The National Geographic Channel has unearthed a time capsule buried by late Apple chairman and co-founder Steve Jobs thirty years ago. The time capsule was buried in Aspen .Colorado .in 1983, shortly after Jobs attended the International Design Conference being held in that city. Organizers called the device the Aspen Time Tube and contributed items like Rubik's cubes and some iconic music. Jobs added his own items to the capsule ,including the " Lisa" ( also known as an "Apple" )"mouse he used for his presentation at the conference. ' Younger readers may not recognize the name but the Lisa Apple mouse was one of the first commercial mice released to consumers. The mouse was specially designed for the Apple Lisa computer. It's also the first personal computer to offer users a graphical user interface Initially ,the plan was to dig up the time capsule in the year2000,but organizers forgot its exact location. Recently .they brought in researchers working with the National Geographic Channel show Diggers to find the device. Eventually they came across the 13-foot-long.1. 5-foot-diameter tube. inside they found a lot of 1980s artifacts that are still being catalogued. "When the end came off .literally things just poured out ."noted Diggers host Tim Saylor "There must be literally thousands of things in there." "They had the foresight to put a bunch of stuff in plastic bags." Saylor said ."I could see at least a dozen plastic bags and other items. But I know for sure there got to be photographs in there. People had hand-written things on the back of the photographs ,so there will be some really interesting things inside." Among the artifacts researchers expect to discover inside :a Steve Jobs speech in which the Apple visionary outlines his predictions for future technologies. We should know more about the researchers ,discoveries once the Diggers program airs this fall. Why wasn't the time capsule dug up in 2000? A) Because it was not the time set by Steve Jobs. B) Because it could not be accurately located. C) Because organizers forgot its precise shape . D) Because the local government didn't approve.
B
(Question)
It was a weeknight. We were a half dozen guys in our late teens, hanging around "the flat" -- as usual. The flat was poorly furnished, which, after some time, grew tiresome. We wanted action. We got in a car, big enough for all of us to crowd into -- and off we went, in search of adventure. We soon found ourselves at Blue Gum Corner, a place named after the huge old blue gum tree that stood by there, a well-known local landmark. It stands at a minor crossroad leading to our town. The trunk is tall and smooth with no handholds for climbing. About six metres from the ground the first branch sticks out over the road. We parked beneath the huge old tree and discussed what we might do. All of a sudden we hit upon an idea -- a hanging! I was chosen as "hangee". The plan was quite simple. As I stood upon the roof of the car, the rope was threaded down my jacket through my collar and down one leg of my jeans. I put my foot through the loop at the bottom. There I hung, still. The boys rolled about laughing until, a car, I hear a car! Before they ran to hide in the nearby field, they gave me a good push so that "the body" would swing as the car drove by. To our disappointment, the car simply turned off for town without even slowing. The boys came out of their hiding places and we discussed the situation. Surely they had seen me, hadn't they? Then we heard another car. The act was repeated, but still without any obvious reaction. We played the game about five or six times, but as no one seemed to notice, we abandoned the trick. What we did not know was that every car that had passed had unquestionably seen "the body" and each one, too scared to stop, had driven directly to the local Police Station. Now at that time of the night, the local policeman was sound asleep in his bed, so the first person sent to the scene was the traffic officer that happened to be on duty that particular night. He had been informed that some person had been killed, by hanging, at Blue Gum Corner. When he arrived, the body was gone! And he... What is conveyed in the passage? A) Actions speak louder than words. B) The truth lies beneath the surface. C) Experience is the best teacher. D) To see is to believe.
(Answer)
B
Ques: Although the US is so big and its people have so many different racial backgrounds, it is in some ways less varied than Europe.The English language is used almost everywhere in its American form.The American way of speaking has developed independently of English and is on the whole closer to what can be heard in Ireland. Another example of uniformity is in habits and ways of living.From Boston to Los Angeles it is as far as from France to Central Asia, and from east to west there are five time zones; but everywhere people get up and go to bed at about the same time, eat the same kind of food, buy in the same kind of shops, work and rest at the same time of the day and have the same pattern of holidays. _ there is less difference between rich people and ordinary people or between town and country, than in any single European nation. Although far more food is produced than the present population needs, America is actually an urban society.Less than a tenth of the people are engaged in agriculture and most of the rest live in or around towns large and small.Here the traditional picture is changing; most Americans do not live in small towns any more.Half the population now live in some thirty metropolitan areas. The fact that the United States has always been a single economic unit has contributed to uniformity.Modern industry favors large organization, and it is no accident that the world's biggest commercial firms are American.The people can choose between the products of competing manufacturers but the products are all much alike. What can we learn from the passage about the U.S.agriculture? A) The American farmers need more land. B) Americans are interested in farming. C) It is now going backward. D) It is quite developed.
Ans: D
It was almost four o'clock in the morning when the fire broke out."We watch one window blow out,and then another,and heard people shouting,"says Stanley,21,a junior from Westfield State College in Massachusetts.Students were throwing ropes made from bed sheets out their windows,and a couple of them were trying to climb down. Almost all the hotel's 502 rooms were filled with college students from across the United States who were spending their holiday here in Acpulco,Mexico.As the smoke thickened,Moreno ran upstairs to where other Westfield students were rooming."Some people had no idea what was going on,"he says."I was shouting at the top of my voice.I made sure I hit every door."At the same time,Stanley was downstairs helping people get through the smokefilled hall.There he joined forces with Nalewanski who had just come back from his own night out. "Let's go."Nalewanski says.He and Stanley wet their shirts in the bathroom and wrapped them around their mouths and noses so they could breathe.Then they ran up the stairs. Nalewanski and Stanley found Moreno on the fourth floor.They all ran upstairs and down the corridors on every floor,hitting every door hard. In the end,no one was seriously injured.Even more unbelievable,all the Westfield students made it back to Massachusetts later that same day. Westfield president Evan Dobelle says,"I have a great deal of pride in these young men and they were able to react in such an emergency." The students helped people out through all of the following ways EXCEPT _ . A) helping people get through the hall B) shouting loudly to warn people C) hitting doors to wake people up D) Making ropes for people to climb down
D