胜过。）葡萄牙、希腊、荷兰和苏格兰的锦标赛也经常是两三个俱乐部独占鳌头。大国的联队开放程度也差不多。曼联自从英国于1992年成立第一联赛后就赢得了15次联赛的9次冠军。这些都没有阻止足球在全球的受欢迎程度，作为一种出口产业，它要比美国更为平等的体育做得更好。

TEXT FOUR

Infertility is normally seen as a private matter. If a couple are infertile and wish they were not, that is sad. But there is understandable resistance in many countries to the idea that treatments intended to deal with this sadness—known collectively as assisted reproductive technologies, or ARTs—should be paid for out of public funds. Such funds are scarce, and infertility is not a life-threatening condition.

However, two papers presented to the “State of the ART” conference held earlier this month in Lyon argue that in Europe, at least, there may be a public interest in promoting ARTs after all. The low fertility rate in many of that continent's more developed countries means their populations are ageing and shrinking. If governments want to change this, ARTs—most significantly in-vitro fertilisation (IVF)—could offer at least part of a way to do so.

As the conference heard, IVF does seem to be keeping up the numbers in at least one country. Tina Jensen of the University of Southern Denmark has just finished a study of more than 700,000 Danish women. She found that young women in Denmark have a significantly lower natural conception rate than in past decades. That is partly, but not entirely, because they are having their children later in life. The rest of the cause is unknown, though reduced sperm quality in men may be a factor. Whatever the cause, she also found that the effect has been almost completely compensated for by an increasing use of ARTs. Denmark's native population is more or less stable, but some 3.9% of babies born there in 2003 were the result of IVF. The comparable figure for another northern European country, Britain, was 1.5%.

Without IVF, then, the number of Danes would be shrinking fast. That it is not may have something to do with the fact that in Denmark the taxpayer will cover up to six cycles of IVF treatment. In Britain, by contrast, couples are supposed to be entitled to three cycles. In practice, many of the local trusts that dish the money out do not pay for any cycles at all. Jonathan Grant, the head of the Cambridge branch of the Rand Corporation (an American think-tank), believes this is shortsighted. His paper showed that if Britain supported IVF at the Danish level then its birth rate would probably increase by about 10,000 a year.

The cost of offering six cycles to couples (and doing so in practice, rather than just in theory) would be an extra ￡250m-430m a year. That is not trivial, but Dr Grant reckons it is cheaper than other ways of boosting the birth rate. Some countries, for

example, have tried to bribe women into having more children by increasing child benefits. According to his calculations, raising such benefits costs between ￡50,000 and ￡100,000 a year for each additional birth procured. Ten thousand extra births each year would thus cost between ￡500m and ￡1 billion.

There are, of course, some disadvantages to promoting IVF. In particular, women who use it tend to be older than those who conceive naturally, and that can lead to congenital problems in their children. But if the countries of Europe do wish to keep their populations up, making IVF more widely available might be a good way of doing so.

1．According to the text, the public’s opinion on the infertility treatments is that _____ [A] the treatments should be paid for out of public funds.

[B] the treatments are not so compulsory as they consume the limited public funds. [C] the treatments are not necessarily only paid for out of public funds. [D] the public is not obliged to pay for such treatments of no urgent nature. 2．According to the study conducted by Tina Jensen, which one of the following statements is true?

[A] ARTs have reversed the tendency of population decreasing in Denmark. [B] Danes’s problem of low natural conception has been completely counterbalanced by the widely use of ARTs.

[C] The population of Denmark is not decreasing after the adoption of ARTs.

[D] IVF has played an essential role in Denmark in terms of keeping up the number of population.

3．From the paper of Dr Grant, it can be inferred that ______ [A] the cost of offering six cycles of IVF to couples is not high at all. [B] IVF treatment is an economical way of solving population shrinking. [C] Britain does not promote adopting IVF to boost the birth rate.

[D] encouraging women to bear more babies by bonus is not so efficient to solve the problem of population shrinking.

4．The word “congenital” (Line 2, Paragraph 6) most probably means _____ [A] innate.

[B] instinctive. [C] cerebral. [D] acquired.

5．According to the passage, the author’s attitude towards promoting in-vitro fertilization can be said to be _____

[A] supportive.

[B] opposing. [C] ambiguous. [D] objective.

篇章剖析:

这篇文章介绍了辅助生育技术应当由公众基金支付这一问题。第一段讲述了目前对该问题公众的看法；第二、三段讲述“辅助生育技术现状”会议有两个报告赞成政

府支持“辅助生育技术”；第四、五段讲述丹麦实施这种措施的效果；第六段讲述辅助生育技术要比另外的方法成本低；第七段讲述玻璃体授精的一些缺点。 词汇注释：

congenital adj. 先天的

难句突破：

(1) But there is understandable resistance in many countries to the idea that treatments intended to deal with this sadness—known collectively as assisted reproductive technologies, or ARTs—should be paid for out of public funds. [主体句式] But there is understandable resisitance to the idea that…

[结构分析] 这是一个复合句，that引导的是idea的同位语从句，该同位语从句中，过去分词结构known as…作treatments的定语。

[句子译文] 但是许多国家反对使用公众基金来支付不育问题的治疗方法（辅助生育技术），这是合情合理的。

(2) However, two papers presented to the “State of the ART” conference held earlier this month in Lyon argue that in Europe, at least, there may be a public interest in promoting ARTs after all. [主体句式] However, two papers argue that …

[结构分析] 这是一个复合句，held earlier…分词结构修饰前面的two papers，that 引导的是宾语从句。

[句子译文] 但是，本月初在里昂举行的“辅助生育技术现状”会议上，有两个报告认为至少是在欧洲，公众可能有兴趣到促进辅助生育技术。

题目分析：

1．According to the text, the public’s opinion on the infertility treatments is that _____ [A] the treatments should be paid for out of public funds. [B] the treatments are not so compulsory as they consume the limited public funds. [C] the treatments are not necessarily only paid for out of public funds. [D] the public is not obliged to pay for such treatments of no urgent nature. [答案] B

[难度系数] ☆☆☆

[分析] 细节题。根据文章第一段“But there is understandable resistance in many countries to the idea that treatments intended to deal with this sadness—known

collectively as assisted reproductive technologies, or ARTs—should be paid for out of public funds. Such funds are scarce, and infertility is not a life-threatening

condition”，可见许多国家反对用公众基金来支付治疗不育的费用。A选项的表述显然不符合题意。而C选项的表述不如B选项确切。而D选项的表述过于绝对，不能反映总体公众意见。因此，选项中B最为符合。 2．According to the study conducted by Tina Jensen, which one of the following statements is true? [A] ARTs have reversed the tendency of population decreasing in Denmark. [B] Danes’ problem of low natural conception 2．根据Tina的研究，下列哪个陈述是不正确的？ [A] 辅助生育技术扭转了丹麦人口减少的趋势。 [B] 丹麦人自然受孕率低的问题已1．根据这篇文章，公众对于治疗不育问题的看法是_____ [A] 治疗应该由公众基金来支付。 [B] 治疗并不是义务性的，因为其消耗了有限的公共基金。 [C] 治疗并不一定只要公众基金来支付。 [D] 公众没有义务为这种不具有紧急性质的治疗支付费用。