Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Before the grass has thickened on the roadside and leaves have started growing on the trees is a perfect time to look around and see just how dirty Britain has become. The pavements are stained with chewing gum that has been spat out. Years ago I remember travelling abroad and being saddened by the plastic bags and discarded bottles on every road. Nowadays, Britain seems to look at least as bad. What has gone wrong? The problem is that the rubbish created by our increasingly mobile lives lasts a lot longer than before. If it is not cleared up and properly thrown away, it stays in the undergrowth for years; a semi-permanent reminder of what a _ little country we have now. Firstly, it is estimated that 10 billion plastic bags have been given to shoppers. These will take anything from 100 to 1,000 years to rot. However, it is not as if there is no solution to this. A few years ago, the Irish government introduced a tax on non-recyclable carrier bags and in three months reduced their use by 90%. When he was a minister, Michael Meacher attempted to introduce a similar arrangement in Britain. The plastics industry protested, of course. However, they need not have bothered; the idea was killed before it could draw breath, leaving supermarkets free to give away plastic bags. What is clearly necessary right now is some sort of combined initiative before it is too late. The alternative is to continue sliding downhill until we have a country that looks like a vast rubbish tip. We may well be at the tipping point. Yet we know that people respond to their environment. If things around them are clean and tidy, people behave cleanly and tidily. If they are surrounded by squalor , they behave squalidly. Now, much of Britain looks pretty squalid. What will it look like in five years? Question: Which of the following is not the writer's opinion? - Rubbish last longer than it used to. - People like a vast rubbish tip. - People behave according to what they see around them. - We need to work together to solve the problem.
People like a vast rubbish tip.

Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: El Nifio, a Spanish term for "the Christ child", was named by South American fisherman who noticed that the global weather pattern, which happens every two to seven years, reduced the amount of fishes caught around Christmas. El Nifio sees warm water, collected over several years in the western Pacific, flow back eastwards when winds that normally blow westwards weaken, or sometimes the other way round. The weather effects both good and bad, are felt in many places. Rich countries gain more from powerful Nifio, on balance, than they lose. A study found that a strong Nifio in 1997 helped American's economy grow by 15 billion, partly because of better agricultural harvest, farmers in the Midwest gained from extra rain. The total rise in agricultural in rich countries in growth than the fall in poor ones. But in Indonesia extremely dry forests are in flames. A multi-year drought in south-east Brazil is becoming worse. Though heavy rains brought about by El Nino may relieve the drought in California, they are likely to cause surface flooding and other disasters. The most recent powerful Nino, in 1997-98, killed around 21,000 people and caused damage worth $36 billion around the globe. But such Ninos come with months of warning, and so much is known about how they happen that governments can prepare. According to the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), however, just 12% of disaster-relief funding in the past two decades has gone on reducing risks in advance, rather than recovery and rebuilding afterwards. This is despite evidence that a dollar spent on risk-reduction saves at least two on reconstruction. Simple improvements to infrastructure can reduce the spread of disease. Better sewers make it less likely that heavy rain is followed by an outbreak of the disease of bad stomach. Stronger bridges mean villages are less likely to be left without food and medicine after floods. According to a paper in 2011 by Mr Hsiang and co-authors, civil conflict is related to El Nino's harmful effects--and the poorer the... Question: What is the author's purpose in writing the passage? - To introduce El Nino and its origin. - To explain the consequences of El Nino. - To show ways of fighting against El Nino. - To urge people to prepare for El Nino.
To urge people to prepare for El Nino.

Q: Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Don't you think it interesting that there were strange coincidences in the deaths of President Kennedy and President Lincoln? For example, John Kennedy was elected president in 1960 while Abraham Lincoln in 1860, between which was a hundred years. Both men were killed from behind, on black Friday , and with their wives on the spot. The two men were born exactly one hundred years away, as were their murderers, Lee Oawald and John Booth. Perhaps the strangest coincidence is that President Kennedy's secretary , whose name was Lincoln, advised the president not to go to Dallas, where the president was shot. President Lincoln's secretary, named Kennedy, advised the president not to go to the Ford Theatre, where the president met his death. Question: "Black Friday" means that _ . - the American used to be in black on the two Fridays. - the two Fridays saw sad happenings - it was dark when the two men were killed - it was cloudy when the two men were killed
A: the two Fridays saw sad happenings

(Q).
Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: One of the most popular and enduring myths about depression is that depressed people are sad all the time--and that by extension, people who are happy can't be experiencing depression, even if they say they are. It is a mistaken version of depression. Depression doesn't make you sad all the time. When I'm having a depressive feeling, I'm not walking around in black clothes, and weeping. I go out with friends. I play jokes. I keep working, and have friendly chats with the people I work with. I read books. Above all, I experience moments of happiness. Yet I feel a strange conflicting pressure. On the one hand, I feel like I need to engage in a sort of sadness for people to understand that I really am depressed and that each day is a struggle for me. Because that way I will appear suitably sad, and thus, depressed--and then maybe people will recognize that I'm depressed and perhaps they'll even offer support and assistance. On the other hand, I feel an extreme pressure to perform just the opposite, because sad depressed people are boring and no fun, as I am continually reminded every time I speak openly about depression or express feelings of sadness and frustration. I'm caught in a trap where if I don't perform sadness, I'm not really depressed, but if I express sadness at all to any degree, I'm annoying and boring and should stop being so self-centered. Depression can become your master, but you can slip out from under it occasionally. And many depressed people don't actually spend it fainting dramatically on the couch and talking about how miserable they are. Question: In the passage, the writer advises depressed people to _ . - speak openly about depression - hide the depression in the heart and never express it - be optimistic and become the master of depression - lie on the couch and talk about how depressed they are
(A).
be optimistic and become the master of depression