*Question*
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Almost all of us have been there: A sense of uneasiness strikes us when we see the battery running low on the smartphone. While today's smartphones enable us to surf the Internet, take pictures and play music, their limited, sometimes annoyingly short battery life has started to make people full of memories of early models. "My favorite phone of all time was a silver Nokia 6310i from the early 2000s. It may be primitive by today's standards, but it could run for 17 days on a single charge," wrote Daily Mail columnist David Derbyshire. But scientists spend no time thinking about the past. They have built an aluminium battery which could be a cheap, fast-charging alternative to current designs. You can squeeze, and practically bend it in half without breaking the packet. It is more environmentally friendly than alkaline batteries, and more safe than lithium batteries - it won't catch fire "even if you drill through it", as Hongjie Dai of Stanford University told The Telegraph. The battery is the work of a team led by Dai. And the best part is that it has a recharge time of around one minute. However, at present, the only problem is that it produces just half the voltage of a typical lithium battery. But Dai explained they were setting about changing the voltage and energy density ". "Our battery has everything else you'd dream that a battery should have. I see this as a new battery in its early days," he told The Telegraph. Question: How many advantages does the aluminium battery have according to the article? Options: A: 2 B: 3 C: 4 D: 5
**Answer**
C

*Question*
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Paula and Rory have fives kids, three dogs, and a rabbit. When the house is very noisy, Megan, one of the children, is quietly inventing. A year ago, the 10-year-old had to design an anti-smoking poster, she came up with the idea of creating something that shows the average amount of tar a smoker collects from just four packs of cigarettes. "I like people to play with things more than read and write," she says. So she researched her idea on the Internet, found a company in China that could make it, saved up her pocket money and got her idea made. Paula says her daughter "think differently": Ideas jump into her mind. After she got sunburnt on holiday, Megan invented a small plastic bracelet that changes colors in the sun, telling you when to put on sunscreen . Several sunscreen companies have expressed an interest in the idea. She also came up with an idea to make a ball filled with water to stop the dog from feeling thirsty. "But we didn't do anything with it," says Paula. Then she pulls out a picture of a special fishing rod she had designed. "There is a camera on the hook ," she explains, "and the screen is on the handle, and it shows if you've caught a fish or not." Megan doesn't want to go to university. She keeps her pink-and -cream bedroom tidy. Paula is amazed and a bit confused by her daughter. "Everything has to be in a certain order," Paula says. "Her brothers and sisters go with the flow, but with Megan, it's 'What time will that be happening?' or 'Where am I being picked up from today?'" Question: According to the passage, which of the following about Megan is true? Options: A: She has fives kids, three dogs, and a rabbit. B: She designed an anti-smoking poster when she was nine. C: She founded a company in China to get her idea made. D: She invented a small plastic bracelet to change the color of sunscreen.
**Answer**
B

*Question*
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Annie sometimes felt puzzled by the relationship between her parents. They never seemed to show much love for each other. Annie believed that people who were in love would show it. They would hold hands, speak sweet words to each other and give each other nice gifts. Annie's parents did none of these things. So, she doubted whether they really loved each other. It was Annie's plan to ask her parents about their feelings for each other. But it was hard to find the right moment. One Saturday afternoon, she noticed that her dad was in the garage, doing some work on the engine of his sports car. Annie's dad was always in a good mood when he was near his sports car, so she decided to ask him the question that had been bothering her." Dad, do you and Mom really love each other?" "Of course," her father replied. "Why do you ask?" "Well, you never seem to show it." Annie's father was silent for a while, he spoke again. "Look at the engine of this car," he said. "It is oily and messy, and the car looks much better when the hood is down. Don't you agree?" Without waiting for a reply, he went on. "If I took out the engine and put the hood back down, the car would look just as beautiful, right? But it wouldn't be a car anymore. The engine is its beating heart. You don't usually see it, but it has to be there. It's the same with your Mom and me. Our love for each other is the beating heart of this family. Don't worry just because it isn't on show all the time. " About six months later, Annie's father lost his job. The family had to cut back on many things to make ends meet. And he had to sell his beloved sports car. But Annie noticed another change. Because he had more free time, her father spent more of it with her mother. They seemed to grow closer together, and showed their love more often. Their love, which Annie had been afraid did not exist, was plain to see. Annie was sad that the sports car had gone, but at least she understood what her father had told her that day. Question: What happened to the love between Annie's parents after her father lost his job? Options: A: It no longer existed. B: It became easier to see. C: It grew weaker. D: It changed completely.
**Answer**
B

*Question*
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: In promising to fuse media as diverse as television, telephone communication, video games, music and data transmission, the era of digital convergence goes better than yesterday's celebrated "information superhighway." Yet achieving this single technology is far from straightforward. There are currently three major television broadcast standards, and they are all incompatible with each other. But this is nothing compared to the many technologies supporting the Internet, each with a different bandwidth and physical media. The problems faced in designing platforms and communication systems that will be accepted across the world can appear insuperable. Even once global standards are assured, however, a further obstacle lies in wait. The Internet is plagued by long, erratic (,) response times because it is a pull-technology, driven by patterns of user demands. Push-technology, on the other hand, reverses the relationship: servers simply send information to passive users, as in television and radio. But if some form of combination between one-way television flow and interactive Internet is to be the basis of our future media, it is hard to see how it could be operated. Moreover, the problem of fusing Internet with television is also one of defining the services offered. Information, entertainment and relaxation appear at first to be quite different needs. Serious doubts remain over whether consumers will be interested in having to make the sort of mental effort associated with computing while also settling down in front of a sitcom . Besides the issue of consumer habits, infrastructurecosts are set to be immense, and will have to be met by national states or the private sector before being passed on to users. Platforms do not necessarily have to be expensive. The mobile phone is a good example of how something that is technologically sophisticated can almost be given away, with its cost recovered through service charges. Users are then coercedthrough clever marketing to upgrade to newer phones with more... Question: What is pull technology? Options: A: It is the Internet system affected by long, uncertain response times. B: It is the way of business operation driven by user demands. C: It is the technology to send information to passive users. D: It is a way to blend one-way television with interactive Internet.
**Answer**
B