Read the article and select the best answer. Article: A story from the Bible tells of old Babylon, where the men decided to build a tower that would touch the sky.But God was unhappy, and he made them speak different languages.They couldn't understand each other, so their dream never came true. Yet the dream remains alive: if all men speak the same language, they can do anything.L.L.Zamenhof from Poland was among the men who this dream.He developed Esperanto between 1877 and 1885. As the most successful man-made world language, it is spoken by over two million people around the world.Last month, the World Esperanto Congress , dealing with language rights, ended in Sweden.The 2004 conference will be held in Beijing.Most Esperanto speakers are in Central and Eastern Europe and in East Asia, particularly Chinese mainland. Esperanto has two advantages.First, it's easy.Each letter has exactly one sound and there are just 16 basic grammar rules.The second advantage is that it belongs to no one country.But Esperanto has only reached a small number of people compared with natural languages widely used around the world-such as English or Chinese.While these languages are deeply connected with their nations and cultures, Esperanto doesn't have this background. Will Esperanto really become a global language? It remains a question. Question: The writer tells us a story at the beginning to _ . Options: A: explain why men have been making the effort to create a language shared by all B: explain why men now speak different languages C: show the relationship between man and God D: prove that language is very important
A

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: While I was waiting to enter university,I saw advertised in a local newspaper a teaching post at a school in a suburb of London about ten miles from where I lived. Being very short of money, I applied. Three days later, a letter arrived, asking me to go to Croydon for an interview. It proved a tiring journey: a train to Croydon station; a ten-minute bus ride and then a walk of at least fifteen minutes. It was clearly the headmaster himself that opened the door. He was short and fat, with a grey-color1ed moustache,a deeply lined face and hardly any hair. He looked at me with surprised disapproval. Then he said. "You'd better come inside." Leading me into his study, he started to ask me a number of questions: what subjects I had taken in my General School Certificate;how old I was; what games I played; whether I thought games were an important part of a boy's education, etc. I said something about not attaching too much importance to them. We obviously had very little in common. The teaching arrangement filled me with fear. I was to divide the class of twenty-four boys, aged from seven to thirteen, into three groups and teach them all subjects--including art, football, cricket and so on--in turn at three different levels. Actually, I was depressed at the thought of teaching algebra and geometry--two subjects in which I had been rather weak at school. I said shyly, "What would my salary be?" "Twelve pounds a week plus lunch." Before I could speak, he got to his feet. "Now," he said, "you'd better meet my wife. She's the one who really runs this school." This was the last thing I could hear. I was young. How could my dignity allow me to work under an old woman? Question: What was the man's first attitude towards the writer? Options: A: Pleased approval. B: Scared doubt. C: Amazed disapproval. D: Excited pleasure
C

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: A cute invention was revealed this month at the International Robot Exhibition (IREX) in Tokyo. It's called Jukusui-Kun ("deep sleep" in Japanese) ---a robotic pillow in the shape of a polar bear. The pillow is in fact a serious technological innovation hidden under a cute cover. It was developed by a group of scientists and engineers at Tokyo's Waseda University to help people suffering from snoring and those who live with them. This is how the robotic pillow works: a microphone detects the noise level of the snoring, and if the snoring becomes very loud, which can be the sign of sleep apnea , the bear will raise its hand and carefully touch the face of the sleeper, leading to a change in the sleeper's position without waking him or her up. This is definitely the world's first anti-snoring machine and an important potential treatment for sleep apnea. This sleeping disorder involves pauses in breathing, and can lead to heart attacks during sleep. In Japan, around 2 million people are struggling with the problem. When a sleeper starts snoring, the sleeper's blood oxygen level drops. The new device tracks the level of oxygen in the sleeper's blood and wirelessly sends the information to the polar bear. But the only problem is that people not only have to sleep on a bear-shaped pillow with robotic hands, but also have to insert their hands into a monitor that keeps track of blood oxygen levels. If these levels fall below a certain point, it gives the bear another cue to lift its hand. The bear is not yet on sale, and it remains to be seen whether a robotic hand reaching up to touch one's face is any more effective than one's partner giving one a good shove . Question: What's the author's attitude to the new device? Options: A: Positive. B: Negative. C: Objective. D: Doubtful.
C

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Long ago, near the village of Hedley, there lived a strange and playful trickster , known as the Hedley Kow. Sometimes it looked like an ordinary object. Sometimes it looked like a donkey or a goat. One evening, as an old woman went along the path, she saw an old iron pot lying in the ditch. "Fancy that," she said. "Nobody seems to want this old pot. I will take it home and plant pretty flowers in it." When she tried to lift it, she saw that it was full of gold pieces. "Well, now, if that doesn't beat all," she said. "I'm rich! I can buy a fine house and fancy clothes." The pot was heavy, so she tied her shawl around it and began to drag it home. After a while, she stopped to rest. When she looked in the pot, she was amazed to see that it was full of silver pieces! "Oh, my God!" she said. "Aren't I the lucky one! If it were gold, thieves would have been after me. My friends might have been jealous. But I can hide these silver pieces, take out a few at a time, and live like a queen." On she went, pulling the pot after her. She was nearing home now. At her gate, she looked into the pot. What a surprise! The silver had changed into a lump of iron. "Iron," she said. "Well, now! No one will be jealous or want to steal this from me. I can use this iron to prop my door open and let in fresh air and sunlight. Lucky me!" As soon as she said that, the pot began to grow and later it became a goat. Then it jumped up and ran off down the road laughing. "Fancy that!" said the old woman. "I believe I have seen the Hedley Kow! Not many folks can say that, and that's a fact. I'll just sit up by my fire tonight thinking about how lucky I was to see it for myself. I truly must be the luckiest person in the world!" Question: What does "the Hedley Kow" stand for in the eyes of the old woman? Options: A: Glory. B: Honor. C: Misfortune. D: Luck.
D