雅思阅读练习北京的空气污染.doc

雅思阅读练习：北京的空气污染 小马过河为大家准备了“雅思阅读练习：北京的空气污染”， 供各位备考雅思的考生们参考使用，来提高自己的托福成绩！免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 　　2013年1月15日雅思阅读精选：北京空气污染——最黑暗的一天(附参考译文) 　　From：The Economist, Jan 14th 2013, 4:49 by T.P. | BEIJING 　　Beijings air pollution 　　Blackest day 　　ON January 12th of last year, in an article in the print edition of The Economist, we reported that the public outcry over Beijing’s atrocious air quality was putting pressure on officials to release more data about more kinds of pollutants. We also noted that Chinese authorities had already embarked on a wide range of strategies to improve air quality, and that they probably deserve more credit than either foreign or domestic critics tend to give them. But we concluded with the sad reality that such work takes decades, and that “Beijing residents will need to wait before seeing improvements.” 　　On January 12th of this year, Beijing residents got an acrid taste of what that wait might be like, as they suffered a day of astonishingly bad air. Pollution readings went, quite literally, off the charts. Saturday evening saw a reading of 755 on the Air Quality Index (AQI). That index is based on the recently revised standards of the American Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA), which nominally maxes out at 500. For more perspective, consider that any reading above 100 is deemed “unhealthy for sensitive groups” and that anything above 400 is rated “hazardous” for all. 　　Like many Beijing residents, your correspondent has mobile-phone apps that keep up with the pollution readings. At an otherwise pleasant Saturday-evening meal with friends, he joined his companions in compulsively checking for updates. 　　Those previously unseen numbers were hard to believe, but they did seem to match up well enough with the noxious soup we could see, smell and taste outside. We are all far more familiar with the specifics of air-quality measurement than we would like to be. Apart from the AQI readings above 700, we were quite struck to see the readings f