I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: A team of US psychologists have found that talking to another person for ten minutes a day helps with memory. "Socializing is just as effective as more traditional kinds of mental exercise in memory and intellectual performance," Oscar Ybarra, a psychologist at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, said in a statement. In one investigation, they analyzed data on 3610 people, aged 24 to 96. They found that the higher their level of social interaction , the better their cognitive functioning. Social interaction includes getting together or having phone chats with relatives, freinds and neighbors. In another experiment, the researchers conducted lab tests on 76 college students, aged 18 to 21, to evaluate how social interactions and intellectual exercises affected the results of memory and mental performance tests. The students were divided into three groups: the social interaction group had a discussion of a social issue for 10 minutes before taking the tests; the intellectual activities group completed three tasks (including a reading comprehension exercise and a crossword puzzle) before the tests; and a control group watched a 10-minute clip of the Seinfeld television show. "We found that short-term social interaction lasting for just 10 minutes improved participants' intellectual performance as much as engaging in so-called 'intellectual' activities for the same amount of time," Ybarra said. The study was expected to be published in the February issue of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Question: What's the main idea of the passage? Options: A: Intellectual exercises improve memory. B: Different people have different ways of communication C: Communicating with others keeps you healthy. D: Social interaction makes you smart
D
(Question)
I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: Today we have the second report explaining how to prepare fish by drying or smoking them. We talked last week about the first steps of cleaning and salting freshly caught fish. To dry fish, you will need either a drying table or a place to hang them. If a table is used, it should have a top made of wire screen or thin pieces of wood with space between each piece. Lay the cleaned, wet salted fish on top of the table. Do not let them touch each other. Be sure that air can reach the fish from all sides. _ Turn the fish over every other day. Small fish will dry in about three days if the air is dry. Large fish will take a week or ten days to dry. After the fish have dried, place them in a basket. Cover them with clean paper or large leaves. Then put the basket in a cool, dry place off the ground. Make sure as much of the saltwater as possible is removed before you smoke the fish. The smoking can be done in a large, round metal container. Remove the top of the drum and cut a small opening on one side at the bottom. Cover the top with a strong wire screen, where you put the fish. Build a small fire in the drum by reaching in through the opening at the bottom. Wood from fruit trees makes good fuel for your fire. _ will give the smoked fish good color1 and taste. One way to get a lot of smoke is to use green wood, not dried wood. You should smoke the fish for five days or longer if you plan to keep them for a long time. After that, wrap them in clean paper, put the fish in baskets and keep them in a cool, dry place off the ground. Question: In drying or smoking fish, the following tools are mentioned in the passage EXCEPT_. Options: A: wire screen B: spoon C: basket D: wood
(Answer)
B
Ques: I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: We all remember seeing hitchhikers , standing by the side of the road, thumb sticking out, waiting for a lift. But it is getting rare nowadays. What killed hitchhiking? Safety is often mentioned as a reason. Movies about murderous hitchhikers and real-life crime have put many drivers off picking up hitchhikers. That no single women picked me up on my journey to Manchester no doubt reflects the safety fear: a large, strangely dressed man is seen as dangerous. But the reason may be more complex: hitchhiking happens where people don't have cars and transport services are poor. Plenty of people still hitchhike in Poland and Romania. Perhaps the rising level of car ownership in the UK means the few people lift hitchhiking are usually considered strange. Why can't they afford cars? Why can't they take the coach or the train? Three-quarters of the UK population have access to a car; many of the remainder will be quite old. The potential hitchhiking population is therefore small. Yet my trip proves it's still possible to hitchhike. The people who picked me up were very interesting-lawyer, retired surgeon, tank commander, carpenter, man who live in an isolated farmhouse and a couple living up in the mountains. My conclusion is that only really interesting people are mad enough to pick up fat blokes in red, spotted scarves. Most just wanted to do someone a good turn; a few said they were so surprised to see a hitchhiker that they couldn't help stopping. The future of hitchhiking most likely lies with car-sharing organized over the Internet, via sites such as hitchhikers. org. But for now, you can still stick your thumb out(actually, I didn't do much of that, preferring just to hold up my destination sign) and people-wonderful, caring, sharing, unafraid people-will stop. In the UK, with its cheap coaches and reasonable rail service, I don't think I'll make a habit of it. But having enjoyed it so much, I'm ready now to do a big trip across Europe and beyond. In the 1970s a female friend of my wife's hitchhiked to India.... Question: The author tried to hitchhike but was rejected by single women drivers because _ . Options: A: they were not heading towards Manchester B: they thought most hitchhikers were dangerous C: hitchhiking had been forbidden and they didn't want to break the law D: he was a strong man in strange clothes who seemed dangerousZxxk
Ans: D
Ques:I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: Not long ago, people could only buy organic food in small shops. Today it is common in most major supermarkets. The reason for the increase is that more and more people are demanding food grown without chemicals. Since the 1990s, organic farm production has gone up 20 percent every year. This pattern is expected to continue around the globe. Australia leads the world in land used for organic agriculture. It has four times as much land devoted to organic farming as all of Asia. However, most of the land is not very fertile, and it only produces a modest amount of food. Argentina is a distant second, followed by Brazil, the United States and China. In Africa, only a very small amount of land is registered for organic farming. That does not mean Africa relies on chemicals. In fact, many farmers do not use chemicals because they cannot afford them. Yet there are no programs for these farmers to prove they do not use chemicals. Without these programs their food can never be approved organic. India has had the most dramatic recent increase in organic farming. Like many other countries, India sees continual growth in organic food sales around the world. This, of course, leads to growth in profits. Sales of organic food were more than doubled from 2000 to 2005. Like India, many countries are trying to increase commercial organic farming to get a share of the sales. This has led to criticism. Some people believe that organic farming should not just be about making money. They think the goal is to help the environment. Others say organic farming will not continue if it is not profitable. They say that people should be able to make money while providing food that is healthy to mankind. Question: Why do people want to increase organic farming? Options: A: More and more people demand chemicals to grow food. B: Profits from organic farming help make approval programs. C: There are fewer chemicals available to the human beings. D: Organic food is good for the Earth and the human beings.

Ans:
D