A new weapon is on the way in the fight against smoking in Europe. Soon when smokers buy cigarettes they might see a shocking photo of a blackened lung or a cancer patient staring back at them from the packet. Some boys may think of smoking as cool and sexy. Their friends won't agree when they see their packets of cigarettes lying on the table. The European Union announced on October 22, that it had chosen 42 photos that showed the damage cigarettes could do to the body. It called on member nations to put these pictures on packets to discourage smokers. To catch the attention of teenagers, the special packets warn of long-term medical dangers, like cancer. Short-term effects, like bad skin, are also on the list. "The true face of smoking is disease, death and horror. That is the message we should send to the young," said David Byrne, an EU health official. "Hopefully these pictures will shock students out of their love for cigarettes."[:ZSSxxSSk.Com] The EU head office hoped the pictures would work better than current written warnings on packs of cigarettes. The warnings included "smoking kills" and "smoking can lead to a slow and painful death." So far, Ireland and Belgium have shown interest in the photos. Canada has used similar pictures and warnings on cigarette packs since 2000. The country has recently seen a fall in the number of smokers. According to studies, smoking is the single biggest cause of avoidable death in EU. Every year more than 650,000 smokers die, more than one person a minute. What can we learn from the passage? A) Canada has been the first to use the EU's "weapon". B) Many smokers don't quite believe the written warnings. C) The new form of warning has already proved to work. D) Smoking has caused more deaths than anything else in EU.
C
(Question)
Phillida Eves and her husband Tedd Hamilton weren't unhappy living in the Galway countryside with their sons, Cian and Oisin, and their daughter, Soracha. "We had a lovely home , a car, lots of friends, and weekends sailing our boat", says Phillida. "But there's a line from a poem that goes: 'Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?' That says it all for me. We felt that there was more to life." So they quit their jobs, took their sons, then aged six and nine, out of school and went to southern Spain where they bought a 15-meter yacht and headed up the coast to Barcelona. Soracah was not even three. And they brought along Poppy, the family dog. Now, two and a half years and 10,000 km later, they don't intend to stop. Tedd is a yacht engineer and can find work in ports. But, says Phillida, a supply teacher , "Any family could do this". The children are home-schooled using a correspondence course . My son had a recent project on the weather. The weather is vital to us. My son knows more than most adults about weather systems, compasses, maps and directions. The weather, for him, means life or death. Other subjects have become equally vivid. "They're living geography and history all the time. We've sailed round Italy, Sardinia, Sicily, and seen tiny islands we didn't know. The kids learned about ancient Romans by visiting Rome. One summer off the Italian coast we sailed past a volcano at 2am. We woke the kids. There it was, under the moon, with fire coming out the top--you don't get that in a textbook." But what about social development? Again, Phillida is _ . "The children have become much more socially confident since we set out. They play with tones of families of all nationalities on other boats we meet." Living for the moment, they believe, is a huge life lesson. "Our children never say they're bored." The other day they stopped mid-ocean and the kids swam, 110km from land. "That's the kind of freedom we want for them," says Phillida. "That's the kind of freedom they've got." The author describes the children's home schooling by _ . A) using examples B) making comparisons C) following the order of importance D) describing the changes in space order
(Answer)
A
Ques: Reading to oneself is modern activity which was almost unknown to the learned in the early days of the history, while during the fifteenth century the term "reading" undoubtedly meant reading aloud. Only during the nineteenth century did silent reading become popular. One should be careful, however, of supposing that silent reading came about simply because reading aloud is distraction to others. Examination of reasons connected with the historical development of silent reading shows that it became the usual mode of reading for most adult reading tasks mainly because the tasks themselves changed in character. The last century saw a gradual increase in literacy and thus in the number of readers. As readers increased, so the number of listeners dropped, and thus there was some reduction in the need to read aloud. As reading for the benefit of listeners grew less common, so came the popularity of reading as a private activity in such public places as libraries, trains and offices, where reading aloud would disturb other readers in a way. Towards the end of the century there was still heated argument over whether books should be used for information or treated respectfully, and over whether the reading of material such as newspapers was in some way mentally weakening. Indeed this argument remains with us still in education. However, whatever its advantages, the old shared literacy culture had gone and was replaced by the printed mass media on the one hand and by books and magazines for a specialized readership on the other. By the end of the century students were being advised to have some new ideas of books and to use skill in reading them which were not proper, if not impossible, for the oral reader. The social, cultural, and technological developments in the century had greatly changed what the term "reading" referred to. The development of silent reading during the nineteenth century showed _ . A) a change in the nature of reading B) a change in the position of literate people C) an increase in the number of books D) an increase in the average age of readers
Ans: A
BRITAIN is a popular tourist place. But tours of the country have advantages and disadvantages . ADVANTAGES Free museums. No charge for good collections of art works. Pop music. Britain is the only country to rival(...)the US on this point. Cabs. London taxi drivers well know where they are going. Choice of food. Visitors can find food from every corner of the world . Fashion. Not only do fashion junkies love deeply and respect highly brand names such as Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen; street styles are justly loved, too. DISADVANTAGES Poor service. People can dine out on the rudeness they have experienced," says Professor Tony Seaton, of Luton University's International Tourism Research Center. Poor public transport. Trains and buses are promised to defeat tourists who have the most patience, so the over- crowded London tube is inexplicably popular. Rain. Still in the number one complaint. Overpriced hotels. The only European country with a higher rate of tax on hotel rooms is Denmark. Drinking hours. Alcohol is in short supply after 11 pm even in "24-hour cities". What do tourists complain most? A) Poor service. B) Poor public transport. C) Rain. D) Overpriced hotels.
C