2009年12月大學英語四級考試模擬試題(四)

　　24. According to the passage, malaria medicines are generally designed to _______.

　　A) keep people’s body temperature at a normal level

　　B) prevent parasites from entering people’s skins

　　C) stop parasites from growing inside the body

　　D) stop parasites from invading red blood cells

　　25. What is the passage mainly talking about?

　　A) The growing process of mosquitoes and the diseases spread by them.

　　B) The medicines used in preventing and treating malaria.

　　C) The kinds of mosquitoes in the world today.

　　D) The larvae of mosquitoes feed on organisms in the water.

　　Passage Two

　　Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.

　　Conservationists call them hot spots — habitats that cover just 1.4 percent of the earth’s land surface but are so rich in biological diversity that preserving them could keep an astonishing number of plant and animal species off the endangered list.

　　Since 1988, when Dr. Norman Myers and his colleagues began describing these hot spots in a series of scientific papers and arguing for their protection, they have become a focus of worldwide conservation efforts. Private organizations and government agencies, including the World Bank, have made preserving 25 such ecological arks a top priority for financing and protective legislation. But a growing chorus of scientists is warning that directing conservation funds to hot spots may be a recipe for major losses in the future. Of species that live on land, nearly half of all plants and more than a third of all animals are found only in the hot spots. But they do not include many rare species and major animal groups that live in less biologically rich regions (“cold spots”). And the hot-spot concept does not factor in the importance of some ecosystems to human beings, the scientists argue.