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I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: People used to think that wetlands were wasted land. Developers would drain them with ditches ,fill them in with tons of soil,and build houses,schools,and parking areas on them.Then scientists began to realize the important role wetlands played in the environment. Wetlands act like giant sponges  during storms.They soak up extra storm water and afterward release it slowly back into the water cycle.This helps prevent flooding. Towns where people have drained wetlands have found that in a big storm,their streets and homes are often flooded because there are no wetlands to soak up the excess water. Wetlands also act as giant filters where pollutants are absorbed and dissolved over time.Though wetlands can become polluted from dumping,wastewater,and fertilizer runoff from farm fields,they are able to process some pollutants over time because of all the microorganisms and plants living there. Wetlands are especially important for providing homes and breeding grounds to millions of birds,fish,and amphibians worldwide. Many wetlands have become national wildlife refuges ,where you can go to take pictures and look at birds and animals. The Everglades are a huge wetland that once covered more than four million acres of southern Florida. Sometimes called the "river of grass",the Everglades are a shallow sheet of water that slowly flowed across a grassy plain. In the late 1800s people began draining parts of the Everglades for development. Roads were built and towns sprang up.The Everglades shrank to half its original size. Cities like Miami grew up where once there was a thriving wetland. Sewage and waste from the cities were pumped into the remaining wetlands. Over time scientists began to see the importance of the Everglades. Even with its smaller size,the Everglades filtered the pollutants coming from the cities,absorbing the worst of it like a sewage treatment plant. During storms the Everglades protected the cities from storm surge flooding. They also are just a great place to visit and see wildlife. Question: Why can wetlands be compared to giant sponges? Options: A: They absorb extra water from storms. B: They become large or small in size. C: They absorb pollutants and dissolve them. D: They are made of soft soil.
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I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: Digital technology -- email and smart phones especially--have vastly improved workers' ability to be productive outside of a traditional office. Even so, most white-collar work still happens in an office. One reason is that, according to findings of a new survey   of office workers conducted by Wakefield Research for the IT company Citrix, most bosses are doubtful about remote working. Half of the workers say their boss doesn't accept it, and only 35 percent say it's tolerated. Skeptical bosses will likely have their doubts reinforced   by the same survey, which shows that 43 percent of workers say they've watched TV or a movie while "working" remotely, while 35 percent have done housework,and 28 percent have cooked dinner. It is true, however, that working at home makes people much more efficient  , because it allows workers to take care of annoying housework while still getting their jobs done. It's much faster, for example, to shop for groceries at a quarter to three than to stand in line during the after-work rush. The fact that such practices remain officially unaccepted reflects how far we haven't come as a society from the days when we expected every full-time worker to be supported by a full-time homemaker. More broadly the Wakefield survey suggests that employers may be missing a low-cost way to give workers something of value. Sixty-four percent of those survey participants who haven't worked remotely would rather give up some bonus in order to get even one day a week working from home. Under such circumstances, smart firms need to find ways to let their employees have enough ability to change or be changed easily to suit a different situation to manage their time efficiently. Question: What does the author suggest smart firms do? Options: A: Shorten their office hours. B: Give employees a pay raise. C: Adopt flexible work patterns. D: Reduce their staff's workload.
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I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: Ask someone what they have done to help the environment recently and they will almost certainly mention recycling. Recycling in the home is very important of course. However, being forced to recycle often means we already have more material than we need. We are dealing with the results of that _ in the greenest way possible, but it would be far better if we did not need to bring so much material home in the first place. The total amount of packaging increased by 12% between 1999 and 2005. It now makes up a third of a typical household's waste in the UK. In many supermarkets nowadays food items are packaged twice with plastic and cardboard. Too much packaging is doing serious damage to the environment. The UK, for example, is running out of it for carrying this unnecessary waste. If such packaging is burnt, it gives off greenhouse gases which go on to cause the greenhouse effect. Recycling helps, but the process itself uses energy. The solution is not to produce such items in the first place. Food waste is a serious problem, too. Too many supermarkets encourage customers to buy more than they need. However, a few of them are coming round to the idea that this cannot continue , encouraging customers to reuse their plastic bags, for example. But this is not just about supermarkets. It is about all of us. We have learned to associate packaging with quality. We have learned to think that something unpackaged is of poor quality. This is especially true of food. But is also applies to a wide range of consumer products, which often have far more packaging than necessary. There are signs of hope. As more of us recycle, we are beginning to realise just how much unnecessary material are collecting. We need to face the wastefulness of our consumer culture, but we have a mountain to climb. Question: According to the text, recycling   _  . Options: A: helps control the greenhouse effect B: means burning packaging for energy C: is the solution to gas shortage D: leads to a waste of land
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