</p> Most of the ill health we suffer could be prevented if people made more effo rt to change their life styles. Instead many people continue to smoke, to drink excessively and to eat unbalanced diets. How can governments help people conserv e their health and avoid premature death?
7 V7 n- R5 m: I! h% K Well, many of the measures which need to be taken are primarily a matter of new legislation and need not be expensive. One of the first preventive health m easures should be an increase in taxes on tobacco to the point at which consumpt ion falls off. The aim should be to raise the same amount of revenue from a decr easing number of people. In the short term such a policy could even raise extra money which should then be spent on subsidizing sport so that advertising tobacc o through sports sponsorship could be banned.; o# w" r0 P) R" c
Legislation is badly needed to ban all advertising of tobacco products as i t persuades people to smoke more and so is in a large part responsible for the i ll health and thousands of premature deaths caused by cancer of the lung. Other measures should be enforced, such as a much tougher health warning on cigarette packets, and tobacco companies should be made to contribute to research into a c ure for lung cancer.
" D1 W6 ^; C4 ^& {5 d# K+ |, \ Alcoholism could be prevented by making wines, spirits and strong beers mor e expensive and the revenue raised could be used to set up clinics to help the p eople who already have a drink problem and want to give up. Similarly all advert ising of alcohol should be banned and compensation paid to families of alcoholic s who die of cirrhosis of the liver. A country’s food and agricultural policy should also be based on a coheren t health policy. For political reasons it is considered important to have a relat ively cheap supply of eggs, cheese and milk, the very foods which are blamed as the cause of heart disease when eaten in excess. And even if it is disputed that excess animal fat is detrimental to health, foods could be labelled with the av erage percentage of different fats so that consumers who wanted to reduce their saturated fat intake would be able to do so easily., q; k/ u2 |% S9 h+ z$ o
Much more could be done to improve people’s diet in Britain and everyone s h ould be encouraged to eat the types of food which are good for health. Current r esearch on the nutritional value of foods should be freely available and the gov ernment should control the advertising of “rubbish” food. A programme of healt h education and lessons on sensible eating could be started in the schools with th e Government’s backing.
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/ X; `' z& P; {' ~5 o' B TEXT H) [: s/ s* G, L3 Y/ e1 J( @
First read the question.+ {) i) d" n- s) l4 E
34. The passage is primarily ___ in the development of the thesis.
. Q# c- g4 } ?1 v A. persuasive B. descriptiveC. narrative D. expository$ t+ \8 j3 [4 I
Now go through TEXT H quickly to answer question 34.* g3 O5 S1 a' ?# d) V
The question remains: must we conform? Or can we, somehow, resist the power s that conspire to domesticate us? And if so, with what arms are we to redeem ou r almost-lost manhood? Where are we to find the weapons of resistance?8 x7 Z1 w, K# _. z( n- X% G% P
I believe that the question of conformity, in the long run, answers itself. I think that if there was a possibility, once, of a yes or no——if at one time humans could decide “we must conform” or “we must not” —— that possibilit y ha s been lost in the long reaches of evolution, far back along the corridors of Ti me. The simple truth is that we cannot conform. Built into man, is an instinct. I have chosen to call it the “instinct of rebellion”, since it reveals itself as a drive or urge toward mastery over ever y obstacle, natural or man-made, that stands as a barrier between man and his dis tant, perhaps never-to-be-achieved but always striven after goals. It is this in stinct that underwrites his survival, this instinct from which he derives his na ture: a great and powerful dynamic that makes him what he is——restless, seekin g, curious, forever unsatisfied, eternally straggling and eventually victorious. Because of the instinct of rebellion man has never been content with the limits of his body; it has led him to extend his senses almost infinitely, so that his fingers now probe space, his eyes magnify the nuclei of atoms, and his ears det ect whispers from the bottoms of seas. Because of the instinct of rebellion man has never been content with the limits of his mind; it has led him to inquire th e secrets of the universe, to gather and learn and manipulate the fabulous inven tory of the cosmos, to seek the very mysteries of creation.
8 M( g1 l2 S9 ], p4 ?) H Man is a rebel. He is committed by his biology not to conform, and herein lies the paramount reason for the awful tension he experiences today in relation to Society. Unlike other cream of earth, man cannot submit, cannot surrender hi s birthright of protest, for rebellion is one of his essential dimensions. He ca n not deny it and remain man. In order to live he must rebel. Only total annihila tion of humanity as a species can eliminate this in-built necessity. Only with t he death of the last man will the revolt that is the essence of his nature also die. |