|
Unit 10
Risks
In-Class Reading
Risks and You
I. Word List
Directions: Memorize the following words and phrases before class. You will benefit from your effort when you get the passage from your teacher and read it in class.
New Words
accidentally *
adv. by chance 意外地;偶然地
e.g. They met on the street accidentally.
accordingly *
adv. in a manner that is suggested by what is known or has been said 照着;相应地
e.g. I've told you what the situation is; you must act accordingly .
armored
adj. 装甲的
assess *
v. judge or decide the amount, value, quality of 评定;确定
e.g. The insurers need to assess the flood damage.
clarification *
n. statement or fact that clarifies something 用来澄清的话或事实
e.g. The country has sought clarifications on the plan for peace talks.
crash *
n. violent accident involving one or more vehicles 撞车;碰撞
e.g. He survived the plane crash but died in the desert.
definitive *
adj. 确定的,决定性的
e.g. There were no definitive solutions to this problem.
denominator
n. 分母
disaster *
n. 灾难
e.g. All these difficulties were caused by natural disasters.
fraction *
n. precise division of a number 分数,小数
gas *
n. (gases or gasses) 汽油
head-on
adj. with the front parts meeting, usually violently 正面相撞的
hypochondria
n. 疑病症
hypochondriac
n. 疑病症患者
inconvenience *
n. 不方便
e.g. The delay caused great inconvenience.
indefinitely *
adv. 不确定地;不限定地
inflate
v. become filled with air or gas; swell 充满气体;膨胀
injury *
n. physical harm or damage done to a living thing 伤害;损害
e.g. They were lucky to escape injury.
miner *
n. 矿工
multiply *
v. increase greatly in number 增加;增多
e.g. Mistakes have been multiplying rapidly.
neurotic
n. 神经症患者
numerator
n. 分子
partial *
adj. not complete 局部的,不完全的
e.g. The play was only a partial success.
physician *
n. 医生, (尤指) 内科医生
probability *
n. 可能性
e.g. There is no probability of his coming now.
ratio *
n. a relationship between two amounts that is represented by a pair of numbers showing how much greater one amount is than the other 比,比率
e.g. The ratio of nursing staff to doctors is 20:1.
risky *
adj. (-ier, -iest)有风险的
e.g. Buying a secondhand car can be a risky business.
riskiness *
n. 风险性
rob *
v. 抢劫
e.g. To get rich quick, they decided to rob a bank.
roughly *
adv. approximately 大概,大约
e.g. There are roughly half a million people in the city.
sensible *
adj. reasonable, practical, and able to judge things well 明智的;合情理的
e.g. I think that's a very sensible suggestion.
suspect *
v. think or believe (something) to be true or probable 怀疑,疑心
e.g. I suspect he did it.
symptom *
n. 病症
e.g. Fever is a symptom of illness.
tremble *
v. 颤抖
e.g. She trembled with cold.
uncertainty *
n. something that is uncertain 不肯定的事
e.g. Whether she will come is still an uncertainty.
versus *
prep. against 对,和......相对
e.g. Today's football match is the School versus the Old Boys.
Risks and You
1 At some time or other, all of us have played the part of a hypochondriac, imagining that we have some terrible disease on the strength of very minor symptoms. Some people just have to hear about a new disease and they begin checking themselves to see if they may be suffering from it. But fear of disease is not our only fear, and neither is risk of disease the only risk we run. Modern life is full of all manner of threats-to our lives, our peace of mind, our families, and our future. And from these threats come questions that we must pose to ourselves: Is the food I buy safe? Are toys for my children likely to hurt them? Should my family avoid smoked meats? Am I likely to be robbed on vacations? Our uncertainties multiply indefinitely.
2 Anxiety about the risks of life is a bit like hypochondria; in both, the fear or anxiety feeds on partial information. But one sharp difference exists between the two. The hypochondriac can usually turn to a physician to get a definitive clarification of the situation-either you have the suspected disease or you don't. It is much more difficult when anxiety about other forms of risk is concerned, because with many risks, the situation is not as simple.
3 Risks are almost always a matter of probability rather than certainty. You may ask, "Should I wear a seat belt?" If you're going to have a head-on collision, of course. But what if you get hit from the side and end up trapped inside the vehicle, unable to escape because of a damaged seat belt mechanism? So does this mean that you should spend the extra money for an air bag? Again, in head-on collisions, it may well save your life. But what if the bag accidentally inflates while you are driving down the highway, thus causing an accident that would never have occurred otherwise?
4 All of this is another way of saying that nothing we do is completely safe. There are risks, often potentially serious ones, associated with every hobby we have, every job we take, every food we eat-in other words, with every action. But the fact that there are risks associated with everything we are going to do does not, or should not, reduce us to trembling neurotics. Some actions are riskier than others. The point is to inform ourselves about the relevant risks and then act accordingly.
5 For example, larger cars are generally safer than small ones in collisions. But how much safer? The answer is that you are roughly twice as likely to die in a serious crash in a small car than in a large one. Yet larger cars generally cost more than small ones (and also use more gas, thus increasing the environmental risks!), so how do we decide when the reduced risks are worth the added costs? The ultimate risk avoider might, for instance, buy a tank or an armored car, thus minimizing the risk of death or injury in a collision. But is the added cost and inconvenience worth the difference in price, even supposing you could afford it?
6 We cannot begin to answer such questions until we have a feel for the level of risks in question. So how do we measure the level of a risk? Some people seem to think that the answer is a simple number. We know, for instance, that about 25,000 people per year die in automobile accidents. By contrast, only about 300 die per year in mine accidents and disasters. Does that mean that riding in a car is much riskier than mining? Not necessarily. The fact is that some 200 million Americans regularly ride in automobiles in the United States every year; perhaps 700,000 are involved in mining. The relevant figure that we need to assess a risk is a ratio or fraction. The numerator of the fraction tells us how many people were killed or harmed as the result of a particular activity over a certain period of time; the denominator tells us how many people were involved in that activity during that time. All risk levels are thus ratios or fractions, with values between 0 (no risk) and 1 (totally risky).
7 By reducing all risks to ratios or fractions of this sort, we can begin to compare different sorts of risks-like mining versus riding in a car. The larger this ratio, that is, the closer it is to 1, the riskier the activity in question. In the case just discussed, we would find the relative safety of car travel and coal mining by dividing the numbers of lives lost in each by the number of people participating in each. Here, it is clear that the riskiness of traveling by car is about 1 death per 10,000 passengers; with mining, the risk level is about 4 deaths per 10,000 miners. So although far more people are killed in car accidents than in mining, the latter turns out to be four times riskier than the former. Those ratios enable us to compare the risks of activities or situations as different as apples and oranges. If you are opposed to risks, you will want to choose your activities by focusing on the small-ratio exposures. If you are reckless, then you are not likely to be afraid of higher ratios unless they get uncomfortably large.
8 Once we understand that risk can never be totally eliminated from any situation and that, therefore, nothing is completely safe, we will then see that the issue is not one of avoiding risks altogether but rather one of managing risks in a sensible way. Risk management requires two things: common sense and information about the character and degree of the risks we may be running. (963 words)
Time taken: _________ minutes
Phrases and Expressions
all manner of
many different kinds of 各种
e.g. We would discuss all manner of subjects.
divide...by
某数除以某数
e.g. Ten divided by two equals five.
end up
最后(有某种结局)
e.g. He'll end up in prison if he's not careful.
feed on
be strengthened by 从......得到滋养
e.g. Hatred feeds on envy.
in question
being discussed or talked about 所谈论的
e.g. That is not the subject in question.
may well
be very likely to 很可能
e.g. She may well refuse to speak to you, because she's in a very bad mood.
on the strength of
on the basis of 根据
e.g. I invested in this company on the strength of my brother's advice.
reduce...to
1) 使某人陷入某种(通常指更坏的)状态或状况中
e.g. Laziness has reduced him to a beggar.
2) 将某事物概括或简化成某种形式
e.g. The report can be reduced to three main points.
|