Ques: I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: In the early nineteen fifties, researchers found that people scored lower on intelligence tests if they spoke more than one language. Research in the sixties found the opposite. So which is it? Researchers presented their newest studies last month at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The latest evidence shows that being bilingual does not necessarily make people smarter. But researcher Ellen Bialystock says it probably does make you better at certain skills. She says bilingual people are often better at controlling their attention--a function called the executive control system. Ms Bialystock is a psychology professor at York University in Toronto, Canada. She says the best method to measure the executive control system is called the Stroop Test. A person is shown words in different color1s. The person has to ignore the word but say the color1. The problem is that the words are all names of color1s. Her work shows that bilingual people continually practice this function. They have to, because both languages are active in their brain at the same time. They need to limit one to be able to speak in the other. This mental exercise might help in other ways, too. Researchers say bilingual children are better able to separate a word from its meaning, and more likely to have friends from different cultures. Bilingual adults are often four to five years later than others in developing dementia or Alzheimer's disease. Foreign language study has increased in the United States. But linguist Alison Mackey at Georgetown University points out that English-speaking countries are still far behind the rest of the world. In England, like in the United States, bilingualism is seen as something special and unique and something to be commented on and perhaps work towards, while in many other parts of the world being bilingual is just seen as a natural part of life. Question: The text is most probably a _ . Options: A: science fiction story B: newspaper ad\ C: book review D: science news report
Ans: D

Ques: I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: Dear Daisy, Phew! I'm so glad that day is over. I was so worried all summer that my first day at my new school would be terrible. I'm really tired, but my first day at school went well and I feel much better now. First of all, we had to meet outside the school building. I was very nervous because my primary school only had 300 pupils but in the secondary school there are about 1,300. What a difference! The older pupils are really big. I felt so small waiting there in front of the school. The other problem was that I didn't know anyone. My family moved over the summer holidays, because of Dad's new job. So now I have to try to make some new friends. Standing in front of the school this morning, I wanted to be back at my old school with my old friends. The head teacher came out and told us to go into the school hall. Then he called our names out to tell us which class we were in. My class teacher is called Mrs. Black. She took us to our classroom. It's on the 5th floor and ... guess what? ... We aren't allowed to use the lift. I couldn't believe it. When we were walking up all the stairs I started talking to another boy who didn't know anyone. He said his family had moved from Hong Kong over the summer. He seemed really nice so we sat together when we got to our classroom, out of breath! He said his English was very poor but I thought it was really good. We spent all morning with Mrs. Black looking at our timetables. Everyone in the school has a different timetable--can you believe it? Half of the school is learning Spanish as a second language and the other half learns French. I'm in the Spanish group, which sounds like fun. I'm worried that I'll forget my timetable and go to the wrong room! How will anyone help me if nobody else has the same timetable as me? Lunchtime was OK. After lunch we started lessons. I had maths, which was complicated and difficult and then history, where we started to learn about ancient Greece. That looks interesting. I have to do some homework tonight to find out how the ancient... Question: What does the author think of 'Everyone in the school has a different timetable.'? Options: A: He liked this very much. B: He was worried about this. C: He liked this a bit. D: He couldn't understand the timetable.
Ans: B

Ques: I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: While success is surely sweeter than failure, it seems failure is a far better teacher, and organizations that fail spectacularly often flourish more in the long run, according to a new study by Vinit Desai, assistant professor of management at the University of Colorado Denver Business School. Researchers have found that people missing their goals perform much better in the long run. That is because they gain more knowledge from their failures than their successes and the lessons are more likely to stay longer in their minds. "We found that the knowledge gained from success was often fleeting while knowledge from failure stuck around for years," said professor Desai, who led the study. "But companies often ignore failure. Managers may fire people or turn over the whole workforce while they should treat the failure as a learning opportunity." Prof Desai compared the flights of the space shuttle Atlantis and the Challenger. During the 2002 Atlantis flight, a piece of insulation broke off and damaged the left solid rocket booster but didn't influence the program. There was little investigation. The Challenger was launched next and another piece of insulation broke off. This time the shuttle and its seven-person crew were destroyed. The disaster led to a major investigation resulting in 29 changes to prevent future disasters. The difference in response in the two cases came down to this: Atlantis was considered a success and the Challenger a failure. "Despite crowded skies, airlines are extremely reliable," he said. "The number of failures is extremely small. And past researches have shown that older airlines, those with more experience in failure, have a lower number of accidents." Prof Desai doesn't recommend finding out failure in order to learn. Instead, he advises organizations to analyze small failures to collect useful information rather than wait for major failures. Question: Why did experts pay little attention to the problem of Atlantis? Options: A: Because it worked perfectly. B: Because the right booster was still OK. C: Because nothing serious happened then. D: Because fewer people died in the flight.
Ans:
C