Passage Four The comprehension passages on this course are designed to help you increase your speed. A higher reading rate, with no loss of comprehension, will help you in other subjects as well as English, and the general principles apply to any language. Naturally, you will read every book at the same speed. You would expect to read a newspaper, fox example, much more rapidly than a physics or economics textbook but you can raise your average reading speed over the whole range of materials you wish to cover so that the percentage gain will be the same whatever kind of reading you are concerned with. The reading passages which follow are all of an average level of difficulty for your stage of instruction. If you get to the point where you can read books of average difficulty at between 40 and 50 w.p.m. with 70% or more comprehension, you will be doing quite well, though of course any further improvement of speed with comprehension will be a good thing. When you practise reading with passages shorter than book length, do not try to take in each word separately, one after the other. It is much more difficult to grasp the broad theme of the passage this way, and you will also get stuck on individual words which may not be absolutely essential to a general understanding of the passage. It is a good idea to skim through the passage very quickly first (say 500 words in a minute or so) to get the general idea of each paragraph. Titles, paragraph headings and emphasized words (underlined or in italics) can be a great help in getting this skeleton outline of the passage. To do the most effective reading, you should ______.
A. try every possible means to increase your reading rate
B. above all improve your comprehension of the text
C. hunt for whatever is implied in the reading material
D. increase your reading speed and improve your understanding
Urbanization and City Infrastructure Urbanization is defined as the increase in a city’s population over time and can occur due to a variety of factors including the natural expansion of a city’s population, the conversion of a rural area to an urban one, or the migration to urban areas by those who previously inhabited rural environments. ■(A) Urbanization is an ever-increasing trend; one that can be observed in areas throughout the world as economies begin to rely more on manufacturing and business for revenue. ■(B) Working and living in large cities is gradually replacing the traditional rural careers such as small-scale agriculture. ■(C) It is estimated that within the next century, more than half of the world’s citizens will reside in cities. ■(D) While some cities are planned, most cities are organic, meaning that urbanization in these areas takes place with little or no advanced planning. While the increase in urban areas and its population has yielded positive effects such as an increased concentration of businesses and more career opportunities, researchers have also discovered a host of detrimental effects on the areas in transformation from rural areas to urban centers. The concerns about urbanized areas worldwide differ somewhat in their relative importance, but many cite traffic congestion, inadequate public transportation, insufficient waste disposal facilities, inadequate solid waste collection, and a lack of water and sewage treatment facilities as primary concerns. One hundred years ago in Australia, the commute from Paramatta to the center of Sydney took approximately an hour by horse and cart. Today, the same trip in a car takes longer. Opponents of unplanned urbanization have also pointed out the destruction of agricultural land and animal habitat as a negative consequence of urbanization. Many of these problems could be eliminated, or at least mitigated, through the construction and maintenance of appropriate city infrastructure. Although the term is somewhat ambiguous, it was traditionally understood to mean roads and sewers. However, the U.S. National Research Council opted to widen the definition of public works infrastructure to refer to roads, bridges, mass transit systems, and water and waste management systems. Chief among the concerns of city dwellers is the issue of traffic jams and general congestion, and the corresponding difficulty in navigating the streets of any large urban area. Appropriate infrastructure, however, could serve as a useful tool in curtailing this problem. Two factors that exacerbate traffic congestion in a typical city are narrow streets and a lack of off-road parking, which would force many workers to park on the side of the road. Several solutions to the excessive traffic in urban areas have been proposed. Firstly, the construction of bypasses would eliminate the amount of traffic in the downtown areas, as travelers could use faster, more direct routes to arrive at their destination. Parking concerns could be addressed by constructing parking garages consisting of several stories. In this way, many cars could be stored in a relatively small amount of space. Closely related to the previous problem is the issue of inadequate public transportation. People will choose to ride buses; however, the system must be efficient and reliable. The establishment of a variety of mass transit systems such as subways, buses, and ferries could provide a feasible alternative to those that use their own vehicles to travel to their jobs in the city. Many cities have concerns about the problems involving waste collection and disposal. Along with education about waste diversion techniques such as composting and recycling, the development of city infrastructure can play a key role in ensuring adequate waste treatment. This would include the construction of easily accessible recycling facilities and appropriately placed composting facilities. In addition, urban areas should ensure there is a citywide transit system in place to collect solid waste. Finally, citizens in many urban areas have concerns regarding sewage treatment plants and water treatment facilities. The development of such facilities in an acceptable area, typically in a location outside of the city, could effectively deal with these concerns. Not only would this infrastructure improve the health of the citizens, but it would also benefit the environment by reducing the amount of pollution in the form of sewage entering water sources. The word "detrimental" in the passage is closest in meaning to
A. positive.
B. harmful.
C. unclear.
D. unknown.