The main structure of Notre-Dame cathedral (巴黎圣母院) — including the two bell towers — has been saved after firefighters worked through the night to put out the big fire.
Now that it has been put out, experts have been able to explain the difficulties fire crews faced as they fought to save such a large, historic building.
A complex flammable (易燃的) roof?
It’s not yet known exactly how the Notre-Dame fire began, but it appears to have started near the top, eventually spreading across the rest of the wooden roof.
Gregg Favre, former commander at St Louis Fire Department in the US, pointed out how flammable the building is. He explained on Twitter: “Let’s pause to remember how fires actually burn. It involves key elements like fuel, oxygen, heat and a chemical chain reaction.” Unfortunately, none of these elements are easy to remove in this case.
“To start with, removing the fuel is a no go. Churches have no shortage of things to burn. Although a huge oak beam(梁) is generally difficult to get burning, as smaller timbers (木材) fuel the fire and the temperature rises, the timbers will eventually ignite (点燃) in a phenomenon known as a flashover.”
“The heat that a fire this size is putting off is terrific. Little options for interrupting that. The chemical chain is off to the races.”
“That leaves the oxygen. Unsurprisingly, even if the roof had not burnt off, churches are nearly impossible to control ventilation (通风) in. Their design is to be open and airy. Great for Sunday worship, terrible for managing fire spread.”
Dumping water from above?
As the fire burned, US President Donald Trump suggested that flying water tankers (罐车) could be brought in to fight the flames from above.
Professor Rein, the head of Imperial College London’s fire-studying Hazelab said“ Trump wasn’t the first person to come up with the suggestion, however, it was not a good idea because it would have damaged the structure of the cathedral, collapsing the walls”.
The force of water coming from an air tanker is strong and no-one has been trained to use one in a city. He added that Monday’s fire was “not the time to test this”.
How safe can they make Notre-Dame?
Professor Rein says that “fire engineering” will need to be considered when reconstructing the cathedral. Fire engineering is now in place in modern landmarks such as the Shard in London.
“We keep seeing these buildings go up in flames like this. However, it’s relatively easy to prevent. Notre-Dame should install sprinklers (消防喷淋).” he said.
Much as the Notre-Dame fire is a tragedy, information from studying it will be priceless in protecting other buildings.
| Background | Despite difficulties, firefighters | |
Elements | The roof is made up of flammable wood, so Heat and chemical chain are also hard to get | |
Dumping water from above doesn’t make | The strong force of water would have put the structure of the cathedral at | |
| Conclusion | Fire engineering should be considered in the protection of heritage sites in an effort to avoid | |
2 . Fire fighting is a serious matter. Knowing what to do during a fire can save people's lives. It is important to know the ways you can use and show them to everyone else in the family, such as stairways and emergency exits, but not elevators.
From the lower floors of buildings, escape through windows is possible. Learn the best way to get out from a windows with the least chance of serious injury.
The second floor window is usually not very high from the ground. An average person, hanging by the fingertips, will have a drop of about 6 feet to the ground. It is about the height of an average man. Of course, it is safer to jump a short way down than to stay in a burning building.
Windows are also useful when you are waiting for help. Be sure to keep the door closed before opening the Window. Otherwise, smoke and fire may be drawn into the room. Keep your head low at the window to be sure you get fresh air rather than smoke that may have leaked into the room.
On the second or third floor, the best windows for escape are those which open onto a roof. From the roof a person can drop to the ground more safely. Dropping onto cement might end in injury. Bushes and trees can help you to have a soft landing.
1. Which of the following should be avoided when trying to escape from a fire?| A．Windows. | B．Elevators. | C．Fire exits. | D．Stairways. |
| A．About 12 feet. | B．About 6 feet. |
| C．About the height of an average man. | D．Nearly 10 feet. |
| A．They are the only way. | B．They are the best way. |
| C．They are safer than any other ways. | D．They are one of the possible ways. |
| A．drop directly onto the ground |
| B．first drop onto a roof then onto the cement |
| C．drop from a roof window then onto bushes or trees |
| D．drop onto the cement rather than bushes and grass |
3 . A mixture of deep sorrow and anger has swept Brazilians across the country—particularly in the city of Rio de Janeiro—with the burning of their beloved Museu Nacional, or National Museum.
By Monday morning, when I visited the site, the firemen were busy trying to enter the huge, early 19th century neoclassical building. For all we know, everything may have been burned to ashes. Fortunately, no one, not even the four security guards who witnessed the beginning of the fire, has been injured.
Nobody yet knows the cause of the fire, but it is the officials, irresponsibility and the funding shortages in particular that are to blame for this tragedy.
Some of the museum’s researchers told the press that they had been able to save some things from the exhibition rooms before the fire moved in. However, we Brazilians have lost much of the material memory of our short past. A good part of our 518 years of history, or that which had been transformed into storable objects, disappeared in just a few hours.
The people of Rio de Janeiro were fond of taking their children or grandchildren to the museum to show off their knowledge of the odd-looking mummies brought in from Egypt by the Emperor Dom Pedro Ⅱ, a huge skeleton of a humpback whale, or the brightly coloured feathers of a headdress of the Kayapo tribe.
When I think that I can no longer take my youngest daughter to the Museu Nacional, that is what gets me emotional. It is this feeling that has penetrated （穿透）our souls and may leave Brazilians feeling empty for a long time to come.
1. What can we learn about the National Museum of Brazil?| A．It has a history of 518 years. |
| B．All of its collections have been lost. |
| C．It was built in the early 19th century. |
| D．It is not very popular in the country. |
| A．the inefficient firemen |
| B．the irresponsible officials |
| C．the careless security guards |
| D．something unknown |
| A．Fire Put out in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
| B．Our Fond Memories of the Past |
| C．Who Is to Blame for the Accident? |
| D．A Museum Is Lost and Might Never Return |
4 . A high-altitude rescue team has set new standards in the Himalayas this season, performing the highest altitude rescue ever completed. On May 19th, a rescue team successfully got a mountaineer from near Camp 3 at 23,000 feet on Everest (珠穆朗玛峰). The climber named Gautam nearly reached the top but became extremely exhausted and seriously dehydrated (脱水的).
After a difficult and dangerous rescue，the team was able to successfully save Gautam’s life.
In an interview with Moro, the pilot of the rescue team, he said, "You have to be prepared, technically, physically,and also mentally (心理上).” He added, “The aim wasn’t to set a record but to save someone’s life. ”
The team has flown rescue tasks using Nepalese helicopters (直升飞机) for two years but had the idea to create a team with its own helicopter, which has been able to complete this season. The entire operation is privately financed，and according to Moro, “doesn’t cost the Italian or Nepalese tax-payer a single cent.” Moro also flies tasks for the local population for “free or at extremely reduced prices”.
Moro sees potential (潜力) for the increasing number of high altitude Himalayan rescue operations. In the future, he hopes to see more than one team , as well as a specialised team of climbers that would be able to perform rescues at altitudes and in weather condition that are impossible for helicopters.
1. What can we infer about Gautam?| A．He is a lover for mountaineering. |
| B．He lost his life on Himalayas. |
| C．He ever reached the mountain top once. |
| D．He is a leader of a rescue team. |
| A．He can operate the helicopter technically, |
| B．He is generous and helpful to people. |
| C．He makes good preparations for mountaineering. |
| D．He is potential and wealthy. |
| A．Loved by many people | B．Managed in a new way. |
| C．Supported with money. | D．Discovered by chance. |
| A．The Future of High-Altitude Rescue Team |
| B．The successful Flying Task on Himalayas. |
| C．An Interview with an Italian Famous Rescue Team Leader. |
| D．A Daring High-altitude Rescue on Everest Sets a Record. |
5 . Mr. Peter Johnson, aged twenty-three, battled for half an hour to escape from his trapped car yesterday when it landed upside down in three feet of water. Mr. Johnson took the only escape route—through the boot(行李箱).
Mr. Johnson’s car had finished up in a ditch(沟渠) at Romney Marsin, Kent after skidding on ice and hitting a bank. “Fortunately, the water began to come in only slowly,” Mr. Johnson said. “I couldn’t force the doors because they were jammed against the walls of the ditch and dared not open the windows because I knew water would come flooding in.”
Mr. Johnson, a sweet salesman of Sitting Home, Kent, first tried to attract the attention of other motorists by sounding the horn and hammering on the roof and boot. Then he began his struggle to escape.
Later he said, “It was really a half penny that saved my life. It was the only coin I had in my pocket and I used it to unscrew the back seat to get into the boot. I hammered desperately with a hammer trying to make someone hear, but no help came.”
It took ten minutes to unscrew the seat, and a further five minutes to clear the sweet samples from the boot. Then Mr. Johnson found a wrench and began to work on the boot lock. Fifteen minutes passed by. “It was the only chance I had. Finally it gave, but as soon as I moved the boot lid, the water and mud poured in. I forced the lid down into the mud and scrambled clear as the car filled up.”
His hands and arms cut and bruised(擦伤), Mr. Johnson got to Beckett Farm nearby, where he was looked after by the farmer’s wife, Mrs. Lucy Bates. Huddled in a blanket, he said, “That thirty minutes seemed like hours.” Only the tips of the car wheels were visible, police said last night. The vehicle had sunk into two feet of mud at the bottom of the ditch.
1. What is the best title for this newspaper article?| A．The Story of Mr. Johnson, A Sweet Salesman |
| B．Car Boot Can Serve As The Best Escape Route |
| C．Driver Escapes Through Car Boot |
| D．The Driver Survived A Terrible Car Accident |
| A．The hammer. | B．The coin. | C．The screw. | D．The horn. |
| A．Mr. Johnson’s car stood on its boot as it fell down. |
| B．Mr. Johnson could not escape from the door because it was full of sweet jam. |
| C．Mr. Johnson’s car accident was partly due to the slippery road. |
| D．Mr. Johnson struggled in the pouring mud as he unscrewed the back seat. |
| A．Luckily the door was torn away in the end | B．At last the wrench went broken |
| C．The lock came open after all his efforts | D．The chance was lost at the last minute |
| A．the ditch was along a quiet country road | B．the accident happened on a clear warm day |
| C．the police helped Mr. Johnson get out of the ditch | D．Mr. Johnson had a tender wife and was well attended |
6 . Typically, a person sitting in the driver's seat of a car opens the door with the hand closest to it. It makes sense since doors are designed to be opened that way. Pull the handle(把手) and immediately the door is open. But if you happen to do that at the wrong time, you may create an obstacle(阻碍) for a passing cyclist without knowing it. Then the cyclist will be sent falling off the bike, and the car door is likely to be damaged by the fast-moving bicycle.
The car door design and long-time habits have made the process instinctual but clearly the solution is for the person getting out of the vehicle to check for traffic. Luckily, there's a simple way to solve the problem: the Dutch reach. In other words, instead of using your left hand, reach for the door latch(门锁) with your right hand. This will force you to turn your body and look into your side view mirror to see whether any car or bike is coming.
''It's just what Dutch people do,'' said Fred Wegman, the former managing director of the National Institute for Road Safety Research in the Netherlands. ''All the Dutch are taught it. It's part of regular driver education.''
The technique dates back about 50 or 60 years, and it was very popular between the 1960s and the 1980s. But it didn't really become known as the Dutch reach until American physician named Michael Charney started the Dutch Reach Project in 2016 in an effort to popularize the practice in the United States. According to The Times, he was motivated by the death of a 27-year-old who rode into an open car door and died just five blocks from his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Charney's efforts may be paying off. Both Massachusetts and Illinois now include the Dutch reach in their drivers’ manuals(手册).
1. What is the first paragraph intended to show?| A．The poor design of the car door and handle. |
| B．A common conflict between cars and bicycles. |
| C．A main cause of traffic accidents related to cyclists. |
| D．Possible risks connected with opening the car door. |
| A．Difficult | B．Possible |
| C．Natural | D．Dangerous |
| A．By making the person open the car door more easily. |
| B．By forcing the person to check for approaching traffic. |
| C．By reminding the person of the traffic lights frequently. |
| D．By helping the person see the side view mirror more clearly. |
| A．Its popularity among Dutch people. |
| B．Its appearance in drivers’ manuals. |
| C．A project started in the year 2016. |
| D．The death caused by a traffic accident. |
7 . High-Wire Act
Mickey Wilson had been on the mountain only a few seconds when he heard the scream. Wilson, 28 years old, had just gotten off the cable car (索道缆车) at the Arapahoe Basin Ski Area in Keystone, Colorado, along with his friends Billy Simmons and Hans Mueller. Their friend Richard had been on the cable car ahead of them, but when the men reached the top of the lift, he had disappeared. The men walked toward the source of the scream and found skiers stopped on the slope, pointing to the cable car. And then the friends screamed too.
“Oh, Richard!” yelled Mueller.
When Richard had tried to jump off the cable car, his backpack had been caught in the chair, which then dragged him back down the hill. In the process, the backpack belt twisted around his neck, making him breathless. Now Richard’s body was swinging four feet above the snow. The cable car operator had quickly stopped it, and the friends kicked off their skis and ran toward the scene. They made a human pyramid to try to reach Richard, but the unconscious man was too far off the ground. With the clock ticking, Wilson ran to the ladder of a nearby lift tower. Scared skiers watched as he struggled the 25 feet. After he reached the top, Wilson’s first challenge was to climb onto the two-inch steel cable that held the chairs. He handled the balance and height bravely, but he knew he could not walk on the cable. Therefore, he calmed down and sat over it and then used his hands to pull himself to Richard quickly. Wilson’s greatest fear wasn’t that he’d fall, but that he wouldn’t reach Richard. “This was life or death,” he said.
When he reached Richard’s chair, Wilson swung a leg over the cable and attempted to drop down onto it. But as he did that, his jacket caught on the movable footrest, which was in the up position. The footrest began to slide down, with Wilson attached. But before that could happen, he managed to free himself and reached Richard.
Fortunately, the ski patrol (巡查) had gathered below and performed emergency treatment on Richard, who had been hanging for about five minutes, then skied him down to an ambulance.
That night, Richard called from the hospital to express his thanks to Wilson, his other friends and the workers at the Arapahoe Basin Ski Area.
1. What happened to Richard when he tried to jump off the cable car?| A．He was sick and became unconscious. |
| B．He left his skis which stopped the cable car. |
| C．He was too afraid to move forward in the cable car. |
| D．He was caught by the neck, hanging down the cable. |
| A．People worked together and saved him. |
| B．Wilson climbed on the cable and saved him. |
| C．The ski patrol got him down and treated him. |
| D．Skiers treated him and carried him to the hospital. |
| A．the rescue process was dangerous |
| B．something was wrong with the cable car |
| C．Wilson could manage the process very well |
| D．the operator of the cable car ignored his duty |
| A．it is very dangerous to go skiing |
| B．he that climbs high often falls heavily |
| C．bravery and calm can help you make a difference |
| D．a person with a great talent always has great will-power |
8 . A few years ago, a doctor gave a wrong prescription to a 9-year-old boy because he had accidentally clicked the next medicine listed in the drop-down menu. Unfortunately, the boy died.
Dr. Gidi Stein heard the story and felt forced to do something. “It was like killing someone with a spelling error. He just clicked on the wrong button,” Stein said. “One would have thought there’d be some kind of spell-checker to prevent these terrible things from happening. But apparently this is not the case.”
Several things were immediately obvious to the 54-year-old Stein, who had previously studied computer science. “If you look at this problem from a bird’s eye view, there were so many places down the line where this decision could have been stopped — from the physician to the pharmacy (药房) even to the mother. All of them had all the relevant information to have a judgment call that this was just the wrong drug for the wrong patient.” For Stein, it represented a systemic failure.
Stein compared this with credit cards. “If you use your credit card in the daily routine over time, a pattern of how we use our cards comes out: the grocery store, the gas station in our local town. If your credit card would appear tomorrow in Zimbabwe, it would be unusual. The credit card company would call you and say, ‘Hey, was that you?’”
But nothing like that existed in the field of prescription drugs. So Stein set up a company called MedAware. He came up with a machine learning outlier detection (异常检测值) system. In other words, he trained the computers to realize if a doctor accidentally prescribed the wrong medicine.
The system is already used in hospitals and doctor’s offices. To date, MedAware has used their technology to help nearly six million patients in the United States and Israel.
1. What led to the boy’s death?| A．The doctor’s carelessness. | B．The drawback of the computer. |
| C．The doctor’s poor medical skill. | D．The incomplete health care system. |
| A．Angry. | B．Frightened. |
| C．Embarrassed. | D．Regretful. |
| A．Help doctor choose right medicine. | B．Reminds patients to take medicine. |
| C．Introduce new drugs to doctors. | D．Check the prescription. |
| A．A diary. | B．A guidebook. |
| C．A magazine. | D．A science fiction. |
9 . Time flies, but the tracks of time remain in books and museums. This is what made a recent tragedy in Brazil even more terrible.
On Sept 2, a big fire broke out in the National Museum of Brazil, the oldest scientific institution in the country, in Rio de Janeiro. “Two hundred years of work, research and knowledge were lost,” Brazilian President Michel Temer wrote on Twitter after the fire. It’s a sad day for all Brazilians.
Most of the 20 million pieces of history are believed to have been destroyed. Only as little as 10 percent of the collection may have survived, Time reported. Among all the items, there were Egyptian mummies, the bones of uniquely Brazilian creatures such as the long-necked dinosaur Maxakalisaurus, and an 11,500-year-old skull called Luzia, which was considered one of South America’s oldest human fossils.
Besides these, Brazil’s local knowledge also suffered. The museum housed world famous collections of local objects, as well as many audio recordings of local languages from all over Brazil. Some of these recordings, now lost, were of languages that are no longer spoken.
“The tragedy this Sunday is a sort of national suicide(自杀). A crime against our past and future generations.” Bernard Mello Franco, one of Brazil’s best-known reporters wrote on the newspaper site.
The cause of the fire is still unknown, as BBC News reported on Sept 3. After the fire burned out, crowds protested(抗议) outside the museum to show their anger at the loss of the irreplaceable items of historical value.
According to Emilio Bruna, an ecologist at the University of Florida, museums are living, breathing places of who we are and where we’ve come from, and the world around us. Those insects pinned in a drawer, or those fish in a jar, or a feathered cape(斗篷) you might see in a display case represent a little piece of who we are as a people, as humans, as part of a greater world, he told National Geographic.
Just as underwater grass floats on the surface if it loses its roots, a nation is lost without its memories.
1. What do we know from Brazilian President’s words on Twitter?| A．He felt responsible for the fire of National Museum. |
| B．The museum is the oldest national scientific institution. |
| C．All Brazilians felt sorry for the fire that day. |
| D．The fire caused serious historical loss to Brazil. |
| A．Egyptian mummies. |
| B．The long-necked dinosaur Maxakalisaurus. |
| C．Some audio recordings of local languages. |
| D．An 11,500-year-old skull called Luzia |
| A．Advertisement. | B．News report. |
| C．Campus life. | D．Geography. |
10 . A bull bison(野牛)in Yellowstone National park charged at a 9-year-old Florida girl. Luckily, the girl was left with only relatively minor injuries. Eyewitnesses say that a group of around 50 people—including the unidentified girl—were standing within 5 ~ 10 feet of the bison for at least 20 minutes near Observation Point Trail before the animal decided to charge. "We saw through the trees some people petting the bison, super close,” Hailey Dayton, 18, an eyewitness who filmed the incident. " Because it was agitated by all the people and noise, it just attacked.''
In Yellowstone, there are about 4 ,500 bison, the nation's largest and most important bison population on public land. Yellowstone is the only place in the lower 48 states where free-ranging bison have lived continuously since prehistoric times, according to a statement from the National Park Service (NPS). The Yellowstone population is also significant for being one of the few herds(群)in the country that has not been inter- bred(杂交)with cattle.
While they feed primarily on grass, they can be aggressive if annoyed. " Stay 25 yards away from all large animals—bison, bighorn sheep, deer etc. —and at least 100 yards away from bears and wolves," the statement read. " If need be, turn around and go the other way to avoid interacting with a wild animal in a close distance. ”
Despite the presence of seemingly more dangerous animals such as bears and wolves, bison have injured more people in Yellowstone than any other creature. "This is what happens when you make fun of wildlife and pay no mind to an animal's personal space,'' Dayton wrote in a tweet. " This family was petting the buffalo before it charged. And as you can see the parents saved themselves over their daughter. That really put me off. ”
1. What does the underlined word "agitated" probably mean?| A．Amused. | B．Released. |
| C．Comforted. | D．Disturbed. |
| A．The remaining population of bison. | B．What Yellowstone means to bison. |
| C．How bison survived the hardships. | D．Bison's living conditions in Yellowstone. |
| A．To warn people not to tease bison. | B．To inform readers of some large animals. |
| C．To persuade readers to protect the wildlife. | D．To urge people to give bison enough space. |
| A．Positive. | B．Pitiful. |
| C．Unfavorable. | D．Admirable. |
