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Sand is the essential ingredient that makes modern life possible. Believe it or not, we use more of this natural resource than any other except water and air. Sand is the thing modern cities are made of. But now we are starting to run out.
That's mainly because the number and size of cities is exploding, especially in the developing world. Every year there are more people on the planet, and every year more of them move to cities. To build those cities, people are pulling untold amounts of sand out of the ground. Usable sand is a finite resource. Desert sand, shaped more by wind than by water, generally doesn't work for construction. To get the sand we need, we are stripping riverbeds, floodplains and beaches.
Extracting the stuff is an estimated $70 billion industry. It runs the gamut from multinational companies' deploying enormous ships to villagers carrying shovels and buckets. In places where onshore sources have been exhausted, sand miners are turning to the seas.
This often inflicts terrible costs on the environment. In India, river sand mining is killing countless fish and birds. In Indonesia, some two dozen small islands are believed to have disappeared since 2005 because of sand mining. Environmentalists tie sand mining in San Francisco Bay to the erosion of nearby beaches.
People are getting hurt, too. Sand mining has been blamed for accidental deaths in Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Gambia. In India and Indonesia, activists and government officials confronting black-market sand mining gangs have been killed.
Stronger regulations can prevent a lot of this damage, and do in most developed countries. But there's a downside. Sand is tremendously heavy, which makes it expensive to transport. If you forbid sand mining in your backyard—as many American communities are trying to do—then it has to be trucked in from somewhere else. That drives up the price. Concrete is relatively cheap; if the cost of making a new building or road were to double, it could hit the economy hard.
Not to mention the extra truck traffic and pollution. California state officials estimated that if the average hauling distance for sand and gravel increased to 50 miles from 25 miles, trucks would burn through nearly 50 million more gallons of diesel fuel every year.
It once seemed as if the planet had such boundless supplies of oil, water, trees and land. But none of those things are infinite, and the price we've paid so far for using them is going up fast. We're having to conserve, reuse, find alternatives for and generally get smarter about how we use those natural resources. That's how we need to start thinking about sand.
6. We can learn from the first two paragraphs that the rapid expansion of cities ______.
[A] has caused the population explosion
[B] has led to a large scale of migration
[C] has used up sand for construction
[D] has accelerated sand consumption
7. What do we learn about usable sand for construction?
[A] It is being extracted from all places possible.
[B] It has created an industry of high technology.
[C] It is now able to be exploited in the deserts.
[D] It is a limited resource shaped by wind.
8. Which of the following would be the most serious victim of sand mining?
[A] The ecosystems.
[B] The mining workers.
[C] The sand mining gangs.
[D] The environment activists.
9. Regulations to prevent sand mining damages may lead to ______.
[A] the disturbance of local communities
[B] unnecessary building of roads for transport
[C] higher construction and environment costs
[D] twice as much traffic and fuel consumption
10. It can be concluded in the last paragraph that ______.
[A] alternative resources can save the planet
[B] ways of using sand should be improved
[C] the price of sand is increasing rapidly
[D] we need to improve supplies of sand
Across cultures, the bias against daughters has been closely tied to women's second-class status. Sons have been more likely to be successful, carry on the family name and earn money to support family members in old age. But the status of women in the United States has undergone a revolution in the last four decades. Women still face deep inequality and sexism, but they are now more likely to pursue rewarding careers and have a greater role in family decision-making. They are also more likely to be college graduates than men.
Men without college degrees are struggling in the modern job market, which rewards brains more than brawn. And teenage boys and men are almost entirely the bad actors in certain crises the nation is facing, like mass shootings and sexual harassment. The diminishing preference for sons could indicate, among some parents, a growing bias against boys.
As women have gained more decision-making power in marriages, and become more likely to be single mothers, they might be exercising their daughter preference more often than they used to. There could be explanations other than a preference for daughters. For example, people might stop having children after having daughters because daughters cost more than they used to since they are more likely to go to college, researchers said, though it's unclear if this has affected people's family planning decisions.
Men, particularly white men, still have many advantages in American society—whether being paid more or being disproportionately represented in government and business. But over all, they are falling behind in school and work. Early elementary school has become more academic—more work sheets and less play—and teachers report that boys, as a whole, have more trouble sitting still, behaving and earning high grades. In the labor market, the jobs that have consistently grown in recent decades require social skills, like cooperation and empathy. Jobs that have tended to shrink are male-dominated physical ones, like machine operators.
“The economic trends are pretty clear,” said Mr. Moretti, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “Women are more involved in the labor force, and less skilled men are less involved, and women are getting more educated and men are not.” For parents, raising a girl can seem as if it's about showing them all the things they can do, while raising a boy is telling them what not to do, researchers say.
“There's been a much more complete gender revolution for women than for men,” said Dan Clawson, a sociology professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “If I'm raising a daughter, I'm raising someone who can challenge conventions, and that's an attraction. On the other hand, if I'm raising a boy, am I raising someone who's going to get in trouble, who won't do well in school and so on?”
11. What revolution has happened about the status of women according to the first paragraph?
[A] They may no longer face unfairness and gender problem.
[B] They are more likely to receive college degrees than before.
[C] They play a more important role both in their homes and workplaces.
[D] They can support their families as men do.
12. The author argues in Paragraph 2 that ______.
[A] boys and men are almost the bad actors in certain worldwide crises
[B] brain is more important in job markets than gender
[C] the fading preference for boys often shows the rising of prejudice to them
[D] boys may lose their predominance in job markets
13. People stop having children after they have girls due to ______.
[A] women having more decision-making power in marriages
[B] more cost caused by girls' higher chances to go to college
[C] overburdened cost involved in raising daughters
[D] women dominating the family planning decisions
14. Labor market has put more emphasis on ______.
[A] academic results
[B] physical work
[C] sociability
[D] gender difference
15. Which of the following does NOT lead to people's diminishing preference for boys?
[A] Boys are falling behind in school and work.
[B] Boys' challenging conventions is a headache for parents.
[C] Single mothers can exercise their daughter preference.
[D] Parents regard raising girls as an attraction nowadays.