【正文】 duct it was relatively inefficient.3. Contrast this with farming since the start of the industrial revolution. Competition from overseas led farmers to specialize and increase yields. Throughout this period food became cheaper, safe and more reliable. However, these changes have also led to habitat loss and to diminishing biodiversity.4. What‘s more, demand for animal products in developing countries is growing so fast that meeting it will require an extra 300 million tons of grain a year by the growth of cities and industry is reducing the amount of water available for agriculture in many regions.5. All this means that agriculture in the 21st century will have to be very different from how it was in the will require radical thinking. For example, we need to move away from the idea that traditional practices are inevitably more sustainable than new ones. We also need to abandon the notion that agriculture can be ―zero impact‖. The key will be to abandon the rather simple and static measures of sustainability, which centre on the need to maintain production without increasing damage. instead we need a more dynamic interpretation, one that looks at the pros and cons of all the various way land is used. There are many different ways to measure agricultural performance besides food yield: energy use, environmental costs, water purity, carbon 6 footprint and biodiversity. It is clear, for example, that the carbon of transporting tomatoes from Spain to the UK is less than that of producing them in the UK with additional heating and lighting. but we do not know whether lower carbon footprints will always be better for biodiversity.6. What is crucial is recognizing that sustainable agriculture is not just about sustainable food production.52. How do people often measure progress in agriculture?A) By its productivity C) By its impact on the environmentB) By its sustainability D) By its contribution to economic growth 53. Specialisation and the effort to increase yields have resulted in________.A) localised pollution C) petition from overseasB) the shrinking of farmland D) the decrease of biodiversity 54. What does the author think of traditional farming practices?A)They have remained the same over the centuriesB)They have not kept pace with population growthC)They are not necessarily sustainableD)They are environmentally friendly 55. What will agriculture be like in the 21st century?A) It will go through radical changes.B) It will supply more animal products.C) It will abandon traditional farming practices.D) It will cause zero damage to the environment. 56. What is the author‘s purpose in writing this passage?A) To remind people of the need of sustainable development.B) To suggest ways of ensuring sustainable food production.C) To advance new criteria for measuring farming progress.D) To urge people to rethink what sustainable agriculture is.bdcad CHAPTER TWO 6. Passage Four ()Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage. In many ways, today‘s business environment has changed qualitatively since the late 1980s. The end of the Cold War radically altered the very nature of the world‘s politics and economics. In just a few short years, globalization has started a variety of trends with profound consequences: the opening of markets, true global petition, widespread deregulation (解除政府對(duì)……的控制) of industry, and an abundance of accessible capital. We have experienced both the benefits and risks of a truly global economy, with both Wall Street and Main Street (平民百姓) feeling the pains of economic disorder half a world away.At the same time, we have fully entered the Information Age, Starting breakthroughs in information technology have irreversibly altered the ability to conduct business unconstrained by 7 the traditional limitations of time or space. Today, it‘s almost impossible to imagine a world without intranets, , and portable puters. With stunning speed, the Internet is profoundly changing the way we work, shop, do business, and municate.As a consequence, we have truly entered the PostIndustrial economy. We are rapidly shifting from an economy based on manufacturing and modities to one that places the greatest value on information, services, support, and distribution. That shif