单选题 Drunken driving—sometimes called America's socially accepted form of murder—has become a national epidemic. Every hour of every day about three Americans on average are killed by drunken drivers, adding up to an incredible 250 000 over the past decade.
A drunken driver is usually defined as one with a 0.10 blood alcohol content or roughly three beers, glasses of wine or shots of whisky drunk within two hours. Heavy drinking used to be an acceptable part of the American macho image and judges were lenient in most courts, but the drunken slaughter has recently caused so many well-publicized tragedies, especially involving young children, that public opinion is no longer so tolerant.
Twenty states have raised the legal drinking age to 21, reversing a trend in the 1960s to reduce it to 18. After New Jersey lowered it to 18, the number of people killed by 18-20-year-old drivers, more than doubled, so the state recently upped it back to 21.
Reformers, however, fear raising the drinking age will have little effect unless accompanied by educational programmes to help young people to develop "responsible attitudes" about drinking and teach them to resist peer pressure to drink.
Tough new laws have led to increased arrests and tests and, in many areas already, to a marked decline in fatalities. Some states are also penalising bars for serving customers too many drinks. A tavern in Massachusetts was fined for serving six or more double brandies to a customer who was "obviously intoxicated" and later drove off the road, killing a nine-year-old boy.
As the fatalities continue to occur daily in every state, some Americans are even beginning to speak well of the 13 years of national prohibition of alcohol that began in 1919, what President Hoover called the "noble experiment". They forget that legal prohibition didn't stop drinking, but encouraged political corruption and organized crime. As with the booming drug trade generally, there is no easy solution.

单选题 Drunken driving has become a serious problem in America because ______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】参见第二段第二句。烂醉如泥被视为美国人的“macho image”,这种盲目的推崇造成了危害。
单选题 Why have the public changed their opinion about drunken driving?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】参见第二段末句。在最近几起由酒后驾车酿成的悲剧发生之后,公众对这种“酒后屠杀”再也无法容忍了。
单选题 The statistics issued in New Jersey suggested that ______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】新泽西州把法定年龄降低到18岁之后,死于车祸人数激增两倍,“效果”十分显著。反过来讲,提高法定年龄也同样会取得比较好的效果。
单选题 Laws recently introduced in some states have ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】见第五段首句:let to a marked decline in fatalities跟选项B中 resulted in fewer fatalities of traffic accidents意思一致。选B。
单选题 What is the author's attitude toward the solution of drunken driving in the United States?
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】全文自一开始就以惊人数字描绘酒后驾车造成的后果。接下去就阐述法律并不能起多大的作用,“didn't stop drinking”,最后哀叹“there is no easy solution”,全篇透露着作者一种消极的态度。选A。