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, iatroduced a
ban last year, And, earner tins 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 downstairs, 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 the 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.