【四六级考试网 - 大学英语四六级考试(CET)试题】：
Passage Two

 

　　Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage:

　　The word conservation has a thrifty(节俭) meaning. To conserve is to save and protect, to

　　leave what we ourselves enjoy in such good condition that others may also share the enjoyment.

　　Our forefathers had no idea that human population would increase faster than the supplies of

　　raw materials; most of them, even until very recently, had the foolish idea that the treasures

　　were "limitless" and "inexhaustible". Most of the citizens of earlier generations knew little or

　　nothing about the complicated and delicate system that runs all through nature, and which

　　means that , as in a living body, an unhealthy condition of one part will sooner or later be harmful to all the others.

　　Fifty year ago nature study was not part of the school work; scientific forestry was a new

　　Idea; timber was still cheap Because it could be brought in any quantity from distant woodlands;

　　soil destruction and river floods were not national problems; nobody had yet studied long- term

　　climatic cycles in relation to proper land use; even the word "conservation" had nothing of the

　　meaning that it has for us today.

　　For the sake of ourselves and those who will come after us, we must now set about repairing the mistakes of our forefathers. Conservation should, therefore, be made a part of everyone'

　　s daily life. To know about the water table(水位) in the ground is just as important to us as a

　　knowledge of the basic arithmetic formulas. We need to know why all watersheds (上游源头森

　　林地带集水区) need the protection of plant life and why the running current of streams and

　　rivers must Be made to yield their full benefit to the soil before they finally escape to the sea. We

　　need to be taught the duty of planting trees as well as of cutting them. We need to know the

　　importance of big, mature trees, bec
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