1 . Which is safer-staying at home, traveling to work on public transport, or working in the office? Surprisingly, each of these carries the same risk, which is very low. However, what about flying compared to working in the chemical industry? Unfortunately, the former is 65 times riskier than the latter! In fact, the accident rate of workers in the chemical industry is less than that of almost any of human activity, and almost as safe as staying at home.

The trouble with the chemical industry is that when things go wrong they often cause death to those living nearby. It is this that makes chemical accidents so newsworthy. Fortunately they are extremely rare. The most famous ones happened at Texas City (1947), Flixborough( 1974), Seveso (1976), Pemex (1984) and Bhopal (1984).

Some of these are always in the minds of the people even though the loss of life was small. No one died at Seveso, and only 28 workers at Flixborough. The worst accident of all was Bhopal, where up to 3,000 were killed. The Texas City explosion of fertilizer killed 552. The Pemex fire at a storage plant for natural gas in the suburbs of Mexico City took 542 lives, just a month before the unfortunate event at Bhopal.

Some experts have discussed these accidents and used each accident to illustrate a particular danger. Thus the Texas City explosion was caused by tons of ammonium nitrate (硝酸氨), which is safe unless stored in great quantity. The Flixborough fireball was the fault of management, which took risks to keep production going during essential repairs. The Seveso accident shows what happens if the local authorities lack knowledge of the danger on their doorstep. When the poisonous gas drifted over the town, local leaders were incapable of taking effective action. The Pemex fire was made worse by an overloaded site in an overcrowded suburb. The fire set off a chain reaction of exploding storage tanks. Yet, by a miracle, the two Largest tanks did not explode. Had these caught fire, then 3,000 strong rescue team and fire fighters would all have died.

1. Which of the following statements is true?

A．Working at the office is safer than staying at home.

B．Travelling to work on public transport is safer than working at the office.

C．Staying at home is safer than working in the chemical industry.

D．Working in the chemical industry is safer than traveling by air.

2. Chemical accidents are usually important enough to be reported as news because________.

A．they are very rare

B．they often cause loss of life

C．they always occur in big cities

D．they arouse the interest of all the readers

3. From the passage we know that ammonium nitrate is a kind of________.

A．natural gas, which can easily catch fire

B．fertilizer, which can’t be stored in a great quantity

C．poisonous substance, which can’t be used in overcrowded areas

D．fuel, which is stored in large tanks

4. From the discussion among some experts we may conclude that ________.

A．natural gas stored in very large tanks is always safe

B．to avoid any accidents we should not repair the facilities in chemical industry

C．all these accidents could have been avoided or controlled if effective measures had been taken

D．the local authorities should not be concerned with the production of the chemical industry

2 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. brake            B. victims        C. issued       D. confirmed       E. pace        F. typically G. multiple       H. seriously       I. slippery     J. canceled          K. visibility

NINE people died and 43 were injured in two rear-end crashes on Shanghai’s S32 Expressway that occurred during heavy fog yesterday morning.

Two were       1       dead at the scene in one of the accidents, and five were found dead in the other. Two more people died in hospital, police said.

Police first received a report at 5:54 am that     2     vehicles had crashed on the S32, near a ramp of S2. The S32 links Shanghai with Zhejinag Province’s Jiaxing and Huzhou.

Two people were killed after getting out of their vehicle to see what was causing congestion ahead. They were hit by an out of control tanker, police said.

When police arrived at that scene, they found a further five people had been killed when a construction vehicle was crushed by two large vehicles from both front and back. The crash was about three kilometers away from the accident that killed the two people on the expressway. The injured were sent to local hospitals.

Some drivers reported that the road was very     3     and braking had led to vehicles losing control.

“The fog was very heavy,” an unidentified driver told Shanghai Television Station. “When I saw the accident ahead, I wanted to slow down and       4     . But once I hit the brake, the vehicle went out of control.”

Zhoupu Hospital treated 12 people. “One of the     5     died on the road to the hospital,” Ding Fuhao, a doctor with the hospital, told the television station. “Three were     6     injured.”

The city’s meteorological authority     7     an orange alert on heavy fog at 6:06 am, meaning     8    would be lower than 200 meters in some areas.

The dense fog hit coastal areas in particular, including Chongming Island, Pudong New Area, Baoshan and Fengxian districts. The alert was    9    at 9:44am. This was Shanghai’s first orange alert of heavy fog since the arrival of autumn.

Several expressways in the city were closed or subject to speed limits yesterday morning.

Pudong International Airport was also affected by the bad weather. The airport’s traffic was about 60 percent less than normal in the morning but picked up the    10     after the orange alert was canceled, the city’s television station said.