Question 24 is based on the recording you have just heard.

Recording Three

听力原文

        According to official statistics, (22) [Thailand’s annual road death rate is almost double the global average.] Thai people know that their roads are dangerous, but they don’t know this could easily be changed.

       Globally, road accidents kill more people every year than any infectious disease. Researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in America put the death toll in 2017 at 1.24 million. According to the institute, (23) [the overall number of deaths has been more or less static since the turn of the century, but that disguises a lot of changes in individual countries. ]

        In many poor countries, road accidents are killing more people than ever before. Those countries have swelling young populations, a fast-growing fleet of cars and motorbikes and a limited supply of surgeons. It is impossible to know for sure, because official statistics are so inadequate. But deaths are thought to have risen by 40% since 1990 in many low income countries.In many rich countries, by contrast, roads are becoming even safer. In Estonia and Ireland, for example, the number of deaths has fallen by about two thirds since the late 1990s.

        (24) [But the most important and intriguing changes are taking place in middle-income countries, which contain most of the world’s people, and have some of the most dangerous roads. According to researchers, in China and South Africa traffic deaths have been falling since 2000, and in India since 2012, and the Philippines reached its peak four years ago.] The question is whether Thailand can soon follow suit.

        Rob McInerney, head of the International Road Assessment Program, says that all countries tend to go through three phases. They begin with poor, slow roads. In the second phase, as they grow wealthier, they pave the roads, allowing traffic to move faster and pushing up the death rate. Lastly, in the third phase, countries act to make their roads safer. The trick, then, is to reach the third stage sooner by focusing earlier and more closely on fatal accidents.

        How to do that? (25) [The solution lies not just in better infrastructure, but in better social incentives. Safe driving habits are practices which people know they should follow but often don’t.] Dangerous driving is not a fixed cultural trait, as some imagine. People respond to incentives such as traffic laws that are actually enforced.

24. What is said about middle-income countries?（关于中等收入国家，文章说了些什么？）

解析：C。录音中提到，近年来，中国、南非、印度、菲律宾等中等收入国家的交通事故死亡人数在下降。C项内容与此相符，因此选C。

错项排除：录音中提到，许多贫困国家的年轻人口膨胀，汽车和摩托车数量快速增长（fast-growing），但并没有说中等收入国家的车辆情况，故A项排除。录音中提到问题是泰国是否能快速效仿这些中等收入国家，而非中等收入国家效仿泰国，故B项排除。录音中提到解决之道不仅仅是改善基础设施（better infrastructure），并没有说中等收入国家在基础设施上大举投资，故D项排除。