You can mail a letter or package under 16 oz. (unit of weight, 454g) in a mailbox, a blue box found on many street corners in U.S. cities and towns. Each mail box should have pick-up times clearly posted on top. !Packages over 16 oz. placed in a mailbox will not be sent. Bring the package to the post office or retail mailing shop instead. The clerk will process if for you. The Post Office In the larger cities, when you go to the post office you must take a number and wait in line. Post offices tend to be extremely crowded around Christmas. Try to go as early in the morning as possible. Post office branches open at 9 a.m. and close at 5 p.m. while main branches close at 6 p.m. Buying Stamps ! The cost of a first-class postage stamp to mail a letter is currently 39 cents, although rates tend to change often. Stamps are sold individually or in booklets of 10 (US$3.90) or 20(US$7.80) or in rolls of 100(US$9.00). You can buy stamps at the following locations: *online, if you have a computer. Link to the U.S. Postal Service website (http://www. usps.com) and click on "stamps online". *at your local post office *at some ATMs (automated teller machine) *at some supermarkets *by mail *retail mailing stores(you may have to pay extra for stamps and to mail packages through the U.S. Postal Service) Postal Rates and Fees The U.S. Postal Service's online postage calculator tells you the cost to mail a letter or package anywhere in the world. But you should know the weight of the package and the post code of the package's origin and destination. If you don't know the weight of the letter or package to be mailed, you can go to your local post office and the postal clerk will weigh it for you. If you have only 39 cents, you can NOT buy a stamp at _ . A) a local post office B) a supermarket C) an ATM D) a retail mailing store
D
(Question)
A mouse looked through a crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife opening a package; what food might it contain? He was astonished to discover that it was a mouse trap! Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse declared the warning, "There is a mouse trap in the house, there is a mouse trap in the house." The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr.Mouse, I can tell you this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me; I cannot be bothered by it." The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mouse trap in the house." "I am so sorry, Mr.Mouse," sympathized the pig, "but there is nothing I can do about it but pray; be assured that you are in my prayers." The mouse turned to the cow, who replied, "Like wow, Mr.Mouse, a mouse trap; am I in grave danger, huh?" So the mouse returned to the house, head down and depressed to face the farmer's mouse trap alone. That very night a sound was heard throughout the house, like the sound of a mouse trap catching its prey.The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught.In the darkness, she did not see that it was an evil snake whose tail the trap had caught.The snake bit the farmer's wife.The farmer rushed her to the hospital.She returned home with a fever.Now everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient .His wife's sickness continued so that friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock.To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.The farmer's wife did not get well, in fact, she died, and so many people came for her funeral the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide meat for all of them to eat. So the next time you hear that someone is facing a problem and think that it does not concern you, remember that when the least of us is threatened, we are all at risk.And traps are usually well disguised. The soup's main ingredient in Par.7 refers to the _ . A) mouse B) pig C) snake D) chicken
(Answer)
D
Ques: To discover whether bees can see colors, the following experiment is set up. A table is put in a garden and on the table is a piece of blue cardboard with a drop of syrup on it. After a short time, bees come to the syrup. The bees then fly to their hive and give the syrup to other bees in the hive. Then they return to the feeding-place which they have discovered. After a while, the blue cardboard with the syrup on it is taken away. Instead of this card, a blue card is now put on the left side of the first feeding-place and a red card to its right. These new card have no syrup on them. Thus, the blue card is on the left, the red card on the right, and there is nothing where the first blue feeding-card used to be. Very soon bees arrive again, and fly straight to the blue card. None to the red card. During step 2 of the experiment, the bees come to _ . A) the original blue card with syrup on it B) the new blue card with no syrup on it C) the empty space where original blue card was D) the new blue card with syrup on it
Ans: B
Ques: I'm Rich Kleinfeldt with some financial expressions used in business and the stock market. Our first expression is "in the red." It is another way of saying that a business is losing money. In the past, numbers in the financial records of a company were written in red ink to show a loss. A business magazine recently published a report about a television company. The report said the company was still in the red, but was able to cut its loss from the year before. A profit by a business is written in black numbers. So a company that is "in the black" is making money. Another financial expression is "run on the bank." That is what happens when many people try to withdraw all their money from a bank. A "run on the bank" usually happens when people believe there is danger a bank may fail or close. Newspaper reports about a banking crisis in Russia used that expression. They said the government acted because of fears that the crisis would cause a run on the banks. "Day trading" is a system that lets investors trade directly on an electronic market system. It was the first completely computerized stock market. It sells stocks of companies not listed on any stock exchange. Many high technology companies are listed on it. Day trading companies provide a desk and a computer system to an investor who wants to trade. Individuals must provide fifty thousand dollars or more to the trading company to pay for the stocks they buy. Thousands of other investors do day trading from computers in their homes. A day trader watches stock prices carefully. When he sees a stock rise in price, he uses the computer to buy shares of the stock. If the stock continues to rise in price in the next few minutes, the day trader sells the shares quickly to make a small profit. Then he looks for another stock to buy. If a stock goes down instead of up, he sells it and accepts the loss. The idea is to make a small profit many times during the day. Day traders may buy and sell stocks hundreds of times each day. Rich Kleinfeldt might be a_. A) newspaper reporter B) boss from a company C) emcee in a radio program D) investors of a Day trading
Ans:
C