(Question)
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: A new study says that birds living in big cities sing shorter, faster songs that are higher-pitched than those sung by their brothers in the forests. The researchers think that the birds adjust their songs to allow themselves to be heard over the noises of the city, especially the low traffic noise. To study how urban birds song, Hans Slabbekoorn and Ardie den Bore, biologists at the University of Leiden in Netherlands, travelled around Europe and recorded bird songs in ten major cities and in nearby forests. The species they focused on, the great tit , is widespread across Eurasia and one of the few types of birds that _ in big cities. Singing is crucial for males, which use their songs to attract mates and mark out their territory. The changing songs could play a role in eventually causing the city birds and the forest dwellers to evolve into separate species. The findings could also help explain why usually only a few bird species thrive in cities. By contrast, many more bird species tend to be found in forests and other undeveloped habitats. Studies like this could eventually help researchers predict how urbanization will affect birds, using this knowledge could help urban planners design more pleasant city environments, study co-author Slabbe-koorn said. "You can make a city much more livable if you pay attention to where the noise goes and where the people go," he said. "It would be easy to fit the birds into those models." Then cities wouldn't be strictly for the people, but also for the birds. Question: What is NOT the effect that studies of birds' songs have? Options: A: Predicting how course of the city's expanding will affect birds. B: Helping the city planners design more pleasant city environments. C: Making cities more livable for both the birds and people. D: Driving the urban birds back to the forest.
(Answer)
D

(Question)
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: This is an interview between the reporter and Sarah, a girl who created a website for her school. Reporter: Why did you start this new website for Alcott Middle School? Sarah: Three months ago, my mom was complaining about how she never hears about the days our school ends early until after the fact. She works late and sometimes she has to ask our neighbor at the last minute to pick me up after school. It happened several times, and she was frustrated that there wasn't better notification from the school. Reporter: Didn't your school already have a website with that information? Sarah: We had a website. But there wasn't much information on it, and nobody was _ keeping it up-to-date . I asked my teacher if our class could update the school calendar. That seemed pretty easy. Reporter: Was it? Sarah: Yeah, and it was kind of fun. So then we asked the principal if we could redo the whole site. He said okay, so we went to work. We discovered websites that taught us how to make our site look better and added more hot links that people could click to get more information about a subject. We posted photos from basketball games. Our class even started a blog about what's going on at school. Then we persuaded the teachers to create their own pages. Reporter: So what's next? Sarah: A few friends and I started a small Web design business. We're asking other schools if they'll employ us to set up a site like the one we created. Reporter: Wow! That's pretty enterprising for a 13-year-old. Sarah: I guess so. But it doesn't seem like work when you're doing something you enjoy. Question: Sarah set up the new school website _ . Options: A: with the help of her teachers B: by researching on other websites C: in order to please her principal D: to make her school more famous
(Answer)
B

(Question)
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: We now think of chocolate as sweet, but once it was bitter. We think of it as a candy, but once it was a medicine. Today, chocolate can be a hot drink, a frozen dessert, or just a snack. Sometimes it is an ingredient in the main course of a meal. Mexicans make a hot chocolate sauce called mole and pour it over chicken. The Mexicans also eat chocolate with spices like chili peppers. Chocolate is a product of the tropical cacao tree. The beans taste so bitter that even the monkeys say "Ugh!" and run away. Workers must first dry and then roast the beans. This removes the bitter taste. The word "chocolate" comes from a Mayan word. The Mayas were an ancient people who once lived in Mexico. They valued the cacao tree. Some used the beans for money, while others crushed them to make a drink. When the Spaniards came to Mexico in the sixteenth century, they started drinking cacao too. Because the drink was strong and bitter, they thought it was a medicine. No one had the idea of adding sugar. The Spaniards took some beans back to Europe and opened cafes. Wealthy people drank cacao and said it was good for the digestion. In the 1800s, the owner of a chocolate factory in England discovered that sugar removed the bitter taste of cacao. It quickly became a cheap and popular drink. Soon afterwards, a factory made the first solid block of sweetened chocolate. Later on, another factory mixed milk and chocolate together. People liked the taste of milk chocolate even better. Besides the chocolate candy bar, one of the most popular American snacks is the chocolate chip cookie. Favorite desserts are chocolate cream pie and of course an ice cream sundae with hot fudge sauce. Question: It was _ that discovered sugar could remove the bitter taste of cacao. Options: A: the workers in the chocolate factory B: the Spaniards C: the people in England D: the owner of a chocolate factory.
(Answer)
D