[填空题]

The human species has increased its life span by ______.

[单项选择]

Prolonging Human Life
Prolonging human life has increased the size of the human population. Many people alive today would have died of childhood diseases if they had been born 100 years ago. Because more people live longer, there are more people around at any given time. In fact, it is a decrease in death rates, not an increase in birthrates, that has led to the population explosion.
Prolonging human life has also increased the dependency load. In all societies, people who are disabled or too young or too old to work are dependent on the rest of society to provide for them. In hunting and gathering cultures, old people who could not keep up might be left behind to die. In times of famine, infants might be allowed to die because they could not survive if their parents starved, whereas if the parents survived they could have another child. In most contemporary societies, people feel a moral obligation to keep people alive whether they can work or not. We have
A. an increase in birthrates.
B. the industrial development.
C. a decrease in death rates.
D. cultural advances.

[单项选择]Prolonging Human Life
Prolonging human life has increased the size of the human population. Many people alive today would have died of childhood diseases if they had been born 100 years ago. Because more people live longer, there are more people around at any given time. In fact, it is a decrease in death rates, not an increase in birthrates, that has led to the population explosion.
Prolonging human life has also increased the dependency load. In all societies, people who are disabled or too young or too old to work are dependent on the rest of society to provide for them. In hunting and gathering cultures, old people who could not keep up might be left behind to die. In times of famine, infants might be allowed to die because they could not survive if their parents starved, whereas if the parents survived they could have another child. In most contemporary societies, people feel a moral obligation to keep people alive whether they can work or not. We have a great man
A. Sympathetic.
B. Unfriendly.
C. Optimistic.
D. Critical.

[单项选择]

The human body has developed its millions of nerves to be highly aware of what goes on both inside and outside of it. This helps us adjust to the outside world. Without our nerves and our brain, which is a system of nerves, we couldn’t know what’s happening. But we pay for our sensitivity. We can feel pain when the slightest thing is wrong with any part of our body. The history of torture (折磨) is based on the human body being open to pain.
But there is a way to handle pain. Look at the Indian fakir (苦行僧) who sits on a bed of nails. Fakirs can put a needle fight through an arm, and feel no pain. This ability that some humans have developed to handle pain should give us ideas about how the mind can deal with pain.
The big thing in withstanding pain is our attitude toward it. If the dentist says, "This will hurt a little," it helps us to accept the pain. By staying relaxed, and by treating the pain as an interesting sensation (感觉), we can handle
A. We have to take care of our sense of pain.
B. We suffer from our sense of feeling.
C. We should try hard to resist pain.
D. We are hurt when we feel pain.