Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: In modem society there is a great deal of argument about competition.Some value it highly,believing that it is responsible for social progress and prosperity.Others say that competition is bad, that it sets one person against another and that it leads to unfriendly relationship between people. I have taught many children who held the belief that their self-worth relied on how well they performed at tennis and other skills.For them,playing well and winning are often life-and-death affair. In their single-minded pursuit of success,the development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten. However,while some seem to be lost in the desire to succeed,others take an opposite attitude.In a culture which values only the winner and pays no attention to the ordinary players,they strongly blame competition.Among _ are youngsters who have suffered under competitive pressures from their parents or society.Teaching these young people,I often observe in them a desire to fail.They seem to seek failure by not trying to win or achieve success .By not trying,they always have an excuse:"I may have lost,but it doesn't matter because I really didn't try.'' What is not usually admitted by themselves is the belief that if they had really tried and lost,that would mean a lot.Such a loss would be a measure of their worth. Clearly,this belief is the same as that of the true competitors who try to prove themselves.Both are based on the mistaken belief that one's self-respect relies on how well one performs in comparison with others.Both are afraid of not being valued.Only as this basic and often troublesome fear begins to dissolve can we discover a new meaning in competition. Question: What does this passage mainly talk about? - Competition helps to set up self-respect. - Opinions about competition are different among people. - Competition is harmful to personal quality development. - Failures are necessary experiences in competition.
Opinions about competition are different among people.
------
Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Dear sir, Your shipment of twelve thousand 'Smart' watches was received by our company this morning.However we wish to make a number of complaints concerning the serious delay in delivery and your failure to carry out our specific instructions with regard to this order. It was stressed from the beginning that the delivery date had to be less than six weeks from the first order, in order to meet our own customers'requirements.While we understand that delays in production are occasionally unavoidable,we must point out that the major reason why, the order was placed with your company was because we were assured by you of its speed of delivery, and that your existing stocks were sufficiently high to ensure immediate shipment.Late delivery of the goods has caused us to disappoint several of our most valued customers,and _ have a negative effect on the potential future orders. The second complaint concerns the difference in colour between the watches we ordered and those delivered.It was stated clearly in the original order that watches in combinations of green/purple and orange/purple only were required.However only half the watches in the delivery received are of the colours specified.Our Hong Kong agent assures us that she stressed to you the importance of following our instructions precisely, since we consider there to be only a limited market in this country for watches of other colours at the present time.Any watches that are not of ate specified colours will,of course,be returned to you. We are also somewhat concerned about the rather poor quality of the goods received,since it is obvious that the watches that finally arrived have been produced from inferior materials and have been manufactured to a lower standard than those in the sample.We have also found that a number of the watches do not appear to be functioning.Whether the latter problem is due to poor manufacture,damage during transportation or bad batteries is not yet clear, but we should like to point out that we feel this matter... Question: Receiving watches in the wrong colours is a problem because . - the Hong Kong agent stressed the need to fulfill the order exactly - these watches will be difficult to sell - these watches will not be limited to the Hong Kong market - people will not buy the watches as presents
these watches will be difficult to sell
------
Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Medical scientists are already putting computer chips directly into the brain to help people who have Parkinson's disease, but in what other ways might computer technology be able to help us? Ray Kurzweil is the author of the successful book The Age Of Intelligent Machines. He is also one of the world's best computer research scientists. He is researching the possibilities. Kurzweil gets computers to recognize voices. An example of this is Ramona, the _ hostess of Kurzweil's website, created by the computer, who is able to understand what you say. Visitors to the website can have their own conversations with her. Ramona also dances and sings. Kurzweil uses this technology to help people with physical problems. One of his ideas is a "seeing machine". This will be "like a friend that could describe what is going on around," he explains. Blind people will use a sensor which will probably be built into a pair of sunglasses. This machine will describe to the person everything it sees. Another idea, which is likely to help deaf people, is the "listening machine". This invention will recognize millions of words and understand any speaker. The listening machine will also be able to translate what it hears into other languages, so even people without hearing problems are likely to be interested in using it. But it is not just about helping people with physical problems. Looking further into future, Kurzweil sees a time when we will be able to store what we hear, see and think in a computer. This technology probably won't be ready for at least 50 years, but when it arrives, it means our minds will be able to live forever. Question: What can Ramona do? - She can talk with her visitors. - She can treat brain diseases. - She can help deaf people listen. - She can teach people to sing.
She can talk with her visitors.
------
Read the following article and select the best answer. Article: Going back as far as I can remember as a child in an Indian area, I had no senses of knowing about the other people around me except that we were all somehow equal...There was only one class. Nobody was interested in getting on top of anybody else. You could see it in our games. Nobody organized them. There weren't any _ sports. But we took part in lots of activities and we were organized, but not in the sense that there were wars of finding out who had won and who had lost. We played balls like everyone else, but no one kept scores. Even if we did formally take part in the games we played, no one was a winner though someone may have won. It was only at that moment. If you beat someone by pulling a bow and arrow and shooting the arrow further, it didn't mean you were better in any why. It just meant that at that particular time the arrow went further; maybe it was just the way you let the bow go. These kinds of things are very important to me and that is why I am talking about them. One of the very important things was the relationship we had with our families. We didn't always live at home. We lived wherever we happened to be at that particular time when it got dark. If you were two or three miles away from home, then that was where you slept. Question: In their area, it was said that _ . - people could spend their nights anywhere whether it was their home or not - people only served their friends to spend their nights at home - people had to return to their home to spend their nights whether they were far away or not - strange people had to spend their nights in the field when it got dark
people could spend their nights anywhere whether it was their home or not
------