Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question. 

1.Every year a great number of babies and young children die or are injured in fires. One out of every five fires is caused by careless smoking or by children playing with matches and lighters. Don’t tempt children by leaving matches or lighters around a room.
2.Never leave a child alone in a house. In just a few seconds they could start a fire. Or a fire could start and trap them. A child will panic in a fire and will not know what to do. Unless a parent is around to help, a child may try to hide under a bed or in a closet. Home fire drills are a sound idea. The best way to stop panic in case of fire is to know what to do before a fire breaks out.
3.Your first thought in a fire should always be escape. Far too many people become victims because they do not know the killing power and speed of fire. If a fire is very small and has just started, you can put it out yourself. Do this if you have the proper tools on hand. In any case always send the children outside first. Smoke, not fire, is the real killer in a blaze. According to studies, as many as eight out of ten deaths in fires are due to inhaling fumes long before the flames ever came near the person.
4.Burns are another hazard to tots. Fireplaces, space heaters, floor furnaces, and radiators have all caused horrible burns to babies. Since you cannot watch your child all the time, you must screen fireplaces. Put guards around heaters and radiators.
5.Some people use a vaporizer or portable heater in a child’s room. If you do, be sure you place it out of reach. Be sure, too, that it is not placed too close to blankets or bedclothes.
6.Use care in the kitchen. It is not safe to let an infant crawl or a small child walk around the kitchen while you are preparing meals. There is danger of your tripping and spilling something hot on the child. There is even danger of a child pulling in a hot pot off the stove on to herself. Also, do not use tablecloths that hang over the table edge. Children can easily pull the cloth and whatever is on the table down. Be aware of these dangers and protect your child.

Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question.

     It is such an odd relationship between people and pandas．We are so fond of them that when the Chinese government lent a pair to the San Diego Zoo for six months，the number of visitors increased sharply，and the zoo sold over half a million panda T-shirts．When a Panda was born in Tokyo Zoo in 1986，thousands of people phoned daily to hear a recording of the baby’s cry．
     Although the reason we love pandas is not easy to explain，animal scientists offer some plausible theories．They suggest that parenting instincts are aroused by the common characteristics of babies：round faces and small jaws．Pandas，even in adulthood，display all of these interesting features．
     Until recently，however，it seemed nearly certain that this much-loved creature was destined to die out．Even now the giant panda numbers fewer than 1000 in a shrinking wilderness in one small area in China，an untimely end for the world’s most beloved wild species may still be avoidable．“It’s easy to save the panda，”says George Schaller，the New York Zoological Society’s panda expert and a world renowned zoologist．“All it needs is bamboo and peace．”
     Wild life experts have recommended some basic steps to help．A detailed plan for the protection of panda has been drawn up by the Wildlife Fund，in cooperation with the Chinese Ministry of Forestry．The plan calls for a 70％ increase in the panda preserve at a cost of $20，000，000 over five years．The plan was submitted to the Chinese government in August，1989．After more than a year of debating and delay，the National People’s Congress voted in favor of the bill to fund the plan．
     Almost 100 pandas are kept in Chinese Zoos and at institutions in other countries，but during the past three decades fewer than 100 baby pandas have been born in China．And the majority of these have died young．
     Despite such unfavorable circumstance，the giant pandas prospects are better now than in the recent past． New insights into behavior，diet and physiology offer hope to protect and raise these animals more effectively．
     The most promising hope for panda’s future seems to be the increased efforts by Chinese government．They have established 13 panda reserves and announced plans for 14 more．A farm has been relocated away from a panda habitat, and some 60 families living in one reserve have been relocated，costing the government nearly $ 370，00．Public concern for the welfare of pandas has been heightened by stiff penalties for poaching—although it remains a serious problem．A few farmers have captured isolated pandas and released them back to larger habitats．

Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question.

     In some ways, yes—but the differences matter more．Just as human history has been shaped by the rise and fall of successive empires，the computer industry has, in the few decades of its existence，been dominated by one large company after another．During the mainframe era，IBM wore the crown．But it fumbled the transition to smaller machines in the personal-computer era，and the throne was usurped by Microsoft．Now，at the dawn of the new era of Internet services，Google is widely seen as the heir to the kingdom．As the upstart has matured into a powerful industry giant，the suggestion that “Google is the new Microsoft ”has become commonplace in computing circles．Is it true?
     The comparison is both a compliment and a reproach．It is a compliment because it implies that Google has now become the company that defines the environment in which other technology firms operate，just as IBM and Microsoft once did．As with Microsoft in its heyday，Google is the technology firm where the smartest geeks aspire to work；it embodies the technological zeitgeist；and it is a highly regarded company that has become a household name．But the comparison is also a reproach，because it highlights growing concern that Google is now too powerful for its own good，or that of the industry，or indeed that of the world at large．
     For many people，Google provides the front door to the Internet．For many online businesses,their position in its search ranking—the workings of which are a closely guarded secret—is a matter of life or death．Too much power is thus concentrated in Google’s hands，say critics，including Microsoft’s Bill Gates．Microsoft and other big Internet firms，including eBay，Amazon and Yahoo，are now said to be negotiating various alliances in order to provide a counterweight to the new behemoth．Smaller firms feel even more vulnerable．As soon as Google says it is moving into a particular market，small fry in that market now dart for cover，unless they are lucky enough to be acquired by Google．
     Yet there are some crucial ways in which Google differs from Microsoft．For a start，it is a far more innovative company，and its use of small，flexible teams has so far allowed it to remain innovative even as it has grown．Microsoft，in contrast，has stagnated as a result of its size and dominance．It is least innovative in the markets in which it faces the least competition—operating systems，office software and web browsers—though it is，curiously，still capable of innovating in markets in which it has strong rivals(notably video gaming)．
     Try to avoid using Microsoft software for a day，particularly if you work in an office，and you will have difficulty；but surviving a day without Google is relatively easy．It has strong competitors in all the markets in which it operates：search，online advertising，mapping，software services，and so on．Large firms such as Yahoo，which previously farmed searches out to Google，have switched to other technologies．Google’s market share in search has fallen from a high of around 80％ to around 50％ today．Perhaps the clearest evidence that Google’s continued dominance is not inevitable is the fate of Alta Vista，the former top dog in Internet search．Who remembers it today?

Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question. 

     Many people believe that beavers are intelligent animals. After all, their dams are fine examples of engineering. The engineering feats of beavers are well known, but it will be useful to recall their main features.
     A pair of beavers will construct a dam across a river. The water held back by the dam overflows the bank on either side of the river, flooding the adjacent ground and forming a pond. At some point in the pond the beavers then build their home, which is called a lodge. This consists of a conical pile of branches and sticks of two to six feet in length held together with mud and stones, the top of which projects above the waterline. It serves as a shelter from the elements, a refuge from enemies and a base for food supplies to be drawn upon in winter.
     From an engineering point of view the lodge could hardly be improved．Not only does it contain a central chamber just above water level，but it also has one or more escape tunnels，well-insulated walls and a vertical chimney，which regulates the temperature inside and gives air-conditioning．It is altogether a cunning piece of construction，with all modern conveniences．It is，in fact，better protected against the effects of flooding than many human habitations.
     Trees are essential to beavers．They eat the bark on the upper branches，and in order to reach these they must fell the trees．Tree-felling is a skilled job，as anyone who has felled even a sapling knows． But beavers fell more than saplings．A pair is said to be able to fell a tree four inches in diameter in 15 minutes．They do it by gnawing all round the trunk，as high up from the ground as they can reach．They often build platforms of mud and earth to enable them to cut through the tree where the trunk is narrower.
     The engineering skill of beavers is to a large extent a result of their ability to use their front paws as hands．A female will carry her young held under her chin with her front paws walking on her hind legs．A similar method is used by all beavers when transporting stones or mud，although they also carry such materials on their broad flat tails．The forepaws are also used for burrowing and for dragging heavier logs.
     It is easy，therefore，to see why people should talk about the beaver’ s skill，cleverness and intelligence．However，the structure of the beaver’s brain gives no indication that the animal is any more intelligent than other rodents．Any of its actions，which appear to be the result of a higher order of reasoning，can be shown to be due to instinct and are suspected of being the outcome of an inborn pattern of behavior.

Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question. 

     That experiences influence subsequent behavior is evidence of an obvious but nevertheless remarkable activity called remembering．Learning could not occur without the function popularly named memory．Constant practice has such an effect on memory as to 1ead to skilful performance on the piano，to recitation of a poem，and even to reading and understanding these words．So-called intelligent behavior demands memory，remembering being a primary requirement for reasoning．The ability to solve any problem or even to recognize that a problem exists depends on memory．Typically，the decision to cross a street is based on remembering many earlier experiences．
     Practice (or review) tends to build and maintain memory for a task or for any learned material．Over a period of no practice what has been learned tends to be forgotten；and the adaptive consequences may not seem obvious．Yet，dramatic instances of sudden forgetting can be seen to be adaptive．In this sense，the ability to forget can be interpreted to have survived through a process of natural selection in animals．Indeed，when one’s memory of an emotionally painful experience leads to serious anxiety，forgetting may produce relief．Nevertheless，an evolutionary interpretation might make it difficult to understand how the commonly gradual process of forgetting survived natural selection．
     In thinking about the evolution of memory together with all its possible．aspects，it is helpful to consider what would happen if memories failed to fade．Forgetting clearly aids orientation in time，since old memories weaken and the new tend to stand out，providing clues for inferring duration．Without forgetting，adaptive ability would suffer，for example，learned behavior that might have been correct a decade ago may no longer be．Cases are recorded of people who (by ordinary standards) forgot so little that their everyday activities were full of confusion．This forgetting seems to serve that survival of the individual and the species．
     Another line of thought assumes a memory storage system of limited capacity that provides adaptive flexibility specifically through forgetting． In this view，continual adjustments are made between learning or memory storage (input) and forgetting (output)．Indeed，there is evidence that the rate at which individuals forget is directly related to how much they have learned．Such data offers gross support of contemporary models of memory that assume an input-output balance．

Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question.

     Plants and animals that have been studied carefully seem to have built-in clocks． These biological clocks，as they are called，usually are not quite exact in measuring time．However，they work pretty well because they are“ reset ”each day，when the sun comes up．
     Do pigeons use their biological clocks to help them find directions from the sun? We can keep pigeons in a room lit only by lamps．And we can program the lighting to produce artificial “days”，different from the day outside．After a while we have shifted their clocks．Now we take them far away from home and let them go on a sunny day．Most of them start out as if they know just which way to go，but choose a wrong direction．They have picked a direction that would be correct for the position of the sun and the time of day according to their shifted clocks．
     It is known and experimented that homing pigeons can tell directions by the sun．But what happens when the sky is darkly overcast by clouds and no one can see where the sun is? Then the pigeons still find their way home．The same experiment has been repeated many times on sunny days and the result was always the same．But on very overcast days clock-shifted pigeons are just as good as normal pigeons in starting out in the right directions．So it seems that pigeons also have some extra sense of direction to use when they cannot see the sun．
     Naturally，people have wondered whether pigeons might have a built-in compass－something that would tell them about the directions of the earth’s magnetic field．One way to test that idea would be to see if a pigeon’s sense of direction can be fooled by a magnet attached to its back．With a strong magnet close by，a compass can no longer tell direction．
     To test the idea，a group of ten pigeons had strong little magnet bars attached to their backs．Another group carried brass bars instead which were not magnetic．In a number of experiments，both groups were taken away from home and let go．On sunny days none of the magnet-pigeons was fooled．They were just as good as the brass-pigeons in starting out in the right direction toward home．On cloudy，overcast days，however，with no sun the brass-pigeons chose the right direction，but the magnet-pigeons were in trouble．They later started out in different directions and acted completely lost．

Directions: Read the statements given right after the passage and judge whether they are True or False. 

     Everybody feels pain sometimes: the pain in the head that comes after eating ice cream or drinking cold water; the sudden muscular pain; the “stitch” that attacks long-distance runners or others whose activities have put great demands on the oxygen supply of the body. These transient pains are not cause for alarm; they usually disappear quickly, return rarely and signify very little.
     In contrast are the unusual, chronic, or exceptionally severe pains that require attention from a doctor, who can determine whether or not they require special care. Angina pectoris(pain of the chest) is a heart pain that lasts from two or three minutes to ten or fifteen. Identification is extremely important, because special drugs are needed for relief and the doctor’s understanding and advice may prevent recurrence of the condition.
     Only a doctor can recognize what are called referred pains. These originate at one point, but are felt at another to which they have been carried by the nerves. A person with continuous pain becomes irritated, tired easily, has difficulty in sleeping, loses appetite, and may even become the victim of what has been called an anxiety state or nervous breakdown. Few diseases develop without pain at some state, and many involve so characteristic a pain as to make diagnosis certain. Whenever a pain is so severe, so prolonged, and so unusual as to arouse alarm, a doctor should be consulted.

Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question.

     Originally the food of emperors, the cuisine known as kaiseki is the pinnacle of Japanese eating —and few restaurants serve a more refined menu than Kikunoi, in the former imperial capital of Kyoto. Kaiseki dining is the product of centuries of cultural evolution, but though Kikunoi is high-end — as the bill will indicate —its cuisine is meant to be a grand elaboration of the basic Japanese home meal: rice, fish, pickles, vegetables and miso soup, artfully presented in small, healthy portions.
     “I believe that Japanese cuisine is something embedded in Japanese people’s DNA,” says Kikunoi’s owner, Yoshihiro Murata. That may be true, but it’s a legacy under assault, increasingly crowded out by fast, convenient, westernized food. These days, Murata says sadly, his college-age daughter doesn’t see much difference between cheap restaurant food and the haute cuisine he makes. “I think that in Japan, people should eat good Japanese food,” he says. “But they are far away from it.”
     Japan is not alone. Food and diet are the cornerstones of any culture, one of the most reliable symbols of national identity. Think of the long Spanish lunch followed by the afternoon siesta, a rhythm of food and rest perfectly suited to the blistering heat of the Iberian Peninsula in summer. Think of the Chinese meal of rice, vegetables and (only recently) meat, usually served in big collective dishes, the better for extended clans to dine together. National diets come to incorporate all aspects of who we are: our religious taboos, class structure, geography, economy, even government.
     Even the traditions we learn from others we adopt and adapt in ways that make them our own. Japan received chopsticks from China and tempura from Portugal. Tomatoes, that staple of pasta and pizza, arrived in Southern Europe only as part of the Columbian Exchange. “A lot of what we think of as deeply rooted cultural traditions are really traceable back to global exchange,” says Miriam Chaiken, a nutritional anthropologist at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
     In an era of instant communication and accelerated trade, those cultural exchanges have exploded, leading to something closer to cultural homogenization. That’s bad for not only the preservation of national identities but the preservation of health too. Saturated fats and meats are displacing grains and fresh vegetables. Mealtimes are shrinking. McDonald’s is everywhere. From Chile to China, the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease is on the rise. This, in turn, is leading to a minimovement in some countries to hold fast to traditional food culture, even as their menu grows ever more international.

Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question. 

     My mother used to tell my father that he was a very good mother. This was her way of praising his attendance at every concert and game, his patience and care. In those days, “good mother” was the highest domestic achievement; to have called him a good father, given how low the bar was set, wouldn’t have done him justice.
     But that was long, long ago. Now fathers sing to their babies in uteri, come to birthing class, coach mom through delivery (as opposed to the days of the hospital clubs, where fathers smoked and paced while mothers delivered their offspring). They can buy strap-on breasts, so they can share in the bonding. And baby toupees, for those sensitive about hairlessness. I can’t help thinking that the increased engagement of fathers has some direct connection to the increased availability of baby gadgets, since having two fanatically engaged parents offers twice the target for retailers.
     The typical father spends about seven hours per week in “primary child care,” which doesn’t sound like a lot until you realize it’s more than twice as much as in 1965.
     Among other things, this all means fathers are now much better positioned to write parenting books like Michael Lewis’ Home Game and Sam Apple’s American Parent: My Strange and Surprising Adventures in Modern Babyland.
     The dad diarists approach their subject like anthropologists, engaged in rational inquiry into an alien culture and the nature of nurture. Thus I learned from Apple things I never knew from reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting, like the fact that in the 1st century Pliny the Elder recommended that women in labor drink goose semen mixed with water to ease the process along.
     Maybe the respectful distance men keep reflects the obvious ambivalence so many women show about male involvement. We talk about fathers like puppies tripping over their big paws, a portrait long mirrored in a culture in which Father Knows Least. We diminish with faint praise; dads still get points for returning children at the end of the day with all their limbs in place. But the more engaged fathers become, the more women have to reckon with what a true parenting partnership would look like.

Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question.

     Most of us lead unhealthy lives: we spend far too much time sitting down. If, in addition, we are careless about our diets, our bodies soon become flabby and our system sluggish. The guilt feelings start: “I must go on a diet”, “I must try to lose weight”, “I must get more fresh air and exercise”, “I must stop smoking”, “I must try to keep fit”. There are some aspects of our unhealthy lives that we cannot avoid.
     I am thinking of such features of modern urban life as pollution, noise, rushed meals and stress. But keeping fit is a way to minimize the effects of these evils.
     The usual suggestion for a person who is looking for a way to keep fit is to take up some sport or other. While it is true that every weekend you will find people playing football and tennis in the local park, they are outnumbered a hundred to one by the people who are simply watching them. It is an illusion to think that you will get fit by going to watch the football match every Saturday, unless you count the effort required to fight your way through the crowds to get to the best seats.
     For those who do not particularly enjoy competitive sports — and it is especially difficult to do so if you are not good at them — there are such solitary activities as cycling, walking and swimming. What often happens, though, is that you do them in such a leisurely way, so slowly, that it is doubtful if you are doing yourself much good, apart from the fact that you have at least managed to get up out of your armchair. Of course you can be very thorough about exercises. Many sports shops now sell frightening pieces of apparatus, chest-expanders and other mysterious gadgets of shiny spring steel, which, according to the advertisements, will bring you up to an Olympic standard of fitness, provided programs generally involve long periods of time bending these curious bits of metal into improbable shapes.
     It all strikes me as utterly boring and also time-consuming. Somebody suggested recently that all such effort was pointless anyway because if you spend half an hour every day jogging round the local park, you will add to your life exactly the number of hours that you wasted during the “jogging” in the first place. The argument is false even if the facts are correct, but there is no doubt that exercise in itself can be boring.
     Even after you have found a routine for keeping in shape, through sport or gymnastics, you are still only half way to good health, because, according to the experts, you must also master the art of complete mental and physical relaxation.
     Now this does not mean snoozing in the armchair or going dancing. It has something to do with deep breathing, emptying your mind of all thoughts, medication and so on.

Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question. 

     In the northern part of Greenland, ice caps, permafrost and gullies dominate the landscape and there’s almost no vegetation. Here became the domain of the Thule who came from Canada in 1200.
     The onset of the Little Ice Age in the 15th century signaled the end of the Ice Age which started 130,000 years ago. Although the Little Ice Age brought Greenland’s temperatures down by merely 0.8℃, it dealt a lethal blow on the southern regions — vegetation and animals succumbed to cold, famine stroke, and European settlements vanished.
     The Inuit people survived. They intermarried with the Europeans who came later and became the forefathers of Greenland’s people today. The Inuit people still live in pretty much the same way as their ancestors. They make Eskimo canoes. They fish with nets. They hunt seals and sea lions. Sometimes they gut the animals and eat them right on the ice. The innards are precious gifts and are taken back to people of high status and guests.
     Planet Earth, a critically acclaimed documentary, tells of the impact climate change is having on the ecosystems of the Arctic from the perspective of a polar bear family. The bears are starved on the seaside since they have no sea lions and seals to hunt as glaciers are cracking.
     The Inuit people are meeting the same fate. Like others, Ajukutoq, a hunter, keeps on complaining to travelers that ice is fast thawing and they are losing the “platforms” they can stand on to hunt animals. They have to use modern fast boats to go further north and look for solid ice surfaces. As the whale population decreases and animals move northwards, whether or not the Inuit’s traditional way of life can continue is thrown into question.
     Ajukutoq is an elected head of a small town. “Cold has never terrified us, but living on the welfare system of the Danish government has,” he said.
     It’s generally accepted that if the global temperature rises by 3℃ , Greenland will be submerged, but outspoken opponents of diehard environmentalists argue that even if that temperature rises by 7℃, Greenland won’t be wiped off the face of the earth. Such argument offers valid moral grounds for tapping the resources hidden under Greenland’s ice sheet, and holds an obvious appeal for the people of Greenland who know precious resources lie under their feet but cannot tap those resources under the watchful eyes of the Danish government and environmentalists.

Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question.

     One period of our lives when superior results are demanded of us is, strangely enough, childhood. Despite being young we are expected to achieve good grades, stay out of trouble, make friends at school, do well on tests, perform chores at home and so on. It’s not easy.
     The good news is that being likeable can help a child perform better. Likeable children enjoy many advantages, including the ability to cope more easily with stresses of social interaction and growing up.
     In her book Understanding Child Stress, Dr. Carolyn Leonard states that children who are likeable, optimistic, and personable fare well and are able to gain support from others. This leads to resilience and focus; a child who has adequate emotional armor can continue down the path to success. Much research shows that resilience, the ability to recover from or adjust early to misfortune and sustained life stress, has enabled children to succeed in school, avoid drug abuse, and develop a healthy self-concept.
     Why does a likeable child more easily navigate stress and do better in his or her life? Because likeability helps create what’s known as a positive feedback loop. The positive feelings you invoke in other people are returned to you, creating constant encouragement and an antidote to the daily strains of life.
     This feedback loop continues into adulthood. To return once again to the example of teaching, learning becomes easier with a likeable personality. Michael Delucchi of the University of Hawaii reviewed dozens of studies to determine if likeable teachers received good ratings because of their likeability or because they in fact taught well. Delucchi found that “Students who perceive a teacher as likeable, in contrast to those who do not, may be more attentive to the information that the teacher delivers and they’ll work harder on assignments, and they’ll be more receptive to grading and they will learn more.”
     You may have noticed this pattern in your own life when you try to give some advice. The more positive your relationship with that person, the more he or she seems to listen, and the more you feel certain that that person has heard you and intends to act on your words.

Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question. 

     Today, there’s scarcely an aspect of our life that isn’t being upended by the torrent of information available on the hundreds of millions of sites crowding the Internet, not to mention its ability to keep us in constant touch with each other via electronic mail. “If the automobile and aerospace technology had exploded at the same pace as computer and information technology,” says Microsoft, “a new car would cost about $ 2 and go 600 miles on a thimbleful of gas. And you could buy a Boeing 747 for the cost of a pizza.”
     Probably the biggest payoff, however, is the billions of dollars the Internet is saving companies in producing goods and serving for the needs of their customers. Nothing like it has been seen since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when power-driven machines began producing more in a day than men could turn out in nearly a year. “We view the growth of the Internet and e-commerce as a global megatrend,” says Merrill Lynch, “along the lines of printing press, the telephone, the computer, and electricity.”
     You would be hard pressed to name something that isn’t available on the Internet. Consider: books, health care, movie tickets, construction materials, baby clothes, stocks, cattle feed, music, electronics, antiques, tools, real estate, toys, autographs of famous people, wine and airline tickets. And even after you’ve moved on to your final resting place, there’s no reason those you love can’t keep in touch. A company called FinalThoughts.com offers a place for you to store “afterlife e-mails” you can send to Heaven with the help of a “guardian angel”.
     Kids today are so computer savvy that it virtually ensures the United States will remain the unchallenged leader in cyberspace for the foreseeable future. Nearly all children in families with incomes of more than $75,000 a year have home computers, according to a study by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Youngsters from ages 2 to 17 at all income levels have computers, with 52% of those connected to the Internet. Most kids use computers to play games (some for 30 hours or more a week), and many teenage girls think nothing of rushing home from school to have e-mail chats with friends they have just left.
     What’s clear is that, whether we like it or not, the Internet is an ever growing part of our lives and there is no turning back. “The Internet is just 20% invented,” says cyber pioneer Jake Winebaum. “The last 80% is happening now.”

Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question.

     It is all very well to blame traffic jams, the cost of petrol and the quick pace of modern life, but manners on the roads are becoming horrible. Everybody knows that the nicest men become monsters behind the wheel. It is all very well, again, to have a tiger behind the wheel, but to have one in the driver’s seat is another matter altogether. You might tolerate the odd road-hog, the rude and inconsiderate, but nowadays the well-mannered motorist is the exception to the rule. Perhaps the situation calls for “Be Kind to Other Drivers” campaign, otherwise it may get completely out of hand.
     Road politeness is not good manners, but good sense too. It takes the most coolheaded and good-tempered of drivers to resist the temptation to revenge when subjected to uncivilized behavior. On the other hand, a little politeness goes a long way towards relieving the tensions of motoring. A friendly nod or a wave of acknowledgements of goodwill and tolerance is necessary in modern traffic conditions. But such acknowledgements of politeness are all too rare today. Many drivers nowadays don’t even seem able to recognize politeness when they see it.
     However, misplaced politeness can also be dangerous. Typical examples are the driver who brakes violently to allow a car to emerge from a side street at some hazard to following traffic, when a few seconds later the road would be clear anyway; or the man who waves a child across a zebra crossing into the path of oncoming vehicles that may be unable to stop in time. The same goes for encouraging old ladies to cross the road wherever and whenever they care to. It always amazes me that the highways are not covered with the dead bodies of these grannies. A veteran driver, whose manners are faultless, told me it would help if motorists learn to filter correctly into traffic streams one at a time without causing the total blockages that give rise to bad temper. Unfortunately, modern motorists can’t even learn to drive, let alone master the subtler aspects of roadsmanship.
     Years ago experts warned us that the car-ownership explosion would demand a lot more give-and-take from all road users. It is high time for all of us to take this message to heart.

Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question.

     When I was about 5 years old, I used to watch a bird in the skies of southern Alberta from the Blackfoot Blood Reserve in northern Montana where I was born. I loved this bird; I would watch him for hours. He would glide effortlessly in that gigantic sky, or he would come down and light on the water and float there very majestically. Sometimes when I watched him he would creep into the grasses and waddle around not very gracefully. We called him meksikatsi, which in the Blackfoot language means “pink-colored feet”; meksikatsi and I became very good friends.
     The bird had a very particular significance to me because I desperately wanted to be able to fly too. I felt very much as if I was the kind of person who had been born into a world where flight was impossible. And most of the things that I dreamed about or read about would not be possible for me but would be possible only for other people.
     When I was ten years old, my life changed drastically. I found myself adopted forcefully and against my parents’ will; they were considered inadequate parents because they could not make enough money to support me, so I found myself in that terrible position that 60 percent of native Americans find themselves in, living in a city that they do not understand at all, not in another culture but between two cultures.
     A teacher of the English language told me that meksikatsi was not called meksikatsi, even though that is what my people have called that bird for thousands of years. Meksikatsi, he said, was really “duck”. I was very disappointed with English. I could not understand it. First of all, the bird did not look like “duck”, and when it made a noise, it did not sound like “duck”, and I was even more confused when I found out that the meaning of the verb “to duck” came from the bird and not vice versa.
     As I came to understand English better, I understand that it made a great deal of sense, but I never forgot that meksikatsi made a different kind of sense. I realized that languages are not just different words for the same things but totally different concepts, totally different ways of experiencing and looking at the world.

Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question. 

     Before going into camp there are many things for the camper to learn if he does not know how, and one of these things is how to make a fire. If one has matches, kindling and wood, there is no trick in making a campfire, but there is a good trick in making a fire where there are no matches and the wood is green or wet.
     Our own Indians get fire by rotating a hard upright stick in a cup-shaped hollow of lighter wood, in which dry charcoal or the shavings of punk were placed. Cotton and any other substances that catch a flame easily would answer as well. This is getting fire by friction.
     Camps are either temporary, that is changed from day to day, or they are permanent and may be visited year after year, or they may be used for a few weeks at a time.
     During the autumn and when the weather is dry and the nights not too cool, the best way to camp is in the open, sleeping on beds of boughs, about a roaring fire, and with one blanket under and another over.
     Small dog tents, like the ones our soldiers carried in the Civil War, are cheap and very convenient. Each man carried a section, and two made a tent, into which two men crawled when it rained, but in dry weather they preferred to sleep in the open, even when it was freezing.
     Shelters of boughs, arranged in an A-framed fashion from a ridge pole make good temporary shelters and are first rate as windbreaks at night.
     A shack built of crossed logs requires some time to build and some skill to make, but it is not beyond the reach of any boy who has seen — and who has not — an old-fashioned log shanty.
     But all boys, even trained foresters, are apt to get lost in strange woods. Every one, however, should know what to do in such a circumstance. As a rule the denser growth of moss on trees is on the north side. This knowledge may help find the direction, but it is better to carry a small pocket compass.
     When the sky is clear, the sun and the stars help to guide the course, and if they are followed one is saved from traveling in a circle, as the lost are pretty sure to do in a dense forest.
     If twigs are broken from bushes they will serve to show the course to those out searching. A good plan is to follow down the course of a stream, which always flows into a larger body of water and will lead to some abode. If a hill is accessible, the lay of the land may be had from its summit.
     In any event, should you be lost, do not get rattled. You will be missed in camp and a search will be made by your friends.

Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question. 

     Frank Buonanotte was going through some junk mail when he came across a postcard advertising a History Channel documentary. “That pile of mail had been sitting there for weeks,” he says. “But I noticed the movie was scheduled to air within the hour.” For some reason, Buonanotte, a semiretired entrepreneur, tuned in.
     Into the Fire was about firefighters, and Buonanotte was fascinated. “One segment was about what it’s like to be in a fire,” he recalls. “The smoke makes it impossible to see, you’re crawling along the floor, people are trapped in remote rooms.” The film explained how a new technology called thermal imaging could “see” through smoke and walls so firefighters could identify victims, fallen colleagues, and the source of a fire.
     But the portable cameras cost more than $10,000 each, and few fire stations could afford them. About 80,000 firefighters are injured every year in the line of duty; last year, 114 died. “But it’s not like cancer,” says Buonanotte. “A cure exists. The only reason it’s not used is lack of funds. That bothered me.”
     The documentary stuck with him. Having recently quit his day-to-day duties as founder and CEO of two companies, Buonanotte had been meeting with a life coach to figure out “what the second half of my life would be about.”
     At first, Buonanotte thought he would simply donate a few thermal imagers. He contacted the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, and one conversation led to another. Buonanotte decided to set up and run a charity, 500 for Life (he asks for at least $500, but he’ll accept any amount).
     Since its founding in 2007, the nonprofit has donated 40 cameras to fire departments in 25 states. “It’s never been easy for me to ask people for money,” says Buonanotte. “But if firefighters have the courage to go into a burning house, then I need to have the courage to ask for money to get the equipment they need.”
     The Buonanotte family absorbs the administrative costs so that all contributions can go directly to buying new cameras. In addition, the family itself donates several cameras a year, and Buonanotte travels the country to speak, solicit money, and deliver cameras —“the most rewarding part of the job.”
     Buonanotte could not have predicted the impact that the documentary would have on him and others. “Business success is good and fulfilling,” he says, “but many people end up thinking there must be more than just this. Usually, it’s giving back that makes someone feel whole and satisfies that feeling that something is missing. I’ve been able to help firefighters save more lives. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

Directions: Write a brief answer (one to three complete sentences) to each of the questions. Pay attention to the words, grammar and sentence structure in your answers.

1. Social anxiety is the single most common psychological problem, according to the 1986 results of the Stanford Shyness Inventory, a survey conducted by Philip G.Zimbardo, professor of social psychology at Stanford University of California. At a party with strangers, for instance, three-quarters of adults have anxiety. “The best estimate is that 40 percent of all Americans suffer from shyness,” says Zimbardo.
2. How can you avoid being nervous when you meet people? Prepare. Preparation for any communicating situation is a must. You’ve been invited to a big dinner party in two weeks. You know that one of the other guests is a politician. Scan the newspapers and magazines; listen to newscasts for topics of conversation in political areas. Then, at the party, pretend you’re an interviewer on talk show. Think of questions to ask that can’t be answered yes or no. “In your opinion, who …” “What do you think of …” Keep the momentum going.
3.Whether you’re delivering a speech, approaching your boss for a raise or an important social occasion, do your homework. The most polished, smoothly delivered, spontaneous-sounding talks are the results of many hours of work. The memorable one-liners and moving phrases that go down in history don’t come from last-minute bursts of inspiration.
4. If you’re making a presentation of any sort, begin preparing as far ahead of time as possible. “Good writing,” says Harvard University historian Richard Marius, “is a kind of wrestling with thought”. Begin the wrestling match early. Two days before your presentation is usually too late to go into the ring and come up with a winning idea.
5. “To communicate,” says New York Times columnist William Samire, “put your thoughts in order, give them a purpose; use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce.”
6. Prepare yourself as well as your material, giving special attention to your voice. A shrill, nasal tone strikes your listener like chalk screeching on a blackboard. By putting energy and resonance into your voice, you will have a positive effect. If your voice is timid or quivers with nervousness, you sense it, the audience hears it, and you see discomfort in their eyes. With energy and enthusiasm in your voice, the listeners say ahhh, tell me more. You read approval.
7. Like your voice, your appearance is a communication tool. For example, if you are animated, you are more likely to see animated listeners. You give the audience the message: I’m glad I’m here; I’m glad you’re here.
8. Your approach can, in fact, be a powerful weapon for deflecting hostility—from an audience, an interviewer, an employer. A benevolent aspect says I understand and conveys good will and positive expectations. It works.
9. However, don’t ever assume that an audience, an interviewer, your boss will be sympathetic. Always be prepared for a grilling. Think beforehand of the ten toughest questions you could get and be ready with your answers. And remember, when you’re asked a hostile question, never show hostility to your questioner. If you do, you lose.
10. While the hostile questioner is talking, prepare your response. Take a positive tack immediately, and make your answers short. The instant the interviewer finishes the question, begin the answer: first point, second point, third point… bingo, your conclusion. It’s like shooting a basket. Keep your eyes on the basket, and bounce, bounce, shoot to your conclusion.
11. The way you listen gives messages about you too. Listen with interest, focusing your eyes on the speaker. If you are sitting next toward the person, angle your body slightly in the chair so that you’re turned toward the person. Animate your face with approval. It says, I’m with you, I’m interested in what you’re saying.
12. Once you’re prepared for a situation, you’re 50 percent of the way toward overcoming nervousness. The other 50 percent is the physical and mental control of nervousness: adjusting your attitude so you have confidence, and control of yourself and your audience.
13. I was in the theater for many years and always went to work with terrible stage fright—until I was in “The King and I”. While waiting offstage one night, I saw Yul Brynner, the show’s star, pushing in a lunging position against a wall. It looked as though he wanted to knock it down. “This helps me control my nervousness,” he explained.
14. I tried it and, sure enough, freed myself from stage fright. Not only that, but pushing the wall seemed to give me a whole new kind of physical energy. Later I discovered that when you push against a wall you contract the muscles that lie just below where your ribs begin to splay. I call this area the “vital triangle”.
15. To understand how these muscles work, try this: Sit in a straight-backed chair and lean slightly forward. Put your palms together in front of you, your elbows pointing out the sides, your fingertips pointing upward, and push so that you feel pressure in the heels of your palms and under your arms.
16. Say ssssssss, like a hiss. As you’re exhaling the s, contract those muscles in the vital triangle as though you were rowing a boat, pulling the oars back and up. The vital triangle should tighten. Relax the muscles at the end of your exhalation, then inhale gently.
17.You can also adjust your attitude to prevent nervousness. What you say to yourself sends a message to your audience. If you tell yourself you’re afraid, that’s the message your listener receives. So select the attitude you want to communicate. Attitude adjusting is your mental suit of armor against nervousness. If you entertain only positive thoughts, you will be giving out these vibes: joy and ease, enthusiasm, sincerity and concern, and authority.
18. You have the power within you to become a forceful, persuasive, confident communicator. With these techniques, you will be able to ask for a raise, make a sale, deal with a family crisis, feel comfortable in social and business situations. Master the simple principles set out here and you will never be nervous again.

Directions: Write a brief answer (one to three complete sentences) to each of the questions. Pay attention to the words, grammar and sentence structure in your answers.

(1) The whole world seemed to be black, black nothingness. The sky was black with bright, shining stars that never twinkled. The sun, a white, burning disk, seemed to hang in the black velvet of the surrounding heavens. This was the scene that spread before the eyes of the first astronaut who left his spaceship to walk in outer space. The name of the Russian astronaut who performed this feat was Leonov, and the date of his walk in space was March 18, 1965. Several months later a similar feat was performed by the first American astronaut to walk in space. Both of these“space walkers”had spent months previous to their flight learning how to control their movements under the strange conditions which exist in space. Wearing their thick space suits, they learned to deal with an environment where there is neither weight nor gravity, neither“up”nor“down”.
(2) We do not realize how much we depend on the earth’s gravity until we are deprived of it. Then our feet no longer stay on the ground, we float around in the air, and the slightest touch may send us drifting off in the opposite direction.
(3) In the laboratories where astronauts are trained for their journeys, they are subjected to conditions that resemble those of flight. It takes time for them to prepare for the great changes that occur in space. When the spaceship leaves the earth at tremendous speed, the astronauts feel as if they are being crushed against the spaceship floor. Later, when they leave the zone of the earth’s gravitation, they are unable to stay in one place, Simple actions, such as eating and drinking, become very difficult to perform. You may get an inkling of what the astronauts have to deal with if you try to drink a glass of water while standing on your head or while just lying down.
(4) The beginnings of man’s conquest of space took place in 1958, seven years before Leonov’s trip. The first successful launching of“Sputnik”demonstrated that it was indeed possible to send objects far enough out of range of earth’s gravity so that they would not fall back to earth. Rather, such objects could be forced to revolve about the earth, just as the moon does. However, while the moon is so far from earth that it takes it a month to revolve around the earth, manmade satellites, which are closer to earth, can make a complete revolution in a few hours.
(5) It was three years after the first satellite launching that a spaceship containing a man made a successful flight. The flight lasted less than two hours, but it pointed the way to future developments.
(6) Other planets are so far away that spaceships must attain tremendous speeds to reach them in a reasonable time. If spaceships were launched from space or from the moon, the absence of weight would permit the ships to be launched with great speed at reduced pressures. A relatively small explosion would be enough to send a ship off at a very fast rate. And, since there is no atmosphere in space as there is on earth, the spaceship would meet with no resistance. To illustrate this point, remember how strong the wind feels if we are traveling fast in a car; then imagine a car traveling through an area where there is no wind. The windless condition is comparable to the condition in outer space.
(7) The first astronaut to walk in space, Leonov, and his companion, Beliaiev, began making preparations for the walk as soon as their spaceship was launched. The spaceship was equipped with a double door, which was fitted with a bellows between the ship and the outside. This made it possible for the astronaut, in his space suit with oxygen supply, to go first from the air-filled ship to the bellows. Then the air was let out of the bellows, and, while the man stepped outside, the air inside the ship remained at normal pressure. If the door had opened directly into space, the air in the ship would have rushed out and been lost when the door opened.
(8) Leonov and Beliaiev practiced testing the doors several times after they had begun revolving around the earth. When the time came for Leonov to go out, his companion helped him attach the cable that was to keep him from floating away from the ship. Then Leonov entered the bellows, and the door closed behind him. As the air was let out of the bellows, he felt his suit swell up because of the air pressure inside. When there was no air left in the bellows, the outer door opened, and Leonov could see, simultaneously, the blackness of space and the blinding light of the sun.
(9) If the sky appears blue to us on earth, it is because the earth’s atmosphere absorbs a certain number of blue rays of sunlight. Out where there is no air, this phenomenon does not take place. On the earth, our atmosphere diffuses light so that, when the sun is up, light seems to be everywhere. However, in the airless realms of outer space, strong lights, such as the sun, exist side by side with a dark similar to the dark of the blackest night. The absence of air also explains why the stars do not seem to twinkle in space, as they do from the earth.
(10) Leonov reported that the earth appeared as a huge, round disk, filling a large part of the sky. He found that the relief of hills and mountains was more easily observed from that distance than from a plane flying at a few thousand feet.
(11) While Leonov was outside the ship, he kept in touch by telephone with his companion and with the earth. He opened the shutter of the movie camera, which made a record of what he did and saw. When the signal was given for him to return to the ship, he was enjoying the cosmos so much that he was disappointed to have to stop his wanderings so soon.

Directions: Write a brief answer (one to three complete sentences) to each of the questions. Pay attention to the words, grammar and sentence structure in your answers.

1. In spite of the difficulties of predicting future trends in world trade, we can specify factors that will be important. Some of these are: population growth; possible scarcity of commodities, the food and energy situation, relations with the Third World (developing nations), pressures to preserve the environment, and international cooperation on political, social, economic, and monetary problems.
2. If population growth continues at its present pace, the future balance between food demand and supply may become dependent on new dietary patterns. Reduced consumption of meat, increased use of new high protein food made from soybeans, and development of ocean resources for food are some alternatives that must be considered.
3. As the population grows, prices of commodities will fluctuate. As countries endeavor to increase yields on existing croplands through intensified use of water, energy, and fertilizers, the cost of commodities will rise.
4. Growth of trade will depend greatly on availability of energy sources. There may still be a trillion barrels of recoverable oil in the Middle East. But the oil crisis of 1974 has led to renewed interest in coal and to a search for alternative sources of energy. Solar, geothermal, and nuclear energy will play a large role in the years to come.
5. Solar energy is available in various forms. Buildings can be heated and cooled by direct use of solar radiation, crops and trees, which are the most efficient converters of sunlight into energy, can be grown for their energy potential, wastes can be burned as fuel, sunlight can be converted into DC (direct current) electricity, electric power can be derived from the sun-warmed surface waters of the ocean (ocean thermal power), lastly, solar radiation can be converted to heat that will drive electric power generators (solar thermal power). Serious problems still remain as to transportation and storage of solar energy.
6. Geothermal energy is the energy contained within the earth. Heat is abundantly available deep in the earth’s core and is constantly being produced. However, this heat is usually located at too deep a level for commercial exploitation. Sometimes heat comes to the surface in the form of lava and geysers. In short, very little is know on the use of geothermal energy, and it has barely been exploited.
7. Nuclear energy is produced in nuclear power plants. At these plants atoms of uranium are split, thus releasing masses of energy. Another source of energy under development is the nuclear fusion of certain atoms of hydrogen. This could eventually replace natural gas as a source of energy.
8. In future trade the key development to watch is the relationship between the industrialized and the developing nations. Third World countries export their mineral deposits and tropical agricultural products, which bring them desired foreign exchange. Tourism has also been greatly responsible for the rapid development of some developing nations. Many Third World nations with high unemployment and low wages have seen an emigration of workers to the developed nations. Western Europe has received millions of such workers from Mediterranean countries.
9. The developing nations profit when these workers bring their savings and their acquired technical skills back home. Many developing nations benefit when Western nations establish manufacturing in their countries to take advantage of cheap labor.
10. As economies mature, economic growth rates tend to level off. The rate of population growth is leveling off today in Western nations. This leveling-off eventually leads to static non-growth markets. A point of saturation sets in—technology and innovation have seemed to achieve the impossible, but then how much further can it go? Herman Kahn, in his book The Next 200 Years, says that a shift in priorities will have to occur for industrialized nations. No longer is the creation of money and jobs essential, it is rather the improvement of the quality of life that must be our concern. Today pollution is of major concern for industrialized nations. Environmentalists are worried about the relationship between industrial objectives and preserving the environment. In developing nations, however, the problem of pollution is ignored for the sake of development.
11. The Western World will eventually move to a period of relatively low economic growth, coupled with a high rate of unemployment. A so-called welfare society will emerge. The unemployed in the new welfare society will be taken care of by the employed through generous contributions to the social welfare system.
12. Political questions remain as to the world’s future. We can only speculate as to whether organized markets such as the Common Market and COMECON could eventually merge. In the present political climate, this would seem impossible, although some cooperation agreements are already in effect. Obviously a merger between the Western and Eastern European markets would greatly enhance world trade.
13. International monetary cooperation will have a significant impact on future trade. If the IMF countries are not able to agree upon a new international monetary order in the years to come, international trade may become too risky for some companies to get involved in . If the IMF is unable to create sufficient international liquidity reserves in the future, there may not be enough liquidity to sustain growth in trade.
14. However, growing international consultation and cooperation in economic, monetary, and political matters will certainly contribute to the flourishing of world trade for years to come.