1 . Road traffic accidents are caused by a number of factors which can be grouped into three categories: human factors, vehicle factors and road environment factors. Table 1 explains each factor and gives examples.
Table 1: Factors involved in road traffic accidentsFactor | Description | Example |
| Human | Things people do or don’t do | Speeding, not obeying traffic rules, using phone while driving |
| Vehicle | Things that are wrong with the vehicle | ? |
| Road environment | Things outside the vehicle that affect driving | Condition of road, time of day, weather conditions, road repairs |
One factor alone or several factors together can cause an accident. However, human actions are by far the greatest causes of car accidents. Diagram 1 shows that human factors are involved in 95% of all car accidents. Although other factors are also involved in 28% of these accidents, in 67% of cases, human factors alone are the cause of the accident.
Although behavior such as not paying attention to road, swerving to avoid an animal and eating while driving causes accidents, most road deaths are caused by speeding, driving after drinking alcohol, driving when tried and not wearing seat belts. As shown in Diagram 2, speeding is involved in more deaths than any other behavior in both city (50%) and country accidents (32%). Drivers and / or passengers not wearing seat belts is the second most common cause of road deaths.
1. Which of the following is best suited in the blank in table 1?| A．Vehicles of this type to be recalled at once. |
| B．Weak brakes, no seat belts in cars, old tyres. |
| C．250,000 people killed in car accidents in 2023. |
| D．Regular car maintenance, professional service. |
| A．Speeding kills more drivers in cities than in countries. |
| B．Two or more factors are combined to cause an accident. |
| C．Country drivers are more likely to get tired when driving. |
| D．Drunk driving cause more deaths than not wearing seat belts. |
| A．The dangers of driving a car. | B．The effects of alcohol on driving. |
| C．Human factors in road traffic accidents. | D．How to prevent deaths on our roads. |
2 . I was in seat 10F next to the emergency exit. A few minutes after take-off there was a loud explosion. Everybody gasped (倒抽气) and there were a few screams. Then, surprisingly, it went very quiet — everyone was assessing the situation.
It soon became obvious we weren’t going back to LaGuardia Airport and that we were heading for the water. I started thinking this was it. Then I heard the announcement, ‘This is the captain, brace for impact,’ and everything suddenly got clear. I had to stop thinking about death, and instead, about what I should do once the pilot landed in the water. ‘You sat in this seat,’ I thought, ‘you’ve got to get this door open.’
At about 300 feet (91.5 meters), I started reading the instructions. There were six steps, and I had just read them two or three times when we hit the water. It felt like the worst car crash you could imagine. Fortunately, I’d just read the instructions and managed to get the door open. The wing was sinking lower and lower. I walked out onto it and walked as far along as I could to make room for other people. It was freezing, and nobody had a jacket. Some people were underwater to their waists.
It felt like half an hour before we saw the first ferry, though it could have been only five or ten minutes. I was fourth onto the ferry, and I started helping people onto the boat. To our relief, everyone had survived the crash.
I got through the whole incident by taking it one step at a time: get the door open, throw the door out, figure out if you’re sinking. I just kept on doing that until I reached solid ground. Only then did I go into the men’s room and cry for a few minutes.
1. After hearing a loud explosion, what did passengers, including the writer, do?| A．They put on life jackets as instructed. |
| B．They tried to figure what had happened. |
| C．They couldn’t help shouting for help on end. |
| D．They asked the pilot to fly to LaGuardia Airport. |
| A．He sat by the emergency exit. | B．He had an experienced neighbor. |
| C．He was once taught how to open it. | D．He read and understood the instructions. |
| A．Humorous. | B．Aggressive. | C．Organized. | D．Expressive. |
| A．No one got killed in it. | B．It happened at the end of the trip. |
| C．The pilot managed to land the plane safely. | D．A ferry came to the rescue the moment it happened. |
3 . SOUTH PARIS, Maine For eight students in the Wilderness Leadership class at Oxford Hills High School, a three-day weekend hike in the White Mountain National Forest sounded like a fun, challenging course requirement.
But when a storm dumped up to 3 feet of snow on western Maine, a harsh learning experience turned into a crash course in winter survival.
Reported missing from their scheduled meeting place in Gilead at 5:30 p.m. Sunday, the eight students and two teachers were not found until 11 a.m. yesterday [Monday], after a pilot spotted the group moving in rugged snow-blanketed area. The discovery followed an unsuccessful ground search by volunteers on snowshoes.
After the group was reported missing Sunday, volunteers hiked 3 miles into the woods to look for the students. The five-hour effort turned up nothing and the decision was made to wait until yesterday morning to also canvass the area by air.
A Maine Warden Service pilot lifted off and spotted the group close to their intended trail at about 11 a.m. Strong airflow prevented him from descending toward the hikers but the group clearly recognized the plane as part of a search team.
“They waved at the plane. They laid down, spread out, and waved,” said Mark Latti, a spokesman for the Maine Warden Service. “The pilot then guided a search party into their location.”
1. Before yesterday, the three-day weekend hike was supposed to be a _____.| A．fun and relaxing excursion | B．ridiculous course requirement |
| C．crash course for wilderness survival | D．challenging learning experience |
| A．intrude | B．search | C．harvest | D．exploit |
① The group was reported missing.
② A pilot spotted the group in the snow-blanket area.
③ A rescue team arrived at the site of the accident.
④ A volunteer search group set out to look for the students.
⑤ The hikers waved to make themselves discovered.
| A．①②④⑤③ | B．①④⑤②③ |
| C．①④②⑤③ | D．①③④②⑤ |
| A．The volunteers gave up the search at last because of the airflow. |
| B．The pilot succeeded in landing besides the hikers. |
| C．The hikers almost stuck to their planned route in spite of the heavy snow. |
| D．The search party went into the woods by air, and saved the students out. |
Three theories
Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean, was attempting a round- the-world flight in 1937. She planned to land on the tiny Pacific Ocean island of Howland. She never arrived. Her fate, and that of her navigator (导航员)Fred Noonan, remains one of aviation’s (航空的)greatest unsolved mysteries. Researchers have spent millions of dollars investigating the case and several books have been published that examined different theories.
The official US position is that Earhart ran out of fuel and crashed in the Pacific Ocean. The radio log from aUS Coast Guard ship indicates that she must have been near Howland when contact was lost
Another theory says that Earhart could have crashed on a different island, called Nikumaroro, and died since the island is uninhabited.
Yet another theory claims she was captured while on a secret mission to the Marshall Islands in the North Pacific and eventually returned to the US with a new identity.
Lost and found?
The missing pilot
February 18, 2011
Amelia Earhart’s dried saliva (唾液)could help solve the longstanding mystery of the aviator’s 1937 disappearance, according to scientists who plan to take samples of her DNA from her correspondence. A new project aims to create a genetic profile that could be used to test recent claims that a bone found on the South Pacific island ofNikumaroro is Earharf s.
Justin Long, a Canadian whose family is partially funding the DNA project, points out that at the moment, anyone who finds parts of bones can claim that they are Earhart’s remains. According to Justin Long, Earhart's letters are the only items that are both proved to be hers and that might contain her DNA. Hair samples are one of the best sources of DNA, but no hair samples from Earhart are known. There was, in theory, a sample of Earhart's hair in the International Women’s Air and Space Museum in Cleveland, US. However, a 2009 study revealed that the sample was actually thread.
The remains of Earhart, her navigator Noonan, and their twin-engine plane were never recovered. But in 2009, a group of researchers found a bone fragment on Nikumaroro that they believed might have been from one of Earhart' s fingers. However, some scientists have suggested the Nikumaroro bone fragment isn’t human at all but may instead belong to a sea turtle that was found nearby.
The new Earhart DNA project will be headed by Dongya Yang, a genetic scientist at Simon Fraser University in Canada. Yang will work on four letters Earhart wrote to her family. Much of Earhart's correspondence was done by her secretary but the assumption is that Earhart must have sealed the envelopes of these personal letters herself.
1. Why are there so many theories concerning where Amelia Earhart was?| A．It is still a mystery. |
| B．She left with some secrets. |
| C．Her flight cost much money. |
| D．She returned with a new identity. |
| A．To search Nikumaroro more thoroughly. |
| B．To confirm if a bone belongs to Amelia Earhart. |
| C．To find out who Amelia Earhart often wrote to. |
| D．To locate Amelia Earhart’s remains accurately. |
| A．None of Amelia Earhart’s DNA has been collected so far. |
| B．Amelia Earhart took delight in writing letters to her family. |
| C．The Nikumaroro bone fragment belonged to Amelia Earhart. |
| D．The hair sample in Cleveland’s museum was Amelia Earhart's. |
5 . There's a loud bang, and then it starts: A battery of an electric car is on fire in the test tunnel. A video of the test impressively shows the energy stored in such batteries: meter-long flames flee in disorder and produce enormous amounts of thick, black smoke. The visibility in the previously brightly lit tunnel section quickly approaches zero. After a few minutes, ashes have spread throughout the room.
"In our experiment we were considering in particular private and public operators of small and large underground or multi-storey car parks," says project leader Lars Derek Mellert,"all these existing underground structures are being used to an increasing extent by electric cars. And the operators ask themselves: “
“
| A．The pollutants emitted by a burning vehicle have always been dangerous |
| B．What on earth causes Lithium batteries to catch fire |
| C．Even the fire brigades do not have to learn anything new on the basis of the tests |
| D．The acid can possibly result in death, while its effects may delay after exposure |
| E．But in the three tests in the tunnel the concentrations remained far below critical levels |
| F．What will happen if such a car catches fire |
6 . 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. |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
