Football is, I believe, the most popular game in England: one has only to go to one of the important matches to see this. Rich and poor, young and old, one can see them all there, shouting for their teams. One of the most surprising things about football in England is the great knowledge of the game which even the smallest boy seems to have. He can tell you the names of the players in most of the important teams. He has pictures of them and knows the results of large numbers of matches. He will tell you who he thinks will win such a match, and his opinion is usually as good as that of men three or four times of his age. Most schools in England take football seriously -- much more seriously than nearly all European schools, where lessons are all very important and games are left for the children themselves. In England it is believed that education is not only a matter of filling a boy's mind with facts in the classroom; education also means the training of character by means of games, especially team games, where the boy or girl has to learn to work with others for his or her team instead of working for himself or herself alone. _ the school plans games and matches for its students. Football is a good team game. It is good both for the body and the mind. That is why it is every school's game in England. In England, education means _ . A) filling a boy's mind with stories B) more than the teaching of knowledge C) the teaching of knowledge only D) training character by means of football games
B
Elephants and people are in competition for space. In much of Africa, elephants are now put in national parks. Elephants suffered a serious and steady decrease in numbers in the 1970s. This was the same time when scientists were beginning to learn a great deal about elephants and their behavior. Studies through the 1980s and into the 1990s showed a lot about their sounds and methods of communication. In Kenya alone, in the 1970s and 1980s, the elephant population decreased from 170,000 to 25,000. The sharp drop in numbers was the result of poachers illegally killing elephants for their ivory. The price of ivory went from $3 a pound to $50 to $100 a pound. Africa became very attractive to poachers. Bull elephants carried the largest tusks , so they were more often killed. With males gone and older females killed by poachers as well, there were many young elephants unable to benefit from the wisdom of the older females and matriarchs, who lead the herds. Kenya took a stand, international trade in ivory was officially forbidden, and $3,000,000 worth of confiscated ivory was burned in Kenya. The following year, only 50 elephants were lost to poachers in Kenya instead of 3,000. But Kenya has the fastest growing human population in the world. People throughout Africa won't tolerate elephants eating their crops and destroying their livelihoods. In South Africa, elephants live behind the fences of national parks. In some parts of Africa, big-game hunters pay a lot of money to hunt elephants. This keeps their numbers down, and the money goes toward conservation. In Kenya, there were some attempts at birth control to keep the elephant population at manageable numbers to reduce conflicts with people. Faced with a growing human population, elephants are losing the battle for space. It's unlikely, though, that they will become extinct. They will live in natural parks that bring tourists to Africa as well as India and other parts of Asia. The money from tourism will help elephants to survive. In the 1970s and 1980s, _ . A) scientists learned little about elephants B) most ivory was sold at a reasonable price C) many young elephants are gaining less wisdom D) the elephant population decreased because of the terrible climate
C
Q: You had me at "Hello"! It turns out our opening words speak volumes--people take less than a second to form an impression of someone's personality based on their voice alone. We know that our voices can convey information about our sex, age, even body strength and certain personality characteristics, but Phil McAleer at the University of Glasgow and his colleagues wondered whether we make an instant impression. To find out, they recorded 64 volunteers as they read a passage. They then picked the word "hello" and asked 320 listeners to mark the voices for personality characteristics--including trust, dominance and attractiveness. Although it's not clear how accurate such immediate judgements are, what is obvious is that we all make them, and very quickly. "We were surprised by just how similar people's marks were," says McAleer. It makes sense that decisions about personality should happen really fast, says McAleer. The impression that our voices convey appears to be related to several factors, such as sex differences and age groups, especially the pitch of voice on the top. For example, the pitch of a person's voice influenced how reliable they seemed. "A guy who raises his pitch becomes more trustworthy," says McAleer. "Whereas a girl who changes from a high to a low pitch is seen as more trustworthy than a girl whose voice goes up at the end of the word." It is possible to change some of these aspects of your voice, he says. "It has been said that Margaret Thatcher and the Queen were both trained to make their voices appear more dominant." Some aspects, though, can't be changeable. "The methods used in this paper are familiar, but the conclusions are new and very interesting," says Jody Kreiman, a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles. The way the study links personality to attractiveness and reproductive fitness makes sense biologically, she says. The team hope that their work can be used to help create artificial voices for people who have lost their own due to a... What can we learn from the passage? A) The first impression of one's personality is formed by his voice. B) People can change someone's personality by their pitch. C) A guy's pitch convey is different from a girl's. D) Voice cannot be changed for personality characteristics.
A: C
Q: The home computer industry has been growing rapidly in the United States in the last ten years. Computers used to be large, expensive machines that were very difficult to use. But scientists and technicians have been making them smaller and cheaper while at the same time they have been made easier to use. As a result, their popularity has been increasing as more people have been buying computers for their homes and businesses. Computers have been designed to store information and compute problems that are difficult for human beings to work out. Some have voices that speak to their operators. Stores use computers to keep records of their inventories and to send bills to their customers. Offices use computers to copy letters, record business and keep in touch with other offices. People also use computers in their homes to keep track of the money they spend. One important new use of computers is for entertainment. Many new games have been designed to be played on computers. People of all ages play these games. People also buy home computers to watch movies and listen to concerts at home. They have become very popular indeed. In recent years, computers have become _ . A) more and more difficult to use B) slower and slower C) more and more expensive D) smaller and smaller
A: D