user: Read the following article and answer the question. Article: One of the most striking findings of a recent questionnaire in the UK is that of the people interviewed, one in two believes that it is becoming more difficult to meet someone to start a family with. Why are many people finding it increasingly difficult to start and keep close relationships? Does modern life really make it harder to fall in love? Or are we making it harder for ourselves? It is certainly the case today that nowadays couples benefit in different ways from relationships. Women no longer rely upon partners for economic security or status. A man doesn't expect his wife to be in sole   charge of running his household and raising his children. But perhaps the knowledge that we can live perfectly well without a partnership means that it takes much more to persuade people to abandon their independence. In theory, finding a partner should be much simpler these days. Only a few generations ago,your choice of soul mate was limited by geography, social convention and family tradition. Although it was never clear, many marriages were essentially arranged. Now those barriers have been broken down. You can approach a builder or a brain surgeon in any bar in any city on any given evening. When the world is your oyster , you surely have a better chance of finding a pearl. But it seems that the traditions have been replaced by an even tighter restriction:the limitation of choice. The expectations of partners are made greater to an unmanageable degree:good looks, impressive salary, kind to grandmother, and so on. There is no room for error in the first impression. We think that a relationship can be perfect. If it isn't,it is intended to be thrown away. We work to protect ourselves against future heartache and don't put in the hard emotional labor needed to build a strong relationship. Twelve-hour work at the office makes relaxed after-hours dating  difficult. The cost of housing and child-raising creates pressure to have a stable  income and career before a life partnership. Question: Nowadays, in a family,   _  . Answer:

Answer: couples share the burdens


Read the following article and answer the question. Article: Most people think their time problems are outer, and that they are caused by the telephone, meetings, visitors, and delayed information or decisions. Although these problems often have a bad effete on them, as when people call or drop in, we usually contribute to them. We fail to have calls screened by a skillful secretary or assistant, or we leave our door open, actually assuring constant interruptions. In almost all cases, it is possible to influence, if not control, it usually can cause problems, such as, slowness and indecision, lack of self-discipline, the inability to delegate, or the tendency to fight fires, to act without thinking, and to jump from task to task without finishing any of them. Time is constant that cannot be changed. The clock cannot be slowed down or speeded up. Thus we cannot manage time itself. We can only manage our activities with respect to time. The same skills are needed as those used in managing others--the abilities to plan, organize, delegate, direct, and control. Time management is simply self-management. It is impossible to be effective in any position without controlling one's time effectively. Successful time management does not mean working harder, but working smarter. All kinds of management skills must be used in the home and office to get most value from time. You must think ahead about what to do, and timely than others, making it get maximum results in the shortest possible period. Question: We can also draw a conclusion that the key to successful time management is_. Answer:

Answer: clever self-management


Read the following article and answer the question. Article: In the year Shakespeare died in 1616, New England was born. This was in fact four years before any English speakers permanently   settled in  _ But in 1616 it was already the subject of the bookA Description of New England, by that busy explorer and promoter Captain John Smith, who had visited the land two years before.    According to Smith, New England owes its name to Sir Francis Drake. Not that Drake ever saw or talked about New England, but in sailing around the world he stopped in 1597 at a place on the Pacific coast of North American and called it Nova Albion, the Latin for "New England". Following Drake's lead, Smith called the area at a similar latitude   on the Atlantic coast by the same name, translated into plain English.    The very words New England show the direction of Smith's thinking. This was to be an extension   of Old England, not a new kind of community. The map in his book gives only English names for the places of New England, and he provides a special list showing thirty American Indian names replaced by English ones: Accormack by Plymouth, Massachusets River by Charles River, Kinebeck by Edenborough, to list a few. Some of those changes succeeded. But what finally happened after the Plymouth colonists landed four years later has turned out differently than Smith had imagined, for Indian names as well as English ones still cover the new England area. Question: The passage is written mainly to  _  . Answer:

Answer: explain how the name New England came into being


Read the following article and answer the question. Article: When I told my father that I was moving to Des Moines , Iowa , he told me about the only time he had been there . It was in the 1930s, when he was an editor of the literary magazine of Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas , Texas . He also worked as a professor at SMU , and there was a girl student in his class who suffered from a serious back disease . She couldn't afford the operation because her family was poor. Her mother ran a boarding house in Galveston , a seaside town near Houston , Texas . She was cleaning out the attic   one day when she came across an old dusty manuscript  . On its top page were the words , "By O. Henry". It was a nice story , and she sent it to her daughter at SMU , who showed it to my father . My father had never read the story before , but it sounded like O. Henry, and he knew that O. Henry had once lived in Houston . So it was possible that the famous author had gone to the beach and stayed in the Galveston Boarding house , and had written the story there and left the manuscript behind by accident. My father visited an O. Henry expert at Columbia University in New York , who authenticated the story as O. Henry's . My father then set out to sell it . Eventually , he found himself in Des Moines , meeting with Gardner Cowles , a top editor at the Des Moines Register . Cowles loved the story and bought it on the spot. My father took the money to the girl . It was just enough for her to have the operation she so desperately needed. My father never told me what the O. Henry story was about . But I doubt that it could have been better than his own story . Question: According to the text , why did the author's father go to Des Moines ? Answer:

Answer:

assistant: To sell the O. Henry story.