1 . Mount Hood is the highest mountain in Oregon, a state in the western United States. At 3, 400 meters it is attractive to many people, some of whom, of course, run into trouble. Each year 25 to 50 people have accidents or get lost on Mount Hood and need rescue（营救）. Although most of these are understandable accidents, a few result from careless risk-taking.
In one recent case, three experienced climbers went hiking in the middle of a snowstorm in December. Most hikers climb Mount Hood in May or June when the weather conditions are good. But in December, the mountain is covered in snow and ice. Winds up to 135 kilometers per hour blow the snow around, making it difficult to see. Temperatures can drop below freezing. As one rescue worker put it, "What were they thinking? They were just asking for it. "
During a rescue a few years ago, a helicopter full of rescue workers crashed and the rescue workers were almost killed. Linda Carle, who lives in the Mount Hood area, asks, If someone made a muddled decision, why should rescue teams have to risk their lives to save them? Why do people take unnecessary risks and do things that aren't right if they know that they can get into trouble? "
Most of the Mount Hood rescue workers are either volunteers or part of the local police department There is no charge for these rescues. It is the taxpayers who pay the bill. Linda Carle suggests that people who take careless risks and need rescue should ay for the rescue. She fees it is only fir that costs for things like damaged helicopters and medical care for rescuers should be paid for by the people who take the risks. What would you do if you were the local police officer at Mount Hood?
1. What can we learn about Mount Hood?| A．It lies in the west of the United States. |
| B．It is the highest mountain in the United States. |
| C．The best time to climb the mountain is from May to July. |
| D．Hundreds of people get lot in the mountain every year. |
| A．poor | B．important | C．wise | D．clear |
| A．Taxpayers | B．Risk takers | C．Government | D．Police |
| A．Advice on stopping people from climbing Mount Hood. |
| B．Other serious accidents in Mount Hood. |
| C．The requirements of becoming a volunteer. |
| D．Some possible ways to solve the problem of rescue costs. |
2 . It was about 10:15 p.m. Janice Esposito got off the train at the Bellport, New York, got into her car and began driving home. She had traveled the route so many times that she almost drove automatically: a left onto Station Road, then a left on Montauk Highway, and then—bang! Out of nowhere a car crashed into Esposito’s car, pushing her backward some 100 feet onto the railroad tracks. Injured but mostly shocked by the crash and by the airbags that popped up, she got stuck in the vehicle.
As it happened, Pete DiPinto was getting ready for bed when he heard the crash coming from not far outside his bedroom window.
A volunteer firefighter and retired teacher, DiPinto, 64, never stopped to think. He grabbed a flashlight and rushed out. “Any firefighter would have done what I did,” he said. “We’re always on duty. ”
The first car he came upon, 2,000 feet from his front yard, was the one that had hit Esposito. Once making sure the driver was OK, he looked around and spotted Esposito's car straddling (骑跨) the railroad tracks. And then he heard a bell sound, which signaled a coming train.
DiPinto rushed to Esposito’s car and hit on the driver’s side window. She just looked at him, “I don’t know where I am,” she said.
“You’re on the railroad tracks,” DiPinto yelled. “We have to get you off right now!” The train was traveling at a speed of 65 miles per hour toward them. The driver’s door couldn’t be opened due to the crash, so DiPinto ran to the passenger side. He threw open the door, pushed aside the airbags, seized Esposito’s arms, and pulled her toward him across the passenger seat until he finally got her out and walked her to safety as quickly as he could.
Within seconds, the train crashed into the car. “It was like a Hollywood movie, ” DiPinto told reporters the next day.
“Last night, ” said Greg Miglino Chief of the South Country Ambulance, “the hero arrived in pajamas, not in a fire truck. ”
1. What can we know about the accident from the first paragraph?| A．Esposito was not familiar with the road. | B．Esposito was driving too fast. |
| C．The crash was violent. | D．It should have been avoided. |
| A．Esposito was badly injured. | B．Esposito was to be hit by the train. |
| C．Esposito was firmly stuck in the car. | D．The driver’s door couldn’t be opened. |
| A．He is praising DiPinto’s heroic action. | B．DiPintodidn’t act as professionally. |
| C．A firefighter should be ready any time. | D．Fire trucks are not enough for emergencies. |
| A．A woman had an accident on the way home at night. |
| B．A woman had a narrow death escape. |
| C．A firefighter managed to become a hero overnight. |
| D．A firefighter saved a woman from a further accident. |
3 . It was the final climb on his quest to reach the highest summit on all seven continents. When Christopher Kulish finally reached Mount Everest’s 29,035-foot peak, he joined an elite group known as the “Seven Summits Club”. But the 62-year-old Colorado attorney died suddenly Monday after returning to the first camp below the mountain’s summit. He’s the second American to die in the past week after reaching Everest’s highest point. His family believes the cause was a heart attack, according to the Denver Post. “He saw his last sunrise from the highest peak on Earth,” his brother, Mark Kulish, said in a statement to the Denver Post. “We are heartbroken at this news.”
Last week, 55-year-old Donald Lynn Cash of Utah collapsed and died just after reaching the Everest peak. He too had reached the highest point on all seven continents. Including Christopher and Cash, at least 11 people have died on Mount Everest this year.
The deaths come among reports of overcrowding on the popular mountain. The Nepali government granted a total of 381 permits to climb Everest this year, a number that doesn’t include guides who are on the mountain as well. For some climbers, that traffic has meant longer wait times — some told the Himalayan Times the wait has exceeded two hours between the last camp and the peak. Mountaineer Vanessa O’Brien, who has also climbed the seven summits, said when there’s a crowd, being a more experienced climber won’t help you. “It doesn’t matter if you’re the best racecar driver in the world. If you’re stuck in traffic, you’re stuck in traffic,” she said in an interview.
And when a climber is stuck in that traffic, “their body is starting to deteriorate.” O’Brien, who set a record as the fastest woman to reach the highest peak on every continent, also said the descent is often harder than the climb.
Climbing expert Alan Arnette said there’s no simple explanation for the string of deaths. He said weather that has led to a shorter climbing season is one factor causing overcrowding. He also said the cost to climb Mount Everest has decreased, which means more people are making the journey. He urged the governments in charge of granting permits to limit how many people can be on the mountain at once.
Still, Christopher was no beginner. His family said he’d been mountain climbing for five decades. He arrived at the base camp nearly two months before his climb so he could give himself time to adapt to the conditions. When he made his journey, his family said he was climbing with a small group in almost ideal conditions after some of the overcrowding had cleared.
His brother described being a lawyer as a “day job” for Christopher. Climbing was his passion. “He was an inveterate climber of peaks in Colorado, the West and the world over,” Mark Kulish said. “He passed away doing what he loved.”
1. What do we know from Christopher?| A．He has reached the highest point on all seven continents. |
| B．He joined the “Seven Summits Club” at the base camp. |
| C．11 people following him died after reaching the Everest peak this year. |
| D．He died from a heart attack below the mountain’s summit. |
| A．Lacking guides. | B．Overcrowding. |
| C．Bad weather. | D．Getting Government’s permission. |
| A．To wait for his friends. | B．To learn about the mountain. |
| C．To clear the traffic jam. | D．To adapt to conditions earlier. |
| A．Experienced. | B．Famous. | C．Excellent. | D．Addictive. |
4 . Lee Spargo initially set up an outdoor trail camera at his home near Mount Holly in hopes of catching a wild fox that had been hunting his chickens. But he was aware of another danger Tuesday night when the camera caught footage of his house being swallowed in flames.
A fire inside Lee’s home triggered (触发) the camera and sent an alarm to his phone around 2:22 a.m. Lee woke up thinking he had caught the fox, but soon realized that his house was on fire instead.
“If I didn’t set up the equipment, we’d all be dead. It saved our lives,” he said. “I got up, Thinking ‘Oh, the fox is out there and I’m going to get him’. And then I saw a big reflection in the kitchen and I was considering, ‘What’s that?’”
Lee said he quickly jumped into action and got his wife Rhonda and his two kids Jonathan and Meagan out of the burning building. The family was also able to rescue two of their four dogs from the fire. Unfortunately, Lee’s 4-year-old Lulu and 2-year-old Sampson did not survive.
“We were yelling for them to get out, but the poor things were just so scared. They were just trying to hide,” Lee said.
Lee and his family also said they lost a number of personal belongings in the fire, including a treasured clock that had survived another fire at a relative’s home years ago. “We’ve been here for a long time. We raised our kids here,” he said. “We lost all in a couple hours. But at least I still have my family.”
1. Why did Lee set up an outdoor game trail camera?| A．To catch a fox. | B．To prevent the fire. |
| C．To monitor his family. | D．To help him feed the chicken. |
| A．The alarm. | B．The phone. |
| C．The camera. | D．The wild animal. |
| A．Lee’s wife. | B．One of Lee’s lost dogs. |
| C．One of Lee’s friends. | D．Lee’s daughter. |
| A．He lost faith in life. |
| B．He had survived in another fire. |
| C．He regretted living there for such a long time. |
| D．He was still positive towards life. |
5 . 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. |
6 . It was 3:21 a.m. when nine-year-old Glenn Kreamer awoke to the smell of burning. Except for the cracking (爆烈声) of flames somewhere below there was not a sound in the two-storey house at Baldwin Long Island.
With his father away on night duty at a local factory, Glenn was worried about the safety of his mother, his sister Karen, 14 and his 12-year-old brother Todd. He ran downstairs through the smoke-filled house to push and pull at Karen and Todd until they sat up. Then he helped each one through the house to the safety of the garden. There, his sister and brother, taking short and quick breaths and coughing, fell down onto the lawn.
The nine-year-old boy raced back into the house and upstairs to his mother’s room. He found it impossible to wake her up. Mrs. Kreamer, a victim of the smoke, was unconscious, and there was nobody to help Glenn carry her to the garden. But the boy stayed calm and, as a fireman said later, "acted with all the self-control of a trained adult."
On the bedroom telephone, luckily still working, Glenn called his father and, leaving Mr. Kreamer to telephone the fire brigade and ambulance service, got on with the task of saving his mother.
First he filled a bucket with water from the bathroom and threw water over his mother and her bed. Then, with a wet cloth around his head he went back to the garden.
He could hear the fire engine coming up, but how would the firemen find his mother in the smoke-filled house where flames had almost swallowed up the ground floor?
Grasping firmly a ball of string (线) from the garage, Glenn raced back into the house and dashed upstairs to his mother’s room. Tying one end of the string to her hand, he ran back, laying out the string as he went, through the hall and back out into the garden.
Minutes later he was telling fire chief John Coughlan, "The string will lead you to mother." Mrs. Kreamer was carried to safety as the flames were breaking through her bedroom floor.
1. Why did Glenn run downstairs first?| A．He wanted to find out what was happening. |
| B．He was worried about his mother’s safety. |
| C．He wanted to save his sister and brother. |
| D．He went to see if his father had come back from work. |
| A．Glenn. | B．Glenn’s father. |
| C．Glenn’s sister. | D．Glenn’s neighbor. |
| A．unfortunate | B．confuse |
| C．terrified | D．senseless |
| A．his father had taught him to do so on the phone |
| B．he had learned something about first aid |
| C．he had dealt with the emergency calmly and wisely |
| D．he had followed his mother’s instructions |
7 . ROME— four people, including the wife of the factory's owner, died on Wednesday after explosions （爆炸）at the Barcelona Pozzo di Gotto fireworks company, Italian media reported.
According to online reports by La Republic and TGCOM24, at least one other person is missing and three others are seriously injured, with two of them in dangerous condition. Among the dead was 71-year-old Venera Mazzeo, the wife of the factory owner Vito Costa. Mazzeo reportedly died on the scene. Antonio Costa, the owner's son, was seriously injured and was transported to a hospital in the regional capital of Palermo for treatment. Less seriously injured persons were moved to the nearby Milazzo Hospital to be treated for burns and other injuries. Many were transported by local people who reached the scene before ambulances could arrive, reports said.
The factory, located near the northeast of the southern Italian island of Sicily, near the city of Messina, has been in operation for more than ten years without any accident. Police reports showed that two separate explosions took place, with the first explosion likely causing the second one. Media reports said that police have guessed that sparks （火花）from a repairing project reached some of the explosive material stored in the factory and was likely the cause of the first explosion.
Reports also showed that firefighters were able to control the flame, which burnt buildings on the factory and threatened nearby structures.
1. How many people lost their lives in the accident except Venera Mazzeo?| A．Three. | B．Four. |
| C．Five. | D．Six. |
| A．One worker's cigarette spark. |
| B．A fire nearby the factory. |
| C．The explosive material in the factory. |
| D．The sparks from a repairing project. |
| A．Antonio Costa died on the scene because of the flame. |
| B．Most injured persons were sent to hospital by ambulance. |
| C．The factory had been in safe operation before the explosions. |
| D．There were three explosions in total in the accident. |
| A．A travel guide. | B．A newspaper. |
| C．A magazine. | D．A science report. |
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 (汽车行李箱). 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(拧开…的螺丝) 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(扳钳) and began to work on the boot lock. Fifteen minutes passed by. “It was the only chance I had.
His hands and arms were 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, “The thirty minutes seemed like hours.” Only the tips of the car wheels were visible(can be seen), 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 Serve As The Best Escape Route |
| C．Driver Escaped Through Car Boot |
| D．The Driver Survived A Terrible Car Accident |
| A．The hammer. | B．The coin. |
| C．The screw. | D．The horn. |
| 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 rainy cold day |
| C．Mr. Johnson’s car stood on its boot as it fell down |
| D．the police helped Mr. Johnson get out of the ditch |
