Puerto Rico may be part of the USA but its music and dance is a mixture of both Spanish and American rhythms . The country, as a result, is a mixture of the new and the old. It exhibits the open American way of life yet remains the more formal Spanish influences . This is showed in the buildings, not just the difference between the old and the modern in urban areas but also in the countryside, where older buildings sit side by side with schools and houses. It is found in the cooking, too many fast food restaurants together with local cooking which has its roots in the mixture of culture of all the Caribbean and in the music --- rock music is played in beach holiday centers but in the hilly center, Puerto Rican music can be heard. Old volcanic mountains, long motionless, take up a large part of the center, with the highest peak, Cerro de Punta, at 1,338 metre in the Cordillera Central. The mountains are surrounded by a coastal plain with the Atlantic shore beaches cooled all the year round by trade winds. The population is 3.8 million, of which about 1.5 million live in San Juan, although about another two million Puerto Ricans live in the prefix = st1 /USA. The average life is 73.8 years and GDP per person is US$12, 212, the highest in Latin America, although not up to the level of mainlandUSA. The people are largely a mixture of Amerindian, Taino-Arawak, Spanish and African. Most Puerto Ricans do not speak English and less than 30% speak it well. The people are very friendly and _ but there is law-breaking action, linked to drugs and unemployment. According to the passage, old volcanic mountains lie _ . A) in the center of the country B) on a coastal plain C) near the Cordillera Central D) in the north of the country
A
(Question)
"To educate a girl is to educate a thousand people," says Maimouna Samake, a mother of six children(including five girls). "If you put one seed in the ground and rain comes, it will grow to produce many seeds." Samake, one of 2,000 residents, lives in a small village, Sounkala, in one of the world's poorest countries. Now she has a chance to see this wish come true thanks to build On, an American non-profit organization that is building a school in her community. For 17 years, build On has been sending American high school students overseas to create schools in places where literacy and formal education are usually out of reach. The organization has built about 300 schools in Mali, Malawi, Nepal, Senegal, Nicaragua and Haiti. Its goal is to get young Americans in mostly urban areas to get involved in education. At the same time it can bring literacy to children and adults in poor villages in the developing world. Sounkala's school only has about 70 children; mud floors, poor lighting, few desks and an absence of books mean that the school is not the most ideal learning environment. Therefore they certainly could use build On's help. Samake hasn't been to school, but she wants a better future for her five daughters, including Ramatou, 12, and Mariam, 10. "When a woman attends school, she will teach what she learns to her children," said Ramatou, who wants to become a doctor. "She will also know how to take better care of her family." Build On tries to build schools for grades one to three. If things go well over those three years, they return to help build another school for grades four to six, and then set up evening adult literacy classes. Ramatou and Mariam will not learn inside the walls of build On school since they are already in the sixth grade, but Samake hopes that they will be able to attend evening classes to continue learning. The text mainly tells us about _ . A) people's education conditions in poor areas B) a woman's dream of going to school C) an organization that helps build schools for people in poor areas D) build On's great contributions to education
(Answer)
C
Ques: From my first day, I was attending press conferences and other media events all over town. I got to attend events at places I had never thought I'd get to: the White House, the Senate and House of Representative buildings at the Capitol , the Department of Health and Human Services, just to name a few. And I was sent to cover these events as if I were a reporter, not just an intern . In fact, I never really felt like an intern. I was given the opportunity to do the work that everyone else at the paper was doing. I covered stories on my own and wrote the articles myself. I was included in discussions for story ideas. I helped to edit the articles that went into the paper. I was able to take part in every aspect of the newspaper that I wanted to experience. The best part of working at the Nation's Health was the staff. They were supportive in letting me go out and do things on my own, while I always knew that they would be more than happy to answer any questions or help me with any problems I might have. Best of all, they treated me as their equal, not just an intern whom they could get to do all the work they didn't want to do. After interning at the Nation's Health for nearly seven months and having more than 30 articles published, I had to move on. My experience there gave me insight into how the media work, which helps me when I'm trying to choose stories. In addition, it showed me that work really can be fun. What did the author think of her experience of working at the Notion's Health? A) Meaningful B) Disappointing C) Tiring D) Surprising
Ans: A
The income gap between China's rural and urban residents has continued to widen during the past few years in spite of rapidly rising rural incomes, Agricultural Minister Sun Zhengcai said here on Wednesday. The income ratio between urban and rural residents was 3.28:1 in 2006, against 3.23:1 in 2003, said Sun in his report on the promotion of building a new countryside in 2007. Sun also said the net income of rural residents in different regions also varied widely. The income gap is only one of several problems in rural areas, according to Sun's report. While listing the achievements in rural areas in recent years, Sun believed that rural development still followed behind urban development. "We have bigger pressure to ensure the supply of major agricultural products such as grain," he said. "China's urbanization has been speeded up and more rural residents have gone to urban areas," he said. "In this case, more agricultural producers become farm produce consumers, which created more pressure for supply," he said. Another problem facing China's agricultural development is _ application of science and technology. "Only 30 percent of scientific and technological achievements have been applied to agricultural production, which is 40 percentage points lower than developed countries," he said. Despite increased government spending in rural areas, the infrastructure is still poor and easily hit by disasters. According to Sun, the government spent 431.8 billion yuan ($59.15 billion) on agriculture, rural areas and farmers this year, an increase of 80.1 billion yuan over the previous year. China set aside 11.38 billion yuan to promote a new rural cooperative medical care system and 27.98 billion yuan to support the new compulsory education mechanism in rural area to ensure that all citizens shared the fruits of China's reform and opening-up, Sun said. How much is spent on agriculture, rural areas and farmers the previous year? A) 431.8 billion yuan B) 511.9 billion yuan C) 351.7 billion yuan D) 80.1 billion yuan
C