1 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

The Real Cost of Travel

Mass tourism is a relatively recent phenomenon. The tourism industry     1     (take) off in the middle of the last century and it’s been growing ever since. In the last ten years especially, more and more people have been traveling to places     2     we had previously only read about or seen on television. But what kind of impact does tourism have on the planet?

A voyage to the end of the earth?

A large cruise ship (邮轮) can carry as many as 6,000 passengers and there are upwards of 50 such ships currently     3    (sail) the seas. Cruise ships dump about 90,000 tons of waste into the oceans every year. Any harmful effects of this are made even worse by the fact     4     cruises tend to visit the same places over and over again, thus concentrating the waste in specific places.

Trash on top of the world

From remote ocean habitats to the world’s highest mountain, our trash is everywhere. Though far fewer people go climbing the Himalayas than on a cruise, their impact     5    (still feel). Tourism is vital to the economy of Nepal,     6     it is to many non-industrial countries. But for decades, climbers have been abandoning their unwanted equipment on Everest. For the last few years, clean-up teams of local and international climbers have been organizing hiking trips just     7    (pick) up the waste. One group has brought over eight tons of waste down from the mountain!

When more is not better

Tourism of a different kind is causing problems in Europe. Construction on the Mediterranean coast has been     8     control for years. Beach resorts form an almost unbroken line from Gibraltar to Greece, and natural habitats have disappeared under miles of concrete. And so we pollute the sea, the land, and the air. Low-cost air travel is booming, in spite of (or perhaps     9     (help) by) economic problems. For many Europeans, low-cost flights allow them to take several short vacations a year. Yet curiously, short flights actually have a much bigger effect on climate change than long flights. So, are there    10     (damaging) ways of seeing the world? Traveling by train, for example, is a much greener way of getting around.