Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Drug Use Report A new study examines drug use by young people in t he United States. The study found that cigarette smoking among American teenagers dropped during t he past years. The drop continues a general decrease in teenager smoking rates that started in 1996. American health officials praised the decrease as good news in the nation's battle against smoking. They note that smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death and disease. Smoking rates among American teenagers increased in the first half of the 1990's. However, teenage smoking rates have been decreasing in recent years. The University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research supervised the latest study. The Department of Health and Human Services reported the findings. The study involved more than forty-four-thousand students in more than four-hundred schools across the United States. They were asked about past and daily use of tobacco, alcohol and illegal drugs. The youngest students questioned were thirteen years old. The study also involved fifteen-year-old students and seventeen-year-olds. The most notable change in the study was a continuation of the decrease in cigarette use among thirteen and fifteen-year-olds. For example, about twelve percent of thirteen-year-old students questioned reported smoking at least one cigarette during the past month. Six years ago, the rate was twenty-one percent. Among fifteen-year-olds, the rate dropped from thirty percent in 1996 to twenty-one percent last year. Tommy Thompson is the secretary of Health and Human Services. He praised the findings. He said more teenagers are making correct choices that will help them avoid health problems caused by tobacco. The study found that use of alcoholic drinks and illegal drugs among American teenagers remained the same or dropped during the past year. However, the use of one illegal drug known as Ecstasy continued to increase. Yet the rate of increase was not as great as in recent years. ... Question: Which of the following statement is TRUE? - Smoking rates among teenagers have dropped since the late half of 1990's. - The study only involved in the use of tobacco and alcohol among teenagers. - Smoking is no longer the leading cause of preventable death and disease. - The youngest teenagers questioned in the study were 15 years old.
Smoking rates among teenagers have dropped since the late half of 1990's.
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Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Many immigrants to the United States find the decision to seek better lives for their families in America can have an unexpected and tragic consequence . Deep differences with their children develop over language and culture. "Many immigrants arrive here without much education. Their kids soon gain language skills and also street marts on how to live in America, leaving the parents at a disadvantage," Ileana , Roses, pastor of a Methodist church group operating in Virginia, said. "Not only that but they find they cannot relate to children who quickly absorb American culture," she said. According to the US Census Bureau , the number of foreign born or first generation Americans reached 55 million last year, a record one in five of the total population. A government survey of 922 immigrants in 2000 found that nearly 40 percent of those who had been in the United States for more than 15 years would still like to take English classes if they had the time. Two thirds of low income households depended on their children for translation. Psychologists and sociologists say parents can lose their position of authority in a family as a result and the effects of that can be far-reaching. Children exposed to American pop culture that glorifies youth and sexuality often rebel when their parents try to impose the conservative values they brought with them. "Americanization erodes all important aspects of parenting," said Richard Weissbourd, who teaches education at Harvard University. "I feel a part of me is dying with my children. They don't listen to my music. I have to play it on Sunday morning when they are not around," said an immigrant. Question: Which of the following is true according to the passage? - All the immigrants had expected the troubles they would meet before they went to the US. - Two thirds of immigrant families are low income households. - American culture shows a spirit against conservative social and cultural values. - American pop culture puts the immigrant families at a disadvantage.
American culture shows a spirit against conservative social and cultural values.
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Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: As early as the mid-18th century, some people began raising doubts about Marco Polo's travels. In1995, historian Frances Wood argued in her bookDid Marco Polo Go to China? that the famous explorer from Venice never made it to pass the Black Sea. She noted that his travel journal left out the Great Wall of China,chopsticks and tea drinking among other details.Furthermore, Chinese documents from Polo's day made no mention of the explorer and his men. Wood and other scholars have argued that Marco Polo based his tales of China on information collected from fellow trades who had actually been there. Last year, a team of Italian researchers became the latest to challenge Polo's accounts . They said that evidence didn't support his description of Kublai Khan's Japanese invasions . Now, however, research by Hans Ulrich Vogel of Germany's Tubingen University might help prove Marco Polo was true. In a new bookMarco Polo Was in China,the professor of Chinese history tries to prove that Marco Polo spoke the truth. He suggests, for example, that Polo didn't include the Great Wall in his book because it only achieved its great importance in the Ming Dynasty several hundred years later. Vogel further explains that Chinese records from the 13th and 14th centuries avoided setting down visits from Westerners. Historians before him have touched on these issues. But Vogel also relies on another evidence:the explorer's very detailed descriptions of currency and salt production in the Yuan Dynasty. According to Vogel, Polo documented these aspects of Mongol Chinese culture in greater detail than any other of his time. This is a hint that Polo relied on his own powers of observation. Will we ever know whether Marco Polo traveled to China? Perhaps not, but the consequences ofhis real or fictional journey are still felt across the globe. One reader ofThe Travels of Marco Polowas Christopher Columbus, who stepped upon the New World while following his idol's footsteps. Question: France Wood doubted Marco Polo's travel's to China because his description _ . - missed some important culture of China - covered so much about traders' life - was full of obvious mistakes - seemed less detailed
missed some important culture of China
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