user: According to a survey released by the Nielson Company on Thursday, China has become a global tourist attraction after the Beijing Olympics. The survey said the Olympics not only built up China's image but also served as an advertisement for China's tourism. The online survey was conducted on consumers in 16 countries and regions before Games' opening ceremony and after the closing. About 80 percent of the respondents had not been to China before the events and 50 percent of them expressed hopes of visiting China after the Games. According to the survey, 70 percent of the respondents felt Beijing was more modern and scientific than what they had thought. The most interested respondents were from Singapore, India, Mexico, South Africa and the Republic of Korea, as well as China's Hong Kong and Taiwan. Pan Wen, in charge of Chinese tourism research of the Nielson Company, said the World Tourism Organization predicted that China would become the largest tourist attraction in the world with 137 million foreign tourists every year. "This figure would be realized earlier with the aid of the Beijing Olympics," Pan said. Which countries were the most interested respondents from? A) Singapore, India, Mexico B) South Africa and the Republic of Korea C) China's Hong Kong and Taiwan D) All of the above
D
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As a little boy I read a book with a picture showing a man reading while floating in the Dead Sea. What a miracle! How would it feel to lie back in water so thick with salt that it was impossible to sink?               Fed by the Jordan River and smaller streams, the Dead Sea is the lowest point on the earth's surface, and its water is ten times saltier than the Mediterranean. As evaporation  is its only outlet, salt and other minerals become super-concentrated. Earlier this year, I drove down the long, steep hill to realize my dream. The shoreline was a broad area of bare salt-mud, but the water edge was out of sight. It seemed as if somebody had pulled the Dead Sea's plug . Eli Dior, an Israeli official, explained the problem "The Dead Sea is drying up. Every year, the surface falls about one meter, and as the water level falls, shallow areas are left high and dry." Over the last half-century, the five neighboring countries have used up almost all the water flowing into the Dead Sea to meet human and agriculture needs. Result the Dead Sea is being emptied.               With population in the neighbouring countries to double at least in the next 50 years, there is little hope of restoring the water being used in this area. No country has a drop to spare for the Dead Sea, where they know it will just evaporate. To dream of opening the dams and restoring natural balance is unrealistic. Yet one ambitious high-tech dream may turn out to be not only the solution to the Dead Sea but also a ticket to peace around its shores. The "Red-Dead" is a proposed $5 billion project to bring sea water some 240 kilometers by pipeline and canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. The Red-Dead may be the only solution, but even if the project is carried out successfully, the Dead Sea will be 10 to 20 meters lower than now and two thirds of its current size. Whatever the future holds, the Dead Sea's magical mix of sun, mud, sea and salt will surely survive. Many might complain that the Dead Sea is half empty--but for me the Dead... It can be inferred from the passage that  _  . A) the countries around the Dead Sea will join hands to spare water for the Sea B) as a result of the project "Red-Dead", the Dead Sea will be two thirds larger C) water crisis is a potential threat to the peace of the area around the Dead Sea D) If the Dead Sea dried up, great natural disasters would happen in the region
C
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You're on the third lap around the car park, there are no open spaces, and you're already 15 minutes late for your appointment. Right now you're wishing you could jump out of the car and let it go to find its own spot.     Now there's an app for that. Virtual Valet lets your smartphone tell your car to park without you in it. "You pull up to the roadside, push a button on your smartphone and the car takes care of everything else," says Aeron Steinfeld, the lead researcher for the project at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.     To find its own spot, the system uses a sensor suite similar to ones found in many luxury cars. This includes a motion sensor that scans for moving cars and pedestrians, and a forward-facing laser rangefinder normally found in adaptive cruise control to determine the distance of objects in front of the car. Information from these sensors is then fed to an onboard computer to plot the vehicle's course. The users can watch the whole process from their phone.     Better still, it will be affordable. The team has spent the last year moving from high-end imaging and processing equipment to less expensive components. In experiments, the vehicle was able to navigate through a crowded parking structure, find an empty spot, and park all on its own. And the greatest appeal of the Virtual Valet Parking App is that it requires no change to existing parking facilities or infrastructure.     For the moment, the only car equipped for control by Virtual Valet is Carnegie Mellon' modified   Jeep Wrangler, which the researchers have named NavLab11. But Steinfeld hopes that major car manufacturers will adopt the technology.     It might be more than technology that holds up the show, however. Self-driving cars have been licensed in only three US states -- California, Nevada and Florida -- and it's unclear how this app would agree with self-driving laws. Until these questions are settled, your insurance provider might be unwilling to cover a ding   from a parking incident. We can infer from the text that   _  . A) no car manufacturers show interest in the technology B) the technology is now widely used in the US C) there will be some difficulty in promoting the technology D) the technology conflicts with self-driving laws in the US
C
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I'm sitting here in this coffee shop. You know the one there by Allen street. The town is filled with thousands of middle class college kids living off their parent's money. The coffee shop is where the ones come to play the part of sophisticated bohemians  . The pretensions   glow from their line-less faces as they sip cappuccinos and chew strawberry cookies. The boys to my right are discussing Nabokov with a serious air, a copy of Sartre's Cuba lies on the table. The young woman on my left is declaring that she can never allow her creativity to be killed by entering the work force. The man with her scratches his goatee   in agreement, occasionally suggesting they go back to his place to hear his new Washington Squares CD. Matt has just designed a new international symbol for peace. He moves from table to table trying to sell hand painted T-shirts that bear the design. Tomorrow he's leaving for the 25th anniversary Woodstock concert where he hopes to strike it rich with his creation. Gopha the skinny Indian boy feels like singing me a verse of 'It Ain't Me Babe' when I ask him if he's a friend of Monica's. Jason is trying to talk Gopha into a dollar bet on a game of chess. Between times Jason will chew your ear off with his plans to conquer the music industry while studying entertainment law, but when it comes to his never ending dollar chess matches he's quiet as a church mouse. I sit among them. To all surface appearances one and the same. If they could only see I would rather reach into their flesh and tear out their shallow little hearts than listen to another second of their prattle  . With no job, no gigs, and my girlfriend's so far gone she might as well be on another planet, I've been leading the writer's quiet cafe life, spending my free time outdoors drinking iced teas and cheap wines. I chat warmly with whoever decides to squander away their hours in my surrounding area. But behind my eyes is an unspoken challenge to any and every one of these social elites   to just once say one thing that would... The college students in the coffee shop can be described as   _  . A) shallow and aimless B) determined and independent C) vain and ambitious D) honest and hardworking


assistant: C
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