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

    Chinese bike-sharing major Mobike said on Tuesday that it will launch services in the United Kingdom in Manchester and Salford at the end of this June as it ramps up efforts to compete with rivals such as ofo in overseas markets.
    Mobike, backed by internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd., said it will roll out 1,000 bikes at the end of June. After the scheme is up and running, the company will consider future expansion. The move is part of Mobike's ambitious plan to expand its presence in the European continent. The company said it will launch services to a series of European cities over the next few months.
    Weiwei Hu, founder of Mobike, said, "We're very excited to make Manchester and Salford Mobike's first European partners. They have long been a European leader in culture, innovation and technology." This came shortly after one of Mobike's most successful domestic competitors ofo came to the UK in April, which launched 50 bikes in Cambridge as part of a pilot program.
    Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, said he hopes many people will swap their cars for bikes. He vowed to take a positive approach in promoting cycling in the region. "We're conscious that our city center is a complex and busy area already," Burnham said. "Transport for Greater Manchester has been working hard to establish a voluntary code of working with Mobike to make sure the service operates in a way that doesn't inconvenience other road users, pedestrians or city center traders.
    People using the shared bikes are usually charged for every 30-minute slot they have them, but details of the pricing structure for Manchester have not yet been released. If successful, it could play an important part of our long-term plans for cycling in the region and for making travel easier and more sustainable, Burnham said.
    Mobike launched its bike-sharing service and has since rolled out schemes in China and Singapore. It now operates 5 million bikes. Greater Manchester is now the 100th city to host the service.

    Mobike and ofo are locked in a fierce competition to vie for supremacy of the burgeoning sector. Their rental bikes are available at no cost to the taxpayer, unlike those championed by former London mayor Boris Johnson, the so-called "Boris bikes", that are partially funded by Transport for London.

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

    As a professor of business and government policy, I've long been interested in the pursuit of happiness as a national concept. According to hundreds of reliable surveys of thousands of people across the land, happy people increase our prosperity and strengthen our communities. They make better citizens—and better citizens are vital to making our nation healthy and strong. So when I chanced upon data a couple of years ago saying that certain Americans were living in a manner that facilitated happiness—while others were not—I jumped on it.
    I wanted to be able to articulate which personal lifestyles and public policies would make us the happiest nation possible. I also wanted to know which of my own values were the most conductive to happiness. I had always thought that marching to the beat of my own drummer and making up my own values as I went along were the right things to do, and that traditional values, to put it bluntly, were for fools.
    Turns out that I was in for some surprises.
    You might suspect that Americans are getting happier all the time. After all, many (though clearly not all) are getting richer, and this should make them better able and equipped to follow their dreams. On the other hand, there's a lot of talk about the good old days, when kids could play outside without any worry about being kidnapped. And there's a great deal of stress in this country right now, due to financial concerns, negative workplace environments, and chronic health problems, among other pressing issues.
    But average happiness levels in America have stayed largely constant for many years. In 1972, 30 percent of the population said they were very happy with their lives, according to the National Opinion Research Center's General Social Survey. In 1982, 31 percent said so, and in 2006,31 percent said so as well. The percentage saying they were not too happy was similarly constant, generally hovering around 13 percent.
    The factors that add up to a happy life for most people are not what we typically hear about. Things like winning the lottery and earning a master's degree don't make people happy over the long haul. Rather, the key to happiness, and the difference between happy and unhappy Americans, is a life that reflects values and practices like faith, hard work, marriage, charity, and freedom.

Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question.
    Ivan Stoltzfus, 70, was a successful farmer for 30 years near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Then one day, he recalled wise words from his father and he decided to fulfill a lifelong dream. "He said one day out of the blue, ‘Ivan, if you have a dream, don't wait until you're too old and physically can't do it,'" Stoltzfus said.
    Stoltzfus always wanted to drive across the country, like his father did for work when he was a child. And for a long time he had a calling to somehow give back to American veterans. He said he didn't want to take his freedom for granted. "It got to a point where I couldn't even sleep at night," Stoltzfus said.
    In 2014, the farmer combined both of his dreams and decided to drive across the country in a 1948 John Deere tractor to raise awareness and money for wounded heroes.
    Now he's at it again. This time, he is driving from Pennsylvania to Florida to the Pacific Northwest and back through the Midwest to Gettysburg, Pa. "I like to think going across America as planting that seed of hope, Stoltzfus said. "Giving those hope that have been given up."
    Stoltzfus has raised nearly $50,000 for veterans, in particular, those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
    In the short time Fox News spent with Stoltzfus in the small town of Oregon, Illinois, three different strangers stopped to greet him. Two were veterans. One paid for his gas. Both thanked him. The third man, Mike Olman, had been following Stoltzfus' journey online and was stunned to see him in person. He was brought to tears at the sight of the tractor because his 23-year-old son was killed in the Iraq war. "Somebody from above decided my route needed to come through Oregon today and here I am," Olman said.
    Stoltzfus' drive is not easy. He's on the road for up to 14 hours per day. The cab heavily vibrates. He compares the constant shifting and steering in the antiquated cab to "dancing like a monkey on a hot tin roof." But he says he wouldn't have it any other way. "It's all worth it," he said. "Because you never know what's going to be around that next curve, or what veteran I'm going to meet."

Reading Comprehension

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

    Animals perform many useful and entertaining jobs. Dogs are particularly valuable in guiding the blind, protecting property, finding lost people, and hunting down criminals. Horses are used in guarding herds; carrying men in lands where there are no roads, and helping farmers work their land. Pigeons have long been used to carry messages. Wild animals from the jungles, forests and seas are very popular performers in circuses and movies. People realize that, although animals may not have the same intelligence as human beings, they are smart enough to learn certain things.

    The first thing a dog is taught is to obey. It should not take too long for him to learn commands. Simple orders, such as "sit", "lie down", "stay here", and "come here", can even be taught by a child.
    Training a dog to be a watchdog often produces unexpected results. Some dogs quickly learn the difference between unwanted people and friends. This is because their masters welcome friends and invite them into their houses. However, some dogs will always attack the postman who comes to deliver letters. One explanation for this behavior is that, although the postman comes to the house often, he never enters the house. Therefore, the dog thinks the postman is someone who is not wanted, but keeps coming back anyway.
    Masters of dogs who attack postmen can easily show the dog that the postman is a friend and that the dog does not need to treat him as an unwanted person. A dog is quite ready to do what his master wishes. And a dog is always happy when he is praised for understanding correctly.
    Dogs can be taught to obey commands when the sound of a word is connected with a certain act. Two important factors in teaching a dog to obey commands are: using the same word each time for the same act, and teaching only one act at a time. Dogs can learn not only to sit, lie down, come, and stay in place when masters go away, but also to jump, carry, and fetch.
    After a dog learns to carry an object, he can learn to bring something back from a distance. A stick can be thrown far away and the dog enjoys running after it, and searching for it until he finds it. After a lot of practice, the dog then retrieves a stick (or other object) even when he has not seen it thrown. To teach a dog this skill, the master makes a simple trail by walking some distance in a straight line. Then he leaves the stick at the end of the trail. The dog learns to follow the straight line at first. Then, later, he learns to follow more irregular lines. Eventually, he can learn to follow an order instead of looking for an object. With this skill he can be very useful in tracking down lost people or criminals.

Reading Comprehension
Directions: Read the following passage. Choose the best answer from the four choices marked A, B, C and D for each question.
     I may as well add here some particulars of the little fellow (a baby ape) who excited all this surprise and enjoyment. He lived five months, and became as tame and docile as a cat. I called him Tommy, to which name he soon began to answer.
     In three days after his capture he was quite tame. He then ate crackers out of my hand; ate boiled rice and roasted plantains; and drank the milk of a goat. Two weeks after his capture he was perfectly tamed, and no longer required to be tied up. He ran about the camp, and, when he went back to the town, found his way about the village and into the huts just as though he had been raised there.
     He had a great affection for me, and used constantly to follow me about. When I sat down, he was not content till he had climbed upon me and hid his head in my breast. He was extremely fond of being petted and fondled and would sit for hours while any one stroked his head or back.
     He soon began to be a great thief. When the people left their huts he would steal in and make off with their plantains or fish. He watched very carefully till all had left the house, and it was difficult to catch him in the act. I punished him several times, and, indeed, led him to the conviction that it was wrong to steal; but he could never resist the temptation.
     From me he stole constantly. He soon found out that my hut was better furnished with ripe bananas and other fruit than any other; and also he discovered that the best time to steal from me was when I was asleep in the morning. At that time he used to crawl in on his tiptoes, move slyly toward my bed, look at my closed eyes, and, if he saw no movement, with an air of great relief go up and pluck several plantains. If I stirred in the least he was off like a flash, and would presently reenter for another inspection. If my eyes were open when he came in on such a predatory trip, he at once came up to me with an honest face, and climbed on and caressed me. But I could easily detect an occasional wishful glance toward the bunch of plantains.
     He kept the run of mealtimes, and was present at as many meals as possible; that is, he would go from my breakfast to half a dozen others, and beg something at each. But he never missed my breakfast and dinner, knowing by experience that he fared best there. I had a kind of rude table made, on which my meals were served in the open part of my house. This was too high for Tommy to see the dishes; so he used to come in before I sat down, when all was ready, and climb up on the pole which supported the roof. From here he attentively surveyed every dish on the table, and having determined what to have, he would descend and sit down at my side.

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 beginning was Apple. things were made by it; and without it was not anything made that was made.” If technophiles were to write their own Testament, these might be the opening lines. Apple’s ability to redefine the appeal of whole categories of computing has attracted the unerring faith of millions of followers. Apple has popularized existing technologies four times: with the Macintosh computer in 1984, the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007 and the iPad in 2010. Recently the faithful have prayed that Apple will pull it off again with its smartwatch. Many firms already make wrist-based devices that measure sleep patterns and exercise, but so far the category has remained a niche plaything for geeks and athletes.
     On March 9th the firm gathered its flock lo share details about the Apple Watch, which will go on sale next month. Tim Cook, its boss, called it “the most advanced timepiece ever created”. In addition to telling the time, it can respond to voice commands, measure its wearer's heart rate, act like a credit card at payment points and provide alerts for incoming calls and e-mails. It can display many of the apps that are popular on smartphones, such as those of social networks, without the hassle of having to pull out a phone.
     The launch of the Apple Watch points to a broader story: high expectations that wearable technology will soon take off. Some 21m wearable devices were sold last year, according to IDC, a research firm; wrist-worn wearables, including watches, were the majority.
     Wearables have so far lacked the elegant design and ease of use that helped smartphones ring in such success. Even the fashion models who were hired to demonstrate Google Glass struggled to make it look stylish. Most companies are focusing on the engineering challenges in front of them and paying too little attention to the “cultural engineering” that needs to happen for wearables to become accepted. Apple has hired fashion-conscious executives from luxury brands like Burberry and Yves Saint Laurent to make its watch attractive, but it is not yet obvious that it has cracked the cool code.
     But the biggest challenge facing wearables is the absence to dale of a “killer app”. Watches do not yet provide much more than smartphones currently do, and some models offer far less. Moving beyond phones’ capabilities will take lime. It will also depend on getting developers to build apps that will make the most of wearables’ possibilities. 

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）I've known the mother sitting in front of me at this parent-teacher conference for years, and we have been through a lot together. I have taught three of her children, and I like to think we've even become friends during our time together. She's a conscientious mother who obviously loves her children with all of her heart. I've always been honest with her about their strengths and weaknesses, and I think she trusts me to tell her the truth. But when she hits me with the concern that's been bothering her for a while, all I can do is nod, and stall for time.
（2）"Marianna's grades are fine; I'm not worried about that, but she just doesn't seem to love learning anymore.” She’s absolutely right. I’d noticed the same thing about her daughter over the previous two or three years, and I have an answer, right there on the tip of my tongue, for what has gone wrong.
（3）The truth 一 for this parent and so many others 一 is this: Her child has sacrificed her natural curiosity and love of learning at the altar of achievement, and it's our fault. Marianna's parents, her teachers, society at large 一 we are all implicated in this crime against learning. From her first day of school, we pointed her toward that altar and trained her to measure her progress by means of points, scores, and awards. We taught Marianna that her potential is tied to her intellect, and that her intellect is more important than her character. We taught her to come home proudly bearing as championship trophies, and college acceptances, and we inadvertently taught her that we don't really care how she obtains them. We taught her to protect her academic and extracurricular perfection at all costs and that it's better to quit when things get challenging rather than risk marring that perfect record. Above all else, we taught her to fear failure. That fear is what has destroyed her love of learning. 

（4）Marianna is very smart and high-achieving, and her mother reminds her of that on a daily basis. However, Marianna does not get praised for the diligence and effort she puts into sticking with a hard math problem or a convoluted scientific inquiry. If that answer at the end of the page is wrong or if she arrives at a dead end in her research, she has failed — no matter what she has learned from her struggle. And contrary to what she may believe, in these more difficult situations she is learning. She learns to be creative in her problem-solving. She learns diligence. She learns self-control and perseverance. But because she is scared to death of tailing, she has started to take fewer intellectual risks.

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 Gill Pratt sat down to discuss the job of running the Toyota Research Institute, the carmaker's new research division, his Japanese interviewers wrote one word on a piece of paper and asked him to talk about it. The word was dementia. That might seem a strange topic to put to one of the most respected figures in the world of robotics, a man who had previously run a competition to find artificially intelligent, semi-autonomous robots for the Pentagon. But, Mr. Pratt says, the company's interest in ageing was a big reason for him to take the the job. "The question for all of us", he says, "is, how can we use technology to make the quality of life better as people get older?"
    Ageing and robots are more closely related than you might think. Young countries with many children have few robots. Ageing nations have lots. The countries with the largest number of robots per industrial worker include South Korea, Singapore, Germany and Japan, which have some of the oldest workforces in the world.
    The connection does not merely reflect the fact that young countries tend to be poor and cannot afford fancy machines, which they do not need anyway. It holds good within rich countries, too. Those with relatively few robots compared with the size of their workforce include Britain and France, both of which (by rich-country standards) are ageing slowly.
    Two recent studies quantify the connection. Daron Acemoglu of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Pascual Restrepo of Boston University show that, between 1993 and 2014, the countries that invested the most in robotics were those that were ageing the fastest—measured as a rise in the ratio of people over 56 compared with those aged 26-55. The authors posit a rule of thumb: a ten-point rise in their ageing ratio is associated with 0.9 extra robots per thousand workers.
    A study from Germany used different measures but reached the same conclusion. Population growth is closely related to age structure. These findings should not be surprising. Robots typically substitute for labour. That is why many people fear that they will destroy jobs. Countries with plenty of young workers do not need labour substitutes. Wages there also tend to be low, making automation unprofitable. But ageing creates demand for automation in two ways. First, to prevent output falling as more people retire, machines are necessary to substitute for those who have left the workforce or to enable ageing workers to continue to do physical labour. Second, once people have retired they create markets for new kinds of automation, including robots that help with the medical and other requirements of caring for people who can no longer look after themselves.

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 in the tank, 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 just good manners, but good sense too. It takes the most cool-hearted 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 acknowledgments of goodwill and tolerance is necessary in modern traffic conditions. But such acknowledgments 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 drivers 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.

    Now the robots are coming for our farms. The Washington Post tells us "farmworkers could be replaced by robots sooner than we think." The Guardian paints a picture of "space bots with lasers, killing plants." The New Yorker calls ours the "age of robot farmers," forecasting that "the future of fruit-and-vegetable farming is automation." To illustrate that, The New Yorker writes about Berry 5.1, which has so far cost $10 million to design and would pluck strawberries more precisely than clock-punching farmhands. It also highlights an indoor vertical farm in New Jersey that runs on an operating system, grows salad greens with LED lights that are "the cheapest and most efficient way of replacing the sun," and operates like the automated Amazon fulfillment center its owner used to manage. Many of these kinds of articles end with the rather generic claim that the efficiency of "precision agriculture" will save labor and save the planet.
    What boosters really mean by the robotics of "precision agriculture" is more of an A.I. approach, with cloud-enabled, network-assisted, data-intensive autonomous machines, none of which are cheap, all of which will require maintenance that farmers may not be able to do themselves. Altogether, it will drive farmers deeper into the debt they already carry. They carry that debt, and indebtedness to off-farm suppliers, because we already have a robot present and past. It's here and has been for a long time, as so-called robot farming is another way to think about industrial agriculture and its ethos of labor-saving efficiencies. In 2013, Matthew Yglesias rightly noted that "the use of the word 'robots' as a synonym for 'labor-saving technology' is a rhetorical trick to make long-standing trends seem new and alarming." This robotic farming future is not the pure good the venture capitalists would have us believe. It may, in fact, take us further down the road that got us into our agricultural problems in the first place, encouraging more monocropping and land expansion while reducing the resilience of diversified planting schemes. What's more, it perpetuates a long lineage of fashioning the future of farming without actual farmers or their knowledge.
    That lineage began about a century ago. In the shadows of broader manufacturing development, tractors, harvesters, reapers, threshers, and combines (which smartly combined several of them) would give us the farm of tomorrow. The goal was to improve productivity so we could grow more food with fewer farmers. And it basically worked. By 1910, agricultural labor was 31 percent of the US population, down from 56 percent a half-century earlier. (It was 12 percent in 1950, 2 percent in 2000.) Displaced farmers found jobs in other industrial sectors, at the cost of further separating growers from eaters.

     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.

    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. Temporary camps are the ones we are considering, and these can be elaborate or very, very simple. I prefer the latter, and I am sure the boys will agree with me.
    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.

     About 60 million Americans regularly suffer from insomnia, either because they are taking medication, or experiencing pain, or not eating right. Or — according to Russell Rosenberg, who directs the Sleep Medicine Institute in Atlanta, Georgia — simply because they are living in the modern world.
“It’s a 24/7 society now. That is, you have Internet 24 [hours], 7 [days a week], television, radio. Everything can keep you distracted from the time you need to sleep. Plus, people are working harder, working more jobs, trying to squeeze in more family-time, more leisure-time and so forth, and so there’s only so much time to do all the things we want to do in one particular day.”
According to an annual poll conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, in 2005, 75 percent of Americans experienced sleeping problems ranging from minor and transient to severe and chronic. That is up from 62 percent in 1999, when the NSF first conducted its poll.
The number of Americans turning to prescription sleep aids for help has gone up even more dramatically: nearly 60 percent over the past five years. American pharmacists filled about 42 million sleeping pill prescriptions last year, and most of them were for either Ambien or Lunesta, two recent additions to the sleep aid market.
These drugs are not believed to be habit-forming, and they don’t seem to have the same liver-damaging side-effects that earlier sleep aids had. At the same time, there is some evidence that these new sleeping pills may not be completely harmless.
Sleep experts also recommend their patients with what is known as “cognitive behavioral therapy,” or CBT. It is a form of psychotherapy that tries to change the way a patient thinks, feels, and acts about sleep.
It doesn’t yield immediate results, though, and in many parts of the country, it is unavailable. There are only about 200 clinicians worldwide who have extensive CBT training in the area of sleep. That is part of the reason prescription drugs have become so popular.
But the biggest reason, says Gregg Jacobs, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, is marketing. “You’ll see their ads every night on television now. They’re the most frequent drug ads on TV. As a result, people around the United States — and soon around the world — are being given the message that you can take a sleeping pill, and it will cure your insomnia. And when people hear that, they rush out to buy this pill.”

     In a competitive economy, the consumer usually has the choice of several different brands of the same product. Yet underneath their labels, the products are often nearly identical. One manufacturer’s toothpaste tends to differ from another’s. Thus manufacturers are confronted with a problem — how to keep sales high enough to stay in business. Manufacturers solve this problem by advertising. They try to appeal to consumers in various ways. In fact, advertisements may be classified into three types according to the kind of appeals they use.
One type of advertisement tries to appeal to the consumer’s reasoning mind. It may offer a claim that seems scientific. For example, it may say the dentists recommend Flash toothpaste. In selling a product, the truth of the advertising may be less important than the appearance of truth. A scientific approach gives the appearance of truth.
Another type of advertisement tries to amuse the potential buyer. Products that are essential boring, such as insecticide, are often advertised in an amusing way. One way of doing this is to make the products appear alive. For example, the advertisers may personify cans of insecticide, and show them attacking mean-faced bugs. Ads of this sort are silly, but they also tend to be amusing. Advertisers believe that consumers are likely to remember and buy products that the consumers associate with fun.
Associating the product with something pleasant is the technique of the third type of appeal. In this class are ads that suggest that the product will satisfy some basic human desires. One such desire is the wish to be admired by other people. Many automobile advertisements are in this category. They imply that other people will admire you, may even be jealous, when they see you driving the hot, new Aardvark car.
Another powerful desire to which advertisements appeal is the desire for love. Thus ads for bandages are unlikely to emphasize the way the bandages are made or their low cost; instead, the ads may show a mother tenderly binding up and then kissing her small boy’s cut finger. In the picture there is an open package of Ouch Bandage. The advertiser hopes the consumer will mentally insert an equal sign to create the equation “Ouch Bandage = Love”.
One only needs to look through a magazine or watch an hour of TV in order to see examples of these three different advertising strategies.

     Whether you’re delivering a speech, approaching your boss for a raise or addressing audience on an important social occasion, do your homework. The most polished, smoothly delivered, spontaneous-sounding talks are the result of many hours of work. The memorable one-liners and moving phrases that go down in history don’t come from last minute burst of inspiration.
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.
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.
Like your voice, your appearance is a communication tool. For example, if you are animated, you are most likely to see animated listeners. You give the audience the message: I’m glad I’m here; I’m glad you’re here.
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.
While the hostile questioner is talking, prepare your response. Take a positive tack immediately, and make your answer short. The instant the interviewer finishes the question, begin the answer: first point, second point, third point...bingo, your conclusion.
The way you listen gives messages about you too. Listen with interest, focusing your eyes on the speaker. If he or she is sitting next to you, 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.
Once you’re prepared for a situation, you’re 50 per cent of the way toward overcoming nervousness. The other 50 per cent is the physical and mental control of nervousness: adjusting your attitude so you have confidence, and control of yourself and your audience.

     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.

    About 725 million internet users in China, or 87.5 percent of the total online population, watched online videos in 2018, while more than 230 million users have paid for membership of Chinese online video platforms, according to a report released on June 11 at the Internet Summit in Shanghai. "The online audio visual industry is flourishing in the country, with more and more audio visual products of increasingly high quality being created," said Cui Chenghao, deputy Party secretary of the research center of the National Radio and Television Administration, during the summit.

    Cui, who is also the deputy editor of the report, points out that major online video platforms in China, including Tencent platform iQiyi, have been pouring capital into the production of original content and the quality of most works have reached a level that is comparable to those produced by broadcasting companies. "For instance, most original online shows no longer depend solely on the star factor of famous personalities. More and more new actors are appearing in these programs," he says. Cui also claims that technological advancements have been driving growth in the online media market since 2018 when technology such as 4K (ultra-high definition) and 8K resolution as well as virtual reality started becoming more prevalent in the industry.

    According to a joint survey conducted by the research center at the administration, the Center of Shanghai International Film and TV Festival and the audiovisual communication research center at Peking University, about 1,500 films were screened exclusively online in 2018, a drop from 2,400 in 2016. The drop is partly a result of the rising budgets for online movies, which as the survey also shows, have grown a hundredfold, surging from several hundred thousand yuan in 2015 to tens of millions of yuan in 2018.
    "We hope to see the quality of films continue to improve as more budget is allocated to such projects," says Lu Di, director of the research center at Peking University. Ma Zhongjun, founder of Shanghai-based Ciwen Media and a Chinese playwright, stated at the summit that some key elements of quality online works are innovation, either in characters or plots, and a smooth and rigorous film production process ranging from the choice of scripts to the completion of a film. Ye Ning, vice-president of Huayi Brothers Media Group, says an excellent film should resonate with the audience, evoke emotions and create a new world in the viewer's mind.

     A college education can be very costly in the United States, especially at a private school. Rising costs have led more and more families to borrow money to help pay for college.
There are different federal loans and private loans for students and parents. Interest rates on some of these loans will go up on July 1st. As borrowing has increased, there are growing concerns that many students graduate with too much debt. In 1993, less than one-half of graduates from four-year colleges had student loans. Now two-thirds of them do. Their average loan debt when they graduate is nineteen thousand dollars. At public universities, the average is seventeen thousand dollars.
The Project on Student Debt is an action group that collects these numbers from reports. It notes that averages do not present the full picture. For example, in 2004, one-fourth of students with loans graduated more than twenty-five thousand dollars in debt. And that did not include borrowing by their parents. The Project on Student Debt says parents as well as students are borrowing more to pay for college. Students can expect to take about ten years to pay back their loans. Repayment does not begin until after they are out of school.
Higher borrowing limits have also helped push up student debts. Students from all economic levels are borrowing more. Corrected for inflation, student loans have increased around sixty percent in ten years.
Researchers say one effect is that the higher the debts, the more likely graduates are to look only for high paying jobs. That means there is less chance they will take jobs in areas like teaching or other public service. A study done in 2002 for a major student lender found that debts can also affect lives in other ways. Some students paying back their college loans said they delayed buying their first house. Some delayed marriage or having children.
In May, groups representing students, parents and college officials asked the government to change some of its loan repayment rules. The requested changes would recognize graduates who have difficulty repaying their loans because they do not earn very much. They would be able to pay less fight after they graduate, then pay more as their earnings increase. 

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

    China's carmakers are speeding up their expansion into overseas markets, especially in the Belt and Road economies, which is expected to boost their sales and more importantly help improve the local automotive industry.
    Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, owner of Volvo Cars, purchased a 49.9 percent stake in Malaysian carmaker Proton in June 2017. Within two years, the brand has shown encouraging signs of fast recovery. In May, Proton sold 10,711 vehicles, a 46-month high. From January to May, its sales totaled 36,157 units, up 70 percent year-on-year. By the end of April, it had become the second best-selling brand in Malaysia.
    Daniel Donghui Li, chief financial officer of Geely, said one reason why Proton singled out Geely from others was that the Chinese carmaker had a unique vision for Proton's future development. "We set a goal to help it to become the No. 1 brand in Malaysia and a top three brand in the ASEAN region. The results so far are showing that we are on the right path," said Li, who is also a Proton board member, in late April. Proton's excellent performance was mainly thanks to its model X70 launched in December. Made at one of Geely's plants in Zhejiang province, the model was built based on its popular Boyue sport utility vehicle but tweaked to meet Malaysian customer demands. Geely said the model is just part of the story. In fact, it has introduced for Proton a comprehensive strategy covering aspects from personnel, product quality and cost control to research and development and plant renovation.
    Proton engineers are also joining Geely's research teams in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, and the two sides are working to find solutions that will enable Proton to benefit most from Geely's proven system. Ahmad Muzaimi Zainol, a Proton project manager, said after two years of cooperation, they have seen encouraging progress.
    Geely is helping Proton to improve its plants as well. The facility in Tanjung Malim is now ready to produce the X70 SUV later this year, as local assembly trials had started on June 12. Proton Chairman Syed Faisal Albar said that the two companies' partnership has proved to be a shining example of cooperation between both countries. He also suggested that Chinese companies use Malaysia as a gateway to the ASEAN market, which has a population of 650 million. China's Industry and Information Technology Minister Miao Wei said during the plant's opening ceremony that Geely and Proton should seize the opportunities provided by the Belt and Road Initiative, and urged them to deepen cooperation to offer globally competitive products.
    Besides Malaysia, Geely has built plants in countries like Belarus, the UK and Sweden and is selling its models in more than 20 countries and regions.

     In a competitive economy, the consumer usually has the choice of several different brands of the same product. Yet underneath their labels, the products are often nearly identical. One manufacturer’s toothpaste tends to differ from another’s. Thus manufacturers are confronted with a problem — how to keep sales high enough to stay in business. Manufacturers solve this problem by advertising. They try to appeal to consumers in various ways. In fact, advertisements may be classified into three types according to the kind of appeals they use.
One type of advertisement tries to appeal to the consumer’s reasoning mind. It may offer a claim that seems scientific. For example, it may say the dentists recommend Flash toothpaste. In selling a product, the truth of the advertising may be less important than the appearance of truth. A scientific approach gives the appearance of truth.
Another type of advertisement tries to amuse the potential buyer. Products that are essential boring, such as insecticide, are often advertised in an amusing way. One way of doing this is to make the products appear alive. For example, the advertisers may personify cans of insecticide, and show them attacking mean-faced bugs. Ads of this sort are silly, but they also tend to be amusing. Advertisers believe that consumers are likely to remember and buy products that the consumers associate with fun.
Associating the product with something pleasant is the technique of the third type of appeal. In this class are ads that suggest that the product will satisfy some basic human desires. One such desire is the wish to be admired by other people. Many automobile advertisements are in this category. They imply that other people will admire you, may even be jealous, when they see you driving the hot, new Aardvark car.
Another powerful desire to which advertisements appeal is the desire for love. Thus ads for bandages are unlikely to emphasize the way the bandages are made or their low cost; instead, the ads may show a mother tenderly binding up and then kissing her small boy’s cut finger. In the picture there is an open package of Ouch Bandage. The advertiser hopes the consumer will mentally insert an equal sign to create the equation “Ouch Bandage = Love”.
One only needs to look through a magazine or watch an hour of TV in order to see examples of these three different advertising strategies.