四级真题2022年12月第二套Passage One

We’re eating more fish than ever these days. At around 20 kilograms per person global fish  consumption  is  now  more  than  twice  what  it  was  in  the   1960s.  What’s  really remarkable, though, is where that fish comes from.

For the first time in human history, most of our aquatic (水产的)food now comes from farming rather than fishing.

People ate around 73 million tonnes of farmed fish — just more than half of the volume of fish  that  humans  consumed — in  2014. That’s  out  of a  total  fish  supply  of  167  million  tonnes; the remaining 20 million or so tonnes go into things like animal feed and medical products.

To  keep  eating   fish   at  the   current  rate,we’re   definitely   going   to  need  to  keep aquaculture (水产养殖) developing. That’s because the volume offish caught in the wild has leveled off since the 1990s.

Back  in  1974,  only  10%  of marine  fish  stocks had been  overfished. Now, more than three-tenths are. Only a tenth of our oceans’ fish  stocks could sustain heavier fishing than current  levels.

But while catchings at sea have suffered, fish-farming has been growing at a fast rate. A lot of that is coming from China, which produces 60% of the world’s farmed fish. In fact, some 35 countries, including China, now produce more farmed than wild-caught fish.

This shift toward aquaculture isn’t just good for ensuring salmon ( 三 文 鱼 ) on your plate;  it’s  also  crucial  to  ensuring  food  security  and  sustainability.  By  2050,  the  world  will need  to  feed  an  estimated  9.7  billion  people.  They’ll  have  to  get  their  protein  somewhere.  However,  raising  cattle,  pigs,  and  other  land-based  animals  requires  vast  sums  of grain  and  water. For  example, pound  for pound, beef requires  15 times more  feed to raise than  carp,  a  freshwater  fish  farmed  all  over  Asia.  That  grain-and  the  water  needed  to  grow  it-could  be consumed  by  people  instead.

However,  aquaculture  is  no  silver  bullet.  In  some   southeast  Asian   countries,   shrimp farming   does  disastrous   damage  to  marine   ecosystems.   Despite  these  problems,  however, shrimp  continues  to  be  among  the  most  popular  sea  foods  worldwide.

1. 2. What do we need to do if we keep consuming fish at the current rate?(推理判断

A    Increase the fishing volume considerably.

B    Develop more advanced fishing technology.

C    Enlarge the marine fish stocks effectively.

D    Expand the scale offish-farming continuously.

2. 4.Why does the author say aquaculture is so important these days?(推理判断

A    It is a must for feeding the world’s fast-growing population.

B    It proves a reliable source of protein for humans and animals.

C    It is essential to maintaining both mental and physical health.

D    It ensures a balanced healthy diet for people the world over.

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