Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Whether you're eating at a fancy restaurant or dining in someone's home. Proper table manners are likely to help you make a good impression. According to a US expert, Emily Post, "All rules of table manners are made to avoid ugliness." While Henry Hitchings of the Los Angeles Times admits that good manners can reduce social conflict, he points out that mostly their purpose is protective - they turn our natural warrior-like selves into more elegant ones. So where did table manners come from? In medieval England, a writer named Petrus Alfonsi took the lead to urge people not to speak with their mouths full. And King David I of Scotland also proposed that any of his people who learned to eat more neatly be given a tax deduction . Disappointingly, that idea never _ . It was during the Renaissance, when there were real technical developments, opinions of correct behavior changed for good. "None of these was more significant than the introduction of the table fork," wrote Hitchings. "Gradually, as forks became popular, they brought the new way of eating, making it possible, for instance, to consume berries without making one's fingers dirty." Forks were introduced to Britain in 1608 and 25 years later, the first table fork reached America. Yet while most of the essentials are the same on both sides of the Atlantic, there are a few clear differences between what's normal in the US and what holds true in the UK. For example, in the US, when food needs cutting with a knife, people generally cut a bite, then lay aside the knife and switch the fork to their right hand. Then they pick up one bite at a time. By contrast, Britons keep the fork in the left hand and don't lay the knife down. Though globalization has developed a new, simpler international standard of table manners, some people still stick with the American cut-and-switch method.The Los Angeles Times noted, "They are hanging on to a form of behavior that favors manners above efficiency." Question: What does the story mainly talk about? - The importance of proper table manners . - The development of table manners in Western countries. - Some unwritten rules of table manners in the US and UK. - Differences between American and British table manners.
The development of table manners in Western countries.

Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: The year was 1932. Amelia Earhart was flying alone from North America to England in a small single--engine airplane. At midnight, several hours after she had left Newfoundland, she ran into bad weather. To make things worse, her altimeter failed.(The altimeter shows the height of the plane above the ground.) At night and in a storm, a pilot is in great difficulty without an altimeter. At times, her plane nearly plunged into the Atlantic Ocean. Just before daylight, there was further trouble. Amelia noticed flames coming from the engine. Would she be able to reach land? There was nothing to do except to keep going and to hope. Amelia Earhart did reach Ireland, and for the courage she had shown, she was warmly welcomed in England and the rest of Europe. When she returned to the United States, she was honored by President Hoover at a special dinner in the White House. From that time on, Amelia Earhart became famous. What was so important about her flight? Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly the Atlantic Ocean alone, and she set a record of fourteen hours and fifty-six minutes. Question: Amelia's successful flight proved that _ . - women can do everything - women can do tings that men have done - men and women are equal now - women pilots are more successful than men pilots
women can do tings that men have done

Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: A sense of humor is just one of the many things shared by Alfred and Anthony Melillo, 64-year-old twin brothers from East Haven who made history in February 2002. On Christmas Eve, 1992, Anthony had a heart transplant from a 21-year-old donor. Two days before Valentine's Day in 2002, Alfred received a 19-year-old heart, marking the first time on record that twin adults each received heart transplants. "I'm 15 minutes older than him, but now I'm younger because of my heart and I'm not going to respect him," Alfred said with a big smile, pointing to his brother while talking to a roomful of reporters, who laughed frequently at their jokes. While the twins knew that genetics might have played a role in their condition, they recognized that their eating habits might have also contributed to their heart problems. "We'd put half a pound of butter on a steak. I overdid it on all the food that tasted good, so I guess I deserved what I got for not dieting properly." The discussion moved to Anthony's recovery. In the five years since his heart transplant, he had been on an exercise program where he regularly rode a bicycle for five miles, swam each day, and walked a couple of miles. He was still on medication, but not nearly as much as Alfred, who was just in the early stage of his recovery. "Right now I feel pretty young and I'm doing very well," Anthony said. "I feel like a new person." Alfred said his goal, of course, was to feel even better than his brother. But, he added, "I love my brother very much. We're very close and I'm sure we'll do just fine." Question: This article is mainly about _ . - the danger of heart transplanting - becoming young by getting a new heart - the effect of genetics on the heart - the twin brothers who received heart transplants
the twin brothers who received heart transplants

Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Many people believe the glare from snow causes snow-blindness. Yet, dark glasses or not , they find themselves suffering from headaches and watering eyes, and even snow-blindness, when exposed to several hours of "snow light". The United States Army has now determined that glare from snow does not cause snow-blindness in troops in a snow-covered country. Rather, a man's eyes frequently find nothing to focus on in a broad expanse of barren snow-covered terrain . So his gaze continually shifts and jumps back and forth over the entire landscape in search of something to look at. Finding nothing, hour after hour, the eyes never stop searching and the eyeballs become sore and the eye muscles ache. Nature eases this irritation by producing more fluid which covers the eyeball. The fluid covers the eyeball in increasing quantity until vision blurs , then is obscured , and the result is total, even though temporary, snow-blindness. Experiments led the Army to a simple method of overcoming this problem. Scouts ahead of a main body of troops are trained to shake snow from evergreen bushes, creating a dotted line as they cross completely snow-covered landscape. Even the scouts themselves throw lightweight, dark colored objects ahead on which they too can focus. The men following can then see something. Their gaze is arrested. Their eyes focus on a bush and having found something to see, stop scouring the snow-blanketed landscape. By focusing their attention on one object at a time, the men can cross the snow without becoming hopelessly snow-blind or lost. In this way the problem of crossing a solid white terrain is overcome. Question: When the eyes are sore tears are produced to _ . - balance the pain - treat snow-blindness - clear the vision - loosen the muscles
balance the pain