题目内容
SECTION B INTERVIEW
Directions: In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Questions 1 to 5 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the following five questions.
Now listen to the interview.
听力原文：Interviewer: As we all know, more people have been added to the Earth's population in the 20th century than at any other time in human history. A report shows that "In 1900, just 100 years ago, the world's human population numbered two billion people. Today, the total human population has grown three times as large and is now over six billion people." That sounds unbelievable. Dr. Baker, you are the expert on demography. Do you think it's very serious？
Dr. Baker: Yes, absolutely serious. You know, the rate of population growth has gone up, the Earth adds one billion more people every 14 years. If this continues, the world's population will double in the next century, nearing 12 billion in the year 2100. Our planet truly is becoming a more crowded place to live.
Interviewer: Then, what happened over the past 200 years to create such a rapid surge in the number of people living in the world？
Dr. Baker: We can't explain it in one word. There are a few simple ideas that lie behind these trends.
Interviewer: Oh, can you explain it with more details？
Dr. Baker: OK. You know, before 1900, many children who were born did not reach adulthood so they never had their own children. In America and Europe, young children died of many diseases that we now immunize against, such as diphtheria, tetanus, measles, pneumonia and whooping cough. In the 20th century, as these diseases became less common, more children Jived to adulthood. The result was that more children than ever before were born and lived and had their own children, all of which increased the size of the world's population. At the same time, people are also living longer. For example, in the U. S. the average life expectancy in 1950 was 57 years. Now people, on aver age, can expect to live 77 years, and this means that more people are living together on Earth at the same time.
Interviewer: What about the population in developing countries？ Do their populations contribute to the population growth also？
Dr. Baker: Yes, that's one of the main sources of the growth. In the latter part of the 20th century, people in other parts of the world --Africa, Asia, South America and the Middle East -- who had traditionally lost many children to diseases, began to catch up with the health practices such as immunizing children that also allowed more children to live. As these children grew to adulthood they too started their own families and this also has contributed to the world's current population growth.
Interviewer: But here is the critical question: Will the Earth's population continue to grow as fast as the last 100 years？
Dr. Baker: No, there are signs that the population growth rates in some parts of the world have started to slow down. In Europe, America, and in parts of Asia and Australia, most families are having less than two children. Some of these countries are actually experiencing negative population growth, meaning that their populations are growing smaller. In Russia, Eastern Europe, Germany and Northern Europe populations may actually shrink in size because people are having fewer and fewer Children.
Interviewer: So, you mean America also has a shrinking population？
Dr. Baker: NO, the Untied States will continue to grow. While birth rates in America have gone down -- primarily because of the migration of persons from other countries -- we will continue to 'have steady population growth. Today, the US has over 287 million people and is expected to grow to 400 million people by 2050.
Interviewer: So, that means we needn't worry about the population growing too fast？
Dr. Baker: No, we can't say that,
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Public transit. In North America, public transportation has been the major casualty of the commitment to the automobile. Ridership on public transportation declined in the United States from 23 billion per year in the late 1940s to 7 billion in the early 1990s. At the end of World War Ⅰ, U.S. cities had 50, 000 kilometers of street railways and trolleys that carried 14 billion passengers a year, but only a few hundred kilometers of track remain. The number of U. S. and Canadian cities with trolley service declined from about fifty in 1950 to eight in the 1960s: Boston, Cleveland, New York, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Toronto.
Buses offered a more flexible service than trolleys, because they were not restricted to operating only on fixed tracks. General Motors acquired many of the privately owned streetcar companies and replaced the trolleys with buses that the company made. But bus ridership has declined from a peak of 11 billion riders per year in the late 1940s to 5 million in the 1990s. Commuter railroad service, like trolleys and buses, has also been drastically reduced in most U.S. cities.
The one exception to the downward trend in public transportation in the United States is the subway, now known to transportation planners as fixed heavy rail. Cities such as Boston and Chicago have attracted new passengers through construction of new lines and modernization of existing service. Chicago has been a pioneer in the construction of heavy-rail rapid transit lines in the median strip of expressways. Entirely new subway systems have been built in recent years in a number of U.S. cities, including Atlanta, Baltimore, Miami, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.
Public transportation is particularly suited to bringing a large number of people into a small area in a short period of time. Consequently, its use is increasingly confined in the United States to rush-hour commuting by workers in the central business district. A bus can accommodate thirty people in the amount of space occupied by one automobile, while a double-track rapid transit line can transport the same number of people as sixteen lanes of urban freeway.
Despite modest recent successes, most public transportation systems are caught its a vicious circle, because fares do not cover operating costs. As patronage declines and expenses rise, the fares are increased, which drives away passengers and leads to service reductions and still higher fares, Public expenditures to subsidize construction and operating costs have increased, but public officials in the United States do not consider that public transportation is a vital utility deserving subsidy to the degree long assumed by European governments.
In contrast, even in the relatively developed Western European countries and Japan, where automobile ownership rates are high, extensive networks of bus, tram, and subway lines have been maintained, and funds for new construction have been provided in recent years. Since the late 1960s, London has opened 27 kilometers of subways, including two new lines, plus 18 kilometers in light rail transit lines to serve the docklands area. During the same period, Paris has built 65 kilometers of new subway lines, including a new system, known as the Reseau Express Regional (R. E. R.) to serve outer suburbs.
Smaller cities have shared the construction boom. In France alone, new subway lines have been built since the 1970s in Lille, Lyon, and Marseille, and hundreds of kilometers of entirely new tracks have been laid between the country's major cities to operate a high-speed train known as the TGV.
Which of the following is NOT true of the public transportation systems in the developed countries？
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