填空题
Directions:
In the following text, some sentences
have been removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the
list A-G to fit into each of the numbered blanks. There are two extra choices,
which do not fit in any of the blanks. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.
Do mobile phones cause explosions at petrol stations That
question has just been exhaustively answered by Adam Burgess, a researcher at
the University of Kent, in England. Oddly, however, Dr Burgess is not a
physicist, but a sociologist. For the concern rests not on scientific evidence
of any danger, but is instead the result of sociological factors: it is an urban
myth, supported and propagated by official sources, but no less a myth for that.
Dr Burgess presented his findings this week at the annual conference of the
British Sociological Association.
Mobile phones started to
become widespread in the late 1980s, when the oil industry was in the middle of
a concerted safety drive, Dr Burgess notes. This was, in large part. a response
to the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988, when 167 people died in an explosion on an
oil platform off the Scottish coast. (41)__________So nobody questioned the
precautionary ban on the use of mobile phones at petrol stations. The worry was
that an electrical spark might ignite explosive fumes.
(42)__________But it was too late. The myth had taken hold.
One problem, says Dr Burgess, is that the number of petrol-station fires
increased in the late 1990s, just as mobile phones were proliferating. Richard
Coates, BP’s fire-safety adviser, investigated many of the 243 such fires that
occurred around the world between 1993 and 2004. He concluded that most were
indeed caused by sparks igniting petrol vapour, but the sparks themselves were
the result of static electricity, not electrical equipment. Most drivers will
have experienced a mild electric shock when climbing out of their vehicles. It
is caused by friction between driver and seat, with the result that both end up
electrically charged. When the driver touches the metal frame of the vehicle,
the result is sometimes a spark. ( 43 )__________
(44)__________One e-mail contained fictitious examples of such explosions
said to have happened in Indonesia and Australia. Another, supposedly sent out
by Shell, found its way on to an internal website at Exxon, says Dr Burgess,
where it was treated as authoritative by employees. Such memos generally explain
static fires quite accurately, but mistakenly attribute them to mobile phones.
Official denials, says Dr Burgess, simply inflame the suspicions of conspiracy
theorists.
(45)__________Warning signs abound in Britain,
America, Canada and Australia. The city of Sao Paulo, in Brazil, introduced a
ban last year. And, earlier this month, a member of Connecticut’s senate
proposed making the use of mobile phones in petrol stations in that state
punishable by a $ 250 fine.
[A] The safety drive did not apply
merely to offshore operations: employees at some British oil-company offices are
now required to use handrails while walking up and down stairs, for
example.
[B] As a result, the company had to pay a huge amount
of compensation to the families of the victims and law suits concerning those
fires seemed to be endless.
[C] A further complication was the
rise of the internet, where hoax memos, many claiming to originate from oil
companies, warned of the danger of using mobile phones in petrol
stations.
[D] This is particularly noticeable in Britain. The
country that led the way in banning mobile phones at petrol stations is also the
country that has taken the strongest line on the safety of mobile-phone use by
children.
[E] Despite the lack of evidence that mobile phones
can cause explosions, bans remain in place around the world, though the rules
vary widely.
[F] By tile late 1990s, however, phone
makers—having conducted their own research— realized that there was no danger of
phones causing explosions since they could not generate the required
sparks.
[G] This seems to have become more common as plastic car
interiors, synthetic garments and rubber-soled shoes have proliferated.