unexpectedly great, partly because a strange sequence of two successful grain harvests in North
America is now being followed by a third. Most of Britain' s overseas suppliers of meat, too, are
offering more this year and home production has also risen.
But the effect of all this on the food situation in this country has been made worse by a
simultaneous rise in food prices, due chiefly to the gradual cutting down of government support
for food. The shops are overstocked with food, not only because there is more food available, but
also because people, frightened by high prices, are buying less of it.
Moreover, the rise in domestic prices has come at a time when world prices have begun to
fall, with the result that imported food, with the exception of grain, is often cheaper than the
home - produced variety. And now grain prices, too, are falling. Consumers are beginning to ask
why they should not be enabled to benefit from this trend.
The significance of these developments is not lost on farmers. The older generation have
seen it all happen before. Despite the present price and market guarantees, farmers fear they are
about to be squeezed between cheap food imports and a shrinking home market. Present
production is running at 51 per cent above pre- war levels, and the government has called for an expansion to 60 per cent by 1956;but repeated Ministerial advice is carrying little weight and the
expansion programme is not working very well.
26. Why is there "wide- spread uneasiness and confusion about the food situation in Britain?"
A) The abundant food supply is not expected to last.
B) Britain is importing less food.
C) Despite the abundance, food prices keep rising.
D) Britain will cut back on its production of food.
27. The main reason for the rise in food prices is that
A) people are buying less food
B) the government is providing less financial support for agriculture
C) domestic food production has decreased
D) imported food is driving prices higher
28. Why didn't the government's expansion programme work very well?
A) Because the farmers were uncertain about the financial support the government
guaranteed.
B) Because the farmers were uncertain about the benefits of expanding production.
C) Because the farmers were uncertain whether foreign markets could be found for their
produce.
D) Because the older generation of farmers were strongly against the programme.
29. The decrease in world food prices was a result of
A) a sharp fall in the purchasing power of the consumers
B) a sharp fall in the cost of food production
C) the overproduction of food in the food- importing countries
D) the overproduction on the part of the main food - exporting countries
30. What did the future look like for Britain's food production at the time this article ws writ-
ten?
A) The fall in world food prices would benefit British food producers.
B) An expansion of food production was at hand.
C) British food producers would receive more government financial support.
D) It looks depressing despite government guarantees.
Passage Three
Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage:
It is hard to predict how science is going to turn out, and if it is really good science it is
impossible to predict. If the things to be found are actually new, they are by definition unknown in
advance. You cannot make choices in this matter. You either have science or you don' t, and if
you have it you are obliged to accept the surprising and disturbing pieces of information, along
with the neat and promptly useful bits.
The only solid piece of scientific truth about which I feel totally confident is that we are
profoundly ignorant about nature. Indeed, I regard this as the major discovery of the past hundred
years of biology. It is, in its way, an illuminating piece of news. It would have amazed the
brightest minds of the 18th century Enlightenment(启蒙运动) to be told by any of us how little we
know and how bewildering seems the way ahead. It is this sudden confrontation with the
depth and scope of ignorance that represents the most significant contribution of the 20th century
science to the human intellect. In earlier times, we either pretended to understand how things
worked or ignored the problem, or simply made up stories to fill the gaps. Now that we have he-
gun exploring in earnest, we are getting glimpses of how huge the questions are, and h
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