题目内容
Rachel Carson,a wellknown nature author in America,was happiest writing about the strength and stability of natural systems.Her books mainly described the inter connectedness of nature and all living things.
Completing Silent Spring took Carson four years.First published in The New Yorker in June 1962,the book alarmed readers across America.It described how DDT entered the food chain and accumulated (堆积) in the fatty tissues of animals,including human beings,and caused cancer and genetic damage.
Carson begins by describing exactly these effects in the first chapter,creating strong images and drawing the readers in.As the book continues,she gives various examples of how insecticides(杀虫剂) are not only unsuccessful,but actually very costly and damaging.She also explains about the biological controls which are less expensive and much more efficient.
A single application on a crop,she wrote,killed insects for weeks and months,and not only the targeted insects but countless more,and remained poisonous in the environment even after it was washed out by rainwater.Carson concluded that DDT and other pesticides had definitely harmed birds and animals and had destroyed the entire world's food supply.The book's most famous chapter,A Fable for Tomorrow,described a nameless American town where all life—from fish to birds to apple blossoms to human children—had been “silenced” by the harmful effects of DDT.
The most important effect of Silent Spring,though,was a new public awareness that nature was so easily destroyed by human intervention(干预).Rachel Carson had made a brave proposal:that,at times,technological progress is so basically at odds with(与……不一致) natural processes that it must be prevented.
1.What are Rachel Carson's books mainly concerned about?
A.The relationship between man and nature.
B.The balance of natural systems.
C.The interconnection of nature and living things.
D.The pollution of the environment.
2.According to the text,Silent Spring________.
A.didn't draw the readers' attention when first published
B.mainly describes people's quiet lives in an American town
C.effectively tells people how to keep the balance of nature
D.showed the harmful effects of DDT on nature
3.Rachel Carson thinks that the more efficient way to kill insects is to use ________.
A.DDT
B.human controls
C.biological controls
D.technical progress
4.The publication of Silent Spring makes people ________.
A.understand the author's outstanding writing talent
B.realize the importance of technical progress
C.aware of the necessity of environmental protection
D.rethink the harmful effects of developing industry