Thomas Malthus published his"Essay on the Principle of Population" almost 200 years ago. Ever since then, forecasters have being warning that worldwide famine was

　　S1________

　　just around the next corner. The fast-

　　growing population's demand for food, they warned, would soon exceed their supply,

　　S2________

　　leading to widespread food shortages and starvation.

　　But in reality, the world's total grain harvest has risen steadily over the years. Except for relative isolated trouble spots like

　　S3________

　　present-day Somalia, and occasional years of

　　good harvests, the world's food crisis has

　　S4________

　　remained just around the corner. Most experts believe this can continue even as if

　　S5________

　　the population doubles by the mid-21st

　　century, although feeding 10 billion people will not be easy for politics, economic and

　　S6________

　　environmental reasons. Optimists point to concrete examples of continued improvements in yield. In Africa, by instance,

　　S7________

　　improved seed, more fertilizer and advanced growing practices have more than double

　　S8________

　　corn and wheat yields in an experiment. Elsewhere, rice experts in the Philippines are producing a plant with few stems and

　　S9________

　　more seeds. There is no guarantee that plant

　　breeders can continue to develop new, higher-yielding crop,

　　S10________

　　but most researchers see their success to date as reason for hope.

　　答案与解析:

　　S1. being→been。本题考查的是现在完成进行时,由have (has) + been + p.p.构成,表示以前到现在动作一直在进行之中。

　　S2. their→its。本题考查名词与代词指代不一致的问题。动词exceed后面指代的是前文的单数名词food。 S3. relative→relatively。修饰isolated, 应用副词形式。

　　S4. good→bad。根据上下文意思,应将good 改成它的反义词bad。

　　S5. 去掉as。因为even if 是一个固定短语,意思是"即使……也"。

　　S6. politics→political。本题误把名词用作了形容词。

　　S7. by→for。for instance (或 for example "例如")是一个介词的固定搭配。

　　S8. double→doubled。动词double表"使……多出一倍;把……增加一倍;增加了一倍",而形容词double表"双的,双人的,双重的"。根据上下文,这里要用动词的过去分词形式,才符合题意。

　　S9. few→fewer或less。根据上下文的平行结构可知,本题是考查形容词的比较级形式。

　　S10. crop→crops。本题是名词单复数的误用。crop是可数名词,根据上下文可知应该用它的复数形式crops。

　　(文/吴彬；英语通大学英语六级考试版 03～04学年第3期； 版权归英语辅导报社所有，独家网络合作伙伴新浪教育，未经许可，不得以任何形式进行转载。)