2023年高二暑假话题阅读快乐练：世界与环境（含答案）

2023年高二暑假话题阅读快乐练：世界与环境 （共4题） 一、阅读理解题（共4题） Prolonging human life has increased the size of the human population. Many people alive today would have died of childhood diseases if they had been born 100 years ago. Because more people live longer, there are more people around than at any other given time. In fact, it is a decrease in death rates instead of an increase in birthrates that has led to the population explosion. Prolonging human life has also increased the dependency load. In all societies, people who are disabled or too young or too old to work are dependent on the rest of society to provide for them. In hunting and gathering cultures, old people who could not keep up might be left behind to die. In times of food shortage, babies might be allowed to die because they could not survive if their parents starved, whereas if the parents survived they could have another child. In most present societies, people feel a moral obligation to keep people alive whether they can work or not. We have a great many people today who live past the age at which they want to work or are able to work; we also have rules which require people to retire at a certain age. Unless these people were able to save money for their retirement, somebody else must support them. In the United States many retired people live on social security checks which are so little that they must live in near poverty. Older people have more illnesses than young or middle-aged people; unless they have wealth or private or government insurance, they must often "go on welfare" if they have a serious illness. When older people become too weak and ill to care for themselves, they create serious problems for their families. In the past and in some traditional cultures, they would be cared for at home until they died. Today, with most members of a household working or in school, there is often no one at home who can care for a sick or weak person. To meet this need, a great many nursing homes and convalescent hospitals have been built. These are often profit-making organizations, although some are sponsored by religious and other nonprofit groups. While a few of these institutions are good, most of them are simply "dumping grounds" for the dying in which "care" is given by poorly-paid, overworked, and under-skilled personnel. (1) The author believes that the population explosion results from _____. A．an increase in birthrates B．a decrease in death rates C．the industrial development D．human beings’ cultural advances (2) It can be inferred from the passage that in hunting and gathering cultures _____. A．it was a moral responsibility for the families to keep alive the aged people who could not work B．old people were given the task of passing on the cultural wisdom of the tribe to new generations C．the survival of babies was less important than that of their parents in times of starvation D．death was celebrated as a time of rejoicing for an individual free ... ...