。本题为细节比对题。[A]对应于倒数第三段最后一句话;[B]与倒数第二段第二、三句指出的事实(受教育程度较高、家庭收入较高的女性中吸烟人数也较多)不符,是本题答案;[C]与文章最后一句话相符;[D]与文章倒数第三段第一句话的意思一致。