IV. Reading Comprehension (10%)
Surat is one of the liveliest commercial centers in India. Its factories and workshops produce chemicals, cut
diamonds and textiles. The beggars who swarm through other Indian cities are almost nowhere to be seen, making
Surat, by many standards, a picture of India’s prosperous future.
What is wrong with the picture, however, is apparent to any visitor to the city of 2 million in Guajarat state.
Untreated sewage oozes into the Tapi River. Factories billow noxious smoke; rats are so numerous that in late 1994,
the plague swept through Surat, causing 50 deaths and threatening a nationwide outbreak. “Surat is the epitome of
India’s shortsighted development policies,” says Ghanshyam Shah, director of the city’s Center for Social Studies.
“The emphasis is on growth, hoping that the quality of life will take care of itself.”
High on the list of problems is water. Rivers are increasingly polluted, and groundwater levels are falling
4 of 5
several meters every year. Deeply bored wells are now used to irrigate more than 30 million hectares.
Environmentalists predict fierce competition for the control and use of major waterways.
Over cultivation is exhausting the soil, leading farmers to clear more forests – or leave farming and crowd into
city slums. Meanwhile, urban messiness is growing. Air pollution in New Delhi is among the world’s worst, and auto
sales are nine times as high as a decade ago. Most industrial pollution comes from small factories, which have
multiplied from 15,000 to 2 million. That sector has been shielded from environmental regulations by a succession of
governments.
For centuries the eastern Indian town of Chrapunji, the wettest place on earth, averaged a prodigious 1,200 cm
of rainfall a year. Rains still come, but the destruction of pine forests has led to runoff and a water shortage. “If there
is no tree,” ponders Freeman Singh, chief of the local tribe, “how will the soil hold the water?” The question echoes
across a subcontinent.
【題組】48. The word “itself” in the second paragraph means ___________________.
(A) emphasis (B) growth (C) quality (D) life
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