单选题 The current emergency in Mexico City that has taken over our lives is nothing. I could ever have imagined for me or my children. We are living in an environmental crisis, an air-pollution emergency of unprecedented severity. What it really means is that just to breathe here is to play a dangerous game with your health.
As parents, what terrorizes us most is reports that children are at higher risk because they breathe more times per minute. What more can we do to protect them and ourselves? Our pediatrician"s (儿科医师的) medical recommendation was simple: abandon the city permanently. We are foreigners and we are among the small minority that can afford to leave. We are here because of my husband"s work. We are fascinated by Mexico—its history and rich culture. We know that for us, this is a temporary danger. However, we cannot stand for much longer the fear we feel for our boys. We cannot stop them from breathing.
But for millions, there is no choice. Their lives, their jobs, their futures depend on being here. Thousands of Mexicans arrive each day in this city, desperate for economic opportunities. Thousands more are born here each day. Entire families work in the streets and practically live there. It is a familiar sight: as parents hawk goods at stoplights, their children play in the grassy highway dividers, breathing exhaust fumes. I feel guilty complaining about my personal situation. We won"t be here long enough for our children to form the impression that skies are colored only gray.
And yet the government cannot do what it must to end this problem. For any country, especially a developing Third World economy like Mexico, the idea of barring from the capital city enough cars, closing enough factories and spending the necessary billions on public transportation is simply not an option. So when things get bad, as in the current emergency, Mexico takes half measures—prohibiting some more cars from circulating, stopping some factories from producing—that even its own officials concede aren"t adequate.
The word "emergency" implies the unusual. But when daily life itself is an emergency, the concept loses its meaning. It is human nature to try to adapt to that which we cannot change. Or to mislead ourselves into believing we can adapt.

单选题 According to the passage, the current emergency in Mexico City refers to ______.

单选题 Which of the following statements is NOT TRUE according to the passage?

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[解析] 该题答案见第二段的首句：As parents, what terrorizes US most is reports that children are at higher risk because they breathe more times per minute.句中that从句为前面reports一词的同位语，说明报告的具体内容。原文第二段还提到：We are foreigners and we are among the small minority that can afford to leave; We are fascinated by Mexico—its history and rich culture，其中fascinate(强烈地吸引，把……迷住)即等同于attract。这表明选项A、B和D不正确。尽管作者在文中也提到她丈夫：We are here because of my husband"s work.却没有提及丈夫的具体工作，故选项C正确。

单选题 The word "hawk" (Paragraph 3) most probably means ______.

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[解析] 回答该题要注意对上下文的理解。hawk一词出现在第三段：It is a familiar sight: as parents hawk goods at stoplights, their children play in the grassy highway dividers, breathing exhaust fumes.上文提到，数以百万计的墨西哥人无处可逃，只能在如此恶劣的环境里生存，紧接着描述了以上这一幕街头常见情景。根据常识和句义可以推知：父母是在红灯亮起而去(向司机或车上的人)兜售东西，这时候，孩子们则在马路中间的隔离草坪上玩耍，呼吸着汽车排出的废气。故hawk一词的意思应为“兜售，销售”，与sell同义。

单选题 The Mexican government takes half measures to solve the pollution problem because ______.

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[解析] 该题答案见第四段：...especially a developing Third World economy like Mexico, the idea of barring from the capital city enough cars, closing enough factories and spending the necessary billions on public transportation is simply not an option.(政府无法采取应有的措施来解决这个问题，因为对于像墨西哥这样一个第三世界发展中国家来说，禁止首都拥有过量的汽车、关闭一些工厂、花数十亿元用于改善公共交通，这不只是一个选择问题)。所以，当情况变得严峻时，墨西哥政府仅采取力所能及的措施：“prohibiting some more cars from circulating, stopping some factories from producing”(限制车辆的流动，让某些工厂停产)。虽然他们自己都认为这些措施是远远不够的，但为了发展经济也只能如此。据此可以推断：汽车、工厂对墨西哥的经济是至关重要的，故选项A正确。

单选题 The purpose of the passage is to ______.

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[解析] 该题答案见最后一段：The word "emergency" implies the unusual. But when daily life itself is an emergency, the concept loses its meaning. It is human nature to try to adapt to that which we cannot change. Or to mislead ourselves into believing we can adapt.(“紧急情况”这个词本来的意思是出现了不同寻常的问题。但是，当日常生活本身已成为一种“紧急情况”时，这个概念就没有意义了。)作者指的是：严重污染对墨西哥城市民来说不是偶然的事情，而成为他们习以为常的事情，这时再称之为“紧急情况”就没有意义了。接着说：人的本性使人学会去适应自己无法改变的东西，或欺骗自己“使自己相信自己能适应”。它表达了作者的焦虑和无奈的心情，故选项C正确。