Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions on Answer Sheet 1. For questions 1-7, mark Y(for YES)if the statement agrees with the information given in the passage; N(for NO)if the statement contradicts the information given in the passage; NG(for NOT GIVEN)if the information is not given in the passage. For questions 8-10, complete the ntences with information given in the passage.
Passage1:
Will We Run Out of Water?
Picture a “ghost ship” sinking into the sand, left to rot on dry land by a receding a. Then imagine dust storms sweeping up toxic pesticides and chemical fertilizers from the dry abed and spewing them across towns and villages.
Seem like a scene from a movie about the end of the world? For people living near the Aral a (咸海) in Central Asia, it’s all too real. Thirty years ago, government planners diverted th
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e rivers that flow into the a in order to irrigate (provide water for ) farmland. As a result, the a has shrunk to half its original size, stranding (使搁浅) ships on dry land. The awater has tripled in salt content and become polluted, killing all 24 native species of fish.
六月下雪Similar large--scale efforts to redirect water in other parts of the world have also ended in ecological crisis, according to numerous environmental groups. But many countries continue to build massive dams and irrigation systems, even though such projects can create more problems than they fix. Why? People in many parts of the world are desperate for water, and more people will need more water in the next century.
“Growing populations will worn problems with water,” says Peter H.Gleick, an environmental scientist at the Pacific Institute for studies in Development, Environment, and Security, a rearch organization in California. He fears that by the year 2025, as many as one--third of the world’s projected (红烧黑鱼块预测的) 8.3 billion people will suffer from water shortages.
WHERE WATER GOES
Only 2.5 percent of all water on Earth is freshwater, water suitable for drinking and growing food, says Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project in Amherst, Mass. Two--thirds of this freshwater is locked in glaciers (冰山) and ice caps （冰盖）. In fact, only a tiny percentage of freshwater is part of the water cycle, in which water evaporates and ris into the atmosphere, then condens and falls back to Earth as precipitation (rain or snow).
Some precipitation runs off land to lakes and oceans, and some becomes groundwater, water that eps into the earth. Much of this renewable freshwater ends up in remote places like the Amazon river basin in Brazil, where few people live. In fact, the world’s population has access to only 12,500 cubic kilometers of freshwater—about the amount of water in Lake Superior(苏必利尔湖). And people u half of this amount already. “If water demand continues to climb rapidly,” says Postel, “there will be vere shortages and damage to the aquatic (水的) environment.”
CLOSE TO HOME
Water woes(灾难) may em remote to people living in rich countries like the United States. But Americans could face rious water shortages, too especially in areas that rely on groundwater. Groundwater accumulates in aquifers (地下蓄水层)，layers of sand and gravel that lie between soil and bedrock. (For every liter of surface water, more than 90 liters are hidden underground.) Although the United States has large aquifers, farmers, ranchers, and cities are tapping many of them for water faster than nature can replenish(补充) it. In northwest Texas, for example, overpumping has shrunk groundwater supplies by 25 percent, according to Postel.
Americans may face even more urgent problems from pollution. Drinking water in the United States is generally safe and meets high standards. Nevertheless, one in five Americans every day unknowingly drinks tap water contaminated with bacteria and chemical wastes, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In Milwaukee, 400,000 people fell ill in 1993 after drinking tap water tainted with cryptosporidium (隐孢子虫)，a microbe (微生物) that caus fever, diarrhea (腹泻) and vomiting.
THE SOURCE
Where so contaminants come from? In developing countries, people dump raw (未经处理的) wage(污水) into the same streams and rivers from which they draw water for drinking and cooking; about 250 million people a year get sick from water borne (饮水传染的只字加一笔是什么字) dias.
In developed countries, manufacturers u 100,000 chemical compounds to make a wide range of products. Toxic chemicals pollute water when relead untreated into rivers and lakes. (Certain compounds, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (多氯化联二苯)，or PCBs, have been banned in the United States.) 海棠花怎么养
But almost everyone contributes to water pollution. People often pour houhold cleaners, car antifreeze, and paint thinners (稀释剂) down the drain; all of the contain hazardous chemicals. Scientists studying water in the San Francisco Bay reported in 1996 that 70 percent of the pollutants could be traced to houhold waste.
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Farmers have been criticized for overusing herbicides and pesticides, chemicals that kill weeds and incts but incts but that pollute water as well. Farmers also u nitrates, nitrogen--rich fertilizer that helps plants grow but that can wreak havoc (大破坏) on the environment. Nitrates are swept away by surface runoff to lakes and as. Too many nitrates “over rich” the bodies of water, encouraging the buildup of algae, or microscopic plants that live on the surface of the water. Algae deprive the water of oxygen that fish need to survive, at times choking off life in an entire body of water.
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