1 . 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 |
2 . 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 |
3 . 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 |
4 . The sound that woke Damian Languell at 8:15 in the morning was so loud he assumed it came from inside his house in Wade, Maine. As he got up to investigate, he heard another sound, this one coming most definitely from outside. Looking out of his bedroom window, he noticed a tree enveloped in smoke about 500 yards away. A car wrapped around the tree's base, its engine on fire.
Grabbing buckets of water, he and his wife ran to the crash site. Up close, the accident looked worse. The car was split nearly in two, and the tree was where the driver's seat ought to have been, as if planted there. No one should have survived this crash, and yet there was 20- year-old Quintin Thompson, his terrified face pressed against the driver's side window, in visible pain.
Languell tried putting out the fire with his buckets of water but failed. When the flames got into the front seats, he knew he had to get the young man out. So Languell opened the car's back door and climbed in. Using a pocket knife he'd brought with him, he cut through Thompson's seat belt. Now that Thompson was free, Languell pulled him out, and dragged him to safety before the entire car was in flames.
It is empathy that drove Languell to help, just as he said, "My heart goes out to Thompson. When you are that close to that level of hurt, you feel it so directly." For his heroic action, Languell was added to the list of real-life heroes changing the world.
1. Where was the first sound actually from?| A．A house on fire. | B．A car crash. |
| C．The bedroom window. | D．The basement. |
| A．He saved his car from fire. | B．He was successfully rescued. |
| C．He remained calm all the time. | D．He was capable of helping himself out. |
| A．Honesty. | B．Wisdom. | C．Sympathy. | D．Responsibility. |
| A．Daring and generous. | B．Caring and grateful. |
| C．Courageous and noble. | D．Ambitious and reliable. |
5 . The 30 miles of steep roads that snake through the mountains of Logan Canyon in Utah are enough to make most drivers' hands sweat. But Andersen，a 46-year-old father，wasn't expecting any trouble on the road last New Year's Eve，when he set off for a ski trip to the Bear River Mountains with his nine-year-old daughter Mia，four-year-old son Baylor，and nine-year-old neighbour Ken. Andersen had driven through the Logan Canyon hundreds of times over the years.
The weather was fine-but the higher they drove，the more slippery（滑的）the roads became. Rounding a sharp U-turn，Andersen saw a truck that had skated off the road and immediately tapped his brakes. In an instant，the car was sliding towards the shoulder of the highway，and then rolling down a steep ten-foot dam towards the extremely cold Logan River.
There was no time to tell the kids what to do. The crash had broken a few windows，and within seconds，the upside-down car was filled with water. "It was frightening how fast we were completely underwater，"remembered Andersen. "You were thinking--was this how it was all going to end？"
Having lost the sense of direction, Andersen began to search the freezing water for the kids. Mia had been right next to him in the front seat; now, in the blackness, he couldn't find her. "I thought, if I didn't get out, maybe none of us were going to get out. "Andersen got out of his seat belt, swam through a broken window, and, deeply and quickly, breathed air at the surface. That's when he saw a group of men, about ten in all, appear at the top of the dam. One after another, they raced down into the water. Saving all the three children, they began to shout at the father," Who else is in the car?" Andersen said respectfully," It was like the sight of angels. "
1. What might be the main reason for the car accident?| A．The sharp U-turn. |
| B．The steep dam. |
| C．The sudden braking. |
| D．The truck hitting the car. |
| A．Andersen lost consciousness in the water. |
| B．Strangers helped Andersen out of the car. |
| C．Andersen liked Mia most among the children. |
| D．Strangers worked together to save the three children. |
| A．uncomfortable | B．excited |
| C．anxious | D．grateful |
| A．Stay Calm when in Trouble |
| B．Round a U-turn |
| C．Miracle Rescue from an Icy River |
| D．Mysteries of the Bear River Mountains |
6 . When she was just 17 years old, Liz crashed into the back of a truck that was waiting to turn in a left-turn lane(车道). The crash is a life-changing one for her. Because of the crash, she’s blind in one eye, loses her sense of smell, loses some of her hearing, loses the ability to create tears, and she cannot fall asleep naturally.
“Initially, I thought I would not be defeated but clearly I was completely wrong. Apart from the medical problems, the hardest part about my life after the car accident was the fact that I was alone,” Liz said. “Everyone was away at college, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t drive or go to college. My friends who used to hang around with me were there for me at first, but after a while they stopped coming by.”
“I viewed her Facebook page, and she said on there: Can anybody please hang out with me today？I don’t have any friends, recalled Liz's mother, Betty.
In time, Liz and her mother teamed up with the US Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to make a video. They wanted to get the point across that texting and driving can have life-transforming consequences.
In the video Liz appealed to drivers not to text when driving. She admitted she was checking and sending messages via her phone when she crashed her car into the back of the truck.
“Don’t text your loved ones when you know they’re driving,” said Liz’s mother. “It can change their lives forever.”
“If you get a text, don’t look at it,” Liz said. “It’s not worth it.”
1. What made Liz feel most painful after the car accident?| A．Guilt. | B．Blindness. |
| C．Loneliness. | D．Discouragement. |
| A．Betty was driving carelessly. |
| B．Liz was texting while driving. |
| C．The truck in front stopped suddenly. |
| D．The truck turned left without warning. |
| A．call on people to be kind to accident victims |
| B．expose the truth of the car crash to the public |
| C．warn people against using phones while driving |
| D．ask people to be careful while crossing the road |
| A．Charged with. |
| B．Complained of. |
| C．Worked together with. |
| D．Got involved in. |
