*Question*
Article: Have you ever thought about why traveling is important? It may seem obvious, but a good trip introduces you to a "new world". Geography matters: where you are going plays a huge role in how you think. About six months after I moved to China, I got the chance to travel with a group of friends to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. This trip was great fun: I got to swim, cycle and stay in tree houses in the jungle. But more importantly, this trip was meaningful. All of these three countries were bombed by the US military during the conflict with the North Vietnamese, the Vietnam War. As someone with strong anti-war opinions, I wanted to learn how the people of this area remember the war. I was not disappointed. When I was in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, I got the chance to explore the Vietnam War Remnants Museum, which has the largest collection of anti-facts from the Vietnam War. One exhibit is especially memorable. It is full of photos and artwork showing the effects of Agent Orange, a chemical weapon used by the US military against the land and population of Vietnam. The aim of the Agent Orange campaign was to destroy plant life to make it more difficult for North Vietnamese fighters to hide behind trees. But ordinary Vietnamese were hurt the most. I had tears in my eyes as I looked around the exhibit. Ks5u Another time during our trip, my friends and I were arriving in a town in Cambodia on an overnight bus. As we got off the bus, taxi drivers came over offering rides. One of them asked me, "Where are you from, man?" I replied, "America!" And he said, "Ahh...the place where they make the bombs!" He laughed. I didn't. Ks5u Traveling offers perspective . There are few things more important than that. Question: In what way did the writer think his trip to the three countries was meaningful? Yes or no, is the answer "It helped him see how people in other countries view American wars."?
**Answer**
No

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Article: Parents might tell older children to "Act your age". But some researchers say that is what persons from thirteen to nineteen years old are doing. While teenagers can look all grown up, studies have shown that their brains are still developing. How much this explains their behavior, though, is a subject of debate. Jay Giedd of America's National Institutes of Health is a leader in this area of research. Doctor Giedd has been studying a group of young people since 1991. They visit him every two years for imaging tests of their brains. He says considerable development continues in young people from the teenage years into the twenties. A part of the brain called the dorsal-lateral prefrontal cortex appears especially undeveloped in teenagers. Researchers believe that this area controls judgment and consideration of risk. So, its underdevelopment may explain why young people seem more willing to take risks like driving too fast. Laurence Steinberg is a psychology professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. He says stronger laws and stronger parental control are needed to protect teens from themselves. That includes raising the age for driving. He says research shows that teenage brains are not fully equipped to control behavior. Other researchers, however, say there is not enough evidence to make a strong case for such findings. Psychologist Robert Epstein is a visiting scholar at the University of California in San Diego. Mr. Epstein notes that teen behavior differs from culture to culture. He says behavior depends for the most part on socialization. He believes that teenagers will demonstrate better, safer behavior if they spend more time with adults, and are treated more like them. But is that always true? Mike Males works at the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco. He suggests that all of this talk lately about brainless teens could be an attempt to take away attention from the reality. Writing in the New York Times, he says it is middle-aged adults whose behavior has worsened. In his... Question: Which of the following is TRUE about teenagers? Yes or no, is the answer "Their cultures have influenced their behavior more or less."?
**Answer**
Yes

*Question*
Article: Sir Edmund Hillary is best known for being the first, along with climbing partner Tenzing Norgay, to reach the top of Mount Everest . However, he also made many visits to Antarctica . In 1957, he led the first trip over ice to the South Pole. Hillary also helped his home country, New Zealand, build a research center on Antarctica, called Scott Base. He visited it in January 2007, when he was 87 years old. In the 1900s, many people like Hillary saw Antarctica as an exciting place. Scientists are interested in how glaciers flow and melt. They also worry that global warming is making glaciers melt faster. It has caused a 75 percent increase in ice loss in the last 10 years, according to a new study. Scientists say ice loss could cause water levels around the world to rise faster than expected. Ice is melting faster than expected because of global warming. Researchers in Antarctica are studying many other subjects too. Some use the cold weather and clear air as a way to study things that affect other parts of the globe. Antarctica has the cleanest air in the world. That allows scientists to compare the air there to the air in polluted places. Antarctica is the darkest place on earth, so it is a great place to study the stars. Some scientists are even studying penguin droppings . They have developed a new test to learn more about penguins' diets. Question: What is Sir Edmund Hillary best known for? Yes or no, is the answer "He was the first to reach the top of Mount Everest."?
**Answer**
No

*Question*
Article: But what is teacher quality? How can one measure it reliably? An analysis is issued on a sample of data from a Texas school district. Experts argue convincingly that teacher effectiveness should be measured by students' gains on standardized tests: Mr. Smith is probably a better teacher than Ms. Brown if his students consistently improve their test scores more than hers do. Though this approach is appealing, there are tricky issues. For example, what if Ms. Brown teaches in a school where students score so high there is little room for improvement? The authors try to correct for this problem, as well as other sorts of measurement issues, to generate a measurement of teacher effectiveness. The paper is primarily concerned with how this measure is related to other observable characteristics. The first finding is that there is a large variation in teacher effectiveness: some teachers consistently have a larger impact on their students' achievement than others. Second, easily observable characteristics like having a master's degree or a passing score on the teacher certification exam are not correlated with teacher effectiveness. Then what does matter? The most important single influence is experience: first-year teachers are much less effective than others. The second year is significantly better, and by the fourth year, _ . It is not entirely clear whether this experience effect is learning by doing (the more you teach, the more effective you become) or survival of the fittest (those who are not good at teaching tend to drop out early.) From my reading of the paper, both effects appear important and there is no simple answer. The data do suggest, however, that teacher effectiveness is pretty clear by the end of the second year, so the information to make an informed decision is available at that time. The authors also investigate the contentious issue of racial matching of students and teachers. Here they find strong evidence that minority teachers tend to be more effective with minority students. Again, it is... Question: The phrase "hit their stride" most probably means " _ ". Yes or no, is the answer "become confident"?
**Answer**
No