*Question*
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: My favorite English teacher could draw humor out of the driest material. It wasn't forced on us either. He took Samuel Johnson's dictionary, Addison's essays, and many other literary wonders from the eighteenth century and made them _ , even at eight o'clock in the morning. The thing that amazed me most was that the first time I read these works on my own some of them seemed dead, but the second time, after his explanation, I couldn't believe that I hadn't seen the humor. The stories and poems and plays were suddenly filled with allusions and irony and hilarious moments. I learned more from him than from any other teacher. My least favorite English teacher also made people laugh. Some students found him to be funny. Many others did not. He assigned journals over a six week period, to be written every day. At the end of the six weeks I had a notebook full of bits and pieces about my ideas, short stories, reactions to what we had read, and so on. Our teacher announced that we would be grading each other's journals. Mine was passed to Joe, that class clown, who always behaved in a funny or silly way. He saw it fit to make joke of and said, " This writing isn't fit to line the bottom of a birdcage. " Our teacher laughed at that funny remark. It hurt me so much that the anger from it has driven my writing and teaching ever since. So what makes the difference? Humor is one of the most powerful tools teachers or writers have. It can build up students and classes and make them excited about literature and writing, or it can tear them apart. It is true that humor is either productive or counter-productive and self-defeating. Question: The passage mainly discusses _ . Options: A: teaching B: literature C: humor D: knowledge
**Answer**
C

*Question*
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: While your pet fish may appear to be ignorant of your presence, chances are that it knows you extremely well and can probably even identify you from a crowd of human faces! At least, that is the conclusion reached by scientists the University of Oxford in the U.K. and the University of Queensland in Australia, following an extensive study of the archerfish , a species of tropical fish that can be found all the way from India to Indonesia, the Philippines, and Australia. The ability to distinguish between human faces is a complex task. That's because we all have the same basic features -- two eyes sitting above a nose and a mouth. It's only the subtle differences that make humans distinct from one another. Since this requires a combination of both visual sense and memory, researchers had always assumed that _ was a skill possessed only by those with complicated brains, i.e., humans, a few select animals -- such as horses, cows, dogs, monkeys and some birds, like pigeons. To test if this assumption was accurate, a team of scientists led by Dr. Cait Newport, Marie Curie Research Fellow in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University, decided to study fish. The aquatic animals have small brains that lack the neocortex , or neocortex-like structure, believed to help recognize the subtle differences between human facial features. The team began by presenting four archerfish with images of two human faces. Initially, the fish spat randomly at both. However, they soon learned that pouring water at the one selected by the researchers earned them a food treat. After that, they focused primarily on that image. The researchers then took the experiment one step further, by introducing 44 other human faces to the mix. To the researcher's astonishment, the trained archerfish were able to recall the learned image almost 81% of the time. And this accuracy improved to 86% when the researchers made the identification even harder, by replacing the colored photos with a set of black and white images and hiding the shape of the head. Question: In the experiment, the researchers trained the archerfish _ . Options: A: by taking photos of fish B: by improving people's images C: by rewarding them with food D: by covering their heads
**Answer**
C

*Question*
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Norman Cousins was a businessman from the United States who often traveled around the world on business. He enjoyed his work and traveling. Then, after returning to the United States from a busy and tiring trip to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics( USSR),Mr. Cousins got sick. Because he had pushed his body to the limit of its strength on the trip, a chemical change began to take place inside him. The material between his bones became weak. In less than one week after his return, he could not stand. Every move that he made was painful. He was not able to sleep at night. The doctore told him that they did not know how to cure Mr. Cousins ' problem and he might never get over the illness. Mr. Cousins, however, refused to give up hope. Mr. Cousins thought that unhappy thoughts were causing bad chemical changes in his body. He did not want to take medicine to cure himself. Instead,he felt that happy thoughts or laughter might cure his illness. .' He began to experiment on himself while still in hospital by watching funny shows on television. Mr. Cousins quickly found that 10 minutes of real laughter during the day gave him two hours of pain -free sleep at night. Deciding that the doctors could not help him, Mr. Cousins left the hospital and checked into a hotel room where he could continue his experiments with laughter. For eight days,Mr. Cousins rested in the hotel room watching funny shows on television,reading funny books,and sleeping whenever he felt tired. Within three weeks,he felt well enough to take a vacation to Puerto . Rico where he began running on the beach for exercise. After a few months,Mr. Cousins returned to work. He has laughed himself back to health. Question: Why did Norman Cousins get sick? Options: A: He did not rest enough. B: He traveled too much. C: His body chemistry changed. D: All of the above.
**Answer**
D