15000 bài tập tách từ đề thi thử môn Tiếng Anh có đáp án (Phần 82)

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions

Lead poisoning in children is a major health concern. Both low and high doses of paint can have serious effects. Children exposed to high doses of lead often suffer permanent nerve damage, mental retardation, blindness, and even death. Low doses of lead can lead to mild mental retardation, short attention spans, distractibility, poor academic performance, and behavioral problems.

This is not a new concern. As early as 1904, lead poisoning in children was linked to lead-based paint. Microscopic lead particles from paint are absorbed into the bloodstream when children ingest flakes of chipped paint,plaster,or paint dust from sanding. Lead can also enter the body through household dust, nailbiting, thumb sucking, or chewing on toys and other objects painted with lead-based paint. Although American paint companies today must comply with strict regulations regarding the amount of lead used in their paint, this source of lead poisoning is still the most common and most dangerous. Children living in older, dilapidated houses are particularly at risk.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions

China - Missing Women

1. In China the growing difference between the genders is giving signals of alarm to Government authorities. According to the latest census figures, 119 boys are born for every 100 girls. This striking difference is expected to shoot up by the year 2020 with almost 40 million unsettled bachelors. This distribution of the social ecology would create havoc in the future. The social leaders are trying to pressurize the masses into producing more females. The Government has embarked on policies extending innumerable incentives to the families bearing girls. Monetary support, free education, guaranteed employment is being gifted to parents who gift the country with a girl child. The Government is trying to persuade people to suppress their personal preferences and regulate their community behavior according to the new blueprint to stimulate the girl ratio. [A■] Sometimes the Government tries to woo them and sometimes it uses stem policies to force them into it

2. Consequent to the population explosion, the Government introduced, in the 80’s, one child policy in China. Any additional pregnancy had to be terminated. This was aimed to put a check on the teeming millions. The policy had no relation to extermination of girl child in the womb. But the policymakers had no idea about its long term impact. People, with a patriarchic mindset, came up with their preference for a single male child. The idea of a happy family became ‘parents with a single male child’.

3. The Chinese culture has always promoted sons over daughters because the society has been dominated by males. In villages, where hard work is needed to sustain the agriculture, a boy is always preferable due to his superior physical strength compared to that of a girl. [B■] In such circumstances, looking forward to a male baby seems justified. If people have to limit their families, it is obvious they would prefer a boy over a girl child. This problem has been accentuated by the use of ultrasound scanning which helps determine the sex of the fetus. This technology has played a crucial role in creating gender imbalance.

4. Sociologists consider this imbalance as the aftermath of Government’s poorly thought and short-sighted policy. The Government's intentions notwithstanding, China came to develop a markedly lopsided sex ratio. Nobel Laureate Hayek feels that when Government tries to dominate the social system by making people forcibly inculcate a certain habit, such a condition is bound to happen. People try to find ways which not only fulfill their preferences but also satisfy the law makers. The Government damaged the dynamics of a healthy society and was now bearing the brunt of its past deeds.

5. Hayek argues that by no means should a centralized bureaucracy be allowed to design preferences for hundreds of thousands of people, without even consulting them. In such a system, with the passage of time, unforeseen consequences spring up. Government can bind people to its chosen course for a time but the impositions cannot limit their options for long. [C■] The quarter century that has passed since commencement of the effort to redesign the Chinese family is leaving behind its own trail.

6. The Government needs to be careful now. It has to invent new remedies to address this problem. It needs to redesign the social fabric so that programs like ‘Care for Girls’ get support of the masses, who seem to have little faith in the system. They view the new program for the girl child in the same resigned manner as the program that was forced on them in the past. Some women social workers are of the view that the fall of sex ratio has been an advantage for the women of China, as their social value has increased. [D■] The Government policy has in a way helped uplift the status of females. The real fear now is that China will soon be faced with hordes of bachelors at war with their brethren over finding their brides. The “surplus sons” of China need to stop interfering with the social system.

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Marriage nowadays is a choice people make on their own, but this has not always been the case in society. Thousands of years ago, the average lifespan was shorter than it is today. A man usually lived until he was about 40 years old, while women died even sooner because of childbirth. There were many wars and illnesses, and people had to protect themselves by having more children while they were still young. The parents lived through their children.

Marriage was not so much a romantic love story but a business transaction, or deal. Most marriages were arranged between parents while their children were still very young. It was the custom that the fathers made the decision on whom their children were going to marry. The mothers had little say in it since they rarely made any decisions outside the household. The fathers would meet to arrange the wedding date and the money given for the bride on her wedding date. The more money and land a girl had, the more chances she had to marry well. Therefore, it was important that her father choose the bridegroom very well. Usually, it was someone who came from a good family or who was rich too. It was very unlikely that people married outside their social class. A few well-off and rich merchants got to marry poorer noblewomen and became King’s business advisors. In a way, poor peasants had an easier choice as it was less important whom they married.

The practice of arranged marriage is still common in some countries in the Middle East, such as India or Pakistan. Here, social classes are still strongly divided and very well-kept. Often, however, arranged marriages are a sign that people do not want to let go of the past, which gives them comfort and security in an ever-changing world.

(Adapted from Longman Essence Reading, Vol. 2)