Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it were your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choice in life. About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that was incurable, and that I would live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is my doctors' code for preparing yourself to die. I lived with that diagnosis all day. I was completely in despair. Later that evening, I had another examination and my wife told me that tumor turned to be curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I' m fine now. This was the closest I've been to facing death. To tell the truth, no one wants to die. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. It clears out the old to make room for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Your time is so limited that you shouldn't waste it repeating someone else's life. Don' t be trapped by dogma -- which is living with the results of other people' s thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart. It somehow already knows what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. Ks5u Question: The doctor advised the author to go home and get his affairs in order because _ . - he had to rest at home - his disease couldn't be cured - his disease was not serious at all - he had to wait for the result of the test
his disease couldn't be cured

Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Most of the sandstorms that had swept China last year came from foreign land,a Chinese official in charge of desertification control said on Monday. And the invasions could partly explain the frequent sandstorms in the country in recent years despite its achievements in desertification control. Since the start of last spring,the north and northwestern Chinese regions had been hit by 17 sandstorms,of which,a dozen came from foreign land. Situated in the centralAsia sandstorm region,one of the world's four largest sandstorm sources,China also suffers from sandstorms from outside the country while being blamed as a sand source to northeast Asia. The other three major sources are in Africa,North America and Australia. The land suffering from desertification has been _ by 7,585 square kilometres annually in China,and the area of sandy land has also been falling by 1,284 square kilometres a year. The shrinkage forms a clear contrast to the fact that the land suffering from desertification and sandy feature was added by 10,400 square kilometres and 3,436 square kilometres late last century,respectively. Currently,the desertification land in China makes up 2.64 million square kilometres,accounting for 27.46 percent of the nation's land,and its sandy land totals 1.74 million square kilometres,accounting for 18.1 percent of the country's total. Question: Which of the following is believed to be the sand source to northeast Asia? - Mongolia. - Africa. - China. - Australia.
China.

Q: Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are now a part of everyday driving in many counties.These satellite-based systems provide turn-by-turn directions to help people get to where they want to go. But, they can also cause a lot of problems, send you to the wrong place or leave you completely lost. Many times, the driver is to blame. Sometimes a GPS error is responsible. Most often, says Barry Brown, it is a combination of the two. Barry Brown is with the Mobile Life Centre in Stockholm, Sweden. The center studies human-computer interaction, or HCI, especially communications involving wireless devices. He told us about an incident involving a friend who had flown to an airport in the eastern United States. There he borrowed a GPS-equipped car to use during his stay. "And they just plugged in an address and then set off to their destination. And, then it wasn't until they were driving for thirty minutes until they realized they actually put in a destination back on the West Coast where they lived. They actually put their home address in. So again, the GPS is kind of 'garbage in garbage out'." Mr. Brown says this is a common human error. But, he says, what makes the problem worse has to do with some of the shortcomings, or failures, of GPS equipment. "One problem with a lot of the GPS units is they have a very small screen and they just tell you the next turn. Because they just give you the next turn, sometimes that means that it is not really giving you the overview that you would need to know that it's going to the wrong place." Question: The passage is mainly about GPS _ . - benefit - shortcoming - function - appearance
A: shortcoming

Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Today's word, pan, takes us back to the days of the gold rush in California. On January 24th, 1848, a man named James Wilson Marshall discovered gold in California. The news spread quickly. Thousands rushed west. They traveled on foot, on horseback and by boat to reach the gold fields. By 1849, the great gold rush was on. Towns and cities grew overnight. Throughout California --- in the mountains, along the streams and rivers --- thousands of people searched for gold. Some found areas of mountain rock thick with gold. These men got rich. But such areas were few and quickly claimed by the first men to find them. Others searched for gold in the rivers coming down the mountains. They were after pieces of gold that the rains had washed down from above . The only way to find this gold was by panning. First a gold miner put dirt in a metal pan and added water. Then he shook the pan so that the water would wash the dirt. Slowly, he poured the water out of the pan. If he was a lucky miner, pieces of gold would remain. Across the nation, newspapers carried stories of the gold being found. Each one hoped that the place he claimed panned out well --- had some gold. For many, gold mining did not pan out. For a few, it panned out well. But in time, huge machines were built that could wash many tons of dirt at a time. Panning died out. The word, however, remained in the language. Today, Americans still say, " It panned out well ," when something they have done pleases them. A business, a discovery, a simple event pans out well if it is successful. Unhappily, sometimes things do not pan out. In recent years, the word pan has taken on another meaning. Today, it also means to criticize. How it got this meaning is hard to discover. But the job of a critic is to sometimes pan the work of a writer, artist or singer. Question: Why did so many people flood to California in 1848? - Because towns and cities there developed quickly. - Because the mountains in California were a great place for travel. - Because they wanted to get rich by looking for gold. - Because the land of California was fertile at that time.
Because they wanted to get rich by looking for gold.