How can we reduce the risk?

    There are four general approaches to dealing with volcanic dangers. We can try to keep the danger from occurring - often an impossible task. We can try to change its path or reduce its impact on existing development. We can take steps to protect future development. We can also do our best to have disaster response plans in place before they are needed.

Removing the Threat

    Clearly, there is no way to stop an eruption. We can, however, attempt to reduce the eruption's effects by strengthening structures, for example, building protective works such as walls to make lava(熔岩) flow away from developed areas. Such efforts can be and have been successful, but are of limited use in a large-scale eruption.

Planning for the Future

    Protecting future development from volcanic dangers is a simple task. Before building houses, we should judge the risk. If the risk seems too great, a safer location should be found. This type of planning is very effective, but all too often, people are drawn to the lush(葱郁的)，rolling land of a quiet volcano.

Disaster Preparedness

    When a volcano comes to life, a few weeks may not be enough time to avoid a tragedy. Planning is the key to saving lives. Well before the warning signs occur, people must be educated about volcanic dangers. Escape plans must be in place. Communication between scientists, officials, the media, and the general public should be practiced. Emergency measures must be thought out and agreed upon.

    If you doubt the importance of these efforts, take another look at past volcanic tragedies, such as the eruption of Nevado del Ruiz. Communication failures left the town of Armero unprepared for escape. When a deadly mudflow came down the slope(斜坡), 21,000 people— 90 percent of the town's people--died.

    The meaning of silence varies among cultural groups. Silences may be thoughtful, or they may be empty when a person has nothing to say. A silence in a conversation may also show stubbornness, uneasiness, or worry. Silence may be viewed by some cultural groups as extremely uncomfortable; therefore attempts may be made to fill every gap (间隙) with conversation. Persons in other cultural groups value silence and view it as necessary for understanding a person's needs.

    Many Native Americans value silence and feel it is a basic part of communicating among people, just as some traditional Chinese and Thai persons do. Therefore, when a person from one of these cultures is speaking and suddenly stops, what maybe implied (暗示) is that the person wants the listener to consider what has been said before continuing. In these cultures, silence is a call for reflection.

    Other cultures may use silence in other ways, particularly when dealing with conflicts among people or in relationships of people with different amounts of power. For example, Russian, French, and Spanish persons may use silence to show agreement between parties about the topic under discussion. However, Mexicans may use silence when instructions are given by a person in authority rather than be rude to that person by arguing with him or her. In still another use, persons in Asian cultures may view silence as a sign of respect, particularly to an elder or a person in authority.

    Nurses and other care-givers need to be aware of the possible meanings of silence when they come across the personal anxiety their patients may be experiencing. Nurses should recognize their own personal and cultural construction of silence so that a patient's silence is not interrupted too early or allowed to go on unnecessarily. A nurse who understands the healing (治愈) value of silence can use this understanding to assist in the care of patients from their own and from other cultures.

    Light travels at a speed which is about a million times faster than the speed of sound. In one second, light travels about 300,000 km, but sound travels only 344m. You can get some idea of this difference by watching the start of a race. If you stand some distance away from the Starter, you can see smoke come from his gun before the sound reaches your ears.
     This great speed of light produces some strange facts. Sunlight takes about 8 minutes to reach us. If you look at the light of the moon tonight, remember that the light rays (光线) left the moon 1.3 seconds before they reached you. The nearest star is so far away that the light which you can see from it tonight started to travel towards you four years ago at a speed of nearly 2 million km per minute. In some cases the light from one of tonight's stars started on its journey to you before you were born.

    Thus, if we want to be honest, we cannot say “The stars are shinning tonight.” We have to say, “The stars look pretty. They were shining four years ago but their light has only just reached Earth.”

阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项。

    The Gold Coast family holidays are always great fun whether you are from Australia or from abroad. There are beautiful beaches, adventure (冒险) parks, nature parks and so much more.

    There are so many sights to see here. It is a pity to drive in a car and you'll miss a great part of it. Australia is home to many animals and birds that can only be seen when moving slowly and going into the areas where they live.

    When you are on a bicycle, you have the advantage of being able to stop whenever you want to see an interesting animal or bird that you have never seen before. It is a quieter way of transportation as well, so you might even be able to take a picture. When you are on the beach, you can breathe that clean air and view the beauty of the water and sand. It is a totally different experience from passing it in a car.

    There are many choices of hiring (租用) a bicycle to experience the Gold Coast. There are stores that will fit a bike perfectly to your size. These bikes for both adults and children are in many kinds and colors to please any taste. If you have ever wanted to try a tandem bike (双人单车), now is your chance, because they have those too.

    A bicycle hire on Gold Coast is something that everyone should try at least once. This is a wonderful chance for anyone who likes to cycle and it is also a cheap way to travel with your family.

    An experiment was carried out at British school into the performance of new pupils. At the start of the year, the pupils were each given a rating, ranging from "excellent prospect" to "unlikely to do well". These were totally untrue ratings and did not reflect how well the pupils had previously performed. However, these ratings were given to the teachers. At the end of the year, the experimenters compared the pupils' performance with the ratings. Despite their real abilities, there was an astonishingly high connection between performance and ratings. It seems that people perform as well as we expect them to.

    The Self-fulfilling Effect is also known as the Pygmalion Effect. This comes from an old Greek story. The story was also the basis of George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion", later turned into the musical "My Fair Lady". In Shaw's play, Professor Henry Higgins claims he can turn a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle into a duchess. But, as Eliza herself points out to Higgins' friend Pickering, it isn't what she learns or does that determines whether she will become a duchess, but how she's treated.

    The implication (含义) of the Pygmalion Effect for leaders and managers is massive. It means that the performance of your team depends less on them than it does on you. The performance you get from people is no more or less than what you expect, which means you must always expect the best. As Goethe said, "Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be."

    You don't need to get in a time-traveling machine to see how technology will reshape our lives, such as the way we shop. Several new technologies that are to change your buying habits already exist. Let's see what's waiting for your future shopping.

    Try it on, virtually(虚拟的). Want to shop online for a new pair of eyeglasses? You don't need to guess which pair looks best on you. Go and see the eBay Fashion iPhone app to try a pair of eyewear you're checking out on a picture of your face. But what if you want to buy something bigger? Thanks to Microsoft Kinect's motion tracking camera, you can cover clothes on your screen body. You can even choose the background of your virtual fitting room to enrich your shopping experience.

    Get a perfect, custom fit. Everyone's body is shaped differently. To get a perfect fit, you sometimes have to get your clothes changed. But by using 3D scanning(扫描) technology, all the clothes you buy will fit your body perfectly. Some companies scan your body using High-tech to get the most exact sizes, so they can make special clothes just for you.

    Experience high-tech shopping carts and checkout counters. High-tech shopping carts could, in time, be a common sight in malls and supermarkets. Microsoft Kinect-enabled carts are under test at present. The cart can follow you along the aisles (通道), controlled only by your movement and your voice. In China, a supermarket chain(连锁超市) introduced tablet-equipped carts that guide shoppers around the stores' aisles.

    In the United States, several supermarkets use a device(装置) called Scan It that gives buyers the freedom to scan goods on their own while they shop. While it's great not having to line up at a checkout counter, we wouldn't mind it if the store used Toshiba's new Object Recognition Scanner. The machine identifies(辨认) a product as soon as it's placed in front of a camera just by its shape and color, even if it has no bar code(条形码).