单选题
In some ways, the United States has made spectacular
progress. Fires no longer destroy 18,000 buildings as they did in the Great
Chicago Fire of 1871, or kill half a town of 2,400 people, as they did the same
night in Peshtigo, Wisconsin. Other than the Beverly Hill Supper Club fire in
Kentucky in 1977, it has been four decades since more than 100 Americans died in
a fire. But even with such successes, the United States still
has one of the worst fire death rates in the world. Safety experts say the
problem is neither money nor technology, but the indifference of a country that
just will not take fires seriously enough. American fire
departments are some of the world's fastest and best-equipped. They have to be.
The United States has twice Japan's population, and 40 times as many fires. It
spends far less on preventing fires than on fighting them. And American
fire-safety lessons are aimed almost entirely at children, who die in
disproportionately large numbers in fires but who, contrary to popular myth,
start very few of them. Experts say the fatal error is an
attitude that fires are not really anyone's fault. That is not so in other
countries, where both public education and the law treat fires as either a
personal failing or a crime. Japan has many wood houses; of the estimated 48
fires in world history, that burned more than 10,000 buildings, Japan has had
27. Penalties for causing a severe fire by negligence can be as high as life
imprisonment. In the United States, most education dollars are
spent in elementary schools. But the lessons are aimed at a too limited
audience; just 9 percent of all fire deaths are caused by children playing with
matches. The United States continues to rely more on technology
than laws or social pressure. There are smoke detectors in 85 percent of all
homes. Some local building codes now require home sprinklers. New heaters and
irons shut themselves off if they are tipped.
单选题
Although the fire death rate has declined, the United States______.
A. still has the worst fire death rate in the world
B. is still alert to the fire problem
C. is still training a large number of safety experts
D. is still confronted with the serious fire problem
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】be confronted with/by…意为“面临……”。据第二段第一句，第三段第三、四、五句得知“美国仍然面临严重的火灾，而且人在火灾中的死亡率较高……”。乍看此题，好像选A也对，但要注意A中的“has the worst fire death rate”不等于短文中的“has one of the worst fire death rates”。
单选题
It can be inferred from the passage that______.
A. fire safety lessons should be aimed at American adults
B. American children have not received enough education of fire safety
lesson
C. Japan is better equipped with fire facilities than the United
States
D. America's large population accounts for hight fire frequency