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What can we infer from the passage？
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Text 3
Everyone has heard of the San Andreas fault, which constantly threatens California and the West Coast with earth- quakes. But how many people know about the equally serious New Madrid fault in Missouri.'？
Between December of 1811 and February of 1812, three major earthquakes occurred, all centered around the town of New Madrid, Missouri, on the Mississippi River. Property damage was severe.
Buildings in the area were almost dest oyed. Whole forests fell at once, and huge cracks opened in the ground, allowing smell of sulfur to filter upward.
The Mississippi River itself completely changed character, developing sudden rapids and whirlpools. Several times it changed its course, and once, according to some observers, it actually appeared to run backwards. Few people were killed in the New Madrid earthquakes, probably simply because few people lived in the area in 1811; but the severity of the earth- quakes are shown by the fact that the shock waves rang bells in church towers in Charleston, South Carolina, on the coast. Buildings shook in New York City, and clocks were stopped in Washington D.C. Scientists now know that America's two major faults are essentially different. The San Andreas is a horizontal boundary between two major land masses that are slowly moving in opposite directions. California earthquakes result when the movement of these two masses suddenly lurches forward.
The New Madrid fault, on the other hand, is a vertical fault; at some point, possibly hundreds of millions of years ago, rock was pushed up toward the surface, probably by volcanoes under the surface. Suddenly, the volcanoes cooled and the rock collapsed, leaving huge cracks. Even now', the rock continues to settle downwards, and sudden sinking motions trigger earthquakes in the region. The fault itself, a large crack in this layer of rock, with dozens of other cracks that split off from it, extends from northeast Arkansas through Missouri and into southern Illinois.
Scientists who have studied the New Madrid fault say there have been numerous smaller quakes in the area since 1811; these smaller quakes indicate that larger ones are probably coming, but rite scientists say they have no method of predicting when a large earthquake will occur.
31. This passage is mainly about ______.
A) environment B) field C) layer D) shell
A) affected B) respected C) protected D) connected
Text 4
Could the bad old days of economic decline be about to return？ Since OPEC agreed to supply - cuts in March, the price of crude oil has jumped to almost $ 26 a barrel, up from less than $10 last December. This near - tripling of oil prices calls up scary memories of the 1973 oil shock, when prices quadrupled, and 1979 -80, when they also almost tri- pled. Both previous shocks resulted in double - digit inflation and global economic decline. So there are the headlines warning of gloom and doom this time？
The oil price was given another push up this week when Iraq suspended oil experts. Strengthening economic growth, al the' same time as winter grips the northern hemisphere, could push the price higher still in the short Item.
Yet there are good reasons to expect the economic consequences now to be less severe than in the 1970s. In most countries the cost of crude oil now accounts for a smaller share of the price of petrol than it did in the 1970s. In Europe, tuxes account for up to four - fifths of the retail price, so even quite big changes in the price of crude have a more muted effect on pump prices than in the past.
Rich economies are also less dependent on oil than they were, and so less sensitive to swings in the 'oil price. Energy conservation, a shift to other fuels and a decline in the importance of heavy, energy-intensive industries have reduced oil consumption. Software, consultancy and mobile telephones use far less oil than steel or car production. For each dollar of GDP (in constant prices) rich economies now use nearly 50% less oil than in 1973. The OECD estimates in its latest Economic Outlook that, oil prices averaged $ 22 a barrel for a full year, compared with $13 in 1998, this would increase the oil import bill in rich economies by only 0.25 - 0.5% of GDP. That is less than one-quarter of the income loss in 1974 or 1980. On the other hand, oil-importing emerging economies—to which heavy industry has shifted—have become more energy-intensive, and se could he more seriously squeezed.
One more reason net to lose sleep over the rise in oil prices is that, unlike the rises in the 1970s, it has not occurred against the background of general commodity-price inflation and global excess demand. A sizable portion of the world is only just emerging from economic decline. The Economist's commodity price index is broadly unchanging from a year ago. In 1973 commodity prices jumped by 70%, and in 1979 by almost 30%.
36. The main reason for the latest rise of oil price is______.
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