My father's reaction to the bank building at 43rd Street and Fifth Avenue in New York city was immediate and definite: "You won't catch me putting my money in there!" he declared, "Not in that glass box!" Of course, my father is a gentleman of the old school, a member of the generation to whom a good deal of modern architecture is upsetting, but I am convinced that his negative response was not so much to the architecture as to a violation of his concept of the nature of money. In his generation money was thought of as a real commodity that could be carried, or stolen. Consequently, to attract the custom of a sensible man, a bank had to have heavy walls, barred windows, and bronze doors, to affirm the fact, however untrue, that money would be safe inside. If a building's design made it appear impenetrable , the institution was necessarily reliable, and the meaning of the heavy wall as an architecture symbol reflected people's prevailing attitude toward money. But the attitude toward money has, of course, changed. Excepting pocket money, cash of any kind is now rarely used; money as a has largely been replaced by credit. A deficit economy, accompanied by huge expansion, has led us to think of money as product of the creative imagination. The banker no longer offers us a safe: he offers us a service in which the most valuable element is the creativity for the invention of large numbers. It is in no way surprising, in view of this change in attitude, that we are witnessing the disappearance of the heavy-walled bank. Just as the older bank emphasized its strength, this bank by its architecture boasts of imaginative powers. From this point of view it is hard to say where architecture ends and human assertion begins. 40. It can be inferred from the passage that the author's attitude towards the new trend in banking is _ . A) cautious B) regretful C) positive D) hostile
C
(Question)
It was Thanksgiving morning and in the crowded kitchen of my small home I was busy preparing the traditional Thanksgiving turkey when the doorbell rang. I opened the front door and saw two small children in rags huddling together. "Any old papers, lady?" asked one of them. I was busy. I wanted to say "no" until I looked down at their feet. They were wearing thin little sandals, wet with heavy snow. "Come in and I'll make you a cup of hot cocoa." They walked over and sat down at the table. Their wet sandals left marks upon the floor. I served them cocoa and bread with jam to fight against the cold outside. Then I went back to the kitchen and started again on my household budget. The silence in the front room struck me. I looked in. The girl held the empty cup in her hands, looking at it. The boy asked in a flat voice, "Lady, are you rich?" I looked at my shabby slipcovers. The girl put her cup back in its saucer carefully and said, "Your cups match your saucers." Her voice was hungry with a need that no amount of food could supply. They left after that, holding their bundles of papers against the wind. They hadn't said "Thank you." They didn't need to. They had reminded me that I had so much for which to be grateful. Plain blue china cups and saucers were only worth five pence. But they matched. I tasted the potatoes and stirred the meat soup. Potatoes and brown meat soup, a roof over our heads, my man with a good steady job--these matched, too. I moved the chairs back from the fire and cleaned the living room. The muddy prints of small sandals were still wet upon my floor. Let them be for a while, I thought, just in case I should begin to forget how rich I am. The writer left the muddy prints of small sandals on the floor for a while to _ . A) show her husband that someone had come B) remind her that she had helped two children C) remind her that she was very rich in the neighborhood D) remind her how life should be
(Answer)
D
Ques:FU Yuan has been left at home with his grandparents since he was one month old. His mom and dad left to work in Fujian Province. For the past eight years, Fu has only seen his parents three times although they send home 500 yuan every two or three months. Fu Xiaoyu, 16, has had to live alone since her grandmother passed away three years ago. Her parents do not want to renounce their jobs at a clothing factory in Guangdong Province. Nor can they afford the cost of sending her to a school in the city where they work. These are just two of the 29 kids that 16-year-olds Huang Ruoqing and Zhang Linna at Beijing No 4 High School talked with this summer in Guixiang Village in Sichuan Province. What Huang and Zhang learned from their three-day visit shocked them. They wrote down all the kids' stories in a moving 40-page essay filled with statistical charts. In the poor village with a population of 2,118 people, 582 adults have left to find work, leaving 156 children without parents. Among these so-called left-behind kids, 88 percent of them live with their grandparents, five percent live with uncles or aunts and seven percent have to live on their own. To Huang and Zhang's surprise, 80 percent of the children said they love going to school. Even though, some children have to walk along the hilly roads for two hours to get there. However, for this village's students studying is not their first task. Housework, such as helping feed pigs or buffalos and taking care of old grandparents, younger sisters or brothers, takes up a considerable amount of their time. Despite having to work hard at home, over 65 percent of the young interviewees would prefer their parents' stay away working rather than returning to live with them. "These kids are understanding and considerate and know how important money is for their families. Their little wishes like having dinner with their parents inspire us never to take what we have had for granted," Zhang said. Which of the following statements is NOT TRUE according to the passage? A) Fu Xiaoyu's parents can't earn enough money to send her to school. B) Huang Ruoqing and Zhang Linna talked with 29 children this summer during their research. C) Some left-behind kids live with uncles, aunts, or grandparents and others live by themselves. D) More than half of the left-behind kids prefer their parents' staying away working.

Ans:
A