Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: For eighty four days old Santiago had not caught a single fish. At first a young boy, Manolin, had shared his bad fortune, but after the fortieth luckless day the boy's father told his son to go in another boat. From that time on, Santiago worked alone. The boy loved the old fisherman and always helped him with money and food. Usually, they would talk about the fish they had taken in luckier times or about American baseball after supper, while at night, alone in his cottage, Santiago dreamed of lions on the beaches of Africa, where he had gone years before. _ On the eighty-fifth day, Santiago set off to fish before dawn. Two of his baits were fresh tunas the boy had given him, as well as sardines to cover his hooks. Then he set his lines which went straight down into deep dark water. As the sun rose he saw other boats in toward shore. A bird showed him where dolphins were chasing some flying fish. This time Santiago saw tuna jumping in the sunlight. A small one took the hook on his line. Pulling the fish aboard, the old man thought it a good fortune. Toward noon a marlin, a common fish in the sea, started eating the bait which was one hundred meters down. Gently the old man played the fish, a big one, as he knew from the weight on the line. At last he struck to settle the hook. The fish did not come out of the surface. Instead, it began to pull the boat to the northwest. The old man followed it. _ It was cold after the sunset. When something took one of his remaining baits, he cut the line with his knife. Once the marlin leaned suddenly, pulling Santiago forward on his face and cutting his cheek. By dawn his left hand was cramped . The fish had headed northward; there was no land in sight. Hungry, he cut pieces from the tuna and chewed them slowly. That morning the fish jumped. Seeing it, Santiago knew he had hooked the biggest marlin he had ever seen. Then the fish went down and turned toward the east. Santiago drank a little water from the bottle during the hot afternoon. Close to nightfall a dolphin... Question: Why does Santiago let the marlin lead his boat instead of pulling the big fish up? - He wanted to kill the marlin first before he pulled it up to the boat. - He was too tired and hungry to pull the big fish up. - His experience told him not to do so before the fish was tired out. - He wanted to use the marlin as a bait to catch the sharks.
His experience told him not to do so before the fish was tired out.

Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Perfectionists believe that not only is perfection achievable, but that it should be achieved whenever possible. They always try to make their work better, and often get pleasure from investing time and effort in their projects. They enjoy paying attention to detail and are often hard to please. After all, perfectionists almost always have nearlyimpossible standards for themselves, much higher than what outside parties would generally hope for. Most perfectionists are also highlyorganized. They've perfected their work process along with everything else in their life. They have processes and patterns for handling almost anything that comes their way, from email to new projects and clients to bookkeeping. It can definitely add up to a more effective workday with less wasted time and effort. Perfectionists can be thought of as overbearing by those who don't share their attitude. It can also be upsetting to clients who aren't interested in "perfect" and simply want their project done yesterday. When you strive for perfection, everything takes just a bit longer to get right. Even if you have a more efficient design and development process than many other designers, it is likely that you spend more time on each step than a lot of others do. While most people who call themselves "perfectionists" do so in a lighthearted or positive manner, there are those out there to whom perfection becomes an obsession . They consider anything less than perfect completely unacceptable. This can lead to obsessive behavior and can have damaging effects on their overall quality of life. Just feeling good about a job done to the best of your ability is entirely normal for a perfectionists and isn't something to worry about. But it becomes particularly dangerous when perfectionists feel they are never quite able to attain perfection, and so drive themselves crazy trying to always reach this unattainable goal. These perfectionists often place their entire selfworth on their accomplishments and ability to reach perfection, and since... Question: Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of perfectionists? - They enjoy investing time and efforts. - They are not easy to satisfy. - They have special ways of handling emails. - They set high requirements for others.
They set high requirements for others.

Q: Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: A 13-year-old Chinese girl, Fan Yi (Nancy), who had her primary education in US, recently published her first fairy tale, Swordbird. The English fairy tale was listed as the bestseller of children's fiction in theprefix = st1 /US, theShanghai Evening Postreported. Fan Yi was greatly interested in observing birds ever since she was a little girl. In Hanmilton,New York, where she lives, she often watches kingfishers and woodpeckers flying over her house from the small woods nearby. And the inspiration for writing the bookSwordbirdactually came from one of her dreams. At that time, she was studying American history in school and happened to read many articles in magazines about the 9*11 terrorist attacks. One day, she had a dream in which some _ and _ were controlled by some black birds and began to fight with each other. When she woke up, she decided to turn her dream into a story and to convey her message for peace to the public. In order to get her book published in China, Fan translated the entire English version into Chinese. "It is a learning process. Since I didn't know many Chinese idioms, I had to get help from my mom and dad from time to time. For another thing, a lot of poems in the original story are written in rhyme. So when I translated them into Chinese, I wanted to make sure that they were in rhyme, too," she said. Fan Yi was born in Beijingin 1993. She stayed inBeijinguntil she finished her first grade of primary school. Then she moved with her parents to theUnited Stateswhen she was seven. Two years later, she started to write her English story. In March, this year, the book was published by Harper Collins Publishers. It was selected as the week's bestseller of children's fiction by the New York Timessoon after it was published. In future, Fan Yi might write more series for her book. It is expected that her Swordbird Prelude might come off the press next year. Question: Fan Yi spent _ years or so writing her book. - two - three - four - five
A: four