Along the river banks of the Amazon and the Orinoco there lives a bird that swims before it can fly, flies like a fat chicken, eats green leaves, has the stomach of a cow and has claws on its wings when young. They build their homes about 4.6m above the river, an important feature for the safety of the young. It is called the hoatzin. In appearance, the birds of both sexes look very much alike with brown on the back and cream and red on the underside. The head is small, with a large set of feathers on the top, bright red eyes, and blue skin. Its nearest relatives are the common birds, cuckoos. Its most striking feature, though, is only found in the young. Baby hoatzins have a claw on the leading edge of each wing and another at the end of each wing tip. Using these four claws, together with the beak , they can climb about in the bushes, looking very much like primitive birds must have done. When the young hoatzins have learned to fly, they lose their claws. During the drier months between December and March hoatzins fly about the forest in groups of 20 to 30 birds, but in April, when the rainy season begins, they collect together in smaller living units of two to seven birds for producing purposes. What can we infer about primitive birds from the text? A) They had claws to help them climb. B) They could fly long distances. C) They had four wings like hoatzins. D) They had a head with long feathers on the top.
A
(Question)
The constant demands, together with the exhausting effects of interrupted sleep, can make it hard to find the time and energy to exercise or prepare healthy meals. Here are some tips for common problems new moms face: Problem: No time to cook proper meals. When you're caring for a baby, cooking proper meals seems like a luxury. Instead you rely on convenience meals and processed foods. Solution: Try to get more support. Friends, family members, and neighbors are often delighted to help, so don't feel you have to do everything yourself. Use the extra time to prepare some healthy meals. Follow the basic rules of cutting down on fat and increasing fruit and vegetable intake. Problem: Sugary or high-fat snacks. Tiredness can leave you feeling sleepy, run-down, and in need of an immediate help from sweets and high-fat snacks. Solution: Turn snacking to your advantage. Eat high-fiber, low-fat, low-sugar snacks; these will fill you up without adding too many calories. For an energy boost, eat a banana, which is high in potassium -- a mineral essential for muscle and nerve function -- or try a handful of raisins , which are high in iron but low in fat. Problem: No time or energy to exercise. A baby is a constant demand on your time, so you're too tired or busy to exercise. Solution: Increasing activity levels will help you obtain a net calorie loss, while toning exercises will tighten your muscles. Though you may feel too tired to do any exercise, it is worth persevering (,) because in the long run your energy levels will increase. Involve your baby in your postnatal exercises; start by walking with the child in a carriage or sling(;). Swimming is another aerobic exercise that you can both enjoy by joining a mother and baby class. Many pools have childcare facilities, so you can swim a few laps on your own. Problem: Lack of sleep. The new baby interrupts your sleep, _ your energy and leaving you tense and exhausted. Solution: Practice some relaxation techniques whenever you... What's the common problem that new moms don't face? A) Living on convenience meals and processed foods. B) Having sweets to get rid of tiredness and sleepiness quickly. C) That new moms find it hard to have time and energy to exercise. D) Sleeping too long can make them fat.
(Answer)
D
Ques: Father Maurice Chase used a special way to celebrate his 90th birthday. The Catholic priest took $ 15,000 in cash to Los Angeles' gutter and gave it away. Twenty wheelchair-bound people received $100 bills, while the rest received $1to $ 3 each. "I come out here to tell them that God loves them and I love them and that someone is concerned about them," Chase said. Chase has given away cash and blessings every Sunday at the same corner for 24 years. Several hundred people wait for him every week. He makes a point of coming on Thanksgiving and Christmas, too, but this is the first year he spent his birthday in the downtown neighborhood where people live mainly in shelters and on dirty sidewalks. "It's the place that makes me the happiest.I just love it," said Chase. "I look forward to coming here." The money comes from donations he receives from rich and famous people he met during his work as assistant to the president of Loyola Marymount University. The crowd broke into choruses of "Happy Birthday" several times. Some people presented him birthday cards, to his delight. Travis Kemp, a 51-year-old disabled man with long black hair, was one of the lucky 20 to receive $ 100. He said he had no special plans for spending the money. "He has a lot of respect from me," Kemp said. "I know I couldn't do it." What's the source of the money Chase used to help people? A) All his savings. B) His earnings as a Catholic priest. C) Donations from the wealthy and celebrities. D) Donations from Loyola Marymount University.
Ans: C
Environmentalists said our planet was doomed to die. Now one man says they are wrong. "Everyone knows the planet is in bad shape," thundered a magazine article last year. Species are being driven to die out at record rates, and the rivers are so poisonous that fish are floating on the surface, dead. But there's a growing belief that what everyone takes for granted is wrong: things are actually getting better. A new book is about to overturn our most basic assumptions about the world's environment. Rivers, seas, rain and the atmosphere are all getting cleaner. The total amount of forests in the world is not declining. The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg, professor of statistics at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, is an attack on the misleading claims of environmental groups, and the "bad news" culture that makes people believe everything is getting worse. Now the attacks are increasingly coming from left-wing environmentalists such as Lomborg, a former member of Greenpeace. The accusation is that, although the environment is improving, green groups -- with profits of hundreds of millions of pounds a year -- are using scare tactics to gain donations. Lomborg's book doesn't deny global warming -- probably the biggest environmental threat -- but destroys almost every other environmental claim with many official statistics. The Worldwatch Institute claims that "deforestation has been accelerating over the last 30 years". But Lomborg says that is simply rubbish. Since the dawn of agriculture the world has lost about 20 per cent of its forest cover, but in recent decades the forest area's depleting has come to a stop. According to UN figures, the area of forests has remained almost steady, at about 30 percent of total land area, since the 1940s. Forests in countries such as the US, the UK and Canada have actually been expanding over the past 40 years. Despite all the warnings the Amazon rainforest has only shrunk by about 15 percent. Nor are all our species dying out. Some... What is Lomborg's main accusation of environmentalists? A) They scared people into making donations. B) They overturned our basic assumptions about the world's environment. C) They changed their behavior toward the environment. D) They only told people bad news about the environment.
A