What would you think if someone suggested knocking down St Paul’s Cathedral to widen the road? Or pulling down Big Ben to make way for a car park? It would be ridiculous, right? But when it comes to devastation (毀滅) of the natural world, we aren’t so easily shocked. But we should be…or we’ll be in a lot of trouble.
Nature is shrinking by the day. Ancient forests are destroyed. Wetlands are becoming dry. Woodland is disappearing, and all in the name of progress. This is bad in itself, but it’s devastating for biodiversity.
Biodiversity refers to the variety of plants, animals and other living things that are all interconnected. The ecological services provided by biodiversity are vital to everyday life. The air we breathe is a product of photosynthesis (光合作用) by green plants. Insects, worms and bacteria break down waste and make soils rich. And tiny organisms clean the water in rivers and sea. In fact, all life on the earth exists thanks to the benefits of biodiversity. More than 90 percent of the calories consumed by people worldwide are produced from 80 plant species. And 30 percent of medicines are developed from plants and animals. Maintaining a wide diversity of species in each ecosystem is necessary to preserve all living things.
The loss of biodiversity could be devastating. “It is wrong to think that biodiversity can be reduced indefinitely without threatening humans,” said Harvard University biologist Edward O. Wilson, known as the “father of biodiversity”. He warned, “We are about to reach a critical point beyond which biodiversity loss will become irreversible (不可挽回的).”
But what can we do? The present problem is that the concept of biodiversity is so vague (含糊的). People might care about giant pandas, but it is much harder to excite them about the fate of tiny sea creatures which are being boiled to death in the cooling systems of power stations along coastlines. The Guardian newspaper is trying to help. It has launched the Biodiversity 100 campaign to try to convince governments around the world to take action to deal with the widespread concerns about biodiversity. This includes persuading the UK government to create a series of marine reserves to reserve the decrease in the sea-life caused by industrial fishing, stopping fishing sharks by the Japanese fishermen and banning the killing of dingoes (wild dogs) in Australia, among many other things.
There is a lot to do. And we’d better act quickly if we don’t want to end up with a planet that can’t sustain life!
小題1:The writer thinks it ________ to pull down Big Ben to make way for a car park.
A．unreasonableB．necessaryC．difficultD．reasonable
小題2:The underlined sentence “Nature is shrinking by the day.” means that ________.
A．nature is badly polluted by humans
B．species are becoming fewer and fewer day by day
C．rainforests are being cut down every day
D．nature is full of mysteries
小題3:Edward O. Wilson thinks that ________.
A．it doesn’t matter to reduce biodiversity
B．people have done enough to preserve biodiversity
C．the situation of biodiversity is very serious
D．biodiversity loss has become irreversible
小題4:When it comes to biodiversity, the present problem is that ________.
A．people might not clearly know what is biodiversity and what should be protected
B．people are not aware that giant pandas are endangered
C．people don’t realize that biodiversity is vital to everyday life
D．people hunt sea creatures for food
小題5:What does the underlined word “It” in paragraph 5 refer to?
A．The UK government.B．The concept of biodiversity.
C．The action to deal with the problem.D．The Guardian newspaper.

小題1:A
小題2:B
小題3:C
小題4:A
小題5:D   

試題分析：文章介紹了生物的多樣化的嚴峻形式，很多物種面臨滅絕的危險，作者強烈要求政府采取措施解決這一問題。
小題1:從第一段的句子：It would be ridiculous, right?可知作者認為這種做法是不合理的。選A
小題2:推理題：從第二段的句子：but it’s devastating for biodiversity.
可以推斷出這句話的意思是物種在慢慢變少。選B
小題3:推理題;從第三段的句子：We are about to reach a critical point beyond which biodiversity loss will become irreversible (不可挽回的).”可知Edward O. Wilson認為物種多樣化面臨嚴峻的問題。選C。
小題4:細節(jié)題：從第四段的句子：The present problem is that the concept of biodiversity is so vague (含糊的).可知對物種多樣化的問題人們還不知道這是什么，該保護什么。選A
小題5:猜詞題：從前面的句子：The Guardian newspaper is trying to help.可知it指代的是The Guardian newspaper 。選D。
點評：本題有一定難度，題目設置合理全面：考查細節(jié)題，歸納題，主旨題，要求考生根據(jù)題目要求，在文章中準確定位。進行推理。
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