CHERNOBYL, Ukraine-Twelve times a month-the maximum number of shifts the doctors will allow-Sergei A. Krasikov takes a train across the no man's land and reports for work at a structure enclosing Reactor No.4 known as "(1)the sarcophagus."

(2)            is to pump out radioactive liquid that has collected inside the burned-out reactor. This happens whenever it rains. The sarcophagus was built 25 years ago in a panic, as radiation streamed into populated areas after an explosion at the reactor, and now (3)it is riddled with cracks.

Water cannot be allowed to touch the thing that is deep inside the reactor: about 200 tons of melted nuclear fuel and debris, which burned through the floor and hardened, in one spot, into the shape of an elephant's foot. (4)            that scientists cannot approach it. But years ago, when they managed to place measurement instruments nearby, they got readings of 10,000 rem per hour, which is 2,000 times the yearly limit recommended for workers in the nuclear industry.

Mr. Krasikov, who has broad shoulders and a clear, blue-eyed gaze, has been baby-sitting this monster for eight years. He'll stay until (5)he is pensioned off and then leave his job to another man, who will stay until he is pensioned off. (6)            how long this will continue, Mr. Krasikov shrugged.

"A hundred years?" he ventured. "Maybe in that time they will invent something."

The death of a nuclear reactor has a beginning; the world is watching this unfold now on the coast of Japan. But it doesn't have (7)           .

(8)            some radioactive elements in nuclear fuel decay quickly, cesium's half-life is 30 years and strontium's is 29 years. Scientists estimate that it takes 10 to 13 half-lives before life and economic activity can return to an area. That means that the contaminated area-designated by Ukraine's Parliament as 15,000 square miles, around the size of Switzerland-will be affected for more than (9)            years. All last week, workers frantically tried to cool the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant 140 miles north of Tokyo. But one had to look at Ukraine to understand the sheer tedium and exhaustion of dealing with the (10)aftermath of a meltdown. It is a problem that does not exist on a human time frame.

Volodymyr P. Udovychenko drove to Ukraine's Parliament building on Tuesday, (11)            in a shiny purple shirt and tie. He is the mayor of Slavutych, which is home to most of the 3,400 workers who are still employed at the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station. Most of them have not received their full salaries since January, and the mayor was requesting $\$$3.6 million to pay them. "The leadership turns away from this, they think that Chernobyl doesn't exist," he said. "Chernobyl (12)            exist. And those 200 tons-they also exist."

• 1. Phrase (1) is closest in meaning to
  • a) the pool
  • b) the field
  • c) the mountain
  • d) the coffin
• 2. Which phrase goes in blank (2)?
  • a) Among his tasks
  • b) With his tasks
  • c) In his tasks
  • d) At his tasks
• 3. Which does pronoun (3) refer to?
  • a) the burned-out reactor
  • b) the sarcophagus
  • c) a panic
  • d) radiation
• 4. Which of the following goes in blank (4)?
  • a) This remains mass so highly radioactive
  • b) This radioactive mass remains so highly
  • c) This remains radioactive mass so highly
  • d) This mass remains so highly radioactive
• 5. Underlined part (5) is closest in meaning to
  • a) he buys a small house
  • b) he moves into a summer house
  • c) he retires
  • d) he pays off his debt
• 6. Which word or phrase is most appropriate for blank (6)?
  • a) To be asked
  • b) Asked
  • c) To ask
  • d) To have asked
• 7. Which phrase goes in blank (7)?
  • a) an aim
  • b) an end
  • c) a purpose
  • d) a view
• 8. Which word goes in blank (8)?
  • a) When
  • b) If
  • c) While
  • d) Like
• 9. Which number goes in blank (9)?
  • a) 200
  • b) 300
  • c) 500
  • d) 1,000
• 10. Word (10) is closest in meaning to
  • a) consequences
  • b) danger
  • c) significanoe
  • d) destruction
• 11. Which word or phrase is most appropriate for blank (11)?
  • a) to dress
  • b) dressing
  • c) dressed
  • d) to have dressed
• 12. Which of the following goes in blank (12)?
  • a) do
  • b) does
  • c) do not
  • d) does not

To visit Chernobyl today is to feel time passing.

(13)           , a little over a mile from the plant, where 50,000 people were given a few hours to (14)evacuate, wallpaper has slipped down under its own weight and paint has peeled away from apartment walls in fat curls. Ice glazes the interiors. On a residential street, where (15)Soviet housing blocks tower in every direction, it is quiet enough to hear the sound of individual leaves brushing against branches.

(16)           . Anton Yukhimenko, who leads tours of (17)the dead zone, said that wild boars and foxes had begun to take shelter in the abandoned city, and (18)            once, skirting a forest, he noticed a wolf soundlessly loping along beside him. (19)           , its supporting structures finally rotted out by 25 winters and summers.

"This is a city that has been captured by wilderness" he said. "I think in 20 years it will be one big forest."

(20)           , but a photographer and I made the journey last week with Chernobylinterinform, a division of Ukraine's Emergency Ministry. At the checkpoint leading to (21)the exclusion zone, there is a small statue of the Virgin Mary and a placard listing the amounts of cesium and strontium found in mushrooms, fish and (22)wild game.

• 13. Which of the following goes in blank (13)?
  • a) Not long ago, one of the city's major buildings, School No.1, came crashing down
  • b) The wild world is gradually pressing its way in
  • c) The public is not allowed within 18 miles of Reactor No.4
  • d) In Pripyat, the plant workers' former bedroom community
• 14. Word (14) is closest in meaning to
  • a) move out
  • b) come back
  • c) go forward
  • d) stay
• 15. Underlined part (15) is closest in meaning to
  • a) Blocks of apartment houses built in Soviet times stand high all around.
  • b) There is a tower with groups of apartment buildings from Soviet times around it.
  • c) There is a Soviet housing tower with blocks of apartments around it.
  • d) You can see the building of the housing office from Soviet times stand high.
• 16. Which of the following goes in blank (16)?
  • a) Not long ago, one of the city's major buildings, School No.1, came crashing down
  • b) The wild world is gradually pressing its way in
  • c) The public is not allowed within 18 miles of Reactor No.4
  • d) In Pripyat, the plant workers' former bedroom community
• 17. What does phrase (17) mean in this context?
  • a) It is an area where any living thing will instantly die.
  • b) It is an area where no living things are expected to be found.
  • c) It is the area where people are dying.
  • d) It is the area where dead people are buried.
• 18. Which word is most appropriate for blank (18)?
  • a) before
  • b) like
  • c) as
  • d) that
• 19. Which of the following goes in blank (19)?
  • a) Not long ago, one of the city's major buildings, School No.1, came crashing down
  • b) The wild world is gradually pressing its way in
  • c) The public is not allowed within 18 miles of Reactor No.4
  • d) In Pripyat, the plant workers' former bedroom community
• 20. Which of the following goes in blank (20)?
  • a) Not long ago, one of the city's major buildings, School No.1, came crashing down
  • b) The wild world is gradually pressing its way in
  • c) The public is not allowed within 18 miles of Reactor No.4
  • d) In Pripyat, the plant workers' former bedroom community
• 21. What does phrase (21) mean?
  • a) the area with some cesium and strontium
  • b) the area where only Christians live
  • c) the area with a sign warning of radiation
  • d) the area that ordinary people are not allowed to enter
• 22. Phrase (22) is closest in meaning to
  • a) wild grass
  • b) wild insects
  • c) wild animals
  • d) wild flowers

At the six-mile radius begins the zone of (23)            resettlement. A stand of scorched-looking trees marks the so-called Red Forest, (24)after the color of dead pines that were bulldozed en masse and buried in trenches. As we approached the plant, the guides' radiation detector suddenly registered 1,500 microrem-50 times normal, they said, perhaps because we had been caught by a gust of wind.

At the center of (25)it all is the sarcophagus, its sides uneven and streaked with rust.

(26)            the early 1990s, Ukrainian officials have been working on a plan to replace it, finally launching a project called the New Safe Confinement, a 300-foot steel arch that will enclose and seal off the reactor for the next 100 years. Its cost is estimated at $\$$1.4 billion, to be paid largely by donor nations. The project, originally scheduled to be finished in 2005, has been (27)beset by delays and financing shortfalls.

(28)           , the winter's snows are turning to rain, and rainwater leaking into the reactor (29)could have unpredictable results, said Stephan G. Robinson, a nuclear physicist who works for Green Cross Switzerland, an environmental organization.

"In winter, it will freeze," said Dr. Robinson, who was touring the site last week. "Water expands and it breaks. Then maybe some of the inside collapses. A little cloud disappears through a crack. If there's rain, it means there is a way in. And if there is a way in, there is also a way out."

But even after the new arch is built, Mr. Krasikov (30)            that it will be possible to end the long (31)vigil over Reactor No.4.

"Nobody knows (32)            to do with (33)            is inside," he said. "There will be enough work for my children and my grandchildren."

By evening, on our way out of the site, light is tilting through the pine forests, a peaceful enough scene except for the vivid yellow-and-orange triangles planted in the forest floor, warning of radiation. Workers stream out through a wall of man-sized Geiger counters, each one waiting for the machine to thunk and flash green (34)            making his or her way out of the exclusion zone and down the battered highway.

Tomorrow, they will come back to Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station for (35)            day of work.

• 23. Which word is most appropriate for blank (23)?
  • a) questionable
  • b) correlative
  • c) mandatory
  • d) emotional
• 24. Which sentence contains the same use of 'after' as (24)?
  • a) The police are after the murderer.
  • b) He ran after her with the book.
  • c) Not long after that he resigned.
  • d) Shannon was named after her grandmother.
• 25. What does pronoun (25) refer to?
  • a) the zone
  • b) the Red Forest
  • c) the guides' radiation detector
  • d) a gust of wind
• 26. Which word is most appropriate for blank (26)?
  • a) In
  • b) During
  • c) For
  • d) Since
• 27. Word (27) is closest in meaning to
  • a) managed
  • b) unfledged
  • c) troubled
  • d) conducted
• 28. Which phrase is most appropriate for blank (28)?
  • a) On the contrary
  • b) In the meantime
  • c) As a whole
  • d) In particular
• 29. Which sentence contains the same use of 'could' as (29)?
  • a) I could hear what they were saying very clearly.
  • b) Could you lend me a hand?
  • c) Mary said that I could use her phone.
  • d) The question could be difficult for students.
• 30. Which word is most appropriate for blank (30)?
  • a) suspects
  • b) doubts
  • c) thinks
  • d) supposes
• 31. Word (31) is closest in meaning to
  • a) warning
  • b) survey
  • c) watch
  • d) analysis
• 32. Which word is most appropriate for blank (32)?
  • a) what
  • b) that
  • c) who
  • d) which
• 33. Which word is most appropriate for blank (33)?
  • a) what
  • b) that
  • c) who
  • d) which
• 34. Which word is most appropriate for blank (34)?
  • a) after
  • b) before
  • c) if
  • d) because
• 35. Which of the following goes in blank (35)?
  • a) another
  • b) other
  • c) some
  • d) some other