Once upon a time, there was an island inhabited by: Happiness, Sadness, Knowledge, and all the rest of it, including Love. One day it was announced to the feelings that the island would sink, so all constructed boats and left. Except for Love. Love was the only one who stayed. Love wanted to hold out until the last possible moment. When the island had almost sunk, Love decided to ask for help. Richness was passing by Love in a grand boat. Love said, "Richness, can you take me with you?" Richness answered, "No, I can't. There is a lot of gold and silver in my boat. There is no place here for you." Love decided to ask Vanity who was also passing by in a beautiful vessel. "Vanity, please help me!" "I can't help you, Love. You are all wet and might damage my boat," Vanity answered. Sadness was close by so Love asked, "Sadness, let me go with you." "Oh . . . Love, I am so sad that I need to be by myself!" Happiness passed by Love, too, but she was so happy that she did not even hear when Love called her. Suddenly, there was a voice, "Come, Love, I will take you." It was an elder. So blessed and overjoyed, Love even forgot to ask the elder where they were going. When they arrived at dry land, the elder went her own way. It can be inferred from the passage that the elder probably refers to _ . A) Cleverness B) Time C) Knowledge D) Beauty
B
At age 61, identical twins Jeanne and Susan no longer look exactly alike. Susan smoked for many years and is an admitted sun worshipper, whose habits Jeanne does not share. A new study of twins suggests you can blame those coarse wrinkles, brown or pink spots on too much time in the sun, smoking, and being overweight. Because twins share genes, but may have different exposures to environmental factors, studying twins allows an "opportunity to control for genetic susceptibility ," Dr. Elma D. Baron, at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, and his colleagues explain in the latest issue of Archives of Dermatology. Their analysis of environmental skin-damaging factors in 65 pairs of twins hints that skin aging is related more to environment and lifestyle than genetic factors. But when it comes to skin cancer, the researchers say their findings support previous reports that both environment and genes affect skin cancer risk. Baron's team examined facial skin of 130 twins, 18 to 77 years old, who lived mostly in the northem Midwest and Eastern regions of the US, who were attending the Twins Days Festival in Ohio in August 2002. At this time, each of the twins also separately reported how their skin burned or tanned without sunscreen, their weight, and their history of skin cancer, smoking, and alcohol drinking. The study group consisted of 52 fraternal and 10 identical twin pairs, plus 3 pairs who were unsure of their twin status. From these data, the researchers noted strong ties, outside of twin status, between smoking, older age, and being overweight, and having facial skin with evidence of environmental damage. By contrast, sunscreen use and drinking alcohol appeared related to less skin damage. Baron and his colleagues say the current findings, which highlight ties between facial aging and potentially avoidable environmental factors--such as smoking, being overweight, and unprotected overexposure to the sun's damaging rays--may help motivate people to minimize these risky behaviors. The passage is mainly concerned with _ . A) skin cancer and environment B) identical twins research C) aging skin and environmental factors D) genes and lifestyles
C
Q: Every artist knows in his heart that he is saying something to the public. Not only does he want to say it well, but he wants it to be something that has not been said before. He hopes that the public will listen and understand ----he wants to teach them, and he wants them to learn from him. What visional artists like painters want to teach is easy to make out but difficult to explain, because painters translate their experience into shapes and colors, not words. They seem to feel that a certain choice of shapes and colors, out of the countless billions possible, is very interesting for them and worth showing to us. Without their work we should never have noticed these particular shapes and colors, or have felt the delight which they brought to the artists. Most artists take their shapes and colors from the world of nature and from human bodies in movement and at rest; their choices show that these aspects of the world are worth looking at, that they contain beautiful sights. Modern artists might say that they only choose subjects that provide an interesting pattern, that there is nothing more in it. Yet even they do not choose totally without thinking about the character of their subjects. If one painter chooses to paint a decaying leg and another a lake in moonlight, each of them is directing our attention to a certain aspect of the world . Each painter is telling us something, showing us something, emphasizing something - all of which means that, consciously or unconsciously, he is trying to teach us. The writer says that modern art contains _ A) nothing but meaningless patterns B) uninteresting aspects of the world C) subjects chosen partly for their meaning D) completely meaningless subjects
A: C
(Question)
Disposing of waste has been a problem since humans started producing it.As more and more people choose to live close together in cities,the waste-disposal problem becomes Increasingly difficult. During the eighteenth century,it was usual for several neighboring towns to get together to select a faraway spot as a dump site.Residents or trash haulers would transport household rubbish,rotted wood,and old possessions to the site.Periodically some of the trash was burned and the rest was buried.The unpleasant sights and smells caused no problem because nobody lived close by. Factories,mills,and other industrial sites also had waste to be disposed of.Those located on rivers often just dumped the unwanted remains into the water.Others built huge burners with chimneys to deal with the problem. Several facts make these choices unacceptable to modern society.The first problem is space Dumps,which are now called landfills,are most needed in heavily populated areas.Such areas rarely have empty land suitable for this purpose.Property is either too expensive or too close to residential neighborhoods.Long-distance trash hauling has been a common practice but once farm areas are refusing to accept rubbish from elsewhere,cheap land within trucking distance of major city areas is almost nonexistent. Awareness of pollution dangers has resulted in more strict rules of waste disposal. Pollution of rivers,ground water,land and air is a price people can no longer pay to get rid of waste. The amount of waste,however,continues to grow. Recycling efforts have become commonplace,and many towns require their people to take part.Even he most efficient recycling programs,however,can hope to deal with only about 50 Percent of a city's reusable waste. During the 18th century,people disposed their waste in many ways EXCEPT for _ . A) burying it B) recycling it C) burning it D) throwing it into rivers
(Answer)
B