Question

BEIJING — The rescue operations at a coal mine accident have ended with 105 miners dead. The State Council has organized an investigation team to probe (调查) into what caused the disaster in the city of Linfen, North China’s Shanxi Province. Preliminary（初步的） investigations show the illegal mining of an unauthorized seam（未经授权的煤层）, and the number of miners who had been sent down the shaft far exceeded its capacity.

   This mine was found to have long ignored the rules to steal state coal, and did not have a list of miners employed to check the number of miners missing after the accident.

    How did such a coal mine get all the necessary licenses for production? How did it pass the three safety inspections the local government organized last month?

   In response to this disaster, the Shanxi governor promised to set up hotlines for people to report illegal coal mines and rewards as high as 100,000 yuan for tip-offs.

   We appreciate the action this governor has taken to solving the coal mining problems, and we believe that the reporting scheme will help to stop the existence of illegal coal mines.

But at the same time we have reason to question how governments at various levels supervise these mines.

   The sad fact that such a mine with serious safety problems could pass three consecutive (连续的)local government safety inspections in a month is enough to tell us how ineffective the safety inspections were.

   What if these inspections were just a formality(形式)? What if the inspectors were bribed by the mine owners to turn a blind eye to the safety dangers? We can well imagine what would happen if reports about mine problems were handled by such officials.

   So a thorough probe must find out who are responsible for the death of so many miners. A real safety inspection and management system must be established to guarantee that safety dangers will be removed

64. What is NOT one of the causes of this coal mine accident?

  A. The workers didn’t operate properly.

  B. The mine didn’t obey the rules to mine for coal.

  C. A lot more miners than allowed were working under the mine.

  D. The safety inspections were ineffective.

65. According to the writer, who should be further investigated?

  A. Mine owners and miners.                 B. Miners’ families and mine staff.

  C. Government officials and safety inspectors.  D. The Shanxi governor and miners.

66. What can we infer from the passage?

  A. More than 105 miners died in the disaster.

  B. Some other coal mines like this one exist in Shanxi province.

  C. Safety inspectors just turned a blind eye to hidden dangers.

  D. The three inspections were only a formality.

67. What does the underlined word “tip-offs” probably mean in Paragraph 4?

  A. Some warnings.             B. Some money for one’s service.

  C. Some secret information.      D. Some pieces of advice.

Answer 1

【小题1】A

【小题2】C

【小题3】B

【小题4】C