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Part I Reading Comprehension (2*25=50 points)
Directions: There are five passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some
questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B,
C and D. Decide on the best choice.
Passage 1
When global warming finally came, it stuck with a vengeance. In some regions,
temperatures rose several degrees in less than a century. Sea levels shot up nearly 400 feet,
flooding coastal settlements and forcing people to migrate inland. Deserts spread
throughout the world as vegetation shifted drastically in North America, Europe and Asia.
After driving many of the animals around them to near extinction, people were forced to
abandon their old way of life for a radically new survival strategy that resulted in
widespread starvation and disease. The adaptation was farming: the global-warming crisis
that gave rise to it happened more than 10,000 years ago.
As environmentalists convene in Rio de Janeiro this week to ponder the global
climate of the future, earth scientists are in the midst of a revolution in understanding how
climate has changed in the past — and how those changes have transformed human
existence. Researchers have begun to piece together an illuminating picture of the
powerful geological and astronomical forces that have combined to change the planet’s
environment from hot to cold, wet to dry and back again over a time period stretching
back hundreds of millions of years.
Most important, scientists are beginning to realize that the climatic changes have
had a major impact on the evolution of the human species. New research now suggests
that climate shifts have played a key role in nearly every significant turning point in
human evolution: from the dawn of primates some 65 million years ago to human
ancestors rising up to walk on two legs, from the huge expansion of the human brain to
the rise of agriculture. Indeed, the human history has not been merely touched by global
climate change, some scientists argue, it has in some instances been driven by it.
The new research has profound implications for the environmental summit in Rio.
Among other things, the findings demonstrate that dramatic climate change is nothing
new for planet Earth. The benign global environment that has existed over the past 10,000
years — during which agriculture, writing, cities and most other features of civilization
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