Instructions
Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow.
Comprehension:
It was the buzz of boardrooms, power lunches and anxious phone calls from the freeway. It was debated by stockbrokers, real estate
agents, Hollywood producers and media big feet. Mid-level executives who wouldn't leave home without a phone in their pocket - or at
their ear - were putting off calls or finding other ways to make them. Sales of cellular phones which had been growing at a sizzling 20%
to 70% a year for the past decade were temporarily put on hold.
Do cellular phones really cause brain tumours? The safety of the ultimate yuppie accessory was called into question by the news in the
U.S. that two prominent executives had been stricken by brain cancer (though the connection to phone use is unclear) and by a
well publicised lawsuit in which a Florida man charged that his wife's fatal brain tumour was caused by her cellular phone.
It was not the kind of evidence that would be accepted by the new England Journal of Medicine, but it struck a nerve. American viewers
tuned in to hear David Reynard, the Florida widower tell the story of his wife's death to Larry King, Bryant Gumbel, Faith Daniels
and dozens of radio talk-show hosts.
Even wall street took notice, knocking a couple of points off McCaw Cellular, Contel Cellular and Motorola the day after Reynard's
appearance on the Larry King live show. The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association was finally forced to respond,
announcing that it would fund new studies and ask the government to review the findings.
The phone flap is the latest in a series of scares linking everyday electrical objects (hair dryers, electric razors, electric blankets, home
computers) to one dreaded disease or another. Despite the panic, the case against cellular phones is nowhere near as strong as the
ones mounted against electric power lines, electric blankets or even hand held police radars.