問題詳情

V. Reading Comprehension: Choose the best answer to each question below according towhat is stated and implied in each passage.Questions31-35The water has receded. One year after northeastern Japan was battered by a 9.0-magnitudeearthquake and 130-ft. tsunami waves, the haunting images of devastation are gone. Cars no longerdangle on the upper floors. The twisted hulls of wrecked fishing trawlers have been hauled fromdowntown streets.The extraordinary resilience and cohesion of Japanese society helped the nation cope with theunprecedented multiple disaster—quake, tsunami, and crippled nuclear reactors. At least 20,000people died, with countless homes and livelihoods destroyed, many never to be rebuilt again. NaotoKan, the then Prime Minister, rightly described the March 11, 2011, shocks as Japan’s greatestcrisis since its defeat in World War II.Japan has repeatedly rebounded from adversity, often to become more vital than before. Manythoughtful Japanese (and non-Japanese) believed last year’s calamities would inspire the countrynot only to revive the ravaged northeast but also to shake off decades of social and economicmalaise. What’s most remarkable about postcrisis Japan is how much it resembles precrisis Japan.The new normal is a lot like the old normal. What’s terrific about Japan—the orderliness of its cities,the sophistication of its technology, the refinement of its culture—remains. But so do theweaknesses. Japan’s political system is as dysfunctional as ever and its economy still anemic.Even more worrying: postcrisis Japan seems no more willing than precrisis Japan to confrontthree deep-rooted and interrelated challenges that pose a far greater threat to the nation’s welfarethan any natural disaster.First, Japan’s workforce is aging faster than any other society’s. The number of children bornper Japanese woman is 1.39, far below the replacement ratio. By 2060, Japan’s 128 millionpopulation will shrink by a third, with more than 4 in 10 Japanese at least 64 years old.Second, women are marginalized. Japan’s failure to integrate women into the workplace, fusedwith its aversion to immigration, compounds the economic consequences of a shrinking labor force.Only 65% of college-educated women are employed. If the figure could be boosted to match the80% rate for men, Japan would add 8.2 million workers.Finally, Japan’s youth are too insular. Japan’s biggest corporations once sent their best recruitsto top U.S. universities for M.B.A.s. Hardly any do so now. The number of Japanese students in theU.S. has declined sharply recently.
【題組】31. What does the word shocks in paragraph 2 refer to?
(A) World War II.
(B) The disaster.
(C) Japanese society.
(D) Naoto Kan’s fear.
(E) The dead citizens.

參考答案

答案:B
難度:簡單0.777778
統計:A(1),B(7),C(0),D(0),E(0)