高口阅读S5第二篇解析
When it comes to going green, intention can be easier than action. Case in point: you decide to buy a T shirt made from 100% organic cotton, because everyone knows that organic is better for Earth. And in some ways it is; in conventional cotton-farming, pesticides strip the soil of life. But that green label doesn’t tell the whole story — like the fact that even organic cotton requires more than 2,640 gal. (10,000 L) of water to grow enough fiber for one T shirt. Or the possibility that the T shirt may have been dyed using harsh industrial chemicals, which can pollute local groundwater. If you knew all that, would you still consider the T shirt green? Would you still buy it?
首段开宗明义,指出环保T-shirt不环保,有可能引起污染.根据下面的题目可知,4道题目中有2个都是句子理解,即段落理解题,分别来自第2.7两段.剩下的则是定义题和例子功能题.本段即是例子功能题的定位点.
It’s a question that most of us are ill equipped to answer, even as the debate over what is and isn’t green becomes all-important in a hot and crowded world. That’s because as the global economy has grown, our ability to make complex products with complex supply chains has outpaced our ability to comprehend the consequences — for ourselves and the planet. We evolved to respond to threats that were clear and present. That’s why, when we eat spoiled food, we get nauseated and when we see a bright light, we shut our eyes. But nothing in evolution has prepared us to understand the cumulative impact that imperceptible amounts of industrial chemicals may have on our children’s health or the slow-moving, long-term danger of climate change.Scanning the supermarket aisles, we lack the data to understand the full impact of what we choose — and probably couldn’t make sense of the information even if we had it.
第二段直接揭示文章主题,画线句为主题句.本段为第5题的答题范围.
But what if we could seamlessly calculate the full lifetime effect of our actions on the earth and on our bodies? Not just carbon footprints but social and biological footprints as well? What if we could think ecologically? That’s what psychologist Daniel Goleman describes in his forthcoming book, Ecological Intelligence. Using a young science called industrial ecology, businesses and green activists alike are beginning to compile the environmental and biological impact of our every decision — and delivering that information to consumers in a user-friendly way. That’s thinking ecologically — understanding the global environmental consequences of our local choices. "We can know the causes of what we’re doing, and we can know the impact of what we’re doing," says Goleman, who wrote the 1995 best seller Emotional Intelligence. "It’s going to have a radical impact on the way we do business."
本段对上两段中提出的问题给予了可能的答案,即某心理学家即将出版的新书:Ecological Intelligence.
Over the past couple of decades, industrial ecologists have been using a method called life-cycle assessment (LCA) to break down that web of connection. The concept of the carbon footprint comes from LCA, but a deep analysis looks at far more. The manufacture and sale of a simple glass bottle requires input from dozens of suppliers; for high-tech items, it can include many times more.
本段中出现了关键词industrial intelligence,是6题的定位范围.粗略浏览可知,下一段中提到了可口可乐公司的例证.
The good news is that industrial ecologists can now crunch those data, and smart companies like Coca-Cola are using the information to clean up their corporate ecology. Working with the World Wildlife Fund, Coke analyzed its globe-spanning supply chain—the company uses 5% of the world’s total sugar crop—to see where it could minimize its impact; today Coke is on target to improve its water efficiency 20% by 2012.
Below the mega corporate level, start-ups like the website Good Guide are sifting through rivers of data for ordinary consumers, providing easy-to-understand ratings you can use to instantly gauge the full environmental and health impact of that T shirt. Even better, they’ll get the information to you when you need it: Good Guide has an iPhone app that can deliver verdicts on tens of thousands of products. Good Guide and services like it "let us align our dollars with our values easily," says Goleman.
本段为第七题定位.注意红色字体部分有助于我们预判整段的含义.
But ecological intelligence is ultimately about more than what we buy. It’s also about our ability to accept that we live in an infinitely connected world with finite resources. Goleman highlights the Tibetan community of Sher, where for millenniums, villagers have survived harsh conditions by carefully conserving every resource available to them. The Tibetans think ecologically because they have no other choice. Neither do we. "We once had the luxury to ignore our impacts," says Goleman. "Not anymore."
无考点.
4. Why does the author give the example of buying a T-shirt made of 100% organic cotton at the beginning of the passage?
5. What does the author mean by saying that "our ability to make complex products with complex supply chains has outpaced our ability to comprehend the consequences"?
6. Give a brief introduction of the young science of "industrial technology". What does the example of Coca Cola tell us?
7. Why does the psychologist Daniel Goleman mean by saying "We once had the luxury to ignore our impacts"?
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