*Question*
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Riding on an exercise bike at home may keep you in physical shape, but it can get pretty boring after a while. Aaron Puzey had been on his exercise bike for half an hour a day for years when he decided to look for a way to make it a bit more fun. With virtual reality technology widely available nowadays, all be needed to do was find a way of applying it to his needs. So he set out to build an app for the Samsung Galaxy Gear VR headset which would allow him to hook it up to Google Street view and make it seem like he's cycling through different real-life locations. Building the app to download the 3D data from Street View and make it viewable in the VR headset was the toughest part of his project. Other than that, all he needed to do was tape a Bluetooth monitor to his exercise bike. Although the quality of the images sometimes leaves a lot to be desired,leaving complex scenes like trees looking like a mess,Aaron has been having a lot of fun on his journey. Aaron's project is obviously no substitute (> for real outdoor cycling as it Lacks things like the wind blowing in your face or the pain of battling an uphill climb, bul it has given him a goal, as well as the chance to take in the beauty of places he might have otherwise never seen. It definitely beats staring at a wall or at the TV for 30 minutes, anyway. Obviously, Aaron's setup theoretically allows him to ride a bike anywhere around the world. He says he ba6 always wanted to see Japan, so once his ride comes to an end, he plans to start another one across the Land of the Rising Sun. Question: What was the challenge for Puzey in his project? Options: A: Changing the 3D data into pictures. B: Downloading the software from the Internet. C: Making the 3D data viewable in the headset. D: Taping a Bluetooth monitor lo his exercise bike.
**Answer**
C

*Question*
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: It seems like every year brings a new outbreak of sickness.Recent research tells us how diseases spread, from person to person.And it also gives us an idea how we can spread something better than diseases. An author called Malcom Gladwell recently published a book explaining how the process works.We usually think of an epidemic as a force of nature that rolls over anyone in its way.In fact, it starts with a single person or very few people.These people travel around and infect small groups in different places.When enough of these groups are infected, then the disease suddenly seems to be everywhere.Gladwell also found that the process of infection was not just limited to disease? It also affects the world of ideas. The process can be seen in books and fashion.So called _ are not pushed towards the public.They spread through hundreds of small reading groups until the day when everybody you know seems to have a copy.A group of young people may decide to wear an item of clothing simply because no one else is wearing it.Designers who monitor street fashion then pick up the idea and spread it.Finally everyone is wearing it. New York is often described as an unfriendly place.People are too busy looking after business to look after each other.In the early 1990s, one unknown person decided to perform at least one kind act a day.This caught on with his or her friends.The newspapers noticed the trend .New York became full of people smiling and carrying each other's bags. The success of trends like this fits in with other social phenomena .One is the 80/20 rule.This was invented by economists who noticed that in any situation 20 percent of the people did 80 percent of the work.Another is the "bystander problem".Psychologists noticed that in accidents where a large number of people were around, no one stepped forward to help.Each person supposed that someone else would do something.When there were less people present, more of them decided to offer help. What all this proves is... Question: The writer's main purpose is to tell us _ . Options: A: how diseases spread B: how ideas are formed C: how popularity takes place D: what diseases and ideas have in common
**Answer**
C

*Question*
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Tell a story and tell it well, and you may open wide the eyes of a child, open up lines of communication in a business, or even open people's mind to another culture or race. People in many places are digging up the old folk stories and the messages in them. For example, most American storytellers get their tales from a wide variety of sources, cultures, and times. They regard storytelling not only as a useful tool in child education, but also as a meaningful activity that helps adults understand themselves as well as those whose culture may be very different from their own. "Most local stories are based on a larger theme," American storyteller Opalanga Pugh says, "Cinderella , or the central idea of a good child protected by her goodness, appears in various forms in almost every culture of the world." Working with students in schools, Pugh helps them understand their own cultures and the general messages of the stories. She works with prisoners too, helping them know who they are by telling stories that her listeners can write, direct, and act in their own lives. _ Pugh also works to help open up lines of communication between managers and workers. "For every advance in business," she says, "there is a greater need for communication." Storytelling can have a great effect on either side of the manager-worker relationship, she says. Pugh spent several years in Nigeria, where she learned how closely storytelling was linked to the everyday life of the people there. The benefits of storytelling are found everywhere, she says. "I learned how people used stories to spread their culture," she says. "What I do is to focus on the value of stories that people can translate into their own daily world of affairs. We are all storytellers. We all have a story to tell. We tell everybody's story." Question: What is the main idea of the text? Options: A: Storytelling can influence the way people think. B: Storytelling is vital to the growth of businesses. C: Storytelling is the best way to educate children in school. D: Storytelling helps people understand themselves and others.
**Answer**
D

*Question*
Read the article and select the best answer. Article: However urban life strikes you, cities worldwide have been growing ever more rapidly. Some of this growth has occurred in the developed world, but the most dramatic increase has been in the Third World. Almost all the world's population growth over the next 30 years will take place in the cities of developing countries By the year 2030, for the first time in history, 60 percent of the world's people will be living in cities. This is actually good news in some ways. "Cities are the fundamental building blocks of prosperity," says Marc Weiss, chairman of the Prague Institute for Global Urban Development, " both for the nation and for families." Industrial and commercial activities in urban areas account for between 50 and 80 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in most countries of the world" there's the crazy notion that the way to deal with a city's problems is to keep people out of them,"Weiss continued. "But the problems of the rural life are even more serious than those of the city." For better or worse, urban-watchers are clear on one point: The quality of life for most people in the future will be determined by the quality of cities. Those cities will be bigger than ever. And yet, population numbers by themselves don't determine a city's prospects; after all, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Hamburg, Germany, have the same population. Nor is explosive growth necessarily the determining factor. "City problems," one authority points out, "mostly have to do with weak, ineffective, and usually unrepresentative city governments." Question: In the author's opinion, _ . Options: A: better city, better life B: both urban and rural areas have a larger population C: the larger population, the faster a city develops D: both urban and rural areas have larger gross domestic products
**Answer**
A