We've reached a strange--some would say unusual--point. While fighting world hunger continues to be the matter of vital importance according to a recent report from the World Health Organization (WHO), more people now die from being overweight, or say, from being extremely fat, than from being underweight. It's the good life that's more likely to kill us these days. Worse, nearly l8 million children under the age of five around the world are estimated to be overweight. What's going on? We really don't have many excuses for our weight problems. The dangers of the problem have been drilled into us by public-health campaigns since 2001 and the message is getting through--up to a point. In the 1970s, Finland, for example, had the highest rate of heart disease in the world and being overweight was its main cause. Not any more. A public-health campaign has greatly reduced the number of heart disease deaths by 80 per cent over the past three decades. Maybe that explains why the percentage of people in Finland taking diet pills doubled between 2001 and 2005, and doctors even offer surgery of removing fat inside and change the shape of the body. That has become a sort of fashion. No wonder it ranks as the world's most body-conscious country. We know what we should be doing to lose weight--but actually doing it is another matter. By far the most popular excuse is not taking enough exercise. More than half of us admit we lack willpower. Others blame good food. They say: it's just too inviting and it makes them overeat. Still others lay the blame on the Americans, complaining that pounds have piled on thanks to eating too much American-style fast food. Some also blame their parents--their genes. But unfortunately, the parents are wronged because they're normal in shape, or rather slim. It's a similar story around the world, although people are relatively unlikely to have tried to lose weight. Parents are eager to see their kids shape up. Do as I say--not as I do. The example of Finland is used to illustrate _ . A) the cause of heart disease B) the fashion of body shaping C) the effectiveness of a campaign D) the history of a body-conscious country
C
(Question)
Do we really know what dinosaurs looked like? Of course we do. We see them everywhere, not only in museums, but also in movies, magazines, and even in the toys we get from McDonald's. Since the days of early cinema, dinosaurs have captured our imaginations. They are often shown as scaly beasts with sharp horns and crocodile-like bellies . But the big screen dinosaurs are "a leap from what we know", Mark Norell, who studies dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, told Discover magazine. The reality of drawing dinosaurs for movie studios, magazines, or museums is that the artist often only has half of a skeleton to work with. Many existing and newly-discovered dinosaurs do not have a complete skeleton, which makes it difficult to tell what they looked like. And even with a complete skeleton, there is a lot of room for interpretation. "Look at an elephant's trunk and ears," Jason Brougham, a dinosaur sculptor at the American Museum of Natural History, told Discover magazine. "It's impossible to guess those features by only looking at the skeleton." Researchers suggest that the dinosaurs of old could have had trunks like an elephant or even red necks like a turkey. They could have had colorful spots, stripes , and other interesting patterns on their bodies, just like snakes. Yet, with only a few fossilized bones to study, it is impossible to know for sure. Remember the cruel and quick-running velociraptors in the US film Jurassic Park? Now experts believe that they were much smaller than in the movies, about the size of a large chicken, the BBC has reported. Since the 1990s, some well-preserved dinosaur fossils have been found in China's Liaoning province. Thanks to that, we have known for a while that one group of dinosaurs was covered in feathers. And thanks to the recent discovery of a feathered plant-eating species in Russia, many scientists now believe more dinosaurs than we previously thought had feathers, much like a chicken. Also, in 2007, scientists confirmed that... Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the article? A) Dinosaurs used to have red necks and thick feathers. B) Most dinosaurs are much smaller than we previously thought. C) The chicken has been proven to be the closest living relative to the dinosaur. D) Fossils are still our main source of knowledge about dinosaurs.
(Answer)
D
Ques: When the dog named Judy spotted the first sheep in her life, she did what comes naturally. The four-year-old dog set off racing after the sheep across several fields and, being a city animal, lost both her sheep and her sense of direction. Then she ran along the edge of cliff( ) and fell 100 feet, bouncing off a rock into the sea. Her owner Mike Holden panicked and celled the coastguard of Cornwall, who turned up in seconds . Six volunteers slid down the cliff with the help of a rope but gave up all hope of finding her alive after a 90-minute search. Three days later, a hurricane hit the coast near Cornwall. Mr. Holden returned home from his holiday upset and convinced his pet was dead. He comforted himself with the thought she had died in the most beautiful part of the country. For the next two weeks, the Holdens were heartbroken . Then, one day, the phone rang and Steve Tregear, the coastguard of Cornwall, asked Holder if he would like his dog bark. A birdwatcher, armed with a telescope, found the pet sitting desperately on a rock. While he sounded the alarm, a student from Leeds climbed down the cliff to collect Judy. The dog had initially been knocked unconscious but had survived by drinking water from a fresh scream at the base of the cliff. She may have fed on the body of a sheep which had also fallen over the edge. "The dog was very thin and hungry," Steve Tregear said , "It was a very dog. She survived because of a plentiful supply of fresh water," he added. It was ,as Mr. Holden admitted, "a minor miracle ". Which of the following can be the best title for the text? A) Miracle of the Coastguard. B) Surviving a Hurricane. C) Dangers in the Wild D) Coming Back from the Dead.
Ans: D
Over the past decade, cheating--an act of academic dishonesty--has become more and more common. The latest statistics shows more than two thirds of high school students admitted cheating on an exam last year, and--even more surprising--often the best students cheat to get to the top of their class--and they don't think it is wrong. It's not a big deal. Everybody is doing it. It is a big deal! Cheating is basically wrong and must be punished. If students easily get away with it, they might be encouraged to do it again. They won't realize that this--in the broadest sense--is an attack on our society, which is based on values like honesty and fairness. The present spreading of cheating indicates a loss of those values and cannot be tolerated. An appropriate punishment for cheating incidents would make students aware of their misbehavior. If no one were punished for cheating, who would ever study for an exam? Tons of papers would be _ from websites, writing crib sheets would be more important than reviewing the subjects, and highly sophisticated cheating arts would be invented. Knowledge would only exist on the Internet and on cleverly created cheat sheets, but not in the minds of the students--a rather bad precondition to enrich our society wisely and intelligently. Students have to learn that they have to learn. Only doing what's right will bring them a feeling of pride and accomplishment and create self-confidence--the building blocks for a successful and satisfying life and a society that keeps its values. How can students create self-confidence? A) By knowing they have to learn. B) By doing what is right. C) By learning the right things. D) By being punished when cheating.
B