Q: Read the following article and answer the question. Article: A: I once heard someone shout, "Look out." I put my heard out of the window and a bucketful water fell on me. It seems that "Look out" may mean "Don't look out". B: I was once on a ship and heard the captain shout, "All hands on deck ." I put my hands on the deck and someone walked on them. C: I once called early on an English friend and the servant who came to the door said, "He's not up yet. Come back in half an hour." When I went again for him, she said, "He's not down yet." I said, "If he's neither up nor down. Where is he?" Question: . The writer writes the dialogue to tell us that _ . Answer:

OPTIONS:
- English is very interesting if you like it and keep on using it
- it is impossible to learn English very well in a short time
- language keeps on developing and changing all the time
- words and phrases may have different meanings in different situations.

A: words and phrases may have different meanings in different situations.

Q: Read the following article and answer the question. Article: The way people in the US travel to and from work has changed a lot in the last fifty years. Before the Second World War, most people lived in the town or the city where they worked. Almost everyone either walked to work or used a good inexpensive transportation system Many of these systems were electrified and ran on tracks, so they used very little energy. After 1945, the US government built many new roads and highways. People moved farther and farther form the cities where they worked because they could drive their cars on these new roads from their suburban homes to work in the city. Some of the big car makers also bought the electrified transportation systems and destroyed them. As people stopped using public transporation , cities spent less money fixing old buses and trains or buying new ones. Public transportation got worse and worse. In the late 1960s, people found out that the increase in the use of cars led to many problems. There were always too many cars for the highway system, and terrible traffic problems developed. People were spending hours in traffic jams getting to and from work every day. In addition, the air in many cities became dirty because of pollution from millions of cars, and many people died in traffic accidents. As people began to get worried about how the use of cars was hurting the environment, cities began to spend more money on public transportation again, so fewer people would have to drive cars. When gas became very expensive in the mid-1970s, the number of people taking public transportation began to increase .It's terribly expensive to build new public transportation systems. so it's very difficult to make big changes in the way people travel .However ,an increase in the use of public transportation has begun. Question: Why did cities begin to spend more money on public transportation in the late 1960s? Answer:

OPTIONS:
- To change people's way of traveling.
- To improve the living conditions.
- To build a new transportation system.
- To control the increasing number o cars.

A: To change people's way of traveling.

Q: Read the following article and answer the question. Article: While Nick was on the bus, reading his newspaper, the man sitting next to him suddenly pushed a large envelope into his hands. "Here, take this!" the man said, stood up and got off the bus before Nick could say a word. Nick sat there, holding the envelope. It felt heavy. There were papers inside, or money perhaps. "I'd better hand it over to the police," he thought. There was a police station close to his office. But, as he got off the bus, a man came to him. He seemed to be waiting for something. "He wants the envelope," Nick thought. Nick began to walk quickly, and the man hurried after him. Nick started to run, and the man began to run, too. But then, just before he got to the police station, Nick managed to lose the man in the crowds. When he entered the police station, the man was no longer in sight. Inside the police station, Nick handed over the envelope to a policeman in charge. The man opened it. The envelope was full of money, false money. "Clearly the man made a mistake," the policeman said. "He thought you were one of the gang !" Nick felt like a hero. He could already see his name in all the papers. He could imagine an interview on television. "However," the policeman went on, "I'm afraid I must ask you to keep quiet about all this. We're trying to catch some very clever thieves, and we don't want them to know that we have some of the money. So you mustn't say a word to anyone -- not even your boss!" Question: What is the main idea of the passage? Answer:

OPTIONS:
- Nick had an unusual experience.
- Nick became a hero.
- A gang of thieves were caught.
- A gang of thieves made a mistake.

A: Nick had an unusual experience.

Q: Read the following article and answer the question. Article: Every April I am troubled by the same concern -- that spring might not occur this year. The landscape looks dull, with hills, sky and forest appearing gray. My spirits ebb, as they did during an April snowfall when I first came to Maine 15 years ago. "Just wait," a neighbor advised. "You'll wake up one morning and spring will just be here." And look, on May 3 that year I awoke to a green so amazing as to be almost electric, as if spring were simply a matter of flipping a switch. Hills, sky and forest revealed their purples, blues and green. Leaves had unfolded and daffodils were fighting their way heavenward. Then there was the old apple tree. It sits on an undeveloped lot in my neighborhood. It belongs to no one and therefore to everyone. The tree's dark twisted branches stretch out in unpruned abandon. Each spring it blossoms so freely that the air becomes filled with the scent of apple. Until last year, I thought I was the only one aware of this tree. And then one day, in a bit of spring madness, I set out with pruner to remove a few disorderly branches. No sooner had I arrived under the tree than neighbors opened their windows and stepped onto their porches. These were people I barely knew and seldom spoke to, but it was as if I had come uninvited into their personal gardens. My mobile-home neighbor was the first to speak."You're not cutting it down, are you?" she asked anxiously. Another neighbor frowned as I cut off a branch. "Don't kill it, now," he warned. Soon half the neighborhood had joined me under the apple tree. It struck me that I had lived there for five years and only now was learning these people's names, what they did for a living and how they passed the winter. It was as if the old apple tree was gathering us under its branches for the purpose of both acquaintanceship and shared wonder. I couldn't help recalling Robert Frost's words: The trees that have it in their pent-up buds To darken nature and be summer woods One thaw led to another. Just the other day I saw one of my... Question: By saying that "my spirits ebb" (Para. 1), the author means that _ . Answer:

OPTIONS:
- he feels relieved
- he feels blue
- he is surprised
- he is tired

A:
he feels blue