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TEACHER: ALLISSON SOUZA CLASS: ____________________________
NAME: _____________________________________________________________
DATE: ______________________________________________________________

Silent weapons: Technological Hurdles for terrorists

To be successful, a terrorist or terrorist organization has to overcome formidable technical challenges. First, the
terrorist has to obtain a sufficiently lethal strain of a disease pathogen. Second, he must know how to handle and
store the pathogen correctly and safely. Third he must know to produce it in bulk. Tiny amounts of a microorgan-
ism are lethal enough to ravage a field of crops, a herd of animal, or a city of people, assuming the pathogen is
delivered precisely to the target. However, biological agents do not survive well outside the laboratory. In reality,
only a fraction of the biological agent would reach the target population, so vastly larger amounts would be needed
to launch a catastrophic attack. Considering the array of technological hurdles involved, it is surprising that few
terrorists attacks with biological weapons have been attempted. What is more, those attempts produced few casual-
ties. Recently, anthrax-laced letters killed five people in the United States. That is tragic enough, but the casualties
were fewer than might have occurred from a small explosive or even a pistol. Researchers calculate that since
1975, in 96 percent of the attacks worldwide in which chemical agents were used no more than three people were
killed or injured.

Answer according to the text:

1) To be successful, a terrorist or terrorist organization has to:

a) Produce species of a disease pathogen in a great quantity.

b) Know a disease pathogen deeply before it is produced.
c) Experiment a disease pathogen in other species, like mice.
d) Search for similar species of a disease pathogen beforehand.
e) Prove how useful a disease pathogen could satisfactory be.

2) Assuming that the pathogen is well-delivered, the amount of microorganism considering the target popu-
lation:

a) Has to be lower. b) May be ignored

c) Is proportionally calculated. d) Will never be enough.
e) Must be redefined.

3) Terrorist attacks with biological agents have.

a) Killed many human beings b) Proved to be meaningless

c) Produced uncertain consequences d) Been constantly delayed
e) Brought about few injuries

4) In the phrase, casualties were fewer than might have occurred, line 10, the word in italics implies:

a) Possibility b) Assumption
c) Permission d) Capacity
e) Necessity

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