Manners nowadays in metropolitan cities like London are practically non-existence, it's nothing for a big, strong schoolboy to elbow an elderly woman aside in the dash for the last remaining seat on the tube or bus, much less stand up and offer his seat to her. This question of giving up seats in public transport is much argued by young men, who say that, since women have claimed equality, they no longer deserve to be treated with courtesy , ) and that those who go out to work should take their turn in the rat race like anyone else. Women have never claimed to be physically as strong as men. Even if it is not agreed, however, that young men should stand up for younger women, the fact remains that courtesy should be shown to the old, the sick and the burdened. Are we really so lost to all ideals of unselfishness that we can sit there indifferently reading the paper or a book, saying to ourselves "First come, first severed", while a grey-haired woman, a mother with a young child stands? Yet this is all too often seen. Older people, tired and quick-tempered from a day's work, are not angels, either-far from it. Many a brisk argument or an insulting quarrel breaks out as the weary queues push and shove each other to get on buses and tubes. One cannot commend this, of course, but on does feel there is just a little more excuse. If cities are to remain pleasant places to live in at all, however, it seems imperative , not only that communications in transport should be improved, but also that communication between human beings should be kept smooth and polite. All over cities, it seems that people are too tired and too rushed to be polite. Shop assistant's won't bother to assist, taxi drivers growl at each other as they dash dangerously round corners, bus conductors pull the bell before their desperate passengers have had time to get on or off the bus, and so on and so on. It seems to us that it is up to the young and strong to do their small part to stop such deterioration . What is the writer's opinion concerning courteous manners towards women? A) Since women have claimed equality, they no longer need to be treated differently from men. B) It is generally considered old-fashioned for young men to give up their seats to young women. C) "Lady First" should be universally practiced. D) Special consideration ought to be shown to them.
D
To what degree can a computer achieve intelligence?The answer to this question may lie in a newly-developed US computer program called Smarter Child and the Internet. If you ran into Smarter Child online, you would be surprised at this kid's huge memory. It can recite many facts. For example, Smarter Child knows every baseball player in every team this season. He knows every word in the dictionary and the weather in every major city areas across the US. However, if you ask Smarter Child other questions, you get strange answers. A question about Smarter Child's age returns, "One year, 11 days, 16 hours, 7 minutes, and 47 seconds!" Asking where he lives gets, "In a clean room in a high-tech building in California." Smarter Child uses the vast information on the World Wide Web as his memory bank. To answer questions about spelling, for instance, Smarter Child goes to American Heritage Dictionary online. For the weather, he visits www.intellicast.com. Some scientists believe that by joining the many systems of the Internet, an artificial being with the combined knowledge of, say, Albert Einstein, Richard Nixon and Britney Spears could be born. However, if Smarter Child wants to think and learn on his own like the boy-computer David in the movie A. I. Artificial Intelligence, he must solve two problems. The first is that computers find it difficult to read web pages because the files are sorted in different ways. That's why programmers need to tell Smarter Child where to look for the weather. It would be a much more difficult task to let him find it himself. Another problem is that while Smarter Child can process information more exactly and faster than any human, he lacks common sense--a basic grounding of knowledge that is obvious to any young child. From the text we can infer that www.intellicast.com is a website_. A) which is specially designed to help Smarter Child B) where we people can find Smarter Child C) where weather forecasts are made D) which is about artificial intelligence
C
Q: Cities alarmed by deaths and injuries of pedestrians are taking efforts to make crosswalks safer for people on foot, especially seniors and children who need more time to cross streets. A pedestrian is killed in a traffic accident in the USA every 110 minutes;one is injured every nine minutes, according to official data. Crosswalk can be especially dangerous for the elderly. Among people 70 and older, 36% of pedestrian deaths in 2006 occurred in crosswalks, compared with 21% of those younger than 70, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The Federal Highway Administration(FHWA)advises that next year states increase by nearly 15% the amount of time traffic lights provide for pedestrians to cross the street after the flashing orange hand appears . FHWA spokesman Doug Hecox says reasons for the change include an aging population that needs more time to cross, health-conscious Americans walking more, children encouraged to walk to prevent getting overweight and high gas prices pushing people to walk instead of driving. Pedestrian deaths went down by 12% from 5,449 in 1996 to 4,784 in 2006. But among those in 2006, 471 were killed in crosswalks, down slightly from 488 ten years earlier, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says . Which of the following is true according to the text ? A) Among 100 pedestrian deaths there were 21 people younger than 70. B) Old people are more likely to meet with accidents in crosswalks. C) Traffic accidents killed more old people than young people. D) About seven traffic accidents happened per hour.
A: B
(Q).
When I was 12, I got a part-time job on a dairy farm, milking cows. We milked 65 cows twice a day. One day, I complained to my father about having to go milk those cows, saying it was tiring. He said, you know, boy, to work is a blessing. I looked at the men who'd worked harder. I had a feeling I had been told something really important, but it took many years before it sank in. Back then, going to college was a rare privilege. My father told me if I'd picked something to study that I liked doing, I'd always look forward to my work. But he also added, even having a job you hate is better than not having a job at all. I wanted to be a farmer, but I joined a military program to help pay for college. And what started out as an obligation to the Army became a way of life that I had been devoted to for 37 years. In the late 1980s, during a visit to Bangladesh, I saw a woman with her baby on her back, breaking bricks with a hammer. I asked a local officer why they weren't using a machine to make the work easier. He told me a machine would put that lady out of work. And as bad as that woman's job was, it was enough to keep a small family alive. It reminded me of my father's words: to work is a blessing. After seeing a lot of people like that woman in Bangladesh, I've come to believe that people without jobs are not free. They're victims of crime, poor health, and depression. People who have jobs can have a home, send their kids to school, develop a sense of pride, contribute to the good of the community and even help others. When we can work, we are free. We are blessed. The writer joined a military program because _ . A) he could travel abroad with the army B) he intended to find a lifetime job C) his parents forced him to do so D) he couldn't afford his college education
(A).
D