Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Claude Monet was born on November 14, 1840, in Paris, but he spent most of his childhood in Le Havre, a city of southern France. By the time he was fifteen Monet had become popular as a caricaturist . Through an exhibition of his drawings at a local frame shop in 1858, Monet met the French landscape painter Eugene Louis Boudin, who introduced Monet to outdoor painting, an activity that soon became his life's work. By 1859 Monet had committed himself to a career as an artist and began to spend as much time in Pairs as possible. During the 1860s he met Edouard Manet. With other ambitious French painters, they formed the impressionist school. Working outside, Monet painted simple landscapes and he began to have some success. As his style developed, however, Monet broke one traditional artistic convention after another. His experiments with bright color1 became more and more daring, and he seemed to cut himself off from the possibility of a successful career as a conventional painter supported by the art establishment. In 1874 Monet and his colleagues decided to organize their own exhibition. They called themselves independents, but the press soon labeled them impressionists because one of Monet's paintings had borne the title Impression: Sunrise. Then the name stuck. By the mid-1880s , Monet , generally regarded as the leader of the impressionist school, had achieved significant recognition and financial security. In 1890 he was able to purchase some property in the village of Giverny, not far from Paris, and there be began to construct a water garden--a water lily pond with a Japanese bridge. Beginning in 1906, paintings of the pond and the water lilies occupied his mind for the rest of his life. His famous series Water Lilies, painted between 1990 and 1926, Clearly shows the artist's strong interest in color1 and produces a remarkable visual effect. Despite failing eyesight, Monet continued to paint almost up to the time of his death, on December 5,1926, at Giverny. Question: We know from the passage that Monet_. Options: A: spend most of his childhood in Paris B: was greatly influenced by Boudin C: chiefly relied on traditional painting skills D: devoted his whole life to painting portraits
B

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: Recordings of angry bees are enough to send big, tough African elephants running away, a new study says. Beehives -either recorded or real-may even prevent elephants from damaging farmer's crops. In 2002, scientist Lucy King and her team found that elephants avoid certain trees with bees living in them. Today, Lucy wants to see if African honeybees might discourage elephants from eating crops. But before she asked farmer to go to the trouble of setting up beehives on their farms, she needed to find out if the bees would scare elephants away. Lucy found a wild beehive inside a tree in northern Kenya and set up a recorder. Then she threw a stone into the beehive, which burst into life. Lucy and her assistant hid in their car until the angry bees had calmed down. Next,Lucy searched out elephant families in Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya and put a speaker in a close to each family. From a distance, Lucy switched on the pre-recorded sound of angry bees while at the same time recording the elephants with a video camera. Half the elephant groups left the area within ten seconds. Out of a total of 17 groups, only one group ignored the sound of the angry bees. Lucy reported that all the young elephants immediately ran to their mothers to hide under them. When Lucy Played the sound of a waterfall instead of the angry bees to many of the same elephant families, the animals were undisturbed. Even after four minutes, most of the groups stayed in one place. Lucy is now studying whether the elephants will continue to avoid the sound of angry bees after hearing it several times. She hasn't tested enough groups yet to know, but her initial results were promising enough to begin trials with farmers. She has now begun placing speakers in the fields to see if elephants are frightened away. Question: We know from the passage that elephants may be frightened of _ . Options: A: loud noises B: some crops C: video cameras D: angry bees
D

Read the article and select the best answer. Article: If you are looking for a creative solution to a piece of work or a school assignment,don't lock yourself up in a quiet room. A new study suggests that moderate background noise is a better spur to creative thinking than the sound of silence,Time magazine reported. A paper published in the Journal of Consumer Research says that the perfect working environment should buzz with a little noise. Researchers found that test subjects were at their most creative when background noise was measured at 70 decibels,the level one might find in a busy coffee shop. A nearly silent environment(50 decibels)was too quiet. Turning up the volume to 85 decibels (a jackhammer tearing up the pavement outside your building) was counterproductive-the noise became a distraction. The researchers asked 65 students at the University of British Columbia,Canada,to perform various creative tasks while noises recorded at a roadside restaurant were played in the background. In one experiment,scientists asked participants to brainstorm ideas for a new type of mattress . Test subjects had the most successful discussions when the noise in the background was noticeable but not too loud. While a quiet environment may make it easier to read a book. the authors of the study say that moderate background noise creates just enough of a distraction to force people to think more imaginatively, without breaking their focus so completely that they can't think at all. Should we all head for Starbucks to get creative? Not necessarily. Researchers found limited work time surrounded by the low-level noise of a coffeehouse is what really stimulates creativity. Equally, working in a care environment isn't good for everybody. The productivity boost was most obvious among those who were naturally creative to begin with. Question: Why is moderate background noise good for creativity? Options: A: It relaxes people and stops them from getting bored. B: It can help people to focus on a subject. C: It can absorb sudden noises that cause distraction. D: It pushes people to use their imagination but doesn't reach a level that disturbs them.
D