Question

Most mornings, the line begins to form at dawn: scores of silent women with babies on their backs, buckets balanced on their heads, and in each hand a bright­blue plastic jug. On good days, they will wait less than an hour before a water tanker goes across the dirt path that serves as a road in Kesum Purbahari, a slum on the southern edge of New Delhi. On bad days, when there is no electricity for the pumps, the tankers don't come at all. “That water kills people，” a young mother named Shoba said one recent Saturday morning, pointing to a row of pails filled with thick, caramel (焦糖)­colored liquid. “Whoever drinks it will die.” The water was from a pipe shared by thousands of people in the poor neibourhood. Women often use it to wash clothes and bathe their children, but nobody is desperate enough to drink it.

There is no standard for how much water a person needs each day, but experts usually put the minimum at fifty litres. The government of India promises (but rarely provides) forty. Most people drink two or three litres—less than it takes to wash a toilet. The rest is typically used for cooking and bathing. Americans consume between four hundred and six hundred litres of water each day, more than any other people on earth. Most Europeans use less than half that. The women of Kesum Purbahari each hoped to drag away a hundred litres that day—two or three buckets' worth. Shoba has a husband and five children, and that much water doesn't go far in a family of seven, particularly when the temperature reaches a hundred and ten degrees before noon. She often makes up the difference with bottled water, which costs more than water delivered any other way. Sometimes she just buys milk; it's cheaper. Like the poorest people everywhere, the people of New Delhi's slums spend a far greater percentage of their incomes on water than anyone lucky enough to live in a house connected to a system of pipes.

1.The underlined word “slum” most likely means________.

A．a village

B．a small town

C．an area of a town with badly­built, over­crowded buildings

D. the part of a town that lacks water badly

2.Sometimes the water tanker doesn't come because________.

A．the weather is bad

B. there is no electricity

C．there is no water

D．people don't want the dirty water

3.A person needs at least________litres of water a day.

A．a hundred  B．four hundred

C．forty  D．fifty

4.Which of the following statements is WRONG?

A．A hundred litres of water a day is enough for Shoba's family.

B．Americans uses the largest amount of water each day.

C．In Kesum Purbahari milk is cheaper than bottled water.

D．Shoba has a family of seven people.

Answer

1.C

2.B

3.D

4.A

【解析】

1.1】答案 C [词义猜测题。 A、B、D可以指贫穷地区，也可以指富裕地区，但根据第1段的第2句及第2段的最后一句可以知道slum指的更可能是贫穷地区，C选项比较接近这个意思，因此应该是最佳答案。]

2.2】答案 B [细节理解题。根据第1段的On bad days, when there is no electricity for the pumps, the tankers don't come at all.可知选B。]

3.3】答案 D [细节理解题。根据第2段的“...but experts usually put the minimum at fifty litres”可知选D。]

4.4】答案 A [推理判断题。根据第2段的Shoba has a husband and five children, and that much water doesn't go far in a family of seven, particularly when the temperature reaches a hundred and ten degrees before noon.可以判断A选项不符合文意，而其他选项均可在文中找到支持信息。]