【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 long years of food shortage in this country have suddenly given way to apparent

　　abundance. Stores and shops are choked with food. Rationing (定量供应) is virtually suspended, and overseas suppliers have been asked to hold back deliveries. Yet, instead of joy, there is

　　widespread uneasiness and confusion. Why do food prices keep on rising, when there seems to be

　　so much more food about? Is the abundance only temporary, or has it come to stay? Does it

　　mean that we need to think less now about producing more food at home? No one knows what

　　to expect.

　　The recent growth of export surpluses on the world food market has certainly been

　　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 t
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　　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.