問 1
What is the main idea of the passage?
- Nothing can be done to relieve regions that lack water.
- Water scarcity is usually a failure of management rather than a true shortage of rainfall.
- Most water-stressed regions simply do not receive enough rain.
- Population growth is the single decisive cause of water scarcity.
Scarcity ... is more often manufactured than natural
本文の論旨は『水不足は降雨の真の欠乏でなく、たいてい管理の失敗である』。
「Water scarcity is usually a failure of management rather than a true shortage of rainfall.」
正解第1段で Scarcity ... is more often manufactured than natural, the product of leaky infrastructure, perverse subsidies and prices と述べ、第3段で a failure of management can be corrected と締める。よって『水不足はたいてい管理の失敗で、降雨の真の欠乏ではない』が主旨。
「simply do not receive enough rain」
= 単に雨が足りない ━ enough precipitation ... many times over と述べ逆。
「Population growth is the single decisive cause」
= 人口増が唯一決定的原因 ━ too tidy a story と単純化を退けており逆。
「Nothing can be done」
= 何もできない ━ can be corrected by better pricing と述べ逆。
| パターン | 意味 | 例 |
|---|---|---|
| water-stressed | 水ストレス下の | regions described as water-stressed |
| manufactured rather than natural | 自然でなく人為的 | more often manufactured than natural |
| perverse subsidies | ゆがんだ補助金 | perverse subsidies |
| bear no relation to ~ | ~と無関係である | prices that bear no relation to true cost |
| allocate ~ | ~を配分する | store, clean and allocate it |
Scarcity is manufactured, not natural.
不足は自然でなく人為的だ。
Prices bear no relation to true cost.
価格は真のコストと無関係だ。
The failure is one of management.
それは管理の失敗だ。
主旨は『more often A than B』の A (manufactured=管理失敗) を採る。本文が too tidy と退ける単純説 (雨不足・人口増) を主役にした肢は誤り。