If you've been joining in chat room conversations, or trading e-mails with net pals , you have become one of the millions who write in a special, short form of English. Throughout the world, every night children and their elders are "talking" online-many of them are talking at the same time. It's fast: trying talking to six people once. It's convenient: three or four words per exchange. It takes cleverness, concentration and quick fingers. And it requires very simple language. There's neither time nor space for explanations. Why waste valuable time telling six friends you have to leave for a moment to take care of your little brother when BRB (be right back) will do? Want to enter a conversation? Just type PMFJI (pardon me for jumping in). Interested in whom you're talking to? Type A/S/L, the nearly universal request to know your pal's age, sex and location. You may get 15/M/NY as a reply from your pal. If something makes you laugh, say you're OTF (on the floor), or LOL (laughing out loud), or join the two into ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing). And when it's time to get back to work or go to bed, you type GTG (got to go) or TTYL (talk to you later). People want to write as fast as possible, and they want to get their ideas across as quickly as they can. Capital letters are left in the dust, except when expressing feeling, as it takes more time to hold down the "Shift" key and use capitals. Punctuation is going too. Which of the following is a way to save online time? A) People seldom use capital letters or punctuation marks. B) Many people draw pictures. C) People only use the mouse instead of the keyboard. D) People never use the "Shift" key.
A
(Question)
There are many special hotels around the world. In Greenland, there is a hotel made out of ice. In Turkey, there is a cave hotel. And in Bolivia, there is the Salt Palace Hotel. Thousands of years ago, the area around the Salt Palace Hotel was a large lake. But over time, all the water disappeared. Today, the area has only two small lakes and two salt deserts. In the early 1990s, a man named Juan Quesada built the hotel. He cut big blocks of salt from the desert and used the blocks to build it. Everything in the hotel is made out of salt: the walls, the roof, the tables, the chairs and the beds. The sun heats the walls and roof during the day. So the rooms stay warm at night, though it's cold outside in the desert. The hotel has twelve rooms. A single room costs $40 a night, and a double room $60. A sign on the hotel's wall tells guests, "Please don't lick the walls." What is the passage mainly about? A) A large lake. B) A special hotel. C) A beautiful wall. D) A famous desert.
(Answer)
B
Ques: From a plane we can see the fields, cities, mountains or seas below. If we go into space, we see more and more of the earth. People and man-made satellites have been sent out into space to look at the earth carefully and people have learnt more about the earth in the last few years. The sea looks very beautiful when the sun is shining on it. But it can be very terrible when there is a strong wind. The sea is very big. It nearly covers three quarters of the earth. The sea is also very deep in some places. There is one place and at that place the sea is about 11 kilometers deep. The highest mountain in the world is about 9 kilometers high. If that mountain was put into the sea at that place, there would be still 2 kilometers of water above it! In most parts of the sea, there are many kinds of fishes and plants. Some live near the top of the sea. Others live deep down. There are also a lot of small living things, and lots of fishes live by eating them. The sea can be very cold. When people go down, the sea becomes colder and colder. Only some men can go down into the deep sea. But, in 1970, five women scientists lived in the deep sea for fourteen days. Which of the following is NOT true? A) The sea is usually beautiful when the sun is shining. B) The sea is always very terrible when the wind blows hard. C) The highest mountain is in the deepest place of the sea. D) The deeper the people go into the sea, the colder they will feel.
Ans: C
Ques:In many romantic movies or TV shows one scene always appears. It involves a handsome man standing outside a young woman's window, singing a love song to her to win her over. However, trying to woo a female with songs is not just something that humans do. A few animals sing love songs as well. Birds and elephants are romantic but the latest animal to _ a female might surprise you--it is the humble mouse. You may find it odd to find out that mice sing. We do not hear them because the frequency of their voice is so high. In fact, scientists have known for some time that male mice make special sounds to females, but it has always been assumed that the sounds are produced instinctively and randomly, with little thought going into the process. But new research suggests otherwise. When male mice with different voices were put in a cage together, scientists found that they would gradually change their pitches to sound like one another. But when a female mouse was put in the cage with two males, one male would change his pitch to match the other. "It was usually the smaller animal changing the pitch to match the larger animal," professor Erich Jarvis, leader of the study, from Duke University, US, told BBC News. This ability, known as vocal learning, is rare in the natural world. It had been thought to be limited to some birds, such as parrots--as well as whales and dolphins. The latest findings challenge the long-held opinion that mice cannot learn to adapt their voices. Scientists also found the part of the brain that controls the mice's singing ability. In the experiment, they damaged the cells in this part of the mice's brain and found that the animals couldn't keep their songs in pitch or repeat them any more. This also happened when the mice became deaf. Jarvis said that this finding had changed his understanding of the way mice make sound. "In mice we find that the pathways that are at least modulating these vocalizations are in the forebrain, in places where you actually find them in humans,"... What do parrots, whales and dolphins have in common according to the passage? A) They are all animals well-known for their smart appearances. B) They are often chosen to carry out scientific experiments on. C) They all have the ability to learn to adapt their voices. D) Their numbers are quite limited in the natural world.

Ans:
C