I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: As his quitting date comes near, Matt McDonnell, 51, has been thinking about his life as a smoker. "It has such power over me," he admits, "but this is something I don't want to continue doing." Diagnosed with a lung disease two years ago, the private investigator who has smoked 36 years is well aware of the damage cigarettes have done to his health. When his wife Laurel bought him a bagpipe as a birthday gift a few years ago, McDonnell didn't have the lung ability to play the instrument. "I could tell it was smoking-related and I couldn't believe that my health was being stolen away." So he quit... for a while. "In four months, my skin tone improved and I noticed that I wasn't getting chest pains." But after a stressful day, McDonnell went out and bought cigarettes. " _ " Now working with non-smoking coach Angela Forfia, McDonnell says, "I find that it takes the average person seven attempts to actually quit and the big trip wires are emotional. Lesson learned: I will now follow this program-- and it had better work!" Question: When did McDonnell begin to realize that something was wrong with his lung? Options: A: When he first began to smoke in his life. B: When he was diagnosed with a lung disease. C: When his wife bought him a bagpipe. D: On a stressful day.
C

I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: We're all connected. You can send an e-mail message to a friend, and your friend can pass it on to one of his or her friends, and that friend can do the same, continuing the chain. Eventually, your message could reach just about anyone in the world, and it might take only five to seven e-mails for the message to get there. Scientists recently tested that idea in a study involving 24,000 people. Participants had to try to get a message forwarded to one of 18 randomly chosen people. Each participant started by sending one e-mail to someone they knew. Recipients could then forward the e-mail once to someone they knew, and so on. Targets, who were randomly assigned by researchers from Columbia University in New York, lived in 13 countries. They included an Australian police officer, a Norwegian veterinarian, and a college professor. Out of 24,000 chains, only 384 reached their goal. The rest petered out, usually because one of the recipients was either too busy to forward the message or thought it was junk mail. The links that reached their goal made it in an average of 4.05 e-mails. Based on the lengths of the failed chains, the researchers estimated that two strangers could generally make contact in five to seven e-mails. The most successful chains relied on casual acquaintances rather than close friends. That's because your close friends know each other whereas your acquaintances tend to know people you don't know. The phenomenon, known as the strength of weak ties, explains why people tend to get jobs through people they know casually but aren't that close to. So, start networking and instant messaging now. As they say in show business: It's all about who you know. Question: In which part of a newspaper will readers read this passage? Options: A: Culture B: Entertainment C: Information and Technology D: Health
C

I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: As the semester ended, students had a chance to _ . They got to grade me anonymously , assessing the ability of my thinking, my organizational skills and the depth of my knowledge. Such evaluations keep me alert to what works and what doesn't. Students reflect my performance back to me, and I'm glad to learn what they think of my teaching so that I might try to improve. This system reflects many aspects of my work. There is, of course, nothing wrong with it. But this system assumes that what students need is the same as what they want. Reading my evaluations every semester has taught me otherwise. Actually many students' expectations for their courses have already changed, reflecting, in part, the business model many universities are following: classes are considered services, and parents are eager to get their money's worth from their children's education. Students feel pressure from their parents to get practical use from their courses. This could make sense for an engineering course, but in my field, creative writing, which rarely trains up excellent 21-year-old writers, it is more difficult to provide the results that the career-minded students desire. Then I tried some teaching techniques to change the criticism of those unhappy students to the opposite and improve my student evaluations. My record would accurately reflect a smart, attentive, encouraging teacher. However, I would admit that they loved me simply because I agreed writing should be easy. I know other teachers have done the same thing: teach your heart out to the teachable but be sure to please the unteachable; keep your ratings high, like a politician trying to improve his poll results. I believe in the struggle. But I still can't help wincing when I read, "The instructor is mean." "Marcus is not committed to my work." "This class sucks." The business model has taught me that customers are always right. And maybe a few more dissatisfied customers would mean a better learning experience. Question: What can we infer from the passage? Options: A: Parents don't care about their money spent on their children's education. B: The writer adopted some teaching methods so that he improved his student evaluations. C: Similar to other teachers, the writer struggled to work as politicians. D: The students intended to punish their teachers by giving comments.
B

I'm taking a test and have to guess the right answer to the question after the article. Article: Have you listened to music on an iPod? Used a computer at home? Those are just two of the ways your life was touched by the work of Steve Jobs. Jobs, one founder of Apple Computers, died on Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at the age of 56. He had been fighting with cancer since 2004. Steven Jobs was born in Los Altos, California. He and his childhood friend, Steve Wozniak, designed and built the first Apple computer in his parents' garage in the 1970s. The Apple II, built when Jobs was just 21 years old, was the first personal computer to be widely sold to the public. Steven Jobs didn't stop there. He went on to invent more devices that allowed people to bring their own creativity to computing: the Macintosh, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad. People found his products beautiful and easy to use. Jobs also changed the music and film industries. He started Pixar, a film production company in 1986. Toy Story was the world's first computer-animated feature film . "Steve was among the greatest of American _ -- brave enough to think differently, confident enough to believe he could change the world, and clever enough to do it," said President Barack Obama. "By making computers personal and putting the Internet in our pockets, he made the information revolution not only easy to reach, but fun ... And there may be no greater praise to Steve's success than the fact that much of the world learned of his death on a device he invented." All around the world, people are talking about the effects that Jobs' creations have had. By creating products that surprised people, he changed the way people worked and lived their everyday lives. Question: Which of the following about Steve Jobs is NOT true? Options: A: He was born in California in 1955. B: He built the Apple II in 1970. C: He set up a film production company at 31. D: He was found to suffer from cancer at 49.
B