Unit 9: Natural Disasters - Read

Exercise 1: Read the text then choose the best answer to fill in the blank. I often hear or read about “natural disasters” – the eruption of Mount St. Helen, a volcano in the state of Washington; Hurricane Andrew in Florida; the floods in the American Midwest; terrible all over the world; huge fires; and so on and so on. But I’ll never forget my first personal experience with the strangeness of nature – “the London Killer Fog” of 1952. It began on Thursday, December 4, when a high – pressure system (warm air) covered southern England. With the freezing – cold air below, heavy fog formed. Pollution from factories, cars, and coal stoves mixed with the fog. The humidity was terrible high, there was no breeze at all. Traffic (cars, trains, and boats) stopped. People couldn’t see, and some walked onto the railroad tracks or into the river. It was hard to breathe, and many people got sick. Finally, on Tuesday, December 9, the wind came and the fog went away. But after that, even more people got sick. Many of them died.

Exercise 2: Choose the best answer DO ALL VOLCANOES ERUPT ? Some volcanoes are always (6) ______. They are called active volcanoes. Mount Etna in Italy is an active (7) ______. Some  volcanoes have not erupted since prehistoric times. These are (8) ______ extinct volcanoes. Most of the  Hawaiian Islands are extinct volcanoes. These volcanoes (9) ______ have a hot spot under them. They (10) ______erupt anymore. Some volcanoes have not erupted for a long time, (11) ______ they could erupt again. These are called dormant volcanoes. Scientists try to figure out (12) ______ volcanoes will erupt. Studying volcanoes is hard and dangerous work. Scientists drill into volcanoes. They (13) ______ maps of the inside of the volcanoes. They use satellites to study volcanoes (14) ______ space. Scientists have been able to predict a few eruptions. But it is not (15) ______ to tell what a volcano might do.