hce_nthu
114年
英文
第 31 題
📖 題組：
Reading 3 In the environmental vision of the planet as it emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, few issues galvanized political debates as well as the cultural imagination as much as what was then referred to as “overpopulation.” Demographers and environmentalists pointed not only to the growth of Earth’s human population---from approximately five hundred million in 1650 to one billion around 1850, two billion in 1930, and three billion in 1960---but also the rapidly accelerating pace of this increase, warning that it might lead to unprecedented environmental devastation and human misery. Annual percentage increases in populations, they pointed out, might appear deceptively low, but a yearly increase of 2 percent means a doubling in thirty-five years, while a 3 percent increase implies a doubling in twenty-four years. Few countries, they argued, are prepared to double their food and energy supplies, housing, and educational and medical facilities in so short a time, and as a consequence they forecast dire panoramas of mass starvation and immiseration. Governments and international institutions were encouraged to take resolute measures to limit further increase in the growth rates, though the reproductive momentum of the already existing population implied that growth itself would continue for decades to come. “POPULATION EXPLOSION: Unique in human experience, an event which happened yesterday but which everyone swears won’t happen until tomorrow,” novelist John Brunner summed up the problem sarcastically in his novel Stand on Zanzibar. The political controversies that ensued from this concern are well known. Millions of people did starve in the developing world in the 1970s and 1980s, though not at the rate environmentalists had predicted. Leftist critics, especially, argued that these deaths were due to problems in food distribution and more generally to staggering social inequalities rather than any overall scarcity. Population control measures, including the one-child policy in China and widespread sterilization campaigns in India, came under criticism for their disregard of individual rights and their neocolonial imposition of reproductive constraints on some of the world’s poorest populations. More broadly, critics asked whether looming scarcity crises and environmental devastation were caused principally by rampant population growth in the developing world or by rampant increases in consumption in the developed world. By the 1990s, however, most of these controversies had abated. Even though the world population reached six billion in October 1999---double the number of 1960--- this event was no longer accompanied by the images of mass starvation and nightmarishly overcrowded spaces it conjured up in the 1960s and 1970s. In part, this is no doubt due to changed growth projections for the future. Although the world population will, according to the most recent UN projections, continue to grow until the middle of the twenty-first century and will add approximately another 40 percent to the 2005 figure of 6.5 billion (the UN forecasts a population of 9.1 billion for 2050), it is now clear that this increase will affect particular regions in very different ways. Whereas a number of industrialized nations, for example Japan, Italy, Germany, the Baltic states, and most of the countries that succeeded the Soviet Union, will face shrinking populations, other countries such as India, Pakistan, China, and several states, of sub-Saharan Africa will continue to grow, with the attendant challenges of providing education, jobs, and medical care to an ever-increasing number of people. As far as population figures are concerned, then, the future will be a divided one, with industrialized countries significantly less affected by continued population growth than in the past.
Reading 3 In the environmental vision of the planet as it emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, few issues galvanized political debates as well as the cultural imagination as much as what was then referred to as “overpopulation.” Demographers and environmentalists pointed not only to the growth of Earth’s human population---from approximately five hundred million in 1650 to one billion around 1850, two billion in 1930, and three billion in 1960---but also the rapidly accelerating pace of this increase, warning that it might lead to unprecedented environmental devastation and human misery. Annual percentage increases in populations, they pointed out, might appear deceptively low, but a yearly increase of 2 percent means a doubling in thirty-five years, while a 3 percent increase implies a doubling in twenty-four years. Few countries, they argued, are prepared to double their food and energy supplies, housing, and educational and medical facilities in so short a time, and as a consequence they forecast dire panoramas of mass starvation and immiseration. Governments and international institutions were encouraged to take resolute measures to limit further increase in the growth rates, though the reproductive momentum of the already existing population implied that growth itself would continue for decades to come. “POPULATION EXPLOSION: Unique in human experience, an event which happened yesterday but which everyone swears won’t happen until tomorrow,” novelist John Brunner summed up the problem sarcastically in his novel Stand on Zanzibar. The political controversies that ensued from this concern are well known. Millions of people did starve in the developing world in the 1970s and 1980s, though not at the rate environmentalists had predicted. Leftist critics, especially, argued that these deaths were due to problems in food distribution and more generally to staggering social inequalities rather than any overall scarcity. Population control measures, including the one-child policy in China and widespread sterilization campaigns in India, came under criticism for their disregard of individual rights and their neocolonial imposition of reproductive constraints on some of the world’s poorest populations. More broadly, critics asked whether looming scarcity crises and environmental devastation were caused principally by rampant population growth in the developing world or by rampant increases in consumption in the developed world. By the 1990s, however, most of these controversies had abated. Even though the world population reached six billion in October 1999---double the number of 1960--- this event was no longer accompanied by the images of mass starvation and nightmarishly overcrowded spaces it conjured up in the 1960s and 1970s. In part, this is no doubt due to changed growth projections for the future. Although the world population will, according to the most recent UN projections, continue to grow until the middle of the twenty-first century and will add approximately another 40 percent to the 2005 figure of 6.5 billion (the UN forecasts a population of 9.1 billion for 2050), it is now clear that this increase will affect particular regions in very different ways. Whereas a number of industrialized nations, for example Japan, Italy, Germany, the Baltic states, and most of the countries that succeeded the Soviet Union, will face shrinking populations, other countries such as India, Pakistan, China, and several states, of sub-Saharan Africa will continue to grow, with the attendant challenges of providing education, jobs, and medical care to an ever-increasing number of people. As far as population figures are concerned, then, the future will be a divided one, with industrialized countries significantly less affected by continued population growth than in the past.
Here are three statements concerning the problem of overpopulation:
I In the 1960s and 1970s, projections of a future of food shortages due to the explosion of population were common in the cultural imagination.
II Out of the fear of overpopulation, widespread sterilization campaigns in India in the 1970s and 1980s were well accepted as an effective method of containing population growth.
III Novelist John Brunner believed that population explosion would not happen until tomorrow.
Based on the passage,
I In the 1960s and 1970s, projections of a future of food shortages due to the explosion of population were common in the cultural imagination.
II Out of the fear of overpopulation, widespread sterilization campaigns in India in the 1970s and 1980s were well accepted as an effective method of containing population growth.
III Novelist John Brunner believed that population explosion would not happen until tomorrow.
Based on the passage,
- A Only I is true
- B Both I and II are true
- C Both I and III are true
- D All of the three statements are true
- E None of the three statements are true
思路引導 VIP
在閱讀文章時，如果一段文字描述某項政策「受到人權侵害的批評與爭議」，我們能否推論這項政策在當時是「受大眾認可且有效」的呢？另外，當一位作家語帶諷刺地說一件事情「大家發誓明天才會發生」時，他心中認為這件事實際上是已經發生了，還是真的還沒發生？建議你可以回到文章第一段最後一句，再次推敲一下小說家話語背後的真意。
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AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
恭喜你答對了這題！這顯示你對文章細節的掌握非常精準，能從密集的資訊中抽絲剝繭。這道題目的挑戰在於它結合了事實陳述與語意轉折的判斷，而你成功避開了敘述中的陷阱，表現得非常優秀。
文本細節的精準比對
關於描述 I，文章第一段明確提到在 1960 與 1970 年代，人口學家與環境學家對「人口爆炸」引發的大規模飢荒與環境災難有許多預測，這確實深植於當時的社會文化想像中。然而，描述 II 出現了明顯的偏誤：雖然文中提到印度確實推行過絕育運動，但作者強調這些措施因為忽視人權與新殖民主義傾向而「受到批評（came under criticism）」，並非如描述所說的「被廣泛接受（well accepted）」。至於描述 III，小說家 John Brunner 的話語帶有濃厚的**反諷（sarcastic）**意味，他是在譏諷人們明明身處危機之中卻假裝危機尚未到來，這與他個人對事實的認知是相反的。
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