Passage A
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 which 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（硝酸铵） ,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 on 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.
Which of the following statements is true?
从第一段第二、 三句“However, what about flying compared to working in the chemical industry? Unfortunately, the former is 65 times riskier than the latter!”可知飞行的风险实在化学产业工作风险的65倍， 故D项为正确答案。
Chemical accidents are usually important enough to be reported as news because ________.
从第二段第一句“The trouble with the chemical industry is that when things go wrong they often cause death to those living nearby.”可知化学产业的事故经常导致周围人们的死亡， 故B项为正确答案。
According to passage, the chemical accident that caused by the fault of management happened at ________.
最后一段第三句“The Flixborough fireball was the fault of management,which took risks to keep production going during essential repairs.”提到Flixborough fireball是管理不善导致的， 它在进行核心维修时也保持生产， 故B项为正确答案。
From the passage we know that ammonium nitrate is a kind of ________.
由最后一段第二句“Thus the Texas City explosion was caused by tons of ammonium nitrate (硝酸铵),which is safe unless stored in great quantity.”可知硝酸铵在大量储存时会变得危险， 故B项为正确答案。
From the discussion among some experts we may conclude that ________.
A项： 根据常理， 若不对设备进行维护， 会增加发生事故的可能， 所以维修设备是不能避免的； B项： 当局是应该关心化工厂的生产活动的； D项： 文章已列出气体爆炸引起的事故， 说明在大容器中大量储存的天然气并不总是安全的； C项： 如果采取了有效措施， 则这些事故都可被避免或控制， 与文章相符， 故C项为正确答案。