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阅读下面短文，从每题所给四个选项中选出最佳答案。
A profound change seems to have taken place in the economic relationship be－tween Americans and their animals. In 1993, the pet business was a $ 16 billion field. Today it is a $ 23 billion empire.
Nearly 60 percent of Americans live with one or two animals. More than 30 million have dogs, and 27 million have cats. While the overall number of owners has remained relatively stable, since the 1980s, they are spending ever greater amounts on their animals. Signs of the boom are everywhere. Superstore chains are covering the country.
Americans consider cats and dogs as a part of the family rather than property(财产) The reasons for this transformation from property to person are mysterious. No one seems to know exactly why Americans have changed their views. A decline in warmth among human beings may explain part of the phenomenon(现象), says attorney Lane Gabeler. She says it actually helps the practice by giving her people a softer edge. “People hate lawyers, and we look more human with a dog.”
On the other hand, there are more reasons now to own pets than there were a generation ago. Adults in their 20s and 30s marry and have kids later, leaving more room in their lives to adopt a beast. Medical research has determined that contact with pets can lower blood pressure and fend off(避开) heart attacks, so more and more of the elderly have embraced the animal kingdom.
The pet industry is confident that the future remains bright. On the health insurance side alone, for example, the market has hardly been scratched. In the United Kingdom, 13 percent of the country's 15 million owners have policies, and in Sweden, 57 percent of 7 million have been insured. But in the United States, with a total of 114 million pets, fewer than 1 percent of pets are covered if they choke on a chicken bone or try to bite the UPS (Uninterrupted Power supply ) truck driver. So if the bond between people and their creatures really exists, and if that bond keeps deepening economically as well as emotionally, the next wave of American mogul(显要人物) may be pet insurance agents rather than Internet Pioneers.
1．The great change in the economic relationship between Americans and their pets has been caused by the fact that ________.
[ ]
A．more people now own pets than before
B．people own more pets today than before
C．the cost of pet food has decreased
D．people spend more money on their pets
2．Paragraph 4 mainly answers which of the following questions?
[ ]
A．Who own pets in the United States?
B．Why do people keep pets?
C．What are the costs of owning pets?
D．What are the medical benefits of owning pets?
3．The passage supports which of the following statements?
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A．Americans set down pets as property in their wills.
B．Most lawyers own pets of one kind or another.
C．People in their 20s and 30s give their priority to raising pets rather than having children.
D．The number of pets in the United States that have insurance policies is less than 1.14 million
4．What does the author mean by “the market has hardly been scratched”?
[ ]
A．Very few American pets have insurance policies.
B．More people will own pets in the future.
C．Americans spend less money on pets than people in other countries.
D．Few pets in America die from accidents.
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