Read the article and select the best answer. Article: US universities are among the best in the world. Since World War II, American scientists --- mostly working in universties or colleges --- have won more than half of all Nobel Prizes in physics and medicine. Foreign students rush to the United States by the tens of thousands. Last year they earned more than one quarter of the doctoral degrees awarded in the country. Yet while American universities produce the great research and great graduate program, they sometimes pay little attention to the task that lies at their very core: the teaching of undergraduate students. With the increase in fees, educators feel obliged to improve undergraduate teaching. In speeches and interviews the nation's higher educators have rediscovered teaching. Robert Rosenzweig, president of the Association of American Universities, said, "Our organization was never very concerned about teaching. In the last 18 months, we have spent more time on undergraduate education than on any other subject." Despite such promising efforts, no one doubts that research still outranks teaching at some of the leading universities, not least because it is a surer and faster way to earn status. Some people don't think it has to be that way. They argue that the reward system for college faculty can be changed, so that professors will be encouraged to devote more time and effort to teaching. They say that they are beginning to believe that the first ten years of the 21st century may come to be remembered as the decade of the undergraduate. That would bring it full circle. For more than two centuries after the founding of Harvard College in 1636, the instruction of undergraduate students was an essential condition of American higher education. Question: It is implied in the passage that about 200 years ago undergraduate instruction _ . Options: A: began to change all of a sudden B: was already threatened by research work C: was the central part of higher education D: began to be neglected in most universities
C

(Question)
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: I was in my third year of teaching creative writing at a high school in New York, when one of my students, 15-year-old Mikey, gave me a note from his mother. It explained his absence from class the day before. I had seen Mikey himself writing the note at his desk. Most parental-excuse notes I received were penned by my students. If I were to deal with them, I'd be busy 24 hours a day. The _ excuse notes made a large pile , with writing that ranged from imaginative to crazy. The writers of those notes didn't realize that honest excuse notes were usually dull: "Peter was late because the alarm clock didn't go off." Isn't it remarkable, I thought, how the students complained and said it was hard to put 200 words together on any subject? But when they produced excuse notes, they were brilliant. So one day I typed out a dozen excuse notes and gave them to my classes. I said, "They're supposed to be written by parents, but actually they are not. True, Mikey?" The students looked at me nervously. "Now, this will be the first class to study the art of the excuse note--the first class, ever, to practice writing them. You're so lucky to have a teacher like me who has taken your best writing and turned it into a subject worth studying." Everyone smiled as I went on, "You used your imaginations. So try more now. Today I'd like you to write 'An Excuse Note from Adam to God' or 'An Excuse Note from Eve to God'. " Heads went down. Pens raced across paper. For the first time ever I saw students so careful in their writing that they had to be asked to go to lunch by their friends. The next day everyone had excuse notes. Heated discussions followed. The headmaster entered the classroom and walked up and down, looking at papers, and then said, "I'd like you to see me in my office." When I stepped into his office, he came to shake my hand and said, "I just want to tell you that that lesson, that task, whatever the hell you were doing, was great. Those kids were writing on the college level. Thank you." Question: What did the headmaster think of the author's way of teaching? Options: A: Excellent. B: Difficult. C: Incorrect. D: Reasonable.
(Answer)
A

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Today we have the second report explaining how to prepare fish by drying or smoking them. We talked last week about the first steps of cleaning and salting freshly caught fish. To dry fish, you will need either a drying table or a place to hang them. If a table is used, it should have a top made of wire screen or thin pieces of wood with space between each piece. Lay the cleaned, wet salted fish on top of the table. Do not let them touch each other. Be sure that air can reach the fish from all sides. _ Turn the fish over every other day. Small fish will dry in about three days if the air is dry. Large fish will take a week or ten days to dry. After the fish have dried, place them in a basket. Cover them with clean paper or large leaves. Then put the basket in a cool, dry place off the ground. Make sure as much of the saltwater as possible is removed before you smoke the fish. The smoking can be done in a large, round metal container. Remove the top of the drum and cut a small opening on one side at the bottom. Cover the top with a strong wire screen, where you put the fish. Build a small fire in the drum by reaching in through the opening at the bottom. Wood from fruit trees makes good fuel for your fire. _ will give the smoked fish good color1 and taste. One way to get a lot of smoke is to use green wood, not dried wood. You should smoke the fish for five days or longer if you plan to keep them for a long time. After that, wrap them in clean paper, put the fish in baskets and keep them in a cool, dry place off the ground. Question: In drying or smoking fish, the following tools are mentioned in the passage EXCEPT_. Options: A: wire screen B: spoon C: basket D: wood
B