1 . The rescue of an Austrian skier who was found alive after being buried by an avalanche is being called a “miracle”. Police in Upper Styria — the mountainous and forested region in southern Austria — said they were alerted on Christmas Day that a 26-year-old skier had not returned from the slopes. The man who alerted police said he had managed to get through to the skier’s mobile phone but heard only “cracking noises” on the line, the BBC reported.

A rescue team was able to trace the skier beneath more than 3 feet of snow using an electric avalanche victim’s transceiver (无线电收发两用机), which skiers are required to wear in avalanche-prone areas. They found the man was on a slope of Mount Pleschnitzzinken, in the northwestern area of Upper Styria. “You can’t move under a blanket of snow like this,” Stefan Schrock of the Styria mountain rescue service told Austrian public broadcaster ORF. “The man was extremely lucky that he had a big enough air pocket under the blanket of snow, so he had oxygen too and was able to breathe.”

The man was found about two hours after authorities were first alerted. However, the avalanche hit the region three hours before that when the man was buried in the snow. A rescue team and local police dogs dug the man out of the snow and he was taken down the valley suffering from hypothermia (体温过低). He was otherwise unharmed.

An avalanche also swept across a marked ski trail near the Swiss town of Andermatt on Thursday, injuring two people. Four others were either rescued themselves from the snow unhurt. Police and rescuers searched the snowslide after witnesses said more people might be buried, but the operation ended with police saying there were no more victims. The avalanche occurred mid-morning while many holiday skiers enjoyed mountain sunshine the day after Christmas.

1. Why did the man alert the police?

A．He found two people injured.

B．A 26-year-old skier got lost.

C．He heard only terrible noises.

D．Many people got lost on the slope.

2. How could the skier survive?

A．Only the dog helped him.

B．He had an electronic transceiver.

C．A blanket of snow helped him.

D．He had a big enough air pocket.

3. How long was the man trapped in the snow?

A．For two hours.

B．For three hours.

C．For five hours.

D．For a week.

4. What’s the best title for the passage?

A．A terrible avalanche.

B．A Christmas miracle.

C．An exciting rescue.

D．A Christmas ski.

2 . Cassie Thomas thought she was just meeting with the media at her lunch break. Instead, the nurse at Janet Weis Children’s Hospital near Danville got a surprise party from her workmates. It was her first day back to work after a family vacation in Clearwater, Florida, and what a vacation it was!

“Just as I looked up, there was this big pinks lightning that just came down and hit the beach, ” Cassie said. Cassie, her husband, and their two daughters were on their hotel balcony last week when they heard and saw the storm.

After Cassie saw the lightning, she saw two boys lying on the beach. So, she shouted to them. “Then one boy sat up and he just started shouting back, and I said, ‘Jay, call 911; I’m going. ” Cassie said. So the 31-year-old nurse sprang into action. She ran down 16 flights of stairs onto the beach where she found the two boys, Jansen and Cameron, who are from North Carolina. Cameron had no heartbeat.

“I rolled Cameron over and I just started compressing(按压),”Cassie said. She didn’t realize it at the time, but she-was risking her own life to save the teenage boys.

“My daughters were on the balcony and it was a very dangerous situation to put myself in. I just wished to keep me safe because I was going, ” Cassie said. “It just goes to her character to help others. And you know what? When it’s your kid, you’d want someone to be coming in and saving his life, ” one of her workmates said.

Cassie was there when Cameron got out of the hospital. “He just said, ‘Thank you; thank you; thank you.’ He gave me so many hugs, ” Cassie said. “A nurse never truly goes on vacation. I just keep telling everybody the same thing. It’s just what you do. ”

Cassie and two other people got Good Samaritan awards from the Clearwater Police Department for saving Cameron’s life. Cassie’s workmates said they couldn’t be any prouder of this-life-saving nurse.

1. Why did Cassie’s workmates give her a surprise party?

A．To welcome her back to work.

B．To see her off for her vacation.

C．To honor her for her heroic act.

D．To congratulate heron the interview.

2. What happened to the boys?

A．They were pulled into the sea.

B．They were hit by lightning.

C．They fell off from the balcony.

D．They got caught in a rain.

3. What did Cassie do when she saw the two boys?

A．She called 911.

B．She took them to a hospital.

C．She jumped into the sea to save them.

D．She gave first aid to one of them.

4. What did Cassie mean by saying “A nurse never truly goes on a vacation”?

A．Nurses have no time to go on a vacation.

B．Nurses are ready at all times to help others.

C．Nurses don’t like to go on a vacation.

D．Nurses may be called back to work during vacation.

3 . In China, safety education is becoming more and more important now. The last Monday in March is for students to learn it at school.    1     What are the accidents at school?    2       

Stampedes (踩踏), earthquakes and fires are the main accidents at school.

A stampede always happens in crowded places.     3     If you fall down in the crowd, move to one side and protect your head with your hands around.

When earthquakes happen, you can get under a desk quickly and hold on.    4     If you are outdoors, find a place away from buildings, trees, and power lines.

When there’s a fire, leave the classroom quickly. It’s better to put something wet over your mouth and nose. In this way, you won’t breathe in smoke.     5     It makes them cough and they can’t breathe. That’s very dangerous! So when you want to get out, you should make yourself close to the floor. Then you can breathe some fresh air.

A．Here is an example.

B．It helps students learn more about what they should do to keep themselves safe.

C．When students around you begin to push, just stand there and try to hold onto something.

D．Many people die in a fire, not because of the fire but smoke.

E．It is not smoke but fire that is dangerous.

F．Take a look.

G．It’ll protect you from falling things.

4 . First aid is a crucial aspect of healthcare that can significantly save someone’s life or prevent further injury or illness. Knowing when to use first aid is essential so that proper measures are taken promptly.    1    

Injuries and Accidents

One of the most common instances where first aid is required is in injuries and accidents.    2     In such situations, it is essential to provide immediate care to prevent further damage and ensure that the affected individual receives timely medical attention. Some of the initial steps in first aid for injuries include applying pressure to stop bleeding, immobilizing the affected area, and administering pain relief medication.

Cardiac Arrest (心脏停跳)

Another critical situation where first aid can make a difference is during a cardiac arrest. A cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops functioning; immediate intervention is necessary.     3     The first step in such a situation is to call emergency services and start cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) until professional help arrives. Knowing how to perform CPR can be life-saving in such situations.

Choking and Suffocation (窒息)

Choking and suffocation are emergencies that can occur at any time, and immediate intervention is necessary to prevent further complications. If someone is choking, it is essential to act quickly.     4     Similarly, if someone is suffocating due to a blocked airway, it is vital to clear the obstruction and ensure that the person’s airway is open.

When to use first aid can significantly save someone’s life or prevent further injury or illness.    5     Call for emergency services, and provide immediate care until professional help arrives. Being prepared and trained in first aid can ensure the safety and well-being of those around us.

A．In any emergency, it is essential to remain calm.

B．This can include cuts, burns, falls, sprains, and other unpleasant injuries.

C．If someone has taken a poisonous substance, calling emergency services.

D．Perform the Heimlich manoeuvre to force out the object causing the obstruction.

E．Bleeding and overdose are medical emergencies that require immediate attention.

F．This blog post will discuss when to use first aid and the importance of early intervention.

G．Blood circulation (血液循环) and oxygen supply to vital organs should be restored immediately.

5 . In a Home Fire,     1    

Is your own household prepared for a home fire? Just 2 simple steps can help prepare your family to escape from a home fire.

    2    

Use our worksheet to draw your home’s floor plan and plot your escape routes.

● Practice your 2-minute drill (from home to a safe meeting place) at least twice a year.

● Everyone in your household should know two ways to escape from each room in your home.

● In a real fire, remember to get out, stay out and call 911.     3    

Test Your Smoke Alarms Monthly

    4    

● You should hear three beeps, letting you know the alarm is working.

●     5     Then it’s time to change the batteries, if your model requires them.

● If your smoke alarm is 10 years old, it’s time to get a new alarm because the sensor becomes less sensitive over time.

A．Don’t hear the beeps?

B．Never go back inside for people, pets or things.

C．Practice a 2-Minute Fire Drill

D．Can Your Family Safely Escape in Just 2 Minutes?

E．Test your smoke alarms monthly by pressing the test button.

F．2-minute is very essential.

G．A monthly smoke alarm test is unavoidable.

6 . A self-driving Uber vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian in a late-night accident in Tempe, Arizona, police said on Monday. The accident is believed to be the first pedestrian death involving the technology of autonomous vehicles.

The gray SUV had an operator in the driver’s seat and was traveling at about 40 miles per hour in autonomous mode when it struck a woman who was walking across the street late Sunday night, Tempe police said. The pedestrian was rushed to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead from her injuries.

“The City of Tempe has been supportive of autonomous vehicle testing because of the innovation and promise that the technology may offer in many areas, including transportation options for disabled residents and seniors,” Tempe Mayor, Mitchell said in the statement. “Testing must occur safely. All indications we have had in the past show that traffic laws are being obeyed by the companies testing here. Our city leadership and Tempe police will pursue any and all answers to what happened in order to ensure safety moving forward.”

Self-driving cars have been praised by technology companies as the wave of the future. Autonomous cars are already being in more than 30 cities around the world, with companies investing more than $80 billion into research and development.

“Everyone recognized that someone was going to die in a crash involving an autonomous vehicle eventually,” Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who studies risks in automated driving systems, told NBC News. “As good as that technology tries to be, mistakes can happen, or it may be one of the small fraction of crashes. I just think everybody kind of hoped that one wouldn’t come this soon.”

Smith added that because federal and state agencies don’t have the resources to monitor individual vehicles, the responsibility for safety falls on the individual companies running the technology.

The National Transportation Safety Board announced that a four-person team has been sent to Tempe to investigate the crash.

1. Which of the following is true about the accident?

A．The woman was dead on the spot.

B．The accident is under investigation.

C．The driver was arrested for speeding.

D．It is the first accident caused by autonomous vehicles.

2. Why does the City of Tempe support autonomous vehicle testing?

A．The autonomous vehicle can make transportation safer.

B．A large profit will be brought by the autonomous vehicles.

C．The autonomous vehicles will help disabled residents and seniors.

D．Companies invest more than $80 billion into research and development.

3. According to Bryant Walker Smith, who should take the responsibility of the safety of individual self-driving vehicles?

A．The driver.	B．The pedestrian.
C．The individual companies.	D．The federal and state agency.

4. What does the passage mainly talk about?

A．Tempe is in favor of autonomous vehicle testing.

B．Autonomous vehicles have a lot of disadvantages.

C．Companies should take action to improve self-driving cars.

D．A self-driving Uber car caused a pedestrian’s death in Arizona.

7 . Most people are hoping the recent stranding (搁浅) of the 1,300-foot, 220,000-ton Ever Given container ship (集装箱货运船) in the Suez Canal was a one-off---just a case of a very big ship getting stuck in a narrow waterway. However, more than 100 ships of similar size are passing through the world’s waterways, and even bigger ones are being built.

Capt.Andrew Kinsey, a senior marine-risk consultant (海洋风险顾问) for a global financial services firm, says with heavy weather in the North Pacific Ocean over the past year, a lot of containers are going overboard (落水). Part of the problem is the way the ultra-large ships handle at sea with towering stacks (堆叠) of containers, especially in strong winds.

Alan Murphy, chief executive of a container-shipping research and advisory firm in Copenhagen, Denmark, says it’s difficult to know whether there has been an increase in the number of containers going overboard or if trans-Pacific container losses over the past year have just received more attention.In a November report, the World Shipping Council found the number of such incidents to be falling in recent years, although the report does not cover 2020. There is no central database for reporting container losses, so it’s not known exactly how many containers fall overboard, Murphy says.

Murphy says container ships are often fully loaded nowadays, as demand for consumer products has jumped during the corona virus pandemic. “In the past, these huge ships have never really sailed as fully loaded as they are now,” he says.“Obviously, the more the ship carries, the greater the risk of an incident happening.”

“The stranding of Ever Given in the Suez Canal is a warning,” Kinsey says.“We’ve been bring up the issue of size in our yearly safety and shipping review and in papers for over five years.”

Carrying more containers needs bigger and wider ships, which means it is harder for them to sail through narrow waterways like the Suez Canal and move when they get stuck.

1. What can we imply from paragraph 1?

A．It might be a tough task to build bigger ships.

B．Costs of overseas shipments might rise sharply.

C．There might be changes in the world’s waterways.

D．More accidents like the recent stranding might happen.

2. What did the World Shipping Council find in the November report?

A．No database for reporting container losses had been created.

B．Trans-Pacific container losses had received more attention.

C．The number of container losses had dropped in recent years before 2020.

D．More container losses happened in 2020 than in the past few years.

3. What leads to fully loaded container ships nowadays according to Murphy?

A．The extreme weather.	B．The increasing size of ships
C．The slow transportation.	D．The growing demand for consumer goods.

4. What do Kinsey’s words in the 5^th paragraph show?

A．Warnings about the risks of stranding are given yearly.

B．Concern about larger ships has been voiced for some time.

C．Some container ships can carry as many goods as Ever Given.

D．Ships bigger than Ever Given won’t be allowed through the Suez Canal.

8 . Norwood, a junior High School student, was driving three friends home in St. Petersburg, when another driver crashed into her from her left and made her car hit the tree. The impact jammed shut the driver’s side door, so Norwood climbed out the front window. Two of her friends managed to get out of the car unharmed, but her 16-year-old friend Zarria didn’t. She run back to the car only to find Zarria was just sitting there reactionless.

A lot of people started to gather around to see what was happening. Norwood started yelling, “Back up, back up, she needs space.” Norwood pulled Zarria out of the back seat, avoiding broken glass from the window. “That’s when I checked her pulse on her neck. I put my head against her chest, and I didn’t really hear nothing. So that’s when I just started doing CPR on her.” Norwood told the reporter. After the 30 compressions and two rescue breaths, Zarria regained consciousness. Ambulance quickly arrived and rushed her to the hospital to receive medical help.

When Miller, Norwood’s high school teacher, learned that Norwood saved a friend just   one day after completing CPR training, she was at a loss of words and so proud. Norwood participates in the school’s Athletic Lifestyle Management Academy (ALMA). The program prepares students for various careers in health science. “We do vital signs and they learn how to take blood pressure and check pulse.” Miller introduced. And another one of the skills learned is CPR. “There are two components, a hands-on skills component where they have to demonstrate that they’re able to do CPR well, and then there’s a written test component, showing that they remember that knowledge.”

Thanks to Norwood’s quick thinking, Zarria is recovering well. She also isn’t surprised by her friend’s actions. “She will always help any way she can, so I wasn’t really shocked about that.”

1. What happened to Norwood and her friends on their way home?

A．They lost their way.	B．They suffered a car accident.
C．They crashed into another car.	D．They were stuck in a traffic jam.

2. What did Norwood do first when finding Zarria reactionless?

A．To give her first aid.	B．To ask people for help.
C．To call ambulance at once.	D．To send her to hospital immediately.

3. What can we infer about the ALMA?

A．It normally lasts for one day.

B．It is for medical students only.

C．It focuses on both theory and practice.

D．It trains students to live a healthy lifestyle.

4. Which of the following can best describe Norwood?

A．Considerate and flexible.	B．Kind and ambitious.
C．Hardworking and clever.	D．Brave and calm.

9 . 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