Part II Reading Comprehension(50 minutes, 30 Points)
Directions: There are 6 passages in this part. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A , B, C and D . You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on the ANSWER SHEET with a single line through the center .
Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following Passage.
Nuclear power's danger to health, safety, and even life itself can be summed up in one word: radiation.
Nuclear radiation has a certain mystery about it, partly because it cannot be detected by human senses. It can't be seen or heard, or touched or tasted, even though it may be all around us. There are other things like that. For example, radio waves are all around us but we can't sense radioactivity without a radiation detector .But unlike common radio waves, nuclear radiation is not harmless to human beings and other living things.
At very high levels, radiation can kill an animal or human being outright by killing masses of cell in vital organs. But even the lowest levels can do serious damage. There is no level of radiation that is completely safe. If the radiation does nor hit anything important, the damage may not be significant. This is the case when only a few cells are hit, and if they arc killed outright. Your body will replace the dead cells with healthy ones. But if the few cells arc only damaged, and if they reproduce themselves, you may be in trouble. They reproduce themselves in a deformed way. They can grow into cancer. Sometimes this does not show up for many years.
This is another reason for some of the mystery about nuclear radiation. Serious damage can be done without the victim being aware at the time that damage has occurred. A person can be irradiated and feel fine, then die of cancer five, ten, or twenty years later as a result. Or a child can be born weak or liable to serious illness as a result of radiation absorbed by its grandparents.
Radiation can hurt us. We must know the truth.