Read the article and select the best answer. Article: There is nowadays in schools a great movement that places major emphasis on higher order skills, these being those skills that encourage the ability to reason. This group of skills involves recalling information, basic concept formation, critical thinking, and creative idea formation. Formerly viewed as the tools of mathematics, these skills are now recognized as necessary to abilities across the curriculum. Higher order thinking skills are now recognized as important for those who will enter the twenty-first century work force. Preparing young learners for their future requires that teachers employ a great deal of inventiveness and creativity in designing lessons that meet the dual challenge of providing the basics as in reading, language arts, and mathematics, and developing the ability to reason. This unit uses detective fiction to address both of these challenges, and the activities that lie here are designed to draw the learner along a path that moves him from the simple skills, such as recalling information, to the more difficult area of creative thinking. Activities may be modified, simplified, lengthened, or deleted to meet the needs of the intellectual diversity found in most classrooms. For this unit I have chosen three separate series of children's detective fiction. The easiest to read are the Private Eyes club mysteries, written and illustrated by Crosby Bonsall. This series centers on the activities of four neighborhood boys who along with their cat Mildred keep the area they live in free of crime. Each title is centered on one issue and the list of titles is expanding. The reading levels range from about 1.6 to 2.0 and the print is large and well organized on the page. Snitch, Wizard, Skinny, and Tubby are funny and engaging, and are represented in lively color illustrations. The only issue that could be a problem is that the private eyes are all boys. However, girls are well represented among the peripheral peer group. Question: What will mostly likely be presented after this passage? Options: A: The Private Eyes club mysteries. B: Other ways to interest the readers. C: How girls can keep on reading the stories. D: Where to buy these interesting stories.
A

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Death Valley is a land of beautiful yet dangerous extremes. Death Valley can be dangerously cold during the winter months. Storms in the mountains can produce sudden flooding on the floor of the Valley. The air temperature during the summer has been as high as fifty- seven degrees Celsius. The sun can heat the ground so that the temperature of the rocks and soil can be as high as seventy -four degrees Celsius. Death Valley contains evidence of several ancient volcanoes that caused huge explosions. Evidence of one of these explosions is called Ubehebe Crater. The explosion left a huge hole in the ground almost a kilometer and a half wide. In many areas of Death Valley it is easy to see where the ground has been pushed up violently by movement deep in the Earth. This movement has created unusual and beautiful rock formations. Some are red. Others are dark brown, gray, yellow or black. The area was named by a woman in 1849. Thousands of people from other parts of the ountry traveled to the gold mining areas in California. They were in a hurry to get there before other people did. One group trying to reach California decided to take a path called the Old Spanish Trail. By December they had reached Death Valley. They did not have to survive the terrible heat of summer, but there was still an extreme lack of water. There were few plants for their work animals to eat. The people could not find a pass through the tall mountains to the west of the Valley, Slowly, they began co suffer from a lack of food. To survive, they killed their work animals for food and began to walk out of the Valley. As they left, one woman looked back and said, "Good -bye, death valley. " The name has never been changed. Almost everyone who visits Death Valley visits a huge house called Scotty' s Castle. The building design is Spanish, with high thick walls to provide protection from the fierce heat. The castle is named for Walter Scott , called Scotty. by his friends. He was a gold miner. He told everyone that he built the house with money... Question: The main idea of the passage is about _ . Options: A: the interesting place in Death Valley B: the facts about Death Valley C: the origin of Death Valley D: the route to visit Death Valley
B

Q: Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Sarah Williams went to a boarding school.Here is one of the letters she wrote to her parents from the school: Wentworth Girls' school Beachside July 20th Dearest Mom and Dad, I'm afraid I have some very surprising news for you.I have been very naughty and the school headmaster is very angry with me.She is going to write to you.You must come and take me away from here.She does not want me in the school any longer. The trouble started last night when I was smoking in bed.This is against the rules, of course.We are not supposed to smoke at all. As I was smoking, I heard footsteps coming towards the room.I did not want a teacher to catch me smoking, so I threw the cigarette away. Unfortunately, the cigarette fell into the waste-paper basket, which caught fire. There was a curtain near the waste-paper basket which caught fire, too.Soon the whole room was burning. The headmaster phoned the fire department.The school is a long way from the town and by the time the fire department arrived, the whole school was on fire.Many of the girls are in hospital. The headmaster says that the fire was all my fault and you must pay for the damage.She will send you a bill for about a million dollars. I'm very sorry about this. Much love, Sarah P.S.None of the above is true, but I have failed my exams.I just want you to know how bad things could have been. Question: Sarah said the headmaster was angry because _ Options: A: she had failed her exams B: it was her fault that had caused the fire C: he had not made the phone call in time D: she had been caught smoking in bed
A: B

(Question)
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Soaring divorce rates around the globe are _ the environment ,American researchers suggested in a study released Monday . Michigan State University researcher Jianguo "Jack "Liu and his assistant Eunice Yu said the increasing number of divorces leads to more households with fewer people and greater consumption of water and energy .They said housing units require space ,construction materials and fuel to heat and cool ,regardless of the number of inhabitants . For example ,in the United States in 2005, divorced households consumed an extra 73 billion kilowatt hours of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water ,An additional 38 million extra rooms required heating and lighting that same year due to divorced households . "A married household actually uses resources more efficiently than a divorced household ", Liu said ,He said that in cohabitating households ,people will watch the same television ,share the air conditioning and heat and use the same refrigerator ,all things that use energy at a regularly stable rate regardless of the number of uses . Liu said he was not condemning divorce ," Some people really need to get divorces "He said cohabitation ---- whether by a family ,friends or even in a commune ------ was simply a more environmentally friendly option ,Additionally ,the researchers noted that trends other than divorce are also changing family living structures ,such as the end of multiple generations of a family sharing a home and people remaining single longer . "People's first reaction to this research is surprise ,and then it seems simple ":Liu said in a release " But a lot of things become simple after research is done .Our challenges were to connect the dots and quantify their relationships People have been talking about how to protect the environment and combat climate change ,but divorce is an overlooked factor that needs to be considered . " He said the increasing energy demands caused by divorce should be considered by governments when they are creating environmental policies . Question: It can be inferred from the passage that _ Options: A: divorced households will stimulate the sales of products B: married households are more willing to protect the environment C: divorced households contribute more to the society's development D: divorce is not taken into account when people are protecting the environment
(Answer)
D