Passage Three
For more than two days in September 1974, the people of Honduras shut their windows, locked their door and crouched in their homes. Fifi was outside, and people were frightened.
Yet, Fifi wasn‟t a violent criminal. It was a hurricane, one of the most destructive natural phenomena in the world.
Why do we give human names to hurricanes? Two hundred years ago, many hurricanes in the Caribbean were named after the saint‟s day on which the storms occurred. Later, storms were known by the name of the city where they came ashore. Finally, in 1953, hurricanes started getting people‟s names — specifically female names. Male names were added in 1979.
There are six sets of names all together. Each list is used every six years and consists of 21 names, starting with every letter but Q, U, X, Y and Z. The names alternate between males and females.
A storm won‟t get a name until its winds reach about 62.4 kph, at which point it becomes a tropical storm. At 118.4 kph it is declared a hurricane.
The 126 names on the list are used only for storms that form off the Atlantic coast of the US. There are separate lists for the Pacific. If a hurricane should cross from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it would get a new name.
Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in the US, is in charge of picking names for storms of the Atlantic coast. He works together with his counterparts in two dozen other countries in the Caribbean, Central America and North America.
“If we have a hurricane that causes a large loss of life or damage, a country will request that the name be retired,” he said. “If it‟s French name, we replace it with a French name, Spanish, with a Spanish. Sometimes, people write in to suggest names for hurricanes.”
We can learn from the article that Fifi was _____.
根据文章第一、 二段可推知Fifi是一种飓风， 且发生于1974年的洪都拉斯， 故D正确。
When the author says “The names alternate between males and females” he means _____.
文章第四段提到“There are six sets of names all together. Each list is used every six years and consists of 21 names, starting with every letter but Q, U, X, Y and Z.The names alternate between males and females.”由此说明飓风的名字石油一套固定程序的， 男性名字和女性名字依次轮换， 即选项B符合题意。
Whether a storm should be given a name from the 126 names depends much on _____.
由文章第五段“A storm won‟t get a name until its winds reach about 62.4 kph, at which point it becomes a tropical storm.”可知， 风暴达到62.4kph的风速才会被起到列表中的名字， 故选项A正确。
When should a name for hurricanes be retired and replaced with a new one?
文章第六段指出“The 126 names on the list are used only for storms that form off the Atlantic coast of the US. There are separate lists for the Pacific. If a hurricane should cross from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it would get a new name.”即当风暴的影响不仅限于大西洋还波及到太平洋时， 就会被更换新的名字。 故D项为正确答案。
In this article the author centers around _____?
通读全文可知， 文章主要讲述了风暴（飓风） 是如何获得名字的， 即C项符合文意。