2010年英语专业八级考试全真试卷及其参考答案(3)

combination garage and repair shop and dormitory managed by someone called a sardar. For sleeping privileges in a dera, pullers pay 100 rupees (about $2.50) a month, which sounds like a pretty good deal until you’ve visited a dera. They gross between 100 and 150 rupees a day, out of which they have to pay 20 rupees for the use of the rickshaw and an occasional 75 or more for a payoff if a policeman stops them for, say, crossing a street where rickshaws are prohibited. A 2003 study found that rickshaw pullers are near the bottom of Kolkata occupations in income, doing better than only the ragpickers and the beggars. For someone without land or education, that still beats trying to make a living in Bihar.

There are people in Kolkata, particularly educated and politically aware people, who will not ride in a rickshaw, because they are offended by the idea of being

pulled by another human being or because they consider it not the sort of thing people of their station do or because they regard the hand-pulled rickshaw as a relic of colonialism. Ironically, some of those people are not enthusiastic about banning rickshaws. The editor of the editorial pages of Kolkata’s

Telegraph—Rudrangshu Mukherjee, a former academic who still writes history books—told me, for instance, that he sees humanitarian considerations as coming down on the side of keeping hand-pulled rickshaws on the road. ―I refuse to be carried by another human being myself,‖ he said, ―but I question whether we have the right to take away their livelihood.‖ Rickshaw supporters point out that when it comes to demeaning occupations, rickshaw pullers are hardly unique in Kolkata.

When I asked one rickshaw puller if he thought the government’s plan to rid the city of rickshaws was based on a genuine interest in his welfare, he smiled, with a quick shake of his head—a gesture I interpreted to mean, ―If you are so naive as to ask such a question, I will answer it, but it is not worth wasting words on.‖ Some rickshaw pullers I met were resigned to the imminent end of their livelihood and pin their hopes on being offered something in its place. As migrant workers, they don’t have the political clout enjoyed by, say, Kolkata’s sidewalk hawkers, who, after supposedly being scaled back at the beginning of the modernization drive, still clog the sidewalks, selling absolutely

everything—or, as I found during the 48 hours of rain, absolutely everything but umbrellas. ―The government was the government of the poor people,‖ one sardar told me. ―Now they shake hands with the capitalists and try to get rid of poor people.‖

But others in Kolkata believe that rickshaws will simply be confined more strictly to certain neighborhoods, out of the view of World Bank traffic consultants and California investment delegations—or that they will be allowed to die out naturally as they’re supplanted by more modern conveyances. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, after all, is not the first high West Bengal official to say that

rickshaws would be off the streets of Kolkata in a matter of months. Similar statements have been made as far back as 1976. The ban decreed by

Bhattacharjee has been delayed by a court case and by a widely held belief that some retraining or social security settlement ought to be offered to rickshaw drivers. It may also have been delayed by a quiet reluctance to give up something that has been part of the fabric of the city for more than a century. Kolkata, a resident told me, ―has difficulty letting go.‖ One day a city official handed me a report from the municipal government laying out options for how rickshaw pullers might be rehabilitated.

―Which option has been chosen?‖ I asked, noting that the report was dated almost exactly a year before my visit. ―That hasn’t been decided,‖ he said. ―When will it be decided?‖

―That hasn’t been decided,‖ he said.

11. According to the passage, rickshaws are used in Kolkata mainly for the following EXCEPT

A. taking foreign tourists around the city. B. providing transport to school children. C. carrying store supplies and purchases D. carrying people over short distances.

12. Which of the following statements best describes the rickshaw pullers from Bihar?

A. They come from a relatively poor area.

B. They are provided with decent accommodation. C. Their living standards are very low in Kolkata.