All along the chain of biological evolution, the extinction of species appears to have been a stage in the process of adapting genetic lineages to changing environmental conditions. Although some catestrophic extinction occurred naturally, producing total loss of a genetic line, such catastrophes were comparatively rate. In modern times, however, human activities have altered the fundamental nature of this process, resulting in nearly total genetic losses.
It is not difficult to gain general agreement that man - induced increases in the endangerment and extinction of wildlife--whether due to habitat alteration or loss, pollution, insufficiently regulated hunting, or other factors--are undesirable. It is, however, more difficult to obtain consensus when consideration is given to the economic costs of correcting such trends, including natural habitat preservation, regulation of pesticides and other toxic substances, and wildlife and park management. Endangered species often are, in effect, competitors with humans for habitat and other resources which also provide other kinds of human use and need.
Measures needed to protect endangered species vary considerably in difficulty and cost. Of the approximately 400 inverterate species which at present appear to be threatened, for example, about one -third could probably be restored by such inexpensive means as modifying the boundaries of designated natural are- as, acquiring and protecting caves and other small areas which contain the particular species, and additional management of parks and refuges.
Another one - third of the endangered lower animal species are threatened principally by water pollution and could be protected by improved control, particularly of five southern rivers.
The remaining one - third of the 400 endangered shellfish species would be considerably more difficult to protect. These are threatened by complex factors, such as overcollecting, channelization, highway and housing development, dams introduced species such as the Asian snail, dredging, quarry washing, poor erosion control, and lowering of water table.
The identification of threatened species and other significant wildlife trends must precede any corrective! measures, and our knowledge base for making such identification is deficient in many respects. Our present lists of threatened species and subspecies are known to be incomplete, except in those geographical areas which contain habitats of species that have important commercial or sports harvest value.
Which of the followings is neither expressed nor implied in the passage as being a threat posed by mall to wildlife preservation?
A. The discharge of chemical wastes into streams as a result of industrial development.
B. Large - scale housing development.
C. Poor coordination of international efforts at park and refuge management.
D. Introduction of species into environments.
You ask me what is poverty? Listen to me. Here I am, dirty, smelly and with no "proper" underwear on and with the stench of my rotting teeth near you. I will tell you. Listen to me, listen without pity. I cannot use your pity. Listen with understanding. Put yourself in my dirty, worn out, ill-fitting shoes ,and hear me.
Poverty is getting up every morning from a dirt - and illness - stained mattress. The sheets have long since been used for diapers. Poverty is living in a smell that never leaves. This is a smell of urine, sour milk, and spoiling food sometimes joined with the strong smell of long - cooked onions. Onions are cheap. If you have smell this smell, you did not know how it came. It is the smell of the outdoor privy. It is the smell of young children who can not walk the long dark day in the night. It is the smell of the mattresses where years of "accidents" have happened. It is the smell of the milk which has gone sour because the refrigerator long has not worked and it costs money to get it fixed. It is the smell of rotting garbage. I could bury it, but where is the shovel? Shovels cost money.
Poverty is being tired. I have always been tired. They told me at the hospital when the last baby came that I had chronic anemia caused from poor diet, a bad case of worms, and that I need a corrective operation. I listened politely--the poor are always polite. The poor always listen. They don’t say there is no money for iron pills, or better food, or warm medicine. The idea of an operation is frightening and costs so much that, if I have dared, I would have laughed. Who takes care of my children? Recovery from an operation takes a long time. I have three children. When I left them with "Granny" the last time I had a job, I came home to find the baby covered with fly specks, and a diaper, that had not been changed since I left. When the dried diaper came off, bits of my baby’s flesh came with it. My other child was playing with a sharp bit of broken glass, and my oldest was playing alone at the edge of a lake. I made twenty -two dollars a week, and a good nursery school costs twenty dollars a week for three children. I quit my job.
Poverty is dirty. You can say in your clean clothes coming from your clean house. "Anybody can be clean." Let me explain about housekeeping with no money. For breakfast I give my three children grits with no oleo or cornbread without eggs and oleo. This does not use up many dishes. What dishes there are, I wash in cold water and with no soap. Even the cheapest soup has to be saved for the baby’s diapers. Look at my hands, so cracked and red. Once I saved for two months to buy a jar of Vaseline for my hands and the baby’s diaper rash. When I have saved enough, I went to buy it and the price had gone up two cents. The baby and I suffered on. I have to decide every day if I can bear to put my cracked sore hands into the cold water and strong soap. But you ask, why not hot water? Fuel costs money. If you have a wood fire it costs money, If you burn electricity, it costs money. Hot water is a luxury. I do not have luxuries. I know you will be surprised when I tell you how young I am. I look so much older. My back has been bent over the wash tubs everyday for so long, I cannot remember I ever did anything else. Every night I wash every stitch my school age child bas on and just hope her clothes will be dry by morning.
According to the passage, which of the following statements is implied?
A. Poverty means lack of money.
B. Poverty means smelly,
C. Poverty means tired
D. Poverty means dirty.
Why can't a computer translation substitute for knowledge of different languages? Because
A. computers can alleviate much drudgery
B. computer is always behind the times
C. computer can't get the inner meaning of words
D. computer has no sensation
Naturally the young are more inclined to novelty than their eiders and it is in their speech, as it always was, that most of the verbal changes originate. But listening critically to their talk I hear hardly any new words. It is all a matter of using old words in a new way and then copying each other, for much as they wish to speak differently from their parents, they want even more to speak like people of their own age. A new usage once took time to spread, but now a pop star can falsify it across the world in hours. Of course it is not only the young who like to use the latest in-word. While they are describing their idols as smashing, great or cosmic, their parents and the more discriminating of the younger set are also groping for words of praise that are at once apt and fashionable. However, their choice of splendid, brilliant, fantastic and so on will in turn be slightly dimmed by over-use and need replacement.
Magic is a theme that bas regularly supplied words of phrase (and the choice must betray something in our nature). Charming, entrancing and enchanting are all based on it. So also is marvelous, which has been used so much that some of its magic has faded while among teenagers wizard had a great run. Another of this group, though you might not think it, is glamorous, which was all the rage in the great days of Hollywood. Glamour was a Scottish dialect form. of "grammar" or "grammarye", which itself was an old word for enchantment. (Grammar means the study of words, and words have always been at the heart of magic.) The change from "r" to "1" may have come about through the association with words like gleaming and glittering.
On the whole, when a new word takes over the old ones remain, weakened but still in use, so that the total stock increases all the time. But some that start only as slang and never rise above the class can disappear completely. "Did you really say ripping when you were young?" my granddaughter asked me, rather like asking if I ever wore a suit of armor. Of course I did and it was no sillier than smashing, which some of her contemporaries are still saying.
Which of the following is NOT true about young people in their speech?
A. They use words invented by pop stars.
B. They copy the speech of their contemporaries.
C. They give words new meanings.
D. They invent words that older people cannot understand.